Hitler’s life as ‘Führer’ has been studied to the millimeter by historians and researchers. You will find a thousand works about her. However, there is still a stage surrounded by the haze of uncertainty: the youth of the future dictator. Although to know it there are sources such as August Kubizek, who at that time was his great and only friend. This controversial character – branded by many as a liar – defined in more than detail the overwhelming and unstable character of little Adolf long before the Second World War. And here are his most intimate secrets.
Kubizek, as he wrote in ‘The young Hitler I knew‘ , came into the world a few months before Adolf Hitler, on August 3, 1888. From a lower class, his father was an upholsterer and his mother was the daughter of a blacksmith, he lived through a modest youth that almost bordered on poverty. His bad grades didn’t help. However, there was something that young August adored above all else; a passion he shared with the future Nazi leader: his love of the arts. «There was a hobby that had been infiltrating my life, and to which I gave myself with all my heart: music. This love found its visible expression when, when I was nine years old, I received a violin as a gift at Christmas 1897». That would be what would bring him closer to the ‘Führer’.
First impression
August and Adolf met, according to the former, “around All Saints’ Day in the year 1904.” Although this date has later been described as false by some historians; in fact, the same as Kubizek’s memoirs, which have been branded as exaggerated by authors such as See E. Gun. Beyond these doubts, the boy wrote that he saw his new friend for the first time during an opera in Linz (Austria) because they were both competing for the same location, “a column in the promenade area” in which they supported. And not only because he allowed them to see the entire stage, but because it was one of the cheapest. The first impression of him was flattering. He defined him, in fact, as a young man from a good family. And all this, despite the fact that both were equally poor:
“He was a curiously pale, thin young man, about the same age as myself, who followed the performance with shining eyes. There was no doubt that he was from a well-to-do household, for he was always neatly dressed and extremely reserved. […] In one of the performances we entered into a conversation in one of the intermissions. […] I felt astonished by the sure and quick understanding of my interlocutor. There was no doubt that he was superior to me in this respect. On the contrary, he recognized my superiority when the conversation referred to purely musical topics. […] From that day on we met at each opera performance».
From then on, and during the four years that this strange couple shared, Kubizek made a portrait of the young Adolf. An unflattering snapshot, everything is said, although she made an effort to hide the most sordid data for fear of censorship. In ‘the third reich‘ (Critical, 2019), the doctor of history Thomas Childers affirms that August photographed a lonely and marginalized ‘Führer’ with words. A young man who only had one true friend, who had no interest in girls or sex (which he feared, but also loved), who always avoided physical contact, and who was averse to “anything to do with sex.” body”. In return, he was sure that his meager skills would make him a star; a successful artist or architect who would build buildings for the great German Reich.
Childers also makes clear Hitler’s limitations as a student (he even flunked German) and claims that when he moved to Vienna in 1907, he lived a bohemian life in a tiny, bedbug-ridden apartment that he could only afford thanks to the pension he received after his graduation. death of his parents, to the paintings that he managed to sell to furniture stores (which used them as mere decoration because of their price) and to the fact that Kubizek decided to live with him (and pay him half the rent) from February to July 1908. There he got into the habit of visiting cafes until late at night and barely sleeping. During this time, in addition, August reveals in his work that young Adolf was extremely irascible and that it was impossible to contradict him when he exposed his opinions.
Robot sketch
In the first chapters of his memoirs, Kubizek tries to bring the image and character of Adolf closer to the reader. The first thing that stands out about him is that he hated being photographed, so it’s hard to find snapshots of his youth these days. «My friend never felt, as far as I can remember, the need to have his portrait taken. He was anything but presumptuous. Despite the fact that he cared a lot about his person, he was not conceited in the ordinary sense of this word. I even dare to say that being conceited was too little for him. He was too smart for it ». From his perspective, though, the future Nazi leader bore a strong resemblance to his mother. He thus described him on a physical level:
“He was of medium height and slender, by then already somewhat taller than his mother. His build was by no means that of a strong man, but rather thin and frail. His health was worse than could have been desired, and he often lamented it. He had to protect himself from Linz’s foggy and humid climate during the winter months. […] In short, he was weak in the lungs. The nose, very regular and well proportioned. The forehead, clear and free, slightly tilted back. It hurt me that, at that time, she had the habit of combing her hair very towards the forehead ».
But what struck August most about Hitler during the four years he shared with him was how communicative his eyes were. “It was amazing how they could change their expressions, especially when Adolf spoke.” Although, by then, the ‘Führer’ already had a “serious and sonorous” voice, Kubizek always thought that his main attraction for the masses was that look. “Even when he kept his lips firmly pressed together, his eyes revealed what he wanted to say.” In the end, the Nazi leader knew how to take advantage of this feature and spent hours and hours in front of the mirror training his gestures and facial movements to impress his audience even more if possible.
Despite the expressiveness of his eyes, Kubizek was also perplexed by his oratory. «I listened gladly when he spoke. His language was very chosen. He refused the dialect, especially the Viennese, which was adverse to him because of his soft tone. […] There is not the slightest doubt that my friend Adolf was, from his early youth, a man endowed with a easy public speaking. And he knew it, he spoke at ease and without interruption ». The truth is that he was convincing. Childers claims in his work that he, on one occasion, persuaded a police officer to let him go after he had beaten a boy and caused him severe injuries. “He liked to test his persuasive power on me and on other people,” adds his friend.
However, August also made it clear that Hitler, in reality, did not have the capacity for discussion, but limited himself to overwhelming his opponent with his opinions without offering him the possibility of giving his point of view. Thus, when his friend answered him, he limited himself to putting on a “gesture of enmity” and becoming angry. It was not uncommon then for him to bang against the walls and destroy everything he came to hand. «Most of the time he did not answer what I had asked him and he limited himself to interrupting me with a very significant gesture of his hand. Later, I got used to it and I no longer found it ridiculous that that sixteen or seventeen year old boy would develop gigantic projects and explain them to me in great detail».
obsessed and mediocre
From the softened memories of August – who hardly directly recriminated anything to Hitler in his memoirs due, among other things, to the fact that the first to ask him to compile his childhood memories were members of the Nazi regime – the maniacal character is also inferred. of his friend. The future ‘Führer’ had, for example, the habit of placing his pants, ironed to perfection, in the same place one day after another. According to him, to prevent them from wrinkling. And it is that, he was obsessed with leaving the house always well dressed (almost like a bourgeois) despite the fact that he barely had money to eat. Although, always in the words of his friend, that was not a problem, since he preferred to skip lunch or dinner in favor, for example, of going to the theater.
According to August, another of his most notable characteristics is that he was very serious. A polite way of pointing out that sometimes his egomania made him despise other people. The responses that Kubizek attributes to his friend throughout the work demonstrate this. On one occasion, for example, Adolf did not hesitate to answer as follows when our protagonist asked him for the solution to a certain problem: «Even if I had already completely solved this problem, I would not tell you, because you would not be either. able to figure it out.” The “shut up” were also the order of the day. For this reason, and in the long run, she avoided talking to him about certain things. «In the future I stopped asking him about professional issues. It was far better to quietly go my own way.” That must have fueled the rude character of the young ‘Führer’ even more, since he felt that he won all the discussions.
During the months in which they lived together in Vienna, Hitler repeatedly disregarded the opinions and abilities of his friend. In return, he repeated that he would become a great artist or a great architect. However, reality put each one in their place. In 1907, Adolf presented his drawings at the Academy of Fine Arts and it was rejected. “I was so convinced that I was going to succeed that the moment I received the rejection, it hit me like a bolt from the blue,” he later explained. In July he tried again, but failed again. Kubizek, for his part, was admitted to the conservatory. That must have been too much for him. Almost penniless and embarrassed by his second humiliating failure at the academy, he never wanted to see Kubizek again. He gave the notice, paid his part of the rent and, while his friend was still in Linz, he simply disappeared without leaving any contact address,” adds Childers.
His new stage was not better. Now alone, and without the support that his deceased parents’ pension gave him, he lived like a true vagabond. “For months he lived on the streets, sleeping in parks and all-night cafes, under bridges, in the entrances to buildings, and sometimes finding refuge in homeless shelters and run-down boarding houses. death,” adds the author. He ate in soup kitchens, had no coat, dressed like a homeless man, and was forced to spend the night in churches. He only managed to get out of that situation in 1910, when he settled in a communal house paid for, in part, by Jews. That was how he began his path to the Chancellery. But that, as they say, is another story.