Hitler: Ascent, 1889-1939 (142 page)

18 
Heinrich Hoffmann,
Hitler wie ich ihn sah: Aufzeichnungen seines Leibfotographen
, Munich and Berlin, 1974, p. 29. See transcript of a conversation with Heinrich Hoffmann from 5 Dec. 1953: “Hitler said it was his fondest dream to own one of Grützner’s works.” IfZ, Munich, ZS 71. Further, Hamann,
Hitlers Wien
, p. 103; Albert Speer,
Erinnerungen: Mit einem Essay von Jochen Thies
, Frankfurt am Main and Berlin, 1993, pp. 56f.

19 
Hitlers Tischgespräche
, p. 146 (dated 27 March 1942). See Otto Wagener,
Hitler aus nächster Nähe: Aufzeichnungen eines Vertrauten 1929–1932
, ed. Henry A. Turner, Frankfurt am Main, Berlin and Vienna, 1978, p. 461: “Stuff like this bears no resemblance whatsoever to painting. It is merely the mental excrement of a sick mind.”

20 
See Schwarz,
Geniewahn
, pp. 82f.

21 
Kubizek,
Adolf Hitler
, pp. 206f. For Ringstrasse see Philipp Blom,
Der taumelnde Kontinent: Europa 1900–1914
, Munich, 2008, p. 71.

22 
See Kubizek,
Adolf Hitler
, p. 197; Joachim Fest,
Hitler: Eine Biographie
, Frankfurt am Main, Berlin and Vienna, 1973, p. 53.

23 
See Kubizek,
Adolf Hitler
, pp. 239–49; Hamann,
Hitlers Wien
, pp. 96–8. On piano lessons see Josef Prewratsky-Wendt, “Meine Erinnerungen an meinen Klavierschüler Adolf Hitler!” from 17 Nov. 1938; BA Berlin-Lichterfelde, NS 26/65. The piano teacher, who also gave Kubizek lessons, described Hitler as a “likeable, almost shy young man…serious and calm, of medium build.”

24 
Thomas Mann,
An die gesittete Welt: Politische Schriften und Reden im Exil
, Frankfurt am Main, 1986, p. 256.

25 
Kubizek,
Adolf Hitler
, pp. 199f.

26 
Hitler,
Mein Kampf
, p. 83.

27 
Kubizek,
Adolf Hitler
, pp. 290f.

28 
See Hitler,
Mein Kampf
, p. 10. On the “German School Association” see Schmid,
Kampf um das Deutschtum
, pp. 30ff.

29 
Hitler,
Mein Kampf
, p. 106. See also Hitler,
Monologe
, p. 379 (dated 1 Sept. 1942): “I didn’t fall under Vienna’s spell because I was very strict about my patriotic German convictions.” Building on such sentiments, Bavendamm argues that Hitler believed from his earliest days that he was on a nationalist mission. The young Hitler, Bavendamm writes, “never lost sight of the ultimate goal of a greater German Reich with himself as its leader.”
Der junge Hitler
, p. 218.

30 
Hitler,
Mein Kampf
, p. 107.

31 
See Hamann,
Hitlers Wien
, pp. 337, 349, 362.

32 
Hitler,
Mein Kampf
, p. 128.

33 
Ibid., p. 109.

34 
Hitler,
Monologe
, p. 153 (dated 17 Dec. 1941).

35 
See Hamann,
Hitlers Wien
, p. 429.

36 
Hitler,
Monologe
, p. 153 (dated 17 Dec. 1941). For Lueger’s “city revolution” see John W. Boyer,
Karl Lueger 1844–1910: Christlichsoziale Politik als Beruf. Eine Biographie
, Vienna, Cologne and Weimar, 2010, p. 181ff.

37 
See Hitler,
Mein Kampf
, pp. 132f.

38 
See Kubizek,
Adolf Hitler
, pp. 208–16.

39 
Ibid., pp. 296f.

40 
Hitler,
Mein Kampf
, p. 43.

41 
Kubizek,
Adolf Hitler
, p. 296.

42 
Hitler’s letters to Kubizek, 21 July and 17 Aug. 1908 in Kubizek,
Adolf Hitler
, pp. 308f., 310f.; also published in Adolf Hitler,
Sämtliche Aufzeichnungen 1905–1924
, ed. Eberhard Jäckel with Axel Kuhn, Stuttgart, 1980, nos 13, 14, pp. 49–51.

43 
Kubizek,
Adolf Hitler
, p. 312.

44 
See also Franz Jetzinger,
Hitlers Jugend: Phantasien, Lügen und Wahrheit
, Vienna, 1956, p. 218; Hamann,
Hitlers Wien
, p. 196.

45 
Hitlers Tischgespräche
, p. 276 (dated 10 May 1942).

46 
See also Bradley F. Smith,
Adolf Hitler: His Family, Childhood and Youth
, Stanford, 1967, pp. 112f.; Hamann,
Hitlers Wien
, p. 196. In June 1938, Hitler told Goebbels that “he left home at the age of seventeen and didn’t get back in touch until 1922.”
Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels. Part 1: Aufzeichnungen 1923–1941
, ed. Elke Fröhlich, Munich, 1998–2006, vol. 5, p. 331 (entry for 3 June 1938).

47 
Hitler,
Monologe
, p. 317 (dated 11/12 March 1942).

48 
Hitler,
Mein Kampf
, pp. 40–2.

49 
For a debunking of his claims of working on a building site see Hamann,
Hitlers Wien
, pp. 206–11.

50 
See copies of the registration cards in BA Berlin-Lichterfelde, NS 26/17a. For Hitler’s changing job descriptions see Anton Joachimsthaler,
Korrektur einer Biographie: Adolf Hitler 1908–1920
, Munich, 1989, p. 32.

51 
A letter from Hitler to the Linz municipal authorities, 21 Jan. 1914; Jetzinger,
Hitlers Jugend
, pp. 262–4 (quotation on p. 263); also published in Hitler,
Sämtliche Aufzeichnungen
, no. 19, pp. 53–5.

52 
Ian Kershaw,
Hitler: Hubris
, p. 52. After the
Anschluss
of Austria in 1938, Viennese newspapers ran articles on a flat in Simon-Denk-Strasse 11 in which he apparently lived in 1909; see Hamann,
Hitlers Wien
, pp. 206–8. But there is no evidence that Hitler lived there other than a photograph held by the Austrian National Library that bears the inscription: “The house in Vienna’s District 9, Simon-Denk-Gasse 11, where Hitler lived as a lodger from 16 September to November 1909.” Sigmund sees this as the “missing link” in Hitler’s whereabouts during the fall of 1909 without engaging with Hamann’s assertions to the contrary; Anna Maria Sigmund,
Diktator, Dämon, Demagoge: Fragen und Antworten zu Adolf Hitler
, Munich, 2006, p. 157f.

53 
See also Kubizek,
Adolf Hitler
, pp. 186, 203.

54 
Reinhold Hanisch, “Meine Begegnung mit Hitler” (1939); BA Berlin-Lichterfelde, NS 26/64 (the spelling errors have been corrected); published in Joachimsthaler,
Korrektur
, pp. 49f. (quotation on p. 49). A longer, three-part version of “I was Hitler’s Buddy” appeared in
New Republic
, 5, 12, and 19 April 1939, pp. 239–42, 270–2, 297–300. On the credibility of this source see Hamann,
Hitlers Wien
, pp. 264–71.

55 
Joachimsthaler,
Korrektur
, p. 49. When asked what he was waiting for, Hitler is said to have responded: “I don’t know myself.” Hanish remarked: “I have never seen such helpless resignation to bad luck.” Hanisch, “I was Hitler’s Buddy,” p. 240.

56 
See also Smith,
Adolf Hitler
, p. 132; Hamann,
Hitlers Wien
, p. 227.

57 
See also Hamann,
Hitlers Wien
, pp. 229–34; Hertha Hurnaus
et al
. (eds),
Haus Meldemannstrasse
, Vienna, 2003 (foreword by Brigitte Hamann), pp. 5–7.

58 
Hitler,
Mein Kampf
, p. 35; see also Hitler,
Monologe
, p. 316 (entry for 10/11 March 1942): “In my youth, I was a bit of an oddball who preferred to be alone rather than needing company.”

59 
Kubizek,
Adolf Hitler
, p. 275.

60 
This is the view put forward in Lothar Machtan,
Hitlers Geheimnis: Das Doppelleben eines Diktators
, Berlin, 2001. Compare with Hamann,
Hitlers Wien
, p. 515.

61 
See Kubizek,
Adolf Hitler
, p. 286: “As he often told me, he worried about becoming infected.”

62 
Quotation from Hamann,
Hitlers Wien
, p. 523.

63 
See also Kershaw,
Hitler: Hubris
, p. 44f.

64 
On this see Joachim Radkau,
Das Zeitalter der Nervosität: Deutschland zwischen Bismarck und Hitler
, Munich and Vienna, 1998.

65 
Hanisch, “I was Hitler’s Buddy,” p. 299.

66 
See the two facsimiles of the “Meldezettel für Unterpartei” in
Haus Meldemannstrasse
, pp. 6f.

67 
Transcript of Hitler’s testimony from 5 Aug. 1910; first published in Jetzinger,
Hitlers Jugend
, p. 224. Hanisch later denied the accusation that he had cheated Hitler, saying that following the latter’s instructions, he had sold the picture for 12 Kronen, of which he had given Hitler 6 Kronen. Undated record from Reinhold Hanisch in BA Berlin-Lichterfelde, NS 26/64.

68 
See Hamann,
Hitlers Wien
, pp. 249f., 507–10.

69 
Transcript from the Linz district council from 4 May 1911; published in Jetzinger,
Hitlers Jugend
, p. 226.

70 
Karl Honisch, “Wie ich im Jahre 1913 Adolf Hitler kennenlernte”; BA Berlin-Lichterfelde, NS 26/17a; published in Joachimsthaler,
Korrektur
, pp. 51–8. On 31 May 1939, Honisch sent his reminiscences to the NSDAP main archive with the commentary: “As requested, I have written everything down as thoroughly as possible. It should come as no surprise that I have forgotten a lot since twenty-six years have passed in the meantime.” BA Berlin-Lichterfelde, NS 26/17a.

71 
Joachimsthaler,
Korrektur
, p. 54 (Joachimsthaler’s misreadings have been corrected).

72 
Ibid.
,
p. 55.

73 
Ibid., p. 56.

74 
Ibid., p. 56f.

75 
See Kubizek,
Adolf Hitler
, p. 113: “To the best of my recollection, Hitler was already a committed anti-Semite when he came to Vienna.” Disagreeing with this: Hamann,
Hitlers Wien
, p. 82.

76 
Hitler,
Mein Kampf,
p. 69. See also Hitler’s letter to an unknown “Herr Doktor” of 29 Nov. 1921: “Within the space of a year the harshest sort of reality made me, who had been raised in a rather cosmopolitan family, into an anti-Semite.” Hitler,
Sämtliche Aufzeichnungen
, no. 325, p. 525. See also Hitler’s testimony to Munich Court I on 26 Feb. 1924: “I came to Vienna as a cosmopolitan and left it as an absolute anti-Semite and the mortal enemy of the entire Marxist world view.”
Der Hitler-Prozess 1924
, ed. and annotated by Lothar Gruchmann and Reinhold Weber with Otto Gritschneder, part 1, Munich, 1997, p. 20. See also Adolf Hitler,
Reden, Schriften, Anordnungen—Februar 1925 bis Januar 1933. Vol. 3: Zwischen den Reichstagswahlen Juli 1928–September 1930. Part 2: März 1929–Dezember 1929
, ed. Klaus As Lankheit, Munich, 1994, doc. 62, p. 341 (entry for 3 Aug. 1929): “I had been aware of the threat represented by Jews since I was eighteen and read whatever I could find on the subject.”

77 
Fest,
Hitler
, p. 64. Bullock sees the roots of Hitler’s anti-Semitism in his “tortured sexual jealousy.” Alan Bullock,
Hitler: A Study in Tyranny
, London, 1990, p. 39f. Haffner writes that Hitler “carried around his anti-Semitism from the very beginning like a congenital hunchback”; Sebastian Haffner,
Anmerkungen zu Hitler
, 21st edition, Munich, 1978, p. 15.

78 
On what follows see Hamann,
Hitlers Wien
, pp. 239–42, 426–503; and subsequently, although partly a qualification of Hamann’s theories, Kershaw,
Hitler: Hubris
, pp. 60–7. Critical of this theory is Ralf Georg Reuth,
Hitlers Judenhass: Klischee und Wirklichkeit
, Munich and Zurich, 2009, pp. 21–30, but his attempt to stylise Hitler into a “friend to Jews” (p. 28) is misleading. Before Brigitte Hamann, John Toland questioned Hitler’s assertion that he had become an anti-Semite in Vienna. Toland argued that Hitler’s anti-Jewish prejudice was probably fairly typical for the time and place and that he had become a hardcore anti-Semite at some later juncture. John Toland,
Adolf Hitler
:
Volume 1
, New York, 1976, p. 48f.

79 
Still of fundamental importance is Peter G. J. Pulzer,
Die Entstehung des politischen Antisemitismus in Deutschland und Österreich 1867–1914
, Gütersloh, 1964; new edition with a research report, Göttingen, 2004.

80 
Hamann,
Hitlers Wien
, p. 404f.; for Lueger’s anti-Semitism see Boyer,
Karl Lueger
, pp. 89ff.

81 
On Guido List and Lanz von Liebenfels see Hamann,
Hitlers Wien
, pp. 293–319.