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]
-----
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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https://archive.org/stream/AdolfHitlerSketch_201905/AdolfHitlerSketch_djvu.txtAlso in PDF or Hard copy at the link below:
https://www.colchestercollection.com/titles.html
[ + ] Crackinjokes
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Not sure what this is supposed to be
[ + ] Flanders
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"August 2, 1914, arrived. A spirit of fervid but solemn enthus¬
iasm ran through the whole nation. Wave after wave of German
youth rushed enthusiastically to join the volunteer regiments
and reserve battalions. Hitler, who had always felt that he was
a German first and foremost, presented himself at the head¬
quarters of one of the Bavarian regiments and volunteered for
the front. He regarded this act as a matter of course. Nor writ’
there any technical difficulties in the way; for in the I'ebni.»i\
of that year he had been definitely exempted from the obligation
of military service in Austria. On October 10, 1914, he left I'oi
the front as a soldier in the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infant ty
Regiment. [page 7]
Destiny seemed to have preordained that Hitler should suvr
in the old German Army, that organization which was a magliiii
cent example of the folk community and which he had foi .i
long time envisaged as the kind of social formation through
which the German people would finally reach its destined go.il
Adolf Hitler threw himself body and soul into the work ol
his new calling as a soldier. He received his baptism of fire in
Flanders, where he faced death in the ranks of that regimnil
which was made up of German youth who stormed the trenchm
and fought and fell while they sang Deutschland iiber al/rs
During the attack on the Bayernwald and in the subsequent
engagements around Wytschaete Flitler showed remarkable
bravery; so much so that already on December 2, 1914, Icsh
than two months after he had first entered the trenches, he \va
awarded the Iron Cross of the Second Class. Having shown
himself resourceful and courageous, without being foolhardy,
he was now given one of the most hazardous jobs in the it
giment, namely that of dispatch-runner, for which only picked
soldiers are used. In carrying out this task he won a good deal
of admiration, especially because on more than one occasion
he voluntarily stepped in and took on himself a piece of danger
ous work which otherwise would have fallen to the lot of oldei
men who had wives and families at home. On the whole it can
be said without any fear of contradiction that Hitler’s condud
as a soldier won the unstinted admiration of his superiors;
while his companions in the trenches, no matter how opposed
their political views were to his, admired his courage and his
genuine spirit of comradeship.
On October 6,1916, he was wounded in the thigh by a shrapnel
splinter and had to be sent to one of the home hospitals foi
treatment. Within a few months he was on his feet again. He
left hospital in March 1917 and immediately volunteered once
more for the front. During the great offensive of 1918, while
carrying dispatches, he succeeded in ambushing a French officer
and about fifteen men and brought them back prisoners. For
this he was awarded the Iron Cross of the First Class.
On the night of October 13/14, 1918, the British launched
an attack with phosgene gas in the sector south of Ypres.
Hitler’s regiment suffered severely and the casualties were
extremely heavy. Hitler himself suddenly felt an excruciating
pain in the eyes as he was returning with a dispatch to his own
lines. He managed to struggle back however and deliver his
dispatch. After that he was sent to hospital, totally blind.
While the German armies were still fighting desperately on
all fronts for the very existence of their native land, defeatism
was at work behind the lines and at home. Under the corroding
influence of the propagandist poison spread by anti-national
agencies at home, civilian morale was steadily crumbling. This
process of disintegration gradually reached the soldiers at the
front, where it took on a graver character day after day. The
coming downfall cast its darkening shadow even across the
fighting lines.
The revolt of the sailors at the naval base in Kiel was the
signal for the revolution. On November 9, 1918, the day of
the general collapse had come. It was not merely the mon¬
archical constitution in Germany that was overthrown. No, but
everything else with it — the Fatherland itself, faith in the
Fatherland and in one’s fellow man, order and discipline.
Hitler was in hospital at Pasewalk in Pomerania when he
first heard the news. The pain in the eyes had gradually become
less severe. His sight began to return and he now had hopes
of regaining his normal powers of vision. The impression which
the news then made was described by him some years later in
the following words...." page 8