Thirty years later, the boyhood friends would meet again in Bayreuth, and Kubizek told Adolf Hitler what he remembered of that night, assuming that the enormous multitude of impressions and events which had filled these past decades would have pushed into the background the experience of a seventeen year old youth.

But after a few words Kubizek sensed that Hitler vividly recalled that hour and had retained all its details in his memory. Hitler's words were unforgettable for August Kubizek:

"It began at that hour ..."

During his lifetime, Hitler was very secretive about his background. Only the dimmest outline of his parents emerges from the biographical chapters of Mein Kampf. He falsified his father's occupation, changing him from a customs official to a postal official. He repulsed relatives who tried to approach him.

One of the first things he did after taking over Austria was to have a survey carried out of the little farming village of Dollerscheim where his father's birth had been recorded. As soon as it could be arranged the inhabitants were evacuated and the entire village was demolished by heavy artillery. Even the graves in the cemetery where his grandmother had been buried were rendered unrecognizable.

Klara Hitler died from cancer when Adolf was nineteen. She was held in love and affection by Hitler, her Jewish doctor, Eduard Bloch, later recalled: 'I have never witnessed a closer attachment.' Hitler carried her picture with him down to the last days in the bunker. Her portrait stood in his rooms in Munich, Berlin, and at his alpine residence near Berchtesgaden, Obersalzberg. His mother may well have been the only person Adolf Hitler genuinely loved in his entire life.

Louis Bülow   ©2006-08
www.oskarschindler.com   www.deathcamps.info   www.shoah.dk   www.annefrank.dk  www.auschwitz.dk