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P.J.Huss:The Foe we face .19142

There were flowers, chiefly chrysanthemums, all over the room in big 
vases. A freshly pressed uniform was laid out for him, along with a 
brown shirt fitted with special moisture-absorbing material around 
the collar. In the summer, he changes underwear daily and shirts as 
often as three time, especially during days of strenuous speaking. 
He likes long underwear but nothing of silk. He likes to shave himself 
once in a while and always does so when there is a barber around he 
doesn't personally know.

I looked into his bathroom and in fact pulled the chain just to have 
the satisfaction of having done it in his bathroom. The bathtub and 
walls were done in pink, with shiny nickel fixtures and chairs with 
rubber cushions. The towels were initialed with a blue A.H. 
Altogether, he wasn't doing too badly by himself. Schaub, the personal 
adjutant,acted as his valet and general nursemaid, reportedly even 
washing his back .... .

... He had a bunch of us foreign correspondents flown to the Warsaw 
airfield while the city was still a mass of smoke and flame in late 
September of 1939 and a few minutes later landed there himself, 
appropriately arriving in time to lecture us, against this fiery 
background, on the evils of mankind and the stupidity of England in 
encouraging the Poles to oppose him.

"A great crime has been committed," he said dolefully, and he gazed 
with a well-posed attitude of regret at the holocaust a short distance 
off. "Ja,the Polish military went mad and look at the crime committed 
against their own people. They were drunk with power and talked even of 
marching to Berlin. Then they barricaded themselves in the city and 
look at Warsaw now. You must tell the world of their callousness."    

In Berlin, if he felt like it, he'd delight small circles of friends
occasionally with mimicking men such as Goering or Himmler.I did not
have to guess twice on the Warsaw airfield to know he was up to
those tricks of his. He came there to be melodramatic and at the
time hide under false colors the awful horror he had visited upon a
great European capital.                                                                                        
But his act was soon over, or forgotten. He came around to each one of us
as is customary, and shook hands as Press Chief Dietrich called off the
names and outfit each one represented. Our little group included Bertil
Svahnstroem, able correspondent for the newspaper Politiken in Stockholm.

"Ach  Svahnstroem," Hitler repeated slowly, and shook the correspondent's 
hand more heartily. "Are you related to the great Swedish actress and singer?"

"Only in a distant way, "Svahnstroem replied. "But of course in Sweden 
she has become a sort of legend."

Oblivious to burning Warsaw, Hitler was off on the subject of 
Svahnstroem and her qualities,discoursing for at least ten minutes about her
and his opinion of her renditions. He cited at length some highlights
and criticisms of her career, in the same breath plunging deeper and
deeper into an analytical oration on the respective values and merits of
the Swedish and German stage and opera. He had decided opinions on the
subject, none of which were challenged or questioned by those standing
around in the smoke-tainted air. He was, in fact,shoving off again, and
everybody else had to listen. That is the advantage of being a dictator-
especially a talkative one.

He used to tell people in all seriousness that he turned vegetarian
because he couldn't bear the thought of animals and fowls being killed
for human consumption. At other times he'd claim he had to turn 
vegetarian because in the old days he couldn't afford the price of meat and
fowl. He used to drink beer but gave it up when his figure showed bulges
of fat.

Hitler likes to sneer at royalty and its trappings but he is not above 
a bow at its throne when the occasion calls for it. He went to Rome
early in May 1938 on a state visit arranged for him by Mussolini, and he

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P.J.Huss. The Foe we face

was eager as a little boy out to see the king and queen. He was nervous, 
too, and those around him told he was edgy all through his stay the 
Quirinal Palace, worrying about committing a faux pas of etiquette in 
front of the king and queen. He bawled out his adjutants on the least 
provocation, lining them up for a personal inspection and telling each 
one just what he must do. He forbade them as much as touch wine or 
alcohol, lest their foot slip and give a black mark in royalty's eyes 
to the Nazi Fuehrer's entourage.

I watched him from the grandstand the Italians had built for the 
diplomats and foreign correspondents opposite the Colosseum, where the 
climax of the Roamn [sic]  spectacle came as Emmanuel's coach of six 
white horses rumbled up the Triumphal Way and passed the ancient 
ruins of Rome standing like ghosts in the searchlight flood .... 
Through my glasses I saw Hitler squirm round for a good look, and 
apparently he was so excited that he began tapping plumed little 
Emmanuel on the knee. Hitler had never seen anything like this,
not even in the bawdiest Nazi shows Goebbels staged for him. Now the 
small boy was coming out in him.  

He forgot that he was sitting in a royal coach beside a real king, 
driving in state through imperial Rome. He bounced around and gaped 
at the show.  

Official Reception of Hitler: His eyes moved nervously 
over the crowd touching his very elbows as he went by with slow step, 
leading Queen Helene on his arm. She was a little bit taller then he 
anddid [sic] not look any happier than Hitler. He was plainly ill at 
ease, end evidently felt like a fish out of water.....On Capitoline Hill 
that day I did not notice any very hearty conversation between the royal 
house and Hitler, or maybe that was only because none could hold 
conversation with Hitler unless he or she talked German. They had 
interpreters present but Hitler stood around amid all this imperial 
splendor and folded and unfolded his arms. I had the impression that he 
just didn't know what to do with his hands ....

...In Florence he changed horses again and eagerly tried to impress
on us that in heart he is a born artist. He spent hours in this
magnificent city of art, drinking in its soft beauty and gazing at the 
works of the immortal masters at the Uffizi. He talked to Mussolini and 
others by the hour of the genius and marvels of the Botticellis, the 
Titians, the Leonardos. He stood upon the heights of Fiesole, the 
ancient Etruscan town above Florence, and spread his arms toward heaven 
to eulogize the magnificence of the view at his feet.  "If I had my way, 
I'd go incognito to Florence for ten days," he remarked to several of us 
sometime later. "I'd put on a false beard, dark glasses and an old suit, 
and comb my hair a different way. Then I'd spend that ten days in those 
art galleries of Florence worshiping as an artist at the feet of the old 
masters.' 

He looked silliest on that night when he left for Germany by train from 
Rome. He came to the station straight from a farewell banquet, escorted 
by Emannuel. I almost fell over, for on his head was a silk hat. It 
simply didn't go with him. and alongside of little Emmanuel he looked 
like a clown trying to be serious. The silk hat sat on his head as if he 
had carefully placed it on with both hands. He walked stiffly, and a 
glass of water could have stood on top of his lid without spilling a drop. 
He had pulled it down so hard to make it stick on the ride tot he [sic] 
station, that he had trouble getting it off when he said good-by to 
Emmanuel on the platform. As the train moved he stood at the window of 
the railway coach wearing his silk hat and with his right arm 
outstretched in the Nazi salute. .....

There has been much talk since the latter part of 1941 on the inside of 
the Nazi party that Hitler has decided to get married right

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  Pierre J.Huss. The Foe we face.1942.   5.

after the war. It is known of course, in these same circles, but never 
talked about with strangers, that for nearly a dozen years now Hitler 
has had his clandestine love affair with Fraulein Theresa von Thorn, one 
of the five daughters of an aristocratic Bavarian family. She is a petite 
brunette and likes to wear her hair in bangs. Her Family was one of the 
first among the aristocrats to go Nazi and soon drew Hitler's attention 
by their unstinted activity on his behalf. The Von Thorns soon were 
invited to Berchtesgaden and silent romance bloomed between the Nazi 
leader and one of the younger girls shortly after. Since then the Von 
Thorn family have been the most frequent visitors up on the mountain, 
and the girl is always there when Hitler is in residence. Even the war 
has not kept him from her, and the girl, more than the Alps, is the 
reason he rushes off to Berchtesgaden at every opportunity. She hardly
ever goes to Berlin, but when she does, she lives at the Kaiserhof 
Hotel under an assumed name, carefully guarded from intruding eyes. The 
Fuehrer would never forgive or forget the talkative one who'd spill the 
secret of the girl he sleeps with and intends to marry after the war. 
That is, if he is still around after the war.

P.J.Huss: The Foe we face. pp. 1, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24

P.J.Huss: The Foe we face.1942.

"Did I ever show you my favorite trick ?" Lutze said suddenly, after 
draining enough champagne to float a ship. He took his champagne glass 
and filled it to the brim, saying:

"It scares a lot of women out of their wits, and Hitler gets a good 
laugh out of it. He has me pull this one at state banquets or things 
get boring him and he wants to get rid of the old wives who hang 
around too long. It breaks the ice when there are too many stuffed 
shirts and their women sitting at the table and someof [sic] them 
faint. Look!"

Laughing and shouting, he reached up to his left eye and neatly removed 
the eyeball, dropping it into his champagne with a deft twist of the 
hand. Then he stirred the drink and gulped down the whole works, 
champagne with glass eye to boot. He opened his mouth to show that he 
had swallowed the glass eye, but a moment later he made as thoughto [sic] 
belch hard and out came the glass eye.

He wiped it indifferently amid his own shouted laughter and replaced it 
in the left eye socket. There was, I must say, scarcely anything to 
betray that false eye, unless the light happened to reflect too strongly 
in the glass.

"There you are, perfectly simple," he said with a sweeping gesture.
"You should hear them shriek !"

"And what does Hitler do ?"    

"He laughs to himself and never lets on that he has seen me do it 
before. He is a better actor than some of our stage and film stars. 
It's a good way to get rid of some of those ancients."

P.J.Huss, The Foe we face pp.51,52.

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