BY PHILIPP BOUHLER
Head of the Fiihrer's Personal Chancellery
1938
"A DOLF HITLER was born on April 20, 1889, at Braunau
in Upper Austria, close to the Bavarian frontier. Because
it is situated on the frontier that divided two branches of
the German people, Hitler has spoken of Braunau as repre¬
senting for him “The Symbol of a Great Mask”, namely that
of uniting all Germans in one State. His father, who was
the son of poor peasants from the forest district, had worked
himself upwards through his own study and perseverance
until he became a civil servant. At the time that Adolf was
born his father was Customs Officer at Braunau. Being proud
of his own achievement and the status he had reached, his
dearest desire was that his son should also enter the civil
service ; but the son was entirely opposed to this idea. He would
be an artist. [Pg 5]
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When he was thirteen years old Hitler lost his father and
four years later his mother died. So that he found himself
alone in the world at the age of seventeen. He had attended
the primary school and subsequently the grammar school at
Linz; but poverty forced him to give up his studies and earn
his bread. He went to Vienna, with the intention of studying
to be an architect but he had to work for his livelihood as
manual labourer at the building trade, where he mixed the
mortar and served the carpenters and bricklayers. Later on he
earned a daily pittance as an architectural draughtsman. Hav¬
ing to depend entirely on himself, he experienced in his own
person from his earliest years what poverty and hunger and
privation meant. And so he shared the daily fate of the workers,
the “proletariat” in the building trade, and felt where the shoe
pinched. Thus it came about that he began to think in terms
of social reform during his early years.
Though the years spent in Vien¬
na meant a hard and bitter struggle
with life, the experience gained in
this school was of inestimable value
afterwards. Hitler was now yearn¬
ing to live as a German in Germany
itself, free from the oppression under
which the German element had to
suffer in that potpourri of nations
which made up the Habsburg
Empire. So he left Vienna and came
to live in Munich. That was on
April 24, 1912.
In those days Munich was the
chief centre of artistic and cultural
life in Germany. Still hoping to make a name for him¬
self as an architect, Adolf Hitler now devoted as much time
and energy as possible to the study of architecture, while at
the same time he had to earn his daily bread by designing and
colouring placards. Recently he had been doing a good deal of
reading for purposes of self-education. He continued this during
his artistic studies and work in Munich, making history his
speciality, which had been his favourite subject at school." [Pg 8]
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"History would have known nothing of this
little circle of six men had not destiny presented it with its
seventh member. This was Adolf Hitler.
At the end of November 1918, he was back again in Munich
and had rejoined the reserve battalion of his regiment; but this
fell under the control of the Soldiers* Council, which was hateful
to Hitler. So he went to Traunstein and remained there until
the camp was demobilized. Then he returned to Munich, in March
1919. Shortly afterwards a Communist regime on Soviet lines was
established there. On April 27, he was to have been arrested by
order of the Central Council of the Reds, on the charge of
having participated in anti-revolutionary activities. But the
three bravos who came to carry out the order for arrest turned
tail and departed when Hitler presented a bold face and showed
them his rifle.." [Pg 10]
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