Hitler [Transcription note: Bracketed [Page] links provide access
to the individual images from which these transcriptions were
made]
Hitler has always been extremely secretive in all his dealings. Hanfstangl
tells us that this trait is carried to such a degree that he never tells
one of his immediate associates what he has been talking about or arranged
with another. His mind is full of compartments, Hanfstangl says, and his
dealings with every individual are carefully pigeon-holed. What has been
filed in one pigeon-hole is never permitted to mix with that in another.
Everything is scrupulously kept locked up in his mind and is only opened
when he needs the material.
This is also true of himself. We have already seen how he has steadfastly
refused to divulge anything about his past to his associates. This, he believed,
was something which did not concern them in any way and consequently he
has kept the pigeonhole tightly closed. He talks almost continually about
everything under the sun - except himself. What really goes on in his mind
is almost as great a mystery as his past life.
Nevertheless, it would be helpful, and interesting to open this pigeon-hole
and examine its contents. Fortunately, a few fragments of information concerning
his past life have been unearthed in the course of time and these are extremely
valuable as a background for understanding his present behavior., Then,
too, we have records of attitudes and sentiments expressed in speeches
and writings. Although these utterances are confined to a rather limited
area, they do represent the products of some of
[Page 92]
his mental processes and consequently give us some clue to what goes on
behind those much discussed eyes, of which Rauschning writes:
"Anyone who has seen this man face to face, has met his uncertain glance,
without depth or warmth, from eyes that seem hard and remote, and has
then seen that gaze grow rigid, will certainly have experienced the
uncanny feeling: 'That man is not normal.'"
In addition, we have descriptions of his overt behavior in the face of
varied circumstances. We must assume that these, too, are the products
of his psychological processes and that they reflect what is going on
behind the scenes. All of this, however, would be insufficient data
for an adequate picture of Hitler, as he knows himself, in everyday
life. Fortunately, patients with behavior patterns, tendencies and
sentiments very similar to those that Hitler has expressed are not
unknown in psychoanalytical practice. From our knowledge of what goes
on in the minds of these patients, together with a knowledge of their
past histories, it may be possible to fill in some of the gaps and
make some deductions concerning his extraordinary mode of adjustment.
We have learned from the study of many cases that the present character
of an individual is the product of an evolutionary process, the beginnings
of which are to be found in infancy. The very earliest experiences in the
lifetime of the individual form the foundation upon which the character
is gradually structured as the individual passes through successive
stages of development
[Page 93] and is exposed to
the demands ant influences of the world around him. If this is true,
it would be well for us to review briefly Hitler's past history, as
far as it is known, in the hope that it may cast some light upon his
present behavior and the course he is most likely to pursue in the
future. Such a review of his past is also pertinent to our study insofar
as it forms the background through which Hitler sees himself. It is a
part of him he must live with, whether he likes it or not.
There is a great deal of confusion in studying Hitler's family tree.
Much of this is due to the fact that the name has been spelled in various ways:
Hitler, Hidler, Hiedler and Huettler. It seems reasonable to suppose, however,
that it is fundamentally the same name spelled in various ways by different
members of what was basically an illiterate peasant family. Adolph Hitler
himself signed his name Hittler on the first party membership blanks, and
his sister at the present time spells her name Hiedler. Another element
of confusion is introduced by the fact that Adolph's mother's mother was
also named Hitler which later became the family name of his father. Some
of this confusion is dissipated, however, when we realize that Adolph' s
parents had a common ancestor (father's grandfather and mother's
great-grandfather), an inhabitant of the culturally bakcward [sic]
Waldviertel district of Austria.
Adolph's father, Alois Hitler, was the illegitimate son of Maria Anna
Schicklgruber. It is generally supposed that the father of Alois
Hitler was a Johann Georg Hiedler, a miller's assistant. Alois, however,
was not legitimized, and bore his mother's name until he was forty
years of age when he changed it to Hitler. Just why this was done is
not clear, but it is generally said among the villagers that it was
necessary in order to obtain a legacy. Where the legacy came from is
unknown. One could suppose that Johann Georg Hiedler relented on his
deathbed and left an inheritance to his illegitimate son
together with his name. However, it is not clear why he did not legitimise
the son when he fineally married the mother thirty-five years earlier. Why
the son chose to take the name Hitler instead of Hiedler, if this is the
case, is a mystery which remains unsolved. Unfortunately, the date of the
death of Hiedler has not been established and consequently we are unable
to relate these two events in time. A peculiar series of events prior to
Hitler's birth leaves plenty of room for speculation.
There are some people who seriously doubt that Johann Georg Hiedler was
the father of Alois. Thyssen and Koehler, for example, claim that Chancellor
Dollfuss had ordered the Austrian police to conduct a thorough investigation
into the Hitler family. As a result of this investigation a secret document
was prepared which proved that Maria Anna Schicklgruber was living in Vienna
at the time she conceived. At that time she was employed as a servant in
the home of Baron Rothschild. As soon as the
family
[Page 95] discovered her pregnancy she was sent
back to her home in Spital where Alois was born. If it is true that one
of the Rothschilds is the real father of Alois Hitler, it would make
Adolph a quarter Jew. According to these sources, Adolph Hitler knew of the
existence of this document and the incriminating evidence it contained. In
order to obtain it he precipitated events in Austria and initiated the
assassination of Dollfuss. According to this story, he failed to obtain
the document at that time, since Dollfuss had secreted it and, had told
Schuschnigg of its whereabouts so that in the event of his death the
independence of Austria would remain assured. Several stories of this
general character are in circulation.
Those who lend credence to this story point out several factors
which seem to favor its plausibility:
(a) That it is unlikely that the miller's assistant in a small
village in this district would have very much to leave in the form of a legacy.
(b) That it is strange that Johann Hiedler should not claim the boy
until thirty-five years after he had married the mother and the mother had died.
(c) That if the legacy were left by Hiedler on the condition that
Alois take his name, it would not have been possible for him to change
it to Hitler.
(d) That the intelligence and behavior of Alois, as well as that of his
two sons, is completely out of keeping with that usually found in
Austrian peasant families. They point out that
[Page 96]
their ambitiousness and extraordinary political intuition is much more in
harmony with the Rothschild tradition.
(e) That Alois Schicklgruber left his home village at an early age to
seek his fortune in Vienna where his mother had worked
(f) That it would be peculiar for Alois Hitler, while working as a
customs official in Braunau, should choose a Jew named Prinz, of Vienna,
to act as Adolph's godfather unless he felt some kinship with the
Jews himself.
This is certainly a very intriguing hypothesis and much of Adolph's
later behavior could be explained in rather easy terms on this basis.
However, it is not absolutely necessary to assume that he had Jewish
blood in his veins in order to make a comprehensive picture of his
character with its manifoid traits and sentiments. From a purely
scientific point of view, therefore, it is sounder not to base our
reconstruction on such slim evidence but to seek firmer foundations.
Nevertheless, we can leave it as a possibility which requires further
verification.
In any event, Maria Ann Schicklgruber died when he was five years of
age. When he was thirteen he left the Waldviertel and went to Vienna
where he learned to be a cobbler. The next twenty-three years of his
life are largely unaccounted for. It seems probable that during this
time he joined the army and had perhaps been advanced to the rank of
non-commissioned officer. His service in the army may have
helped him to enter the Civil Service as Zellamtsoffizial later on.
His married life was stormy. His first wife (born Glasl-Hoerer) was
about thirteen years older than himself. She is alleged to have been
the daughter of one of his superiors and seems to have been in poor
health. In any event, the marriage turned out badly and they finally
separated since, as Catholics a complete divorce was not possible. His
first wife died in 1883.
In January, 1882, Franziska Matzelsberger gave birth to an illegitimate
son who was named Alois. After the death of his first wife on April 6,
1883, Alois Hitler married Franziska Matzelsberger on May 22, 1888
and legitimized his son,. On July 28, 1883 his second wife bore him
another child, Angela, and a year later, on August 10, 1884, she also
died. During the time of his first marriage the couple had taken as a
foster-daughter Klara Poelzl, Alois Hitler' s second cousin, once
removed. He had reared her up to the time of the separation from his
first wife when she went to Vienna as a servant. During the last
months of the life of his second wife, Klara Poelzl returned to his
home to look after the invalid and the two children. She remained
in his home as housekeeper after the death of his second wife and on
January 7, 1885 he married her.
On May 17, 1885 she gave birth to a
son who died in infancy. It is alleged by William Patrick Hitler that
an illegitimate child was born previously, but we have no other record
of this. In any event, at least one child was conceived out of
wedlock. Four more children were born of this union. This is certainly a
[Page 98] tempestuous married life for a customs
officer - three wives, seven or possibly eight children, one divorce,
at least one birth and possibly two before marriage, two directly after
the wedding, one wife thirteen years older than himself and another
twenty-three years younger, one the daughter of a superior, one a
waitress, and the third a servant and his foster-daughter. All of
this, of course, has never been mentioned by Hitler. In
MEIN KAMPF he gives a very simple picture-of conditions in his
father's home.
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As He Knows Himself
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