Heinrich Hitler (nickname Heinz) (born March 14, 1920,died January 10-March 13, 1942) was the son of Alois Hitler, Jr. and his second wife Hedwig Heidemann and the nephew of German chancellor Adolf Hitler. When World War II began, he joined the Wehrmacht and served on the eastern front, where he was captured and died in prison in 1942.

Unlike his half-brother William Patrick Hitler, Heinz was a Nazi. He attended an elite Nazi military academy, the National Political Institutes of Education (Napola) in Ballenstedt/Saxony-Anhalt. Aspiring to be an officer, Heinz joined the Wehrmacht as a signals NCO with the 23rd Potsdamer Artillery Regiment in 1941, and he participated in the invasion of the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa. On January 10, 1942, he was captured by Soviet forces and sent to the Moscow military prison Butyrka, where he died, aged 21, after several months of interrogation and torture.

References

Notes

Die Hitlers: Die unbekannte Familie des Führers Von Wolfgang Zdral, 2008 Adolf Hitler: Legende, Mythos, Wirklichkeit Von Werner Maser, 1971, p.60, p.447 One hour Discovery Channel special on Adolf Hitler's relatives

Bibliography

"De jeugd van Adolf Hitler 1889-1985 en zijn familie en voorouders" by Marc Vermeeren. Soesterberg, 2007, 420 blz. Uitgeverij Aspekt, ISBN 90-5911-606-2

Oliver Halmburger und Thomas Staehler: Familie Hitler. Im Schatten des Diktators. Dokumentarfilm. Unter Mitarbeit von Timothy Ryback u. Florian Beierl. München: Oliver Halmburger Loopfilm GmBH u. Mainz: ZDF-History 2005.

External links

(3.0) The German Invasion Of Russia at www.vectorsite.net PHOENIX at www.phoenix.de Stammbaum des Adolf Hitler at www.adel-genealogie.de

Category:1920 births Category:1942 deaths Category:Hitler family Category:German military personnel of World War II Category:German military personnel killed in World War II Category:German prisoners of war Category:World War II prisoners of war held by the Soviet Union Category:German torture victims Category:German people who died in prison custody Category:Prisoners who died in Soviet detention

Name	Heinz Wilhelm Guderian
Born	June 17, 1888
Died
Placeofbirth	Kulm, West Prussia
Placeofdeath	Schwangau, Allgäu
Nickname	Schneller Heinz (Hurrying Heinz)
Allegiance	(to 1918) (to 1933)
Serviceyears	1907 – 1945
Rank	Generaloberst
Commands	2. Panzer Division, XVI. Army-Corps, XIX. Army-Corps, Panzergruppe Guderian and Panzergruppe 2
Battles	World War I, World War II
Awards	Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes mit Eichenlaub
Relations	Heinz-Günther Guderian
Laterwork	}}

Heinz Wilhelm Guderian (17 June 1888 – 14 May 1954) was a German general during World War II. He was a pioneer in the development of armored warfare, and was the leading proponent of tanks and mechanization in the Wehrmacht (German Armed Forces). Germany's panzer (armored) forces were raised and organized under his direction as Chief of Mobile Forces. During the war, he was a highly successful commander of panzer forces in several campaigns, became Inspector-General of Armored Troops, rose to the rank of Generaloberst, and was Chief of the General Staff in the last year of the war.

Early career

Guderian was born in Kulm, West Prussia, (now Chełmno, Poland`),. From 1901 to 1907 Guderian attended various military schools. He entered the Army in 1907 as an ensign-cadet in the (Hanoverian) Jäger Bataillon No. 10, commanded at that point by his father, Friedrich Guderian. After attending the war academy in Metz he was made a Leutnant (full Lieutenant) in 1908. In 1911 Guderian joined the 3rd Telegraphen-Battalion of the Prussian Army Signal Corps. In October 1913 he married Margarete Goerne with whom he had two sons, Heinz (1914–2004) and Kurt (born 1918). Both sons became highly decorated Wehrmacht officers during World War II; Heinz Günter became a Panzer general in the Bundeswehr after the war.

During World War I he served as a Signals and General Staff officer. This allowed him to get an overall view of battlefield conditions. He often disagreed with his superiors and was transferred to the army intelligence department, where he remained until the end of the war. This second assignment, while removed from the battlefield, sharpened his strategic skills.

After the war, Guderian stayed in the reduced 100,000-man German Army (Reichswehr) as a company commander in the 10th Jäger-Battalion. Later he joined the Truppenamt ("Troop Office"), which was actually the Army's "General-Staff-in-waiting" (an official General Staff was forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles). In 1927 Guderian was promoted to major and transferred to the Truppenamt group for Army transport and motorized tactics in Berlin. This put him at the center of German development of armored forces. Guderian, who was fluent in both English and French studied the works of British maneuver warfare theorists J. F. C. Fuller and, debatably, B. H. Liddell Hart; also the writings, interestingly enough, of the then-obscure Charles de Gaulle. He translated these works into German.

In 1931 he was promoted to Oberstleutnant (Lieutenant-Colonel) and became chief of staff to the Inspectorate of Motorized Troops under Generalleutnant (Major-General) Oswald Lutz. In 1933 he was promoted to Oberst (Colonel).

During this period, he wrote many papers on mechanized warfare, which were seen in the German Army as authoritative. These papers were based on extensive wargaming without troops, with paper tanks and finally with armored vehicles.

In October 1935 he was made commander of the newly created 2nd Panzer Division (one of three). On 1 August 1936 he was promoted to Generalleutnant, and on 4 February 1938 he was promoted to General and given command of the XVI Army Corps.

During this period (1936–1937), Guderian produced his most important written work, his book Achtung - Panzer! It was a highly persuasive compilation of Guderian's own theories and the armored warfare and combined-arms warfare ideas of other General Staff officers, expounding the use of airpower as well as tanks in future ground combat.

The German panzer forces were created largely on the lines laid down by Guderian in Achtung - Panzer!

Guderian's theory

The British Army was the first to conceive and attempt armored warfare, and though British theorists were the first to propose the concept of "blitzkrieg" (lightning warfare), the British did not fully develop it. During World War I, the German army had developed the idea of breaking through a static front by concentration of combined arms, which they applied in their 1918 Spring Offensive. But they failed to gain decisive results because the breakthrough elements were on foot and could not sustain the impetus of the initial attack.

Motorized infantry was the key to sustaining a breakthrough, and until the 1930s that wasn't possible. Soviet marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky got the idea, but his doctrine was repudiated as contrary to Communist principles, and Tukhachevsky was executed in 1937.

Guderian was the first who fully developed and advocated the strategy of blitzkrieg and put it into its final shape. He summarized the tactics of blitzkrieg as the way to get the mobile and motorized armored divisions to work together and support each other in order to achieve decisive success. In his book Panzer Leader he wrote:

In this year (1929) I became convinced that tanks working on their own or in conjunction with infantry could never achieve decisive importance. My historical studies; the exercises carried out in England and our own experience with mock-ups had persuaded me that the tanks would never be able to produce their full effect until weapons on whose support they must inevitably rely were brought up to their standard of speed and of cross-country performance. In such formation of all arms, the tanks must play primary role, the other weapons being subordinated to the requirements of the armor. It would be wrong to include tanks in infantry divisions: what was needed were armored divisions which would include all the supporting arms needed to fight with full effect.

Guderian believed that certain developments in technology needed to take place in conjunction with blitzkrieg in order to support the entire theory, especially in communication and special visual equipment with which the armored divisions in general, and tanks specifically, should be equipped. Guderian insisted in 1933, within the high command, that every tank in the German armored force must be equipped with radio and visual equipment in order to enable the tank commander to communicate and perform a decisive role in blitzkrieg.

Guderian's claim to be the 'Father of Blitzkrieg' has, however, been challenged (Corum 92 pp 137–141) as gross self-exaggeration. His publications before 1936 were few, relatively mundane and did not address questions of fundamental doctrine. The famous Guderian book, Achtung Panzer, while an early military publications advocating tank warfare and while forcefully written, it was not particularly original. The true mainspring of German armored doctrine was the unsung Ernst Volckheim, who receives only passing mention in Guderian's memoirs. Moreover, Guderian's claim that the Panzer advocates, of whom he claims to have been foremost, were met with resistance from within the army, especially from Ludwig Beck, has been exposed as deceitful. All Reichswehr leaders from Seeckt onwards enthusiastically endorsed armor. The Reichswehr's basic doctrine emphasized speed and maneuver. The famed Panzer doctrine was little but its application to armor with its improvement in mobility.

World War II

(right) at the joint German–Soviet parade in Brest on September 22, 1939.]] In the Second World War, Guderian first served as the commander of the XIX Corps in the invasion of Poland. He personally led the German forces during the Battle of Wizna and Battle of Kobryn testing his theory against the reality of war for the first time. After the invasion he took property in the Warthegau area of occupied Poland, evicting the Polish estate owners. In the Invasion of France, he personally led the attack that traversed the Ardennes Forest, crossed the Meuse River and broke through the French lines at Sedan. During the French campaign, he led his panzer forces in rapid blitzkrieg-style advances and earned the nickname "Der schnelle Heinz" (Hurrying Heinz) among his troops. Guderian's panzer group led the "race to the sea" that split the Allied armies in two, depriving the French armies and the BEF in Northern France and Belgium of their fuel, food, spare parts and ammunition. Faced with orders from nervous superiors to halt on one occasion, he managed to continue his advance by stating he was performing a 'reconnaissance in force'. Guderian's column was famously denied the chance to destroy the Allied beachhead at Dunkirk by Hitler's personal order.

In 1941 he commanded Panzergruppe 2, also known as Panzergruppe Guderian, in Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, receiving the 24th award of the Oak Leaves to his Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 17 July of that year. From 5 October 1941 he led the redesignated Second Panzer Army. His armored spearhead captured Smolensk in a remarkably short time and was poised to launch the final assault on Moscow when he was ordered to turn south towards Kiev (see Lötzen decision).

He protested against Hitler's decision and as a result lost the Führer's confidence. He was relieved of his command on 25 December 1941 after Fieldmarshal Günther von Kluge, not noted for his ability to face up to Hitler, claimed that Guderian had ordered a withdrawal in contradiction of Hitler's "stand fast" order. Guderian was transferred to the Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH) reserve pool, his chances of being promoted to fieldmarshal, which depended on Hitler's personal decision, possibly ruined forever. Guderian would deny that he ordered any kind of withdrawal. Ironically this act of apparent insubordination is cited by his admirers as further proof of his independence of spirit when dealing with Hitler. Guderian's own view on the matter was that he had been victimized by von Kluge who was the commanding officer when German troops came to a standstill at the Moscow front in late autumn/winter 1941. At some point he so provoked von Kluge with accusations related to his dismissal that the field marshal challenged him to a duel, which Hitler forbade.

After his dismissal Guderian and his wife retired to a sequestered country estate at Deipenhof in the Reichsgau Wartheland.

In September 1942, when Erwin Rommel was recuperating in Germany from health problems, he suggested Guderian to OKW as the only one who could replace him temporarily in Africa, the response came in the same night: "Guderian is not accepted". Only after the German defeat at Stalingrad was Guderian given a new position. On 1 March 1943 he was appointed Inspector-General of the Armoured Troops. Here his responsibilities were to determine armoured strategy and to oversee tank design and production and the training of Germany's panzer forces. He reported to Hitler directly. In Panzer Leader, he conceded that he was fully aware of the brutal occupation policies of the German administration of Ukraine, claiming that this was wholly the responsibility of civilians, about whom he could do nothing.

According to Guderian, Hitler was easily persuaded to field too many new tank designs, and this resulted in supply, logistical, and repair problems for German forces in Russia. Guderian preferred large numbers of Panzer IIIs and IVs over smaller numbers of heavier tanks like the Tiger, which had limited range and could rarely go off-road without getting stuck in the Russian mud.

On 21 July 1944, after the failure of the July 20 Plot in which Guderian had no involvement, Guderian was appointed chief of staff of the army (Chef des Generalstabs des Heeres) as a successor to Kurt Zeitzler, who had departed July 1 after a nervous breakdown. During his tenure as chief of staff, he let it be known that any General Staff officer who wasn't prepared to be "a National Socialist officer" wasn't welcome on that body. He also served on the "Court of Military Honour," a drumhead court-martial that expelled many of the officers involved in the July 20 Plot from the Army before handing them over to the People's Court.

However, he had a long series of violent rows with Hitler over the way in which Germany should handle the war on both fronts. Hitler finally dismissed Guderian on 28 March 1945 after a shouting-match over the failed counterattack of General Theodor Busse's 9th Army to break through to units encircled at Küstrin; he stated to Guderian that "your physical health requires that you immediately take six weeks convalescent leave," ("Health problems" were commonly used as a facade in the Third Reich to remove executives who for some reason could not simply be sacked, but from episodes Guderian describes in his memoirs it is evident that he actually did suffer from congestive heart failure.) He was replaced by General Hans Krebs. The Enigma Machine belonging to Guderian is on display at the Intelligence Corps museum in Chicksands, Bedfordshire.

Life after the war

Together with his Panzer staff, Guderian surrendered to American troops on 10 May 1945 and remained in U.S. custody as a prisoner of war until his release on 17 June 1948. Despite Soviet and Polish government protests, he was not charged with any war crimes during the Nuremberg Trials, as his actions and behavior were ruled to be consistent with those of a professional soldier.

After the war he was often invited to attend meetings of British veterans' groups, where he analyzed past battles with his old foes. During the early 1950s he was active in advising on the redevelopment of the German army: Bundeswehr (see Searle's Wehrmacht Generals).

Guderian died on 14 May 1954 at the age of 65, in Schwangau near Füssen (Southern Bavaria) and is buried at the Friedhof Hildesheimer Strasse in Goslar.

In 2000, a documentary titled Guderian, directed by Anton Vassil, was aired on French television. It featured Heinz Günther Guderian (Guderian's surviving son - the other one died in the Second World War - who became a prominent General in the post-war German Bundeswehr and NATO) along with other notables such as Field Marshal Lord Carver (129th British Field Marshal), expert historians Kenneth Macksey and Heinz Wilhelm. Using rarely seen photographs from Guderian's private collection, the documentary provides an inside view into the life and career of Guderian and draws a profile of Guderian's character and the moral responsibility of the German general staff under Hitler.

Awards and decorations

Iron Cross (1914) 2nd Class on 17 September 1914

Iron Cross (1914) 1st Class on 8 November 1916

Cross of Honor in 1934

Anschluss Medal (13 March 1938)

Sudetenland Medal with Prague Castle Bar (1 October 1938)

Iron Cross (1939) 2nd Class on 5 September 1939

Iron Cross (1939) 1st Class on 13 September 1939

Panzer Badge in Silver

Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves

Knight's Cross on 27 October 1939 as General der Panzertruppe and commander of the XIX Army Corps

24th Oak Leaves on 17 July 1941 as Generaloberst and commander of Panzer Gruppe 2

Mentioned 5 times in the Wehrmachtbericht (6 August 1941, 7 August 1941, 21 September 1941, 18 October 1941 and 19 October 1941)

See also

German–Soviet military parade in Brest-Litovsk

Books by Heinz Guderian

Guderian describes what he would do if he were in charge of German tank forces. Guderian describes what he did when he was in charge of German tank forces. It was originally published with the German title Erinnerungen eines Soldaten (Memories of a Soldier) (Kurt Vowinckel Verlag, Heidelberg 1950; 10th edition 1977).

References

;Bibliography

Alman, Karl (2008). Panzer vor - Die dramtische Geschichte der deutschen Panzerwaffe und ihre tapferen Soldaten. Würzburg, Germany: Flechsig Verlag. ISBN 978-3-88189-638-2.

Schaulen, Fritjof (2003). Eichenlaubträger 1940 - 1945 Zeitgeschichte in Farbe I Abraham - Huppertz (in German). Selent, Germany: Pour le Mérite. ISBN 3-932381-20-3.

Williamson, Gordon and Bujeiro, Ramiro (2004). Knight's Cross and Oak Leaves Recipients 1939-40. Osprey Publishing Ltd. ISBN 1-84176-641-0.

Helden der Wehrmacht - Unsterbliche deutsche Soldaten (in German). München, Germany: FZ-Verlag GmbH, 2004. ISBN 3-924309-53-1.

Further reading

Corum, James, The Roots of Bltzkrieg (1992)

Macksey, Kenneth, Guderian: Panzer General (1992, revision of Guderian, Creator of the Blitzkrieg, 1976)

Kershaw, Ian, Hitler 1936–1945: Nemesis (2001)

Searle, Alaric, Wehrmacht Generals, West German Society, and the Debate on Rearmament, 1949-1959, Praeger Pub., (2003).

Walde, Karl J., Guderian (1978)

Antony Beevor, "Berlin: The Downfall"(2002)

External links

Personality Profile - General Heinz Guderian by the Journal of the Singapore Armed Forces

Generaloberst Heinz Wilhelm Guderian at Achtung Panzer!

Guderian's grave at Find-A-Grave

Category:1888 births Category:1954 deaths Category:People from Chełmno Category:Wehrmacht generals Category:German military personnel of World War II Category:German military writers Category:People from West Prussia Category:Recipients of the Knight's Cross Category:Military personnel referenced in the Wehrmachtbericht Category:Recipients of the Cross of Honor

Name	Heinz Knoke
Born	March 24, 1923
Died	May 18, 1993
Placeofbirth	Hamelin, Germany
Placeofdeath	Bad Iburg, Germany
Allegiance
Branch	Luftwaffe
Serviceyears	1939 – 1945
Rank	Hauptmann
Commands	III./JG 11
Unit	JG 52, JG 1, JG 11
Battles	World War II
Awards	Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross
Laterwork	}}

Heinz Knoke (24 March 1923 – 18 May 1993) was a World War II Luftwaffe flying ace. He is credited with 52 confirmed aerial victories, all claimed over the Western theatre of operations, and claimed a further five unconfirmed kills in over 2000 flights. His total included 19 heavy bombers of the USAAF.

Early life

Born the son of a policeman on 24 March 1921 in Hamelin, on the 6th July 1938,whilst watching an air display Knoke made his first flight, a fifteen minute joy ride in an old transport aircraft and took the preliminary exam for entry into the Luftwaffe. On 15th November 1939 Knoke underwent flight training at No. 11 Flying Training RegimentSchonwald, nr. Berlin and in August 1940 attended Jagdfliegerschule 1 (Werneuchen) under instructor Flight Sergeant Kuhl, an experienced operational pilot who had already seen action in both the invasions of Poland and France.

War career 1941-42

In early 1941 Knoke received his first combat posting, joining Jagdgeschwader 52. Posted to II Gruppe under Hauptmann Erich Woitke, his comrades included future aces Gerhard Barkhorn, Günther Rall and Walter Krupinski. After initial operations during the invasion of Soviet Russia in June 1941, Knoke was transferred to Jagdgeschwader 1 (JG 1) in July 1941. On 28 August 1941 Heinz married Elisabeth "Lilo" Makowski in Schieratz.

In February 1942, Knoke participated with 3./JG 1 in Operation Donnerkeil, the Channel Dash of the pocket battleships Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and .

On 14 February 1942 Knoke was detached to Jagdgruppe "Losigkeit" (Fritz Losigkeit), charged with the air protection of these boats over the Norway coast. He returned to JG 1 in March 1942. In October 1942 Knoke became Commanding officer of 2nd Staffel, JG 1. He claimed his first kill on 31 October, an Royal Air Force (RAF) Bristol Blenheim.

Against the USAAF 1943-44

As the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) daylight bomber offensive increased steadily in intensity through 1943, so operations by the defending JG 1 and JG 11 grew in proportion. Knoke destroyed his first 'heavy' on his 164th operation, Maisie, a B-24 of the 44th Bombardment Group, shot down over Zwischenahn on 26 February 1943. Two of the crew survived.

The problem of attacking the heavily armed bomber effectively occupied the minds of the Luftwaffe in early 1943. Oberleutnant Heinz Knoke and his friend, Leutnant Dieter Gerhardt (killed in action against B-24s on 18 March 1943), developed the idea of aerial bombing as a means to break up the tight combat boxes, thereby compromising the defensively strong USAAF bomber formations.

Knoke claimed his fifth victory, a B-24 of the 93rd Bomb Group on 18 March over Helgoland. On 22 March, Knoke successfully downed B-17 Liberty Bell, of the 91st Bombardment Group, with a 250 kg bomb, intercepting its return flight from bombing Wilhelmshaven. The B-17 fell into the North Sea west of Helgoland. All the crew were killed. However, the practice was soon curtailed, as the carriage of 250 kg bombs severely affected the high altitude performance of the Bf 109-G and also made the fighter bombers vulnerable to any escorting fighters.

In April 1943 I./JG 1 became II gruppe of the newly formed Jagdgeschwader 11 (JG 11), Knoke's 2 Staffel becoming 5./JG 11.

During 1943 Knoke claimed some 17 kills, the majority B-17 and B-24 'heavies' of the USAAF. Another B-17 (of the 95th Bomb Group) was downed on 11 June 1943. On 25 June 1943 Knoke was wounded in the hand by return fire from a bomber, resulting in the amputation of part of his thumb.

On 17 August 1943 while intercepting the raid on Regensburg he was wounded by shrapnel fragments and his aircraft damaged by bomber return fire. Knoke belly landed near Bonn, his Bf 109 G-6 written off.

On 27 September 1943 Knoke shot down a B-17 of the 94th Bomb group using WGr. 210 mm underwing 'rockets' launched from modified mortar tubes. Encountering the USAAF escort fighters for the first time, he also shot down a P-47 of the 56th Fighter Group flown by Lt. H.P Dugas, who was killed. Knoke was then shot down by other P-47's and had to bail out.

Knoke was shot down again on 4 October 1943. After downing a B-24 of the 397th Bombardment Group in a frontal attack, he was hit by the dorsal gunner's fire and Knoke bailed out of his damaged fighter into the bitterly cold North Sea. Covered by aircraft of his unit, Knoke managed to climb into an inflatable raft dropped by a Focke-Wulf Weihe. He was rescued two hours later by a lifeboat.

Knoke claimed his 18th victory on 10 October 1943, a B-17, although his 109-G was hit by P-47's and 75% damaged, force landing at Twente.

Knoke was again shot down on 4 January 1944. On 10 February 1944 Gruppenkommandeur Günther Specht was wounded and Knoke became acting commander of II./JG 11.

On 4 March Knoke was leading II./JG 11, and was involved in the decimation of the 363rd Fighter Group. In a surprise attack on some 60 Mustangs over Hamburg, the USAAF lost 12 P-51's in a single combat, Knoke claiming one himself.

From 15 to 20 April 1944 Knoke was attached to the Experimental Station at Lechfeld, where he flew for the first time the Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter.

On 28 April 1944 Knoke was promoted to the rank of Hauptmann, for "bravery in the face of the enemy", and made Gruppenkommandeur of II./ JG 11. At 23 years of age Knoke was, at the time, the youngest Gruppenkommandeur in the Luftwaffe.

Knoke was shot down on 29 April in action against the P-47 of Capt. James Cannon of the 354th Fighter Group and was hospitalised until August 1944 with severe concussion. Before he bailed out, Knoke managed in turn to shoot down the overshooting P-47 piloted by Capt.Cannon, who was taken prisoner.

Normandy 1944

Still recovering from his wounds, Knoke was then transferred on 13 August 1944 to command III./ JG 1. Operating over the Normandy front, Knoke claimed a P-47 over Rânes, southeast of Argentan on 14 August,(of the 358th Fighter Group, piloted by 2/Lt.S.A. Giamalva, killed) and another the next day. On 16 August he claimed a Spitfire near Étampes. A P-38 of the 31st Photo Squadron (1/Lt.T.L.Wood KIA) was shot down on the 17th, followed by an unconfirmed B-26 later the same day. Two P-51s were claimed on the 18th August.

On 25 August another P-51 of the 354th Fighter Group was claimed but he was shot down during the engagement. Bailing out behind the fluidly moving front lines, Knoke was almost captured by French Maquis forces. Shooting his way clear, Knoke managed to regain German lines and returned safely to his unit.

By the end of August 1944 III./ JG 1 had been almost wiped out in the air battles over the Western front, and Knoke was ordered to move the unit to Fels am Wagram, prior to transfer back to Germany for reinforcement and re-equipment.

Given orders to then transfer III./JG 1 to Vienna, during a car journey near Prague on 9 October 1944, Hauptmann Knoke was seriously injured in the legs by a Partisan-planted land mine.

In March 1945, while still on crutches, Knoke became the officer commanding at Jever air base. He also oversaw the work on defensive fortifications around Wilhelmshaven.

On 27 April 1945 he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross (Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes).

In September 1945 Heinz Knoke returned to civilian life.

Political career

In 1951 Heinz Knoke was elected to the legislature of Lower Saxony as member of the Socialist Reich Party. Although the Supreme Court of Federal Republic of Germany declared this party illegal in 1952, Knoke remained in politics as a member of the parish council of the Gemeinde Schortens (Gemeindeparlament) from April 1954.

For several years he also worked as a Manager with the Jever Pilsener Brauhaus.

He was member of the Freie Demokratische Partei (FDP, Liberal Democratic Party), and was elected for the community parliament/parish parliament at the elections of October 1956, and was returned to office in the March 1961, September 1964, and September 1968 elections.

He retired in October 1972 and in the mid 1980s joined Osnabrück University to study literature and philosophy.

War time writings

During the 1950s Knoke wrote a book about his wartime career entitled "I Flew for the Führer" published by C. Boesendahl in 1952 (an English version was initially published in 1953). The book became an aviation classic, as one of the first quality narratives to appear in the West as told by one of the Luftwaffe aces.

Awards

Iron Cross (1939) 2nd and 1st Class

Front Flying Clasp of the Luftwaffe in Gold for Fighter Pilots

Wound Badge (1939) in Silver

German Cross in Gold (17 November 1943)

Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 27 April 1945 as Hauptmann and Gruppenkommandeur of the III./JG 11

Notes

References

Fellgiebel, Walther-Peer (2000). Die Träger des Ritterkreuzes des Eisernen Kreuzes 1939-1945. Friedburg, Germany: Podzun-Pallas. ISBN 3-7909-0284-5.

Knoke, Heinz (1997). I Flew for the Führer. Greenhill Books. ISBN 1-85367-263-7.

Patzwall, Klaus D. & Scherzer, Veit (2001). Das Deutsche Kreuz 1941 - 1945 Geschichte und Inhaber Band II. Norderstedt, Germany: Verlag Klaus D. Patzwall, 2001. ISBN 3-931533-45-X.

Scherzer, Veit (2007). Die Ritterkreuzträger Die Inhaber des Ritterkreuzes des Eisernen Kreuzes 1939 von Heer, Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm sowie mit Deutschland verbündeter Streitkräfte nach den Unterlagen des Bundesarchives. Jena, Germany: Scherzers Miltaer-Verlag. ISBN 978-3-938845-17-2.

Weal, John (1999). Bf 109F/G/K Aces of the Western Front. Osprey Publishing. ISBN 1-85532-905-0.

External links

Heinz Knoke @ Homage to Lilo

To Command the Sky: The Battle for Air Superiority Over Germany, 1942-1944 By Stephen L. McFarland, Wesley Phillips Newton

Category:1923 births Category:1993 deaths Category:People from Hamelin Category:Luftwaffe pilots Category:German World War II flying aces Category:German World War II pilots Category:Recipients of the German Cross Category:Recipients of the Knight's Cross Category:Free Democratic Party (Germany) politicians

Name	Otto Günsche
Born	September 24, 1917
Died	October 02, 2003
Placeofbirth	Jena, Thuringia
Placeofdeath	Lohmar, North Rhine-Westphalia
Allegiance	Nazi Germany
Branch	Waffen SS
Serviceyears	1933–1945
Rank	Sturmbannführer
Battles	World War II

Otto Günsche (24 September 1917 – 2 October 2003) was a Sturmbannführer (Major) in the Waffen-SS and a member of 1st SS Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler before he became Adolf Hitler's personal adjutant.

Biography

Günsche was born in Jena in Thuringia. After leaving secondary school at 16 he volunteered for the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler and joined the Nazi Party. He first met Adolf Hitler in 1936. In 1944 he fought on the eastern front and then in France. He was present at the 20 July 1944 attempt to kill Hitler at the Wolf's Lair in Rastenburg.

As the end of the Third Reich became imminent, Günsche was tasked by Hitler with ensuring the cremation of his body after his death and Günsche stood guard outside the room where Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide.

Having ensured that the bodies were burnt using fuel supplied by Hitler's chauffeur Erich Kempka, Günsche left the Führerbunker a few hours later, on 30 April 1945. He surrendered to Soviet troops encircling the city soon thereafter and was flown to Moscow for interrogation by the NKVD.

He was imprisoned in Moscow and Bautzen in East Germany and released in 1956. During his imprisonment, Günsche was a primary contributor to Operation Myth, the biography of Hitler that was prepared for Joseph Stalin. The dossier was edited by Soviet NKVD (later known as the MVD, the forerunner of the KGB) officers. The report was received by Stalin on Dec. 30, 1949. The report was published in book form in 2005 under the title: The Hitler Book: The Secret Dossier Prepared for Stalin from the Interrogations of Hitler's Personal Aides.

Günsche died of heart failure at his home in Lohmar, North Rhine-Westphalia in 2003. He had three children, including a son named Kai.

Portrayal in the media

Otto Günsche has been portrayed by the following actors in film and television productions. Hannes Schiel in the 1955 West German film Der Letzte Akt (Hitler: The Last Ten Days).

Horst Gill in the 1970-1 Soviet film Osvobozhdenie and in the 1977 Soldiers of Freedom.

Dan Meaden in the 1973 British television production The Death of Adolf Hitler. Götz Otto in the 2004 German film Downfall (Der Untergang).

* Günsche became a central figure in the Downfall (Der Untergang) parody videos on YouTube, in a scene where he reports that Hermann Fegelein is not present in the bunker, thereby ending up on the receiving end of Hitler's subsequent anger.

Awards

Wound Badge in Silver

Infantry Assault Badge

Iron Cross 2nd Class

Iron Cross 1st Class

Bibliography

O'Donnell, James. The Bunker. New York: Da Capo Press (reprint), 2001. ISBN 0-306-80958-3.

Eberle, Hendrik and Matthias Uhl, eds. The Hitler Book: The Secret Dossier Prepared for Stalin from the Interrogations of Hitler's Personal Aides.

References

External links

Picture of Günsche

Category:1917 births Category:2003 deaths Category:People from Jena

Category:Deaths from myocardial infarction Category:SS officers

Name	Alois Hitler
Caption	Alois Hitler in 1901
Birth date	June 07, 1837
Birth place	Strones, Waldviertel, Lower Austria
Death date	January 03, 1903
Death place	Gasthaus Stiefler, Linz, Upper Austria
Occupation	Customs officer
Spouse	Anna Glassl(1873-1883,sep.1880)Franziska Matzelberger(1883-1884)Klara Pölzl(1885-1903)
Parents	Johann Georg Hiedler and Maria Anna Schicklgruber
Children	with Franziska MatzelbergerAlois Hitler, Jr. Angela Hitlerwith Klara Pölzl Gustav Hitler Ida Hitler Otto Hitler Adolf Hitler Edmund Hitler Paula Hitler

Alois Hitler (born Alois Schicklgruber; 7 June 1837 – 3 January 1903) was the father of Adolf Hitler.

Early life

Alois Hitler was born in the small rustic village of Strones in the Waldviertel, a hilly forested area in northwest Lower Austria just north of Vienna, to a 42-year-old unmarried peasant, Maria Anna Schicklgruber, whose family had lived in the area for generations. After he was baptized at the nearby village of Döllersheim, the space for his father's name on the baptismal certificate was left blank and the priest wrote "illegitimate". Alois was cared for by his mother in a house she shared at Strones with her elderly father Johannes Schicklgruber.

Sometime later, Johann Georg Hiedler moved in with the Schicklgrubers and married Maria when Alois was five. By the age of 10, Alois had been sent to live with Hiedler's brother Johann Nepomuk Hiedler, who owned a farm in the nearby village of Spital. Alois attended elementary school and took lessons in shoe-making from a local cobbler. When he was 13, he left the farm in Spital and went to Vienna as an apprentice cobbler, working there for about five years. In response to a recruitment drive by the Austrian government offering employment in the civil service to people from rural areas, Alois joined the frontier guards (customs service) of the Austrian Finance Ministry in 1855 at the age of 18.

Early career

Alois Hitler made steady progress in the semi-military profession of a customs official. The work involved frequent re-assignments and he served in a variety of places across Austria. By 1860, after five years of service, he reached the rank of Finanzwach Oberaufseher (a non-commissioned officer). By 1864, after special training and examinations, he had advanced further and was serving in Linz, Austria. He later became an inspector of customs posted at Braunau in 1875.

While his professional duties involved strict attention to rules, his personal and private life seems to have flouted the social norms of the time. In the late 1860s, he fathered an illegitimate child with a woman named Thelka (or perhaps Thekla) whom he did not marry and whose family name is lost to history. Alois was 36 when he married for the first time, and it may have been for money. Anna Glassl was a wealthy, 50-year-old daughter of a customs official. She was sick when Alois married her and was either an invalid or became one shortly afterwards.

As a rising young junior customs official, Alois used his birth name of Schicklgruber, but in the summer of 1876, 39 years old and well established in his career, he asked permission to use his stepfather's family name. He appeared before the parish priest in Döllersheim and asserted that his father was Johann Georg Hiedler, who had married his mother and now wished to legitimize him. He apparently did not disclose to the priest that Johann had been dead for almost 20 years. Three relatives appeared with Alois as witnesses, one of whom was Johann Nepomuk Hiedler's son-in-law. The priest agreed to amend the records, the civil authorities automatically processed the church's decision, and Alois had a new name. The official change, registered at the government office in Mistelbach in 1877 transformed "Alois Schicklgruber" into "Alois Hitler." It is not known who decided on the spelling of Hitler instead of Hiedler.

Social pressures seems to have played no part. Smith states that Alois openly admitted having been born out of wedlock before and after the name change. He had done well by local standards and was not hampered by his name. The limiting factor was education. Alois eventually rose to full inspector of customs and could go no higher because he lacked the necessary school degrees.

Alois may have been influenced to change his name for the sake of legal expediency. Maser reports that in 1876, Franz Schicklgruber, the administrator of Alois' mother's estate, transferred a large sum of money (230 gulden) to Alois. This related to a family decision involving changing Alois' last name from Schicklgruber to Hitler / Hiedler in accordance with his mother's alleged wishes when she died in 1847. Moreover, six months after Nepomuk died, Alois made a major real estate purchase inconsistent with the salary of a customs official with a pregnant wife.

Some Schicklgrubers remain in Waldviertel. One of this extended clan, "Aloisia V" aged 49, who was mentally ill, died in 1940, in an Austrian Nazi gas chamber.

Alois Hitler's biological father

Historians have discussed three candidates:

Johann Georg Hiedler, who during his own lifetime was the stepfather and legally declared the birth father of Alois. According to historian Frank McDonough, the most plausible theory is that Johann Georg Hiedler was the real father of Alois.

Johann Nepomuk Hiedler, Georg's brother and Hitler's step-uncle, who raised Alois through adolescence and later willed him a considerable portion of his life savings but never admitted publicly to be his real father.

Leopold Frankenberger, a Jew who, as suggested by Hans Frank, might have fathered Alois when his mother Maria supposedly worked for a Frankenberger family in their household in Graz, Austria. However, no evidence that Frankenberger ever existed has been produced.

Johann Georg Hiedler

Most historians are satisfied that Alois's father was Johann Georg Hiedler. An explanation for Alois being sent to live on his uncle's farm as a child is that Hiedler and Maria were simply too poor to raise him, or could not raise him as well as his uncle, or perhaps Maria's health was in decline (she died when he was 10). Unexplained is why Hiedler and Maria did not declare Alois their legitimate son once they were legally married, or why Hiedler died without legitimizing his son and perpetuating his line of the family.

Johann Nepomuk Hüttler

Historian Werner Maser suggests that Alois's father was Hiedler's brother, Johann Nepomuk, a married farmer who had an affair and then arranged to have his single brother Hiedler marry Alois's mother Maria to provide a cover for Nepomuk's desire to assist and care for Alois without upsetting his wife. This assumes Hiedler was willing to marry Maria in this situation, and Adolf Hitler biographer Joachim Fest thinks this is too contrived and unlikely to be true.

Leopold Frankenberger

Scholars (recently, e.g., Ian Kershaw, Brigitte Hamann) dismiss the Frankenberger ancestry claim as without any substance.

Marriages

Not long after marrying his first wife Anna, Alois Hitler began an affair with 19-year-old Franziska "Fanni" Matzelsberger, one of the young female servants employed at the Pommer Inn, house #219, in the city of Braunau am Inn, where he was renting the top floor as a lodging. Smith states that Alois had numerous affairs in the 1870s, resulting in his sick wife Anna initiating legal action; on 7 November 1880 Alois and Anna separated by mutual agreement. Matzelsberger became the 43-year-old Hitler's girlfriend, but the two could not marry since under Roman Catholic canon law, divorce is not permitted.

In 1876, three years after Hitler married his first wife Anna, he had hired Klara Pölzl as a household servant. She was the 16-year-old granddaughter of Hitler's step-uncle (and possible father or biological uncle) Nepomuk. If Nepomuk was Hitler's father, Klara was Hitler's niece. If his father was Johann Georg, she was his first cousin once removed. Matzelsberger demanded that the "servant girl" Klara find another job, and Hitler sent Pölzl away.

On 13 January 1882, Matzelsberger gave birth to Hitler's illegitimate son, also named Alois, but since they were not married, the child's last name was Matzelsberger, making him "Alois Matzelsberger." Hitler kept Matzelsberger as his wife while his lawful wife grew sicker and died on 6 April 1883. The next month, on 22 May, at a ceremony in Braunau with fellow custom officials as witnesses, Hitler, 45, married Matzelsberger, 21. He then legitimized his son as Alois Hitler, Jr.

Later career

Hitler was secure in his profession and no longer an ambitious climber. Alan described Alois as a "hard, unsympathetic, and short-tempered" man. For reasons unknown to historians, Matzelberger went to Vienna to give birth to Angela Hitler. Matzelberger, still only 23, acquired a lung disorder and became too ill to function. She was moved to Ranshofen, a small village near Braunau. Matzelberger died in Ranshofen on August 10, 1884 at the age of 23.

Pölzl was soon pregnant by Hitler. Smith writes that if Hitler had been free to do as he wished, he would have married Pölzl immediately but because of the affidavit concerning his paternity, Hitler was now legally Pölzl's first cousin once removed, too close to marry. He submitted an appeal to the church for a humanitarian waiver, not mentioning Pölzl was already pregnant. Hitler was immune to what the local people thought of him since his salary came from the finance ministry and he probably intended to keep Pölzl as his "housekeeper" if permission was refused. It came, and on 7 January 1885 a wedding was held early in the morning at Hitler's rented rooms on the top floor of the Pommer Inn. A meal was served for the few guests and witnesses. Hitler then went to work for the rest of the day. Even Klara found the wedding to be a short ceremony. Throughout the marriage, she continued to call him uncle.

On 17 May 1885, five months after the wedding, the new Frau Klara Hitler gave birth to her first child, Gustav. A year later, on 25 September 1886, she gave birth to a daughter, Ida. Son Otto followed Ida in 1887, but he died shortly after birth. Later that year, diphtheria tragically struck the Hitler household, resulting in the deaths of both Gustav and Ida. Klara had been Hitler's wife for three years, and all her children were dead, but Hitler still had the children from his relationship with Matzelberger, Alois Jr. and Angela.

On April 20, 1889, she gave birth to another son, future Nazi dictator Adolf. He was a sickly child, and his mother fretted over him. Alois was 51 when he was born. Hitler had little interest in child rearing and left it all to his wife. When not at work he was either in a tavern or busy with his hobby, keeping bees. In 1892, Hitler was transferred from Braunau to Passau. He was 55, Klara 32, Alois Jr. 10, Angela 9 and Adolf was three years old. In 1894, Hitler was re-assigned to Linz. Klara had just given birth to Edmund, so it was decided she and the children would stay in Passau for the time being. Paula, Adolf's younger sister, was the last child of Alois Hitler and Klara Pölzl.

Retirement

In February 1895, Hitler purchased a house on a nine acre (36,000 m²) plot in Hafeld near Lambach, approximately southwest of Linz. The farm was called the Rauscher Gut. He moved his family to the farm and retired on 25 June 1895 at the age of 58 after 40 years in the customs service. A lifetime as a civil servant had made Hitler forget what farm life was like. He found taking care of nine acres (36,000 m²) to be more work than he had thought it would be, and he didn't want it. The land went uncultivated, and the value of the property declined. Far from being his dream retirement home, the Rauscher Gut was a money-losing nightmare.

Meanwhile, the family was still growing. On 21 January 1896 Paula was born. With no workplace to escape to, Hitler was often home with his family. He had five children ranging in age from infancy to 14, and being involved with their daily life annoyed him. Smith suggests he yelled at the children almost continually and made long visits to the local tavern where he began to drink more than he used to.

It has been said he behaved like a self-important tyrant at home. Robert G. L. Waite noted, "Even one of his closest friends admitted that Alois was 'awfully rough' with his wife [Klara] and 'hardly ever spoke a word to her at home.'" If Hitler was in a bad mood, he picked on the older children or Klara herself, in front of them. After Hitler and his oldest son Alois Jr. had a climactic and violent argument, Alois Jr. left home, and the elder Alois swore he would never give the boy a penny of inheritance beyond what the law required.

Edmund (the youngest of the boys) died of measles on 2 February 1900. If there was to be a family legacy, Adolf would have to carry it. Alois wanted his son to follow him and seek a career in the civil service. However, Adolf had become so alienated from his father that he was repulsed by whatever Alois wanted. Where his father glorified the role of the civil servant, Adolf sneered at the thought of a lifetime spent enforcing petty rules. Alois tried to browbeat his son into obedience while Adolf did his best to be the opposite of whatever his father wanted.

Death

On the morning of January 3, 1903, Hitler went to the Gasthaus Wiesinger (No.1 Michaelsbergstrasse, Leonding) as usual to drink his morning glass of wine. He was offered the newspaper and promptly collapsed. He was taken to an adjoining room and a doctor was summoned, but Alois Hitler died at the inn, probably from a pleural haemorrhage. The large leather couch on which he died can still be seen today in the inn. Adolf Hitler says in Mein Kampf that he died of a "stroke of apoplexy". He was not even 14 when his father died.

References

Additional sources

Marc Vermeeren, De jeugd van Adolf Hitler 1889–1907 en zijn familie en voorouders. Soesterberg, 2007, 420 blz. Uitgeverij Aspekt. ISBN 978-90-5911-606-1

Bullock, Alan Hitler: A Study in Tyranny. 1953 ISBN 0-06-092020-3

Fest, Joachim C. Hitler. Verlag Ullstein, 1973 ISBN 0-15-141650-8

Kershaw, Ian Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris. W W Norton, 1999 ISBN 0-393-04671-0

Maser, Werner Hitler: Legend, Myth and Reality. Penguin Books Ltd 1973 ISBN 0-06-012831-3

Smith, Bradley F. Adolf Hitler: His Family, Childhood and Youth. Hoover Instituted, 1967 ISBN 0-8179-1622-9

Waite, Robert G. L. The Psychopathic God: Adolf Hitler. Basic Books 1977 ISBN 0-465-06743-3

Payne, Robert The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler. Praeger Publishers 1973 LCCN 72-92891

Langer, Walter C. The Mind of Adolf Hitler. Basic Books Inc., New York, 1972 ISBN 0-465-04620-7 ASIN: B000CRPF1K

External links

Alois Hitler's last house in Leonding, Austria

Ancestry of Adolf Hitler - Who was Adolf's grandfather?

The Straight Dope: Was Hitler part Jewish?

Category:1837 births Category:1903 deaths Category:People from Zwettl District Category:Hitler family Category:German people of Austrian descent Category:Beekeepers

Birth date	April 6, 1812
Birth place	Moscow, Russia
Death date	January 21, 1870
Death place	Paris, France |

Aleksandr Ivanovich Herzen () ( — ) was a Russian pro-Western writer and thinker known as the "father of Russian socialism", and one of the main fathers of agrarian populism (being an ideological ancestor of the Narodniki, Socialist-Revolutionaries, Trudoviks and the agrarian American Populist Party). He is held responsible for creating a political climate leading to the emancipation of the serfs in 1861. His autobiography My Past and Thoughts, written with grace, energy, and ease, is often considered the best specimen of that genre in Russian literature.

Life

Herzen was an illegitimate child of a rich Russian landowner, Ivan Yakovlev, by a young German Protestant woman, Henriette Wilhelmina Luisa Haag from Stuttgart. Yakovlev supposedly gave his son the surname Herzen because he was a "child of his heart" (German herz).

He was first cousin to Count Sergei Lvovich Levitsky (1819-1898, Moscow, Russian: Сергей Львович Львов-Левицкий), considered the patriarch of Russian photography and one of Europe's most important early photographic pioneers, inventors and innovators. In 1860, Levitsky would imortalize Herzen in a famous photo capturing the writer's essence and being.

Herzen was born in Moscow shortly before Napoleon's invasion of Russia and brief occupation of the city. His father, after a personal interview with Napoleon, was allowed to leave Moscow after agreeing to bear a letter from the French to the Russian emperor in St. Petersburg. His family accompanied him to the Russian lines.

A year later the family returned to Moscow, remaining there after Herzen completed his studies at Moscow University, until 1834, when Herzen was arrested and tried on charges of having attended a festival during which verses by Sokolovsky that were uncomplimentary to the tsar, were sung. He was found guilty, and in 1835 banished to Vyatka, now Kirov, in north-eastern Russia. He remained there until the tsar's son, Alexander (later to become Alexander II) visited the city, accompanied by the poet Zhukovsky; Herzen was allowed to leave Vyatka for Vladimir, where he was appointed editor of the city's official gazette.

In 1840 he returned to Moscow, where he met literary critic Vissarion Belinsky, who was strongly influenced by him. He then obtained a post in the ministry of the interior at St Petersburg; but as a consequence of complaining about a death caused by a police officer, was sent to Novgorod, where he was a state councillor until 1842. In 1846 his father died, leaving him a large amount of property. In 1837 he eloped with Natalya Zakharina (Letters from France and Italy, 1847-1851), his cousin, secretly marrying her. She accompanied his emigration abroad in 1847, never returning to Russia. She bore him four children, before succumbing to tuberculosis in 1852 (Letters from France and Italy, 1847-1851). Herzen was eventually joined in France by his lifelong friend Nikolay Ogarev. By then Natalya was in the final stages of tuberculosis, and soon died. Ogarev was in poor health, having suffered a number of strokes. Herzen began an affair with Ogarev's common-law wife Natalia Tuchkova, the daughter of the general Tuchkov (the hero of the War of 1812). Tuchkova bore Herzen 3 more children. His assets were frozen because of his emigration, however Baron Rothschild with whom his family had business relationship, negotiated the release of Herzen's assets which were nominally transferred to Rothschild.

From Italy, on hearing of the revolution of 1848, he hastened to Paris, and then to Switzerland. He supported the revolutions of 1848, but was bitterly disillusioned with European socialist movements after their failure. In 1852 he left Geneva for London, where he settled for many years. He promoted socialism and individualism, arguing that the full flowering of the individual could best be realized in a socialist order. In 1864 he returned to Geneva, and after some time went to Paris, where he died on the 21st of January 1870 of tuberculosis complications. Originally buried in Paris, his remains were taken to Nice.

Writings

His literary career began in 1842 with the publication of an essay, in Russian, on Dilettantism in Science, under the pseudonym of Iskander, the Turkish form of his Christian name. His second work, also in Russian, was his Letters on the Study of Nature (1845-46). In 1847 appeared his novel Kto Vinovat? (Who is to blame?), and about the same time were published in Russian periodicals the stories which were afterwards collected and printed in London in 1854, under the title of Prervannye Razskazy (Interrupted Tales). In 1850 two works appeared, translated from the Russian manuscripts, From Another Shore and Lettres de France et d'Italie. In French also appeared his essay Du Developpement des idées revolutionnaires en Russie, and his Memoirs, which, after being printed in Russian, were translated under the title of Le Monde russe et la Révolution (3 vols., 1860-1862), and were in part translated into English as My Exile to Siberia (2 vols., 1855).

His Who is to blame? is a story about how the domestic happiness of a young tutor, who marries the unacknowledged daughter of a Russian sensualist of the old type, dull, ignorant and genial, is troubled by a Russian sensualist of the new school, intelligent, accomplished, and callous, with there being no possibility of saying who is most to blame for the tragic ending. , 1860]]

Free Russian Press

It was as a political writer that Herzen gained his reputation. Having founded in London his Free Russian Press, the fortunes of which he gave an interesting account in a book published (in Russian) in 1863, he published a large number of Russian works, all against the system of government prevailing in Russia. Some of these were essays, such as his Baptized Property (1853), an attack on serfdom; others were periodical publications, the Polyarnaya Zvyezda (or Polar Star), the Kolokol (or Bell), and the Golosa iz Rossii (or Voices from Russia). The Kolokol soon obtained an immense circulation, and exercised an extraordinary influence.

As the first independent Russian political publisher Herzen began publishing The Polar Star, a review which appeared infrequently and was later joined by The Bell in 1857, a journal issued between 1857 and 1867 at Herzen's personal expense. Both publications acquired great influence via an illegal circulation in Russian territory; it was said the Emperor himself read them. Both publications gave Herzen influence in Russia reporting from a liberal perspective about the incompetence of the Tsar and the Russian bureaucracy.

Writing in 1857 Herzen became excited by the possibility of social change under Alexander II, “A new Life is unmistakably boiling up in Russia, even the government is being carried away by it”. Herzen used his skill for popular writing to expose the injustices of the ruling elite.

Herzen fought a propaganda war through the journals that had the goal of attaining individual liberty for Russians. Herzen understood the competing claims to power, and was aware of the failings of the doctrines that guided the 1848 revolutionary failures. Herzen wrote of the inhumanity of the ruling monarchies of Europe but also the excesses perpetrated by revolutionary governments. Herzen constantly fought for social change and felt his journals would contribute to the winds of change,

“The storm is approaching, it is impossible to be mistaken about that. Revolutionaries and Reactionaries are at one about that. All men's heads are going round; a weighty question, a question of life and death, lies heavy on men's chests”

Herzen refused to trust any government, and he believed in the right to make your own choices, with minimal state intervention.

For three years the Russian Free Press went on printing without selling a single copy, and scarcely being able to get a single copy introduced into Russia; so when at last a bookseller bought ten shillings worth of Baptized Property, the half-sovereign was set aside by the surprised editors in a special place of honor. But the death of the emperor Nicholas in 1855 led to a complete change. Herzen's writings, and the magazines he edited, were smuggled wholesale into Russia, and their words resounded throughout the country, as well as all over Europe. Their influence grew.

1855 gave Herzen reason to be optimistic; Alexander II had ascended the throne and reforms seemed possible. The Bell broke the story that the government was considering serf emancipation in July 1857, adding that the government lacked the ability to resolve the issue. Herzen urged the Tsarist regime 'Onward, onward' towards reform in The Polar Star in 1856, yet by 1858 full serf emancipation had not been achieved. Herzen grew impatient with reform and by May 1858 The Bell restarted its campaign to comprehensively emancipate the serfs. Once Serf emancipation was achieved in 1861 The Bell's campaign changed to 'Liberty and Land', a program that tried to achieve further social change in support of serf rights. Alexander II granted serfs their freedom, the law-courts were remodelled, trial by jury was established, and liberty was to a great extent conceded to the press. When the Polish insurrection of 1863 broke out however, and Herzen pleaded the insurgents' cause, his reputation in Russia declined.

British Exile 1852 - 1864

In 1852 Herzen arrived in Britain where he would reside until 1864. Herzen was disillusioned with the 1848 revolutions but not disillusioned with revolutionary thought. Herzen had always admired the French Revolution and broadly adopted its values. In his early writings he viewed the French Revolution as the end of history, the final stage in social development of a society based on humanism and harmony. Through his early life Herzen saw himself as a revolutionary radical called to fight the political oppression of Nicholas I of Russia. Essentially Herzen fought against Christian hypocrisy and in favour of individual self-expression.

Herzen spent time in London organising with the International Workingmen's Association, becoming well acquainted with revolutionary circles including the likes of Bakunin and Marx. It was during his time in London that Herzen began to make a name for himself for "scandal-mongering" when he told Bakunin, freshly arrived having escaped imprisonment in Siberia, that Marx had accused him of being a Russian agent; in reality the two were on very good terms.

It was revolutionary failures coupled with the tragedies of his wife, children's and mother's deaths that drove Herzen to Britain, and he fell into emotional despair for several years. From London he found his despair had revived new energy for political and literary work to help the Russian peasantry he idolised. Herzen became critical of those 1848 revolutionaries who were “so revolted by the Reaction after 1848, so exasperated by everything European, that they hastened on to Kansas or California”. Herzen found a new desire to influence and win the appreciation of his countrymen as he established the Russian Printing Press.

In London he hired Malwida von Meysenbug to give an education to his daughters. In 1862, Malwida von Meysenbug went to Italy with Olga, his daughter. Meysenbug would later become an acquaintance of Friedrich Nietzsche, while Olga married Gabriel Monod in 1873.

Views of Russian Radicals and Liberals on Herzen

Herzen drew criticism from both liberals who were against violence and from radicals who thought Herzen was too soft. Liberals led by Chicherin and Kavelin believed individual freedom would be achieved through the rationalisation of social relations. Their etatist variety of liberalism was opposed by Herzen as it supposed that Russian society would evolve to an ideal state based on a Hegelian view of reason. They believed the revolutionaries would merely postpone the establishment of the ideal state, while Herzen thought that, on the contrary, they were blind to historical reality. Herzen would always reject grand narratives such as a predestined position for a society to arrive at, and his writings in exile promoted small-scale communal living with the protection of individual liberty by a non-interventionist government.

Herzen aggravated Russian radicals by appearing too moderate. Radicals such as Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov wanted more commitment towards violent revolution from Herzen, and to withdraw from any hope in the reformist Tsar. Radicals asked Herzen to use The Bell as a mouthpiece for violent radical revolution, however Herzen rejected these requests. He argued that the Russian Radicals were not united and strong enough to seek successful political change, stating “You want happiness, I suppose? I dare say you do! Happiness has to be conquered. If you are strong, take it. If you are weak, hold your tongue”. Herzen feared the new revolutionary government would merely replace the dictatorship with another dictatorship.

The radicals describe Herzen as a liberal for not wanting immediate change, but Herzen rejects their pleas arguing for change at a pace that will ensure success. Herzen briefly joined with other Russian liberals such as Kavelin to promote the peasant 'awakening' in Russia. Herzen continued to use The Bell as an outlet to promote unity with all sections of the Russian society behind a demand for a national parliament. However his hope as acting as a uniting force were ended by the Polish revolt of 1863, when the liberal support for Tsarist revenge against the Poles ended Herzen's link with them. This breach resulted a declining readership for The Bell, which ceased publication in 1867. By his death in 1870 Herzen was almost forgotten.

Influence in the 19th and 20th century

Herzen opposed the aristocracy that ruled 19th Century Russia. A rise in populism by 1880 led to a favorable re-evaluation of his writings. Herzen sided with the agrarian collectivist model of social structure.

Alongside populism Herzen will be remembered for his rejection of corrupt government of any political persuasion, and for his support for individual rights. A Hegelian in his youth, this translated into no specific theory or single doctrine dominating his thought. Herzen came to believe the complex questions of society could not be answered and Russians must live for the moment and not a cause, essentially life is an end in itself. Herzen found greater understanding by not committing himself to an extreme but rather lived impartially enabling him to equally criticise competing ideologies. Herzen believed that grand doctrines ultimately result in enslavement, sacrifice and tyranny.

Herzen was a hero of the 20th century philosopher Isaiah Berlin. The words of Herzen that Berlin repeated most insistently were those condemning the sacrifice of human beings on the altar of abstractions, the subordination of the realities of individual happiness or unhappiness in the present to glorious dreams of the future. Berlin, like Herzen, believed that ‘the end of life is life itself’, and that each life and each age should be regarded as its own end and not as a means to some future goal.

Tolstoy declared that he had never met another man "with so rare a combination of scintillating brilliance and depth". Berlin called his autobiography "one of the great monuments to Russian literary and psychological genius.….a literary masterpiece to be placed by the side of the novels of his contemporaries and countrymen, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Dostoevsky ..."

Russian Thinkers (The Hogarth Press, 1978) a collection of Berlin's essays in which Herzen features, was the inspiration for Tom Stoppard's The Coast of Utopia, a trilogy of plays performed at London's National Theatre in 2002 and at New York's Lincoln Center in 2006-2007. Set against the background of the early development of Russian socialist thought, the Revolutions of 1848 and later exile, the plays examine the lives and intellectual development of, among other Russians, the anarchist Mikhail Bakunin, the literary critic Vissarion Belinsky, the novelist Ivan Turgenev and Alexander Herzen, whose character dominates the plays.

Works

Legend (Легенда, 1836)

Elena (Елена, 1838)

Notes of a Young Man (1840)

Diletantism in Science (1843)

Who is to Blame? (Кто виноват?, 1846)

Mimoezdom (Мимоездом, 1846)

Dr. Krupa (Доктор Крупов, 1847)

Thieving Magpie (Сорока-воровка, 1848)

The Russian People and Socialism (Русский народ и социализм, 1848)

From the Other Shore (1848 - 1850)

Letters from France and Italy (1852)

My Past and Thoughts: The Memoirs of Alexander Herzen (1868)

Notes

See also

Illegitimacy in fiction

Illegitimacy

List of coupled cousins

Malwida von Meysenbug

Pluralism

External links

Herzen is the lead character in Tom Stoppard's 2002 trilogy of plays The Coast of Utopia.

Tom Stoppard's article on Herzen in the London Observer

ALEXANDER II AND HIS TIMES: A Narrative History of Russia in the Age of Alexander II, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky (with several chapters on Herzen)

Herzen : The revolutionist by Keith Gessen (The New Yorker)

Alexander Herzen and Russian (spiritual) Landscape (in Japanese)

Category:1812 births Category:1870 deaths Category:People from Moscow Category:19th-century Russian people Category:Russian people of German descent Category:Russian political writers Category:Russian memoirists Category:Russian revolutionaries Category:Moscow State University alumni

Heinz Linge (23 March 1913 – 9 March 1980) was an SS officer who served as a valet for German dictator Adolf Hitler.

Early life

Linge was born in Bremen, Germany. Before joining the SS in 1933 he was employed as a bricklayer and was selected by Sepp Dietrich to be one of 117 original bodyguards for Adolf Hitler. By the end of the war he had obtained the rank of Obersturmbannführer (Lieutenant Colonel).

Valet to Hitler

He worked as a valet in the Reich Chancellery in Berlin, at Hitler's residence on the Obersalzberg near Berchtesgaden and at Wolfsschanze in Rastenburg. He stated that his daily routine was to wake Hitler each day at 11.00am and then keep him stocked with writing materials and spectacles for his morning reading session in bed. Hitler would then dress himself to a stopwatch with Linge acting as a 'referee'. He would take a light breakfast of tea, biscuits and an apple and a vegetarian lunch at 2.30pm. Dinner with only a few guests present was at 8.00 pm.

Linge was one of many soldiers, servants, secretaries, and officers who moved into the Reich Chancellery and Führerbunker in Berlin in 1945. There he continued as Hitler's favourite valet and protocol officer and was one of those who closely witnessed the last days of Hitler's life during the Battle of Berlin. He was also Hitler's personal ordinance officer. Linge delivered messages to Hitler and escorted people in to meet with Hitler.

Linge stated in his memoirs that three days before his death at 3.15pm on 30 April Hitler told him of his planned suicide with Eva Braun and asked him to ensure their bodies were wrapped in blankets, then taken up to the garden and cremated. He said that following his marriage to Eva, Hitler spent the last night of his life lying awake and fully clothed on his bed. Thus, keeping Hitler’s corpse from being captured by the Soviet Red Army, as the Führer had commanded. Linge was one of the last to leave the Führerbunker.

Later life

Linge was arrested by the Red Army. He was interrogated by the Soviet NKVD (the forerunner of the KGB) about the circumstances of Hitler's death. He was released from Soviet captivity in 1955. He died in Bremen in West Germany in 1980. His memoir, With Hitler to the End, was published by Frontline Books (London) in July 2009 with an introduction by Roger Moorhouse, author of Killing Hitler.

Popular culture

Linge is portrayed by actor Thomas Limpinsel in Oliver Hirschbiegel's 2004 German film Downfall. In Hans-Jürgen Syberberg's Hitler – ein Film aus Deutschland (1978) , he is played by Hellmut Lange.

References

Category:1913 births Category:1980 deaths Category:People from Bremen Category:German people of World War II Category:SS officers

Name	Adolf Hitler
Nationality	Austrian citizen until 7 April 1925German citizen after 1932
Caption	Hitler in 1937
Birth date	20 April 1889
Birth place	Braunau am Inn, Austria–Hungary
Death date	April 30, 1945
Death place	Berlin, Germany
Death cause	Suicide
Party	National Socialist German Workers' Party (1921–1945)
Otherparty	German Workers' Party (1920–1921)
Religion	See Adolf Hitler's religious views
Spouse	Eva Braun(29–30 April 1945)
Occupation	Politician, soldier, artist, writer
Order	Führer of Germany
Term start	2 August 1934
Term end	30 April 1945
Chancellor	Himself
Predecessor	Paul von Hindenburg(as President)
Successor	Karl Dönitz(as President)
Order2	Chancellor of Germany
Term start2	30 January 1933
Term end2	30 April 1945
President2	Paul von HindenburgHimself (Führer)
Deputy2	Franz von PapenVacant
Predecessor2	Kurt von Schleicher
Successor2	Joseph Goebbels
Signature	Hitler Signature2.svg
Allegiance
Branch	Reichsheer
Unit	16th Bavarian Reserve Regiment
Serviceyears	1914–1918
Rank	Gefreiter
Battles	World War I
Awards	Iron Cross First and Second ClassWound Badge

Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (, abbreviated NSDAP), commonly known as the Nazi Party. He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and served as head of state as Führer und Reichskanzler from 1934 to 1945.

A decorated veteran of World War I, Hitler joined the precursor of the Nazi Party (DAP) in 1919, and became leader of NSDAP in 1921. He attempted a failed coup d'etat known as the Beer Hall Putsch, which occurred at the Bürgerbräukeller beer hall in Munich on November 8–9, 1923. Hitler was imprisoned for one year due to the failed coup, and wrote his memoir, "My Struggle" (in German Mein Kampf), while imprisoned. After his release on December 20, 1924, he gained support by promoting Pan-Germanism, anti-semitism, anti-capitalism, and anti-communism with charismatic oratory and propaganda. He was appointed chancellor on January 30, 1933, and transformed the Weimar Republic into the Third Reich, a single-party dictatorship based on the totalitarian and autocratic ideology of Nazism.

Hitler ultimately wanted to establish a New Order of absolute Nazi German hegemony in continental Europe. To achieve this, he pursued a foreign policy with the declared goal of seizing Lebensraum ("living space") for the Aryan people; directing the resources of the state towards this goal. This included the rearmament of Germany, which culminated in 1939 when the Wehrmacht invaded Poland. In response, the United Kingdom and France declared war against Germany, leading to the outbreak of World War II in Europe.

Within three years, German forces and their European allies had occupied most of Europe, and most of Northern Africa, and the Japanese forces had occupied parts of East and Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean. However, with the reversal of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, the Allies gained the upper hand from 1942 onwards. By 1944, Allied armies had invaded German-held Europe from all sides. Nazi forces engaged in numerous violent acts during the war, including the systematic murder of as many as 17 million civilians, including an estimated six million Jews targeted in the Holocaust and between 500,000 and 1,500,000 Roma, added to the Poles, Soviet civilians, Soviet prisoners of war, people with disabilities, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and other political and religious opponents.

In the final days of the war, during the Battle of Berlin in 1945, Hitler married his long-time mistress Eva Braun and, to avoid capture by Soviet forces, the two committed suicide less than two days later on 30 April 1945.

Adolf is sometimes refered to as an Antichrist due to the effects he and the Nazi Party had on society and for causing World War II in general. While Hitler is most remembered for his central role in World War II and the Holocaust, his government left behind other legacies as well, including the Volkswagen, the Autobahn, jet aircraft and rocket technology.

Early years

Ancestry

Hitler's father, Alois Hitler, was an illegitimate child of Maria Anna Schicklgruber, so his paternity was not listed on his birth certificate; he bore his mother's surname. In 1842, Johann Georg Hiedler married Maria and in 1876 Alois testified before a notary and three witnesses that Johann was his father. Despite this testimony, Alois' paternity has been the subject of controversy. After receiving a "blackmail letter" from Hitler's nephew William Patrick Hitler threatening to reveal embarrassing information about Hitler's family tree, Nazi Party lawyer Hans Frank investigated, and, in his memoirs, claimed to have uncovered letters revealing that Alois' mother was employed as a housekeeper for a Jewish family in Graz and that the family's 19-year-old son, Leopold Frankenberger, fathered Alois. Frank's claims were widely believed in the 1950s, but by the 1990s, were generally doubted by historians. Ian Kershaw dismissed the Frankenberger story as a "smear" by Hitler's enemies, noting that all Jews had been expelled from Graz in the 15th century and were not allowed to return until well after Alois was born. in Passau, Germany, where Hitler would acquire Lower Bavarian rather than Austrian as his lifelong native dialect. In 1894, the family relocated to Leonding near Linz, then in June 1895, Alois retired to a small landholding at Hafeld near Lambach, where he tried his hand at farming and beekeeping. During this time, the young Hitler attended school in nearby Fischlham. As a child, he played "Cowboys and Indians" and, by his own account, became fixated on war after finding a picture book about the Franco-Prussian War among his father's belongings.

His father's efforts at Hafeld ended in failure, and the family relocated to Lambach in 1897. Hitler attended a Catholic school located in an 11th-century Benedictine cloister, where the walls were engraved in a number of places with crests containing the symbol of the swastika. It was in Lambach that the eight-year-old Hitler sang in the church choir, took singing lessons, and even entertained the fantasy of one day becoming a priest. In 1898, the family returned permanently to Leonding.

His younger brother Edmund died of measles on 2 February 1900, causing permanent changes in Hitler. He went from a confident, outgoing boy who excelled in school, to a morose, detached, sullen boy who constantly battled his father and his teachers.

Hitler was attached to his mother, though he had a troubled relationship with his father, who frequently beat him, especially in the years after Alois' retirement and disappointing farming efforts. Alois wanted his son to follow in his footsteps as an Austrian customs official, and this became a huge source of conflict between them. Hitler was expelled, never to return to school again.

At age 15, Hitler took part in his First Holy Communion on Whitsunday, 22 May 1904, at the Linz Cathedral. His sponsor was Emanuel Lugert, a friend of his late father.

Early adulthood in Vienna and Munich

From 1905 on, Hitler lived a bohemian life in Vienna on an orphan's pension and support from his mother. He was rejected twice by the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (1907–1908), citing "unfitness for painting", and was told his abilities lay instead in the field of architecture. Following the school rector's recommendation, he too became convinced this was his path to pursue, yet he lacked the proper academic preparation for architecture school:

In a few days I myself knew that I should some day become an architect. To be sure, it was an incredibly hard road; for the studies I had neglected out of spite at the Realschule were sorely needed. One could not attend the Academy's architectural school without having attended the building school at the Technic, and the latter required a high-school degree. I had none of all this. The fulfillment of my artistic dream seemed physically impossible.

On 21 December 1907, Hitler's mother died of breast cancer at age 47. Ordered by a court in Linz, Hitler gave his share of the orphans' benefits to his sister Paula. When he was 21, he inherited money from an aunt. He struggled as a painter in Vienna, copying scenes from postcards and selling his paintings to merchants and tourists. After being rejected a second time by the Academy of Arts, Hitler ran out of money. In 1909, he lived in a shelter for the homeless. By 1910, he had settled into a house for poor working men on Meldemannstraße. Another resident of the house, Reinhold Hanisch, sold Hitler's paintings until the two men had a bitter falling-out.

Hitler said he first became an anti-Semite in Vienna,

Loosely translated it reads: "For peace, freedom // and democracy // never again fascism // millions of dead remind [us]"

Some people have referred to Hitler's legacy in neutral or favourable terms. Former Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat spoke of his 'admiration' of Hitler in 1953, when he was a young man, though it is possible he was speaking in the context of a rebellion against the British Empire. Louis Farrakhan has referred to him as a "very great man". Bal Thackeray, leader of the right-wing Hindu Shiv Sena party in the Indian state of the Maharashtra, declared in 1995 that he was an admirer of Hitler. Friedrich Meinecke, the German historian, said of Hitler's life that "it is one of the great examples of the singular and incalculable power of personality in historical life".

Religious views

Hitler was raised by Roman Catholic parents, but after he left home, he never attended Mass or received the sacraments. Hitler favoured aspects of Protestantism if they were more suitable to his own objectives. At the same time, he adopted some elements of the Catholic Church's hierarchical organization, liturgy and phraseology in his politics. After he had moved to Germany, where the Catholic and the Protestant church are largely financed through a church tax collected by the state, Hitler never "actually left his church or refused to pay church taxes. In a nominal sense therefore," the historian Richard Steigmann-Gall (whose views on Christianity and Nazism are admittedly outside the consensus) states, Hitler "can be classified as Catholic." Yet, as Steigmann-Gall has also pointed out in the debate about religion in Nazi Germany: "Nominal church membership is a very unreliable gauge of actual piety in this context."

In public, Hitler often praised Christian heritage, German Christian culture, and professed a belief in an Aryan Jesus Christ, a Jesus who fought against the Jews. In his speeches and publications Hitler spoke of his interpretation of Christianity as a central motivation for his antisemitism, stating that "As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice." His private statements, as reported by his intimates, show Hitler as critical of traditional Christianity, considering it a religion fit only for slaves; he admired the power of Rome but had severe hostility towards its teaching. Here Hitler's attack on Catholicism "resonated Streicher's contention that the Catholic establishment was allying itself with the Jews." In light of these private statements, for John S. Conway and many other historians it is beyond doubt that Hitler held a "fundamental antagonism" towards the Christian churches. The various accounts of Hitler's private statements vary strongly in their reliability; most importantly, Hermann Rauschning's Hitler speaks is considered by most historians to be an invention.

In the political relations with the churches in Germany however, Hitler readily adopted a strategy "that suited his immediate political purposes". The leader of the Hitler Youth stated "the destruction of Christianity was explicitly recognized as a purpose of the National Socialist movement" from the start, but "considerations of expedience made it impossible" publicly to express this extreme position. a belief system purged of what he objected to in orthodox Christianity, and featuring added racist elements. By 1940 however, it was public knowledge that Hitler had abandoned advocating for Germans even the syncretist idea of a positive Christianity. Hitler maintained that the "terrorism in religion is, to put it briefly, of a Jewish dogma, which Christianity has universalized and whose effect is to sow trouble and confusion in men's minds."

Hitler once stated, "We do not want any other god than Germany itself. It is essential to have fanatical faith and hope and love in and for Germany."

Attitude to occultism

Some writers believe that, in contrast to some Nazi ideologues, Hitler did not adhere to esoteric ideas, occultism, or Ariosophy. Nevertheless, other writers believe the young Hitler was strongly influenced, particularly in his racial views, by an abundance of occult works on the mystical superiority of the Germans, such as the occult and anti-semitic magazine Ostara, and give credence to the claim of its publisher Lanz von Liebenfels that Hitler visited Liebenfels in 1909 and praised his work. The historians are still divided on the question of the reliability of Lanz' claim of a contact with Hitler. Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke considers his account reliable, Brigitte Hamann leaves the question open and Ian Kershaw, although questioning to what degree he was influence by it, notes that, "Most likely, Hitler did read Ostara, along with other racist pulp which was prominent on Vienna newspaper stands.

Health

Hitler's health has long been the subject of debate. He has variously been said to have had irritable bowel syndrome, skin lesions, irregular heartbeat, Parkinson's disease, He had problems with his teeth and his personal dentist Hugo Blaschke stated that he fitted a large dental bridge to his upper jaw in 1933 and that on 10 November 1944 he carried out surgery to cut off part of the left rear section of the bridge that was causing an infection of his gums. He was also suffering from a sinus infection.

After the early 1930s, Hitler generally followed a vegetarian diet, although he ate meat on occasion. There are reports of him disgusting his guests by giving them graphic accounts of the slaughter of animals in an effort to make them shun meat. A fear of cancer (from which his mother died) is the most widely cited reason, though it is also asserted that Hitler, an antivivisectionist, had a profound concern for animals. Martin Bormann had a greenhouse constructed for him near the Berghof (near Berchtesgaden) to ensure a steady supply of fresh fruit and vegetables for Hitler throughout the war.

Hitler was a non-smoker and promoted aggressive anti-smoking campaigns throughout Germany. (See Anti-tobacco movement in Nazi Germany.) Hitler "despised" alcohol.

Syphilis

Hitler's tremors and irregular heartbeat during the last years of his life could have been symptoms of tertiary (late stage) syphilis, which would mean he had a syphilis infection for many years. Along with another doctor, Theodor Morell diagnosed the symptoms as such by early 1945 in a joint report to SS head Heinrich Himmler. Historians have speculated he may have caught the affliction from a German prostitute at a time when the disease was not yet treatable by modern antibiotics, which would also explain his avoidance of normal sexual relations with women. However, syphilis had become curable in 1910 with Dr. Paul Ehrlich's introduction of the drug Salvarsan.

Since the 1870s, however, it was a common rhetorical practice on the völkisch right to associate Jews with diseases such as syphilis. Historian Robert Waite claims Hitler tested negative on a Wassermann test as late as 1939, which does not prove that he did not have the disease, because the Wassermann test was prone to false-negative results. Regardless of whether he actually had syphilis or not, Hitler lived in constant fear of the disease, and took treatment for it no matter what his doctors told him. journalist and Académie française member Joseph Kessel wrote that in the winter of 1942, Kersten heard of Hitler's medical condition. Consulted by his patient, Himmler, as to whether he could "assist a man who suffers from severe headaches, dizziness and insomnia," Kersten was shown a top-secret 26-page report. It detailed how Hitler had contracted syphilis in his youth and was treated for it at a hospital in Pasewalk, Germany. However, in 1937, symptoms re-appeared, showing that the disease was still active, and by the start of 1942, signs were evident that progressive syphilitic paralysis (Tabes dorsalis) was occurring. Himmler advised Kersten that Morell (who in the 1930s claimed to be a specialist venereologist) was in charge of Hitler's treatment, and that it was a state secret. The book also relates how Kersten learned from Himmler's secretary, Rudolf Brandt, that at that time, probably the only other people privy to the report's information were Nazi Party chairman Martin Bormann and Hermann Göring, the head of the Luftwaffe.

Monorchism

It has been alleged that Hitler had monorchism, the medical condition of having only one testicle. Hitler's personal doctor, Johan Jambor, supposedly described the dictator's condition to a priest who later wrote down what he had been told in a document which was uncovered in 2008, 23 years after the doctor's death.

Soviet doctor Lev Bezymensky, allegedly involved in the Soviet autopsy, stated in a 1967 book that Hitler's left testicle was missing. Bezymensky later admitted that the claim was falsified. Hitler was routinely examined by many doctors throughout his childhood, military service and later political career, and no clinical mention of any such condition has ever been discovered. Records do show he was wounded in 1916 during the Battle of the Somme, and some sources do describe his injury as a wound to the groin.

Parkinson's disease

It has also been speculated Hitler had Parkinson's disease. Newsreels of Hitler show he had tremors in his hand and a shuffling walk (also a symptom of tertiary syphilis, see above) which began before the war and continued to worsen until the end of his life. Morell treated Hitler with a drug agent that was commonly used in 1945, although Morell is viewed as an unreliable doctor by most historians and any diagnoses he may have made are subject to doubt.

A more reliable doctor, Ernst-Günther Schenck, who worked at an emergency casualty station in the Reich Chancellery during April 1945, also claimed Hitler might have Parkinson's disease. However, Schenck only saw Hitler briefly on two occasions and, by his own admission, was extremely exhausted and dazed during these meetings (at the time, he had been in surgery for numerous days without much sleep). Also, some of Schenck's opinions were based on hearsay from Dr. Haase.

Other complaints

From the 1930s he suffered from stomach pains, in 1936 a non-cancerous polyp was removed from his throat and he developed eczema on his legs. He suffered ruptured eardrums as a result of the July 20 plot bomb blast in 1944 and 200 wood splinters had to be removed from his legs, but he was otherwise uninjured. Some doctors dismiss Hitler's ailments as hypochondria, pointing out the apparently drastic decline of Hitler's health as Germany began losing World War II.

Addiction to amphetamine

Hitler began using amphetamine occasionally after 1937 and became addicted to amphetamine after the late summer of 1942. Albert Speer stated he thought this was the most likely cause of the later rigidity of Hitler’s decision making (never allowing military retreats).

Historians' views

In a 1980 article, the German historian Hans-Ulrich Wehler dismissed theories that sought to explain Nazi Germany as due to some defect, medical or otherwise in Hitler. In his opinion, besides the problem that such theories about Hitler's medical condition were extremely difficult to prove, they had the effect of personalizing the phenomena of Nazi Germany by attributing everything that happened in the Third Reich to one flawed individual. The British historian Sir Ian Kershaw agreed that it was better to take a broader view of German history by seeking to examine what social forces led to the Third Reich and its policies, as opposed to the "personalized" explanations for the Holocaust and World War II. All three women attempted suicide (two succeeded), a fact that has led to speculation that Hitler may have had sexual fetishes, such as urolagnia (aroused by urine or urination), as was claimed by Otto Strasser, a political opponent of Hitler. Reiter, the only one to survive the Nazi regime, denied this. Some theorists have claimed that Hitler had a relationship with British fascist Unity Mitford. Lothar Machtan argues in The Hidden Hitler that Hitler was homosexual.

Family

Paula Hitler, the last living member of Adolf Hitler's immediate family, died in 1960.

The most prominent and longest-living direct descendant of Adolf Hitler's father, Alois, was Adolf's nephew William Patrick Hitler. With his wife Phyllis, he eventually moved to Long Island, New York, changed his last name, and had four sons. None of William Hitler's children have had any children of their own.

Over the years, various investigative reporters have attempted to track down other distant relatives of the Führer. Many are now alleged to be living inconspicuous lives and have long since changed their last name.

Klara Hitler, mother

Alois Hitler, father

Alois Hitler, Jr., half-brother

Angela Hitler Raubal, half-sister

Bridget Dowling, sister-in-law

Eva Braun, mistress and then wife

Geli Raubal, niece

Gretl Braun, sister-in-law through Hitler's marriage to Eva Braun

Heinz Hitler, nephew

Hermann Fegelein, brother-in-law through Hitler's marriage to Eva Braun

Ilse Braun, sister-in-law through Hitler's marriage to Eva Braun

Johann Georg Hiedler, presumed grandfather

Johann Nepomuk Hiedler, maternal great-grandfather, presumed great uncle and possibly Hitler's true paternal grandfather

Leo Raubal Jr, nephew

Maria Schicklgruber, grandmother

Paula Hitler, sister

William Patrick Hitler, nephew

Hitler in media

Oratory and rallies

Hitler was a gifted orator who captivated many with his beating of the lectern and growling, emotional speech. He honed his skills by giving speeches to soldiers during 1919 and 1920. He became adept at telling people what they wanted to hear (the stab-in-the-back, the Jewish-Marxist plot to conquer the world, and the betrayal of Germany in the Versailles treaty) and identifying a scapegoat for their plight. Over time, Hitler perfected his delivery by rehearsing in front of mirrors and carefully choreographing his display of emotions. He was allegedly coached by Erik-Jan Hanussen, a self-styled clairvoyant who focused on hand and arm gestures and who, ironically, had Jewish heritage. Munitions minister and architect Albert Speer, who may have known Hitler as well as anyone, said that Hitler was above all else an actor.

(June 1942)]] Massive Nazi rallies staged by Speer were designed to spark a process of self-persuasion for the participants. By participating in the rallies, by marching, by shouting heil, and by making the stiff armed salute, the participants strengthened their commitment to the Nazi movement. This process can be appreciated by watching Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will, which presents the 1934 Nuremberg Rally. The camera shoots Hitler from on high and from below, but only twice head-on. These camera angles give Hitler a Christ-like aura. Some of the people in the film are paid actors, but most of the participants are not. Whether the film itself recruited new Nazis out of theatre audiences is unknown. The process of self-persuasion may have affected Hitler. He gave the same speech (though it got smoother and smoother with repetition) hundreds of times first to soldiers and then to audiences in beer halls.

Recorded in private conversation

Hitler visited Finnish Field Marshal Mannerheim on 4 June 1942. During the visit an engineer of the Finnish broadcasting company YLE, Thor Damen, recorded Hitler and Mannerheim in conversation, something which had to be done secretly since Hitler never allowed recordings of him off-guard. Today the recording is the only known recording of Hitler not speaking in an official tone. The recording captures 11½ minutes of the two leaders in private conversation. Hitler speaks in a slightly excited, but still intellectually detached manner during this talk (the speech has been compared to that of the working class). The majority of the recording is a monologue by Hitler. In the recording, Hitler admits to underestimating the Soviet Union's ability to conduct war.

Patria picture disc

Adolf Hitler even released a 7-inch picture disc with one of his speeches. Known as the Patria (Fatherland) picture disc, the obverse bears an image of Hitler giving a speech and has a recording of both a speech by Hitler and also Party Member Hans Hinkel. The reverse bears a hand holding a swastika flag and the Carl Woitschach recording (1933 – Telefunken A 1431) "In Dem Kampf um die Heimat – Faschistenmarsch".

Documentaries during the Third Reich

Hitler appeared in and was involved to varying degrees with a series of films by the pioneering filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl via Universum Film AG (UFA):

Der Sieg des Glaubens (Victory of Faith, 1933).

Triumph des Willens (Triumph of the Will, 1934), co-produced by Hitler.

(Day of Freedom: Our Armed Forces, 1935).

Olympia (1938).

Hitler was the central figure of the first three films; they focused on the party rallies of the respective years and are considered propaganda films. Hitler also featured prominently in the Olympia film. Whether the latter is a propaganda film or a true documentary is still a subject of controversy, but it nonetheless perpetuated and spread the propagandistic message of the 1936 Olympic Games depicting Nazi Germany as a prosperous and peaceful country. As a prominent politician, Hitler was featured in many newsreels.

Television

Hitler's attendance at various public functions, including the 1936 Olympic Games and Nuremberg Rallies, appeared on television broadcasts made between 1935 and 1939. These events, along with other programming highlighting activity by public officials, were often repeated in public viewing rooms. Samples from a number of surviving television films from Nazi Germany were included in the 1999 documentary Das Fernsehen unter dem Hakenkreuz (Television Under the Swastika).

Documentaries post Third Reich

The World at War (1974): a Thames Television series which contains much information about Hitler and Nazi Germany, including an interview with his secretary, Traudl Junge.

Adolf Hitler's Last Days: from the BBC series "Secrets of World War II" tells the story about Hitler's last days during World War II.

The Nazis: A Warning From History (1997): six-part BBC TV series on how the cultured and educated Germans accepted Hitler and the Nazis up to its downfall. Historical consultant is Ian Kershaw.

Cold War (1998): a CNN series about the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. The series begins with World War II footage, including Hitler, and how the Cold War began in earnest after Germany surrendered.

Im toten Winkel – Hitlers Sekretärin (Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary) (2002): an exclusive 90 minute interview with Traudl Junge, Hitler's secretary. Made by Austrian Jewish director André Heller shortly before Junge's death from lung cancer, Junge recalls the last days in the Berlin bunker. Clips of the interview were used in Downfall (film).

Undergångens arkitektur (The Architecture of Doom) (1989): documentary about the National Socialist aesthetic as envisioned by Hitler.

Das Fernsehen unter dem Hakenkreuz (Television Under the Swastika) (1999): documentary by Michael Kloft about the domestic use of television in Nazi Germany for propaganda purposes from 1935 to 1944.

Ruins of the Reich (2007): four-part series of the Rise and Fall of Hitler's Reich and its effects, created by Third Reich historian R.J. Adams

Films and series

Fritz Diez depicted Hitler in Ernst Thälmann - Führer seiner Klasse (East Germany, 1955), Die gefrorene Blitze (East Germany, 1967), Já, spravedlnost (Czechoslovakia, 1967), Osvobozhdenie (1970-1, Soviet Union), 17 Moments of Spring (1973, TV production, Soviet Union), Vibor Tzeli (1974, Soviet Union) and Soldaty Svobodee (1977, Soviet Union).

The Death of Adolf Hitler, a British (7 January 1973) made-for-television production, starring Frank Finlay. The movie depicts the last days of Hitler.

(1973): movie depicting the days leading up to Adolf Hitler's death, starring Sir Alec Guinness.

Hans-Jürgen Syberberg's Hitler – Ein Film aus Deutschland () (1977): a seven-hour work in four parts. The director uses documentary clips, photographic backgrounds, puppets, theatrical stages, and other elements.

The Bunker (1981): a U.S. made-for-television movie describing the last days in the Führerbunker covering 17 January 1945 to 2 May 1945. The film stars Sir Anthony Hopkins.

Europa, Europa (1990): based on the true story of a German Jew who joined the Hitler Youth in order to avoid capture. Hitler is portrayed by Ryszard Pietruski.

Fatherland (1994): a hypothetical view of Germany in 1964, had Hitler won World War II, adapted from the novel by former journalist Robert Harris.

The Empty Mirror (1996): a psychodrama which speculates on the events following Hitler (portrayed by Norman Rodway) surviving the fall of Nazi Germany.

Moloch (1999): Hitler portrayed by Leonid Mozgovoy in a fictional drama set at his Berghof Retreat in the Bavarian Alps.

Max (2002): fictional drama depicting a friendship between Jewish art dealer Max Rothman (John Cusack) and a young Adolf Hitler (Noah Taylor) as a failed painter in Vienna.

(2003): two-part TV series about the early years of Adolf Hitler and his rise to power (up to 1933), starring Robert Carlyle.

Der Untergang (Downfall) (2004): German movie about the last days of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich, starring Bruno Ganz. This film is partly based on the autobiography of Traudl Junge, a favorite secretary of Hitler's. In 2002, Junge said she felt great guilt for "... liking the greatest criminal ever to have lived."

Valkyrie (2008): Hitler, played by David Bamber, is portrayed as a target of the famous assassination plot by Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg.

Plays

Dr Freud Will See You Now Mr Hitler (2008): radio drama by Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran presenting an imagined scenario in which Sigmund Freud treats the young Hitler. Toby Jones played Hitler.

See also

Adolf Hitler's directives

Führermuseum

Glossary of Nazi Germany

Glossary of German military terms

List of books by or about Adolf Hitler

List of former Nazi Party members

List of Nazi Party leaders and officials

Poison Kitchen

Footnotes

References

Fischer, Thomas. Soldiers Of the Leibstandarte. J.J. Fedorowicz Publishing, Inc. 2008. ISBN 978-0-921991-91-5.

Joachimsthaler, Anton (1999), The Last Days of Hitler – The Legends – The Evidence – The Truth, Brockhampton Press, ISBN 1-86019-902-X

Linge, Heinz (2008), With Hitler to the End. Frontline Books-Skyhorse Publishing, Inc. ISBN 1-60239-804-6.

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Further reading

Medical books

External links

;Images and videos (The Character portrayed in film and television)

Color Footage of Hitler during WWII

Adolf Hitler: Up Close - slideshow by Life magazine

Download "The Young Hitler I Knew" on archive.org

Did Hitler have only one testicle? from The Straight Dope

OSS document alleging sexual deviancy

History Channel's Episode – High Hitler

;Speeches and publications

A speech from 1932 (text and audiofile), German Museum of History Berlin

Hitler's book Mein Kampf (full English translation)

Adolf Hitler's Private Will, Marriage Certificate and Political Testament, April 1945 (34 pages)

"The Discovery of Hitler's Wills" Office of Strategic Services report on how the testament was found

The Testament of Adolf Hitler the Bormann-Hitler documents (transcripts of conversations in February–2 April 1945)

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