The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

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Hitler Source Book
Germany's Hitler
by Heinz Heinz
(Part 1 of 5)


[Page 1]

HEINZ A. HEINZ
Germany's Hitler
London, Hurst & Blackett, Ltd. 1934; pp. 288

Typical Pro-Nazi biography:

Former schoolmates from the Realschule Linz about A.H.:

"I met him," said Herr A. "in 1901, here in the Realschule. We were 32 boys all told, all from the same class of life. There was no private school at Linz at that time.

Hitler didn't live in Linz, but just outside, at a place called Leonding. He ate his midday meal somewhere roundabouts, and was generally off home in the afternoon, as soon as school was over. That's how it happened we didn't see so very much of him, except during school hours, and playing Indians, when he was always on hand.

We all liked him, at desk and at play. He was no more hefty than the rest of us, but an enterprising little chap. He had 'guts'. He wasn't a hot-head but really more amenable than a good many. He exhibited two extremes of character which are not often seen in unison, he was a quiet fanatic. The whole class acknowledged this boy as the leader.

His favorite lessons were history, geography and German. The history master was often astonished at Hitler's aptitude for this study. - Herr Dr. Huemer was our teacher for German. He always picked on Hitler for Repeater, that is, something would be read aloud to us and then one of the boys had to get up and tell it again in his own words. As a rule Hitler made the repeat a jolly sight more interesting than the original.

He was good at gym, too. He topped the gym class as long as he was at school.

Hitler didn't bother very much about what he'd got to learn, only over what he wanted to learn. When things were taught which didn't interest him he read Cooper's Leather Stocking or something of that sort; subjects which he liked such as history, however, he followed with close attebtion [sic].

The accounts of battles we played out for ourselves in our 'Indian' games, down by the Danube meadows. Hitler loved this sort of thing. He gloried in a scrum, and always made for the most redoubtable enemy, when the two would have a first class wrestle. Hitler got 'all het up' over this.

He was very hot, too, .... about being German ....

p. 28/29, Heinz, Germany's Hitler.

[Page 2]

(Still Herr A. on Hitler).

"I saw him again in 1926. I went to his lodging there (Munich) He was awfully pleased to hear of old Linz again, and told me not to fail to look him up now and again. So, I've done so a few times, and always found him friendly, always the old "Schulkamerad".

p. 29

(Account of another schoolmate, Herr Y.)

"Once, ...... during his school days Hitler stayed for a little time with an old lady in Linz. This old lady herself told the tale of how the boy was always buying candles, and she couldn't make out what it was he did always to be needing a light at night. She surprised him on one occasion, and found him doubled up over maps, very busy doing something to them with colored pencils. She asked: 'Why, Adolf, what on earth do you suppose you are doing?' and he looked up and smiled and said: ' Studying maps.' p. 29

Herr Y. showed me quite a treasure, a.little watercolor he himself had once begun, as a boy at school, and which Hitler had finished for him. The subject was a picturesque little mill among the mountains. It was quite obvious where one artist had left off and the other had taken on. "Hitler was the best boy in the drawing class," said Herr Y. "he used shades in painting which never occurred to us, and painted things so lifelike we were all astonished." pp. 29/30

Herr Z. on Hitler:

"Sometimes we went after apples together ....like the rest of the kids hereabouts, but Hitler never began munching his before everybody else had got one. Otherwise he tossed his over. Sometimes he'd sit on the churchyard wall, staring up at the stars. ....." pp. 30/31

[Page 3]

Frau Popp, Hitler's landlady in Munich:

"...It was a fine Sunday afternoon in springtime,1912, when somebody knocked and we went to open the door. A young man stood there and said he'd like to see the room we had to let. So I showed it to him.... The young man and I soon came to terms. He said it would do him all right, and paid a deposit.

"I remember I went back into the kitchen and told our Peppi and our Liesl - they were only eleven and seven then - not to make so much noise, we'd got a new lodger.

Then later I went in again to ask the young man to fill up his registration particulars. In small, somewhat cramped handwriting he scribbled "Adolf Hitler, Architekturmuler aus Wein....

Next morning my Herr Hitler went out and came back again in no time with an easel he had picked up somewhere, He began his painting straight away and stuck to his work for hours. In a couple of days I saw two lovely pictures finished and lying on the table, one of the Cathedral and the other of the Theatinerkirche. After that my lodger used to go out early of a morning with a portfolio under his arm in search of customers. He generally visited the same set of people who got interested in his work and sometimes purchased his sketches.

But he spent a tremendous lot of time, too in the State Library. He was always getting new books from there. After he'd spent the lifelong day at his painting and drawing and what all, he'd often and often sit up all night over these books. I had a look, too, what sort they were, - all political stuff and that and how to go on in Parliament. I couldn't make it out a bit what he had to do with such things, and why he bothered his head over them.

At the beginning, he used to go out to eat in some restaurant or other. Then, after a week or two, be bagn [sic] bringing home a bit of sausage for dinner or a Nuss-Zopf (small white loaf). I supposed he had a bit of money put by somewhere. I know he must have pinched and scraped all that first year he was with us, and often got up hungry from table. He was very well behaved and never thought of coming into my kitchen when he wanted a drop of water for his tea without knocking. I'd holler, 'Come in!' and he'd open the door and say, 'Do you mind?' polite as anything.

Of course, we said he was to come right in and sit down. The [sic] he'd ask permission to make his tea. We said he didn't need to make any fuss, he was always welcome any time, but he was always like that. I never in my life knew such a good-mannered young man!

My husband was sorry for him having to stint himself so hard, and more than once asked him to sit down and have a bite with us. But he never would, he never did. I liked that in him very much.


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