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great concern but it was several days before they were 
able to get in touch with him. His only explanation: was 
that he wanted to be alone and had taken a trip into the 
country. The following Christmas Eve he was again 
absent without explanation. Late on Christmas night 
he called from Dresden and asked to speak to Winifred, 
saying it was Doctor Wolf. It so happened that she knew 
a Doctor Wolf in Dresden with whom she did not wish to 
communicate and told Friedlinde to say she was not at 
home. This disturbed him greatly and he wanted to know 
where she went and if she could be reached. His voice 
now became normal and Friedlinde recognized him and 
then called her mother. When she answered, he said he 
was in great despair and could he come to Wahnfried, 
even if it was late. For several days he was very much 
distressed and stayed a good deal by himself.

Friedlinde is convinced that his tirades are only acts 
by which he hopes to gain his own way. She told of an 
incident in which he staged one to order. Herlittle [sic] 
sisters' school was due to open several days before the 
festival. She had begged her mother to permit her to 
remain at home and miss school until after the festival 
was over. Her mother insisted that she must go to school 
and be there for the opening day. Hitler happened to stop 
in at Wahnfried and the two girls cooked up a plot to get 
Hitler to speak to Winifred and persuade her to let the 
child remain for the festival. Friedlinde approached Hitler 
with her sister's predicament and advanced arguments why 
she should be permitted to remain at home. Hitler promised 
to cooperate and later, when the whole family was 
assembled, he suddenly asked Winifred if it were true 
that she was sending the child back to school. Winifred 
insisted that it was the child's duty to be in school 
when it opened just like other children. Hitler then 
started one of his tirades which lasted for twenty 
minutes. He stamped back and forth across the room, 
shouting at the top of his voice that this was nonsense 
and what did duty to the school mean in comparison to 
duty to the culture. He maintained that this was a crime 
and called forth all kinds of arguments to prove his point. 
The family was just overwhelmed by his display and said 
that if he felt that way about it the child could naturally 
remain at home. The minute they had said this, Hitler 
stopped his tirade and began to indulge in a conversation 
about other topics in a normal tone of voice just as though 
nothing had happened.

On another occasion, when she was present with other 
guests, Hitler for some unknown reason became dissatisfied 
with Schaub and called Schaub in and began to scold him 
before the assembled company. Evidently Schaub was not 
duly impressed and Hitler worked himself to a higher pitch 
until his eyes rolled and spit formed at the corners of his 
mouth. For a few moments he acted like an insane animal 
and he ordered Schaub from his sight. At the moment 
Schaub had disappeared, Hitler returned to a friendly 
conversation with his guests just as though nothing had 
happened.

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Hitler enjoys imitating people. One of his favorite caricatures 
is a take-off on Phipps. He does this extremely well and when 
he is in good spirits, he likes to perform in this way before 
small selected groups. During the first years as Chancellor, 
he frequently visited the opera or the theatre, but by 1935 
he gave this up in large part and spent most of his time 
visiting operettas and comedies which he seemed to enjoy 
much more. On an average he attended performances of this 
sort at least once or twice a week. Miss Wagner also spoke 
of his extreme passion for moving pictures which are shown 
almost every evening in the Chancellery. According to her 
he is particularly fond of French films and up to the time 
of the war, he had all of them shown in his private theatre. 
He used to say, "Die Schilderung des  Kleinbuergerlichen 
Milieud ist einfach genial in diesen Filmen." Ordinarily 
he does not permit people to smoke near him during 
performances of this sort because he claims that it 
irritates his throats and prevents him from speaking 
effectively.
        
Hitler has a mania for long tables. He has one which is at 
least 15 meters long and is made out of one piece of wood. 
He takes great pride in these tables and often consults 
with von Troost who manufactures them. Contrary to 
reports Hitler hates to fly in airplanes. He only does so 
when the matter is extremely urgent or when he wants 
to create an impression. Otherwise he uses a special 
train and limits the speed of this to 60 kilometers per 
hour. He claims that he can sleep better when the train 
is moving slowly but on several trips that Miss Wagner 
has taken on this special train, during the daytime, he 
would not permit the engineer to exceed that speed.

During 1935 Miss Wagner was invited to dinner at Hitler's 
house in Munich. At table she sat opposite the fireplace 
over which hung a large mirror and on the mantle a bronze 
bust of Geli. She examined the bust very closely because 
from all reports she believed Geli to be an unusual beauty 
but in the bust she was quite common looking with low 
forehead, high cheekbones, broad fat stub nose, and a 
large mouth. On the whole the face looked rather coarse. 
She remembered as she sat there the story Hitler had 
told them earlier about Geli's accident. His version was 
that several years before her death, Geli has gone to 
fortune teller who told her that her life would end 
with a revolver bullet. Since that time, until she died, 
she had an hysterical fear of every revolver or irfle [sic]. 
Inasmuch as she was living in Hitler's apartment and was 
constantly exposed to danger, she naturally had to have 
a revolver on her night table. On the evening of her death 
Geli was alone in the apartment since Hitler had to make 
a trip to Erlangen to give a speech. During his absence, 
she must have tried to put the safety catch on the 
revolver. It would seem however, that the safety 
catch was already on and she took it off and thereby 
accidentally, shot herself. Theneighbors [sic] heard 
her shot followed by a cry and tried to break into the 
apartment. They intercepted Hitler on his way to 
Erlangen and he returned immediately. Whether this 
report is true or not, Miss Wagner is sure that it is 
since this time that he became a vegetarian and gave 
up alcohol and smoking. He also stopped celebrating 
Christmas for several years and only since 1934 has 
he joined the "alten Kaempfern" in Munich on Christmas Eve.

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On both sides of the fireplace hung Hitler's prized 
possessions, the paintings of Spitzweg. Hehhad [sic] 
ordered all art dealers to make a hunt for Spitzweg's 
pictures and the six that were hanging there were his 
prized possessions. Miss Wagner commented it seemed 
that the great Dictator who was always striving to make 
everything he did of monumental size should worship the 
painter who glorified "Des Spiessburgertums".

According to Miss Wagner Hitler maintains s very peculiar 
relationship to Mrs. Bechstein, the wife of the piano 
manufacturer. During the early years she undoubtedly 
helped Hitler a great deal both financially and socially. 
He was a constant visitor at her home and she was 
thoroughly convinced that he was a genius and the 
savior of Germany. As soon as he became Chancellor, 
however, her attitude seemed to change. It seemed that 
everything he did was wrong, foolish or stupid, and she 
did not pull her punches in telling him so. Miss Wagner 
was present on several occasions when she upbraided 
him for some of the reforms he was trying to put into 
effect. She says that Mrs. Bechstein opened up with the 
big guns just as soon as the salutations were over. Usually 
she started in by asking him ifhe [sic] were crazy and would 
then talk so fast and furiously that Hitler couldn't get a 
word in in self-defense. During these violent scoldings 
Hitler would stand there like an abashed school-boy who 
had committed a misdemeanor. She is the one person who 
would carry on a monologue in Hitler's presence and who 
would tell him what she thought. She always calls him 
Wolf and addresses him with the familiar "Du".

In later years, it reached the point where Hitler dreaded 
meeting her and yet he felt duty-bound to call on her, 
particularly when they were both present at the Wagner 
Festival. Even the prospect of meeting her worried him 
no end and he kept postponing on his visit from one time 
to another on the slightest pretext. He even tried to bribe 
the Wagner children to accompany him on the theory that 
she would not be too harsh on him in the presence of children. 
Having lived through a few such experiences, however, the 
Wagner children would not be bribed into such a mission. 
Miss Wagner is also of the opinion that Mrs. Bechstein had 
designs on Hitler as a future son-in-law. She denies that 
there was anything beyond friendship in her mother's 
relationship to Hitler and does not believe that Hitler 
had any designs on her. She says he just seemed to enjoy 
the home atmosphere of Wahnfried. She says that the fact 
that her mother was English fascinated Hitler as other 
English women have fascinated him but that there was 
nothing more. He was particularly lenient with the children 
and exceeded almost all their wishes even to the extent of 
permitting her brother to withdraw from the Hitler Youth 
because he did not like it. Nevertheless, he had a tremendous 
influence on Winifred Wagner, even to the point where she 
threatened the life
of Friedlinde if she did not return to Germany and 
accede to Hitler' s wishes.

        She spoke of her first visit to the new Chancellery 
buildings and how Hitler escorted her through the entire 
place. He seemed to get his greatest thrill out of the 
size of the rooms and corridors and reception halls 
and kept telling her how much larger these were than 
the old ones and how much larger he would like to have


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then when he built a new Chancellery building befitting 
to the Third Reich. She remembers his bedroom very well 
since it was such a shock to her. After seeing all the 
extravagance of the new building, she had expected his 
bedroom to be in keeping with the rest. To her amazement 
she found a relatively small room painted in light pink, 
or flesh color, and saw nothing but a white iron bed with 
ribbons draped around the head, a white dresser and a 
couple of straight chairs. There was a painting of his 
mother over the head of the bed and no other decorations. 
She is sure that at that time there was no picture of Geli 
or anyone else. As she turned around she noticed that the 
closet door had been left open and she glanced in casually 
as she passed it. To her amazement and amusement, she 
discovered that the closet contained only khaki shirts all 
nicely pressed and hung on hangers from a central rod. 
Each had a beautiful swastika armband sewn on the sleeve. 
Sheestimated [sic] that there must have been at least 40 
of them and she wondered at the time why anyone would 
want so many. Her impression of Hitler's bedroom was that 
it was more of [unreadable] fitting for a maid than it was 
for a Chancellor.

Friedlinde was studying in England in 1937 and 1938. In order 
to keep her mother quiet she usually stopped in Berlin to visit 
Hitler on the way to and from London. Although they had never 
gotten on well together, Hitler always seemed very happy to 
see her and insisted that she remain and join him at a meal. 
She says she often tried to tell him about English sentiments 
but he always refused to listen on the grounds that von 
Ribbentrop was sending detailed reports. When she tried 
to point out that Ribbentrop's reports were not in accordance 
with the facts, he always brushed it aside and treated her 
as a small child and advised her not to get mixed up in politics. 
Several times she says she lost her temper and was very 
outspoken in her condemnation of what he was doing but he 
took these good-naturedly and usually brushed them aside. 
This was particularly true in connection with the Jewish 
pogroms for which Hitler assumed full responsibility and 
was certain that neither the Germans nor the English as a 
whole felt as she did about them, whereas her friends 
seemed to feel. He always insisted that the proper way to 
rule was through terror and that underneath the people 
really liked it. On one occasion when he was speaking of 
his views on justice he said, "Wenn zwei Burschen sich 
um ein Maedel raufen, und der eine den anderen aus versehen 
ersticht, was in Bayern nur allsu leicht passiert, dann lasse 
ich denjenigen hinrichten. Ich gebe ihm 15 Jahre 
Bewaehrungsfrist mit sofortiger Freisetsung. Mann hingegen 
irgendein Kerl es sich enifallen laasst, ein Maedel zu ermorden, 
nachdem er ihr ein Kind aufgehaengt hat, so lasse ich ihn 
ruecksichlos hinrichten."

       According to Miss Wagner Hitler's parties are 
exceedingly dull since he always likes to be the center 
of attraction. Most of the people he invites, and 
particularly the actors and actresses, find him 
exceedingly dull and although they go because it is 
diplomatic to do so, they are only too ready to seize 
the opportunity of sneaking out on the first occasion. 
Hitler usually tells the same stories over and over 
again and most of his guests have heard them many times.

Hitler hates the atmosphere of a hospital and almost 
never will go there to visit a sick friend. He tried to 
make up for this deficiency by sending lots of flowers 
and occasionally a card.



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