Hitler's Inner Circle - Loyalty and Betrayal

[Otium]

I thought I would start a thread dedicated to posting about Hitler's inner circle and the various anecdotes about Hitler himself from people he spent time with or met. Over time I'd like to hopefully compile a resource to display a more nuanced view of Hitler's personality and how he affected the lives of those around him. Last year I actually compiled a list of those who were loyal to the end. In this thread I'll post a few that come to mind and post more over time.

---

Hitler had many staff, acquaintances and members of his inner circle who were loyal to him as a person, if not politically as well. Hitler did not have this awful personality that it's presumed he did, and this should become apparent in this thread.

John Hiden and John Farquharson, two historians wrote of Hitler's personality:

It is both significant and surprising that although this capacity for personal loyalty on the part of Hitler was described as early as 1949 in Zoller's Hitler Privat, it was largely overlooked, together with his other human qualities, because of the dominance of what we have called the 'demonization' trend in biographies of the Führer. Hitler was human and it ought not to surprise us that he had a keen sense of humour. The 'humanization' of Hitler, that is to say the presentation of him as a recognizable member of the human race, is a welcome trend in recent historiography. Historians such as Fest and Schramm are not of course attempting to exculpate Hitler in this way or to make him more attractive, let alone to excuse his atrocities. Their object is simply to make it plain to the reader that no assessment either of Hitler or the way in which he ran his country can possibly be made without a basic understanding of his whole personality. In this connection the longstanding tendency in many books and even films to portray Hitler as a frenzied hysteric devoid of any form of self-control simply feeds the demonization legend. In no other respect does the public image of Hitler differ so widely from that presented by those who actually met him. Back insists that the picture of Hitler as a man who habitually ranted and raved at his subordinates belongs to the world of fable. This is not to deny that Hitler lost his temper on many occasions both before and during the war, as any statesman faced with his responsibilities would be likely to do. But those contemporaries who expected, before meeting Hitler, to be confronted with a raving madman, were often struck by his relative degree of self-control. What bothered them was his unpredictability, and the difficulty for the observer to determine in advance how he would next react. The question here is how far this was an actual weapon in Hitler's own armoury. Domarus mentions several occasions when after an apparently uncontrolled outburst of hysterical rage, Hitler's demeanour changed in such a way as to make it obvious that the entire scene had been a calculated ploy. This was not exactly a pleasant trait, but it is hardly unique amongst politicians. The real issue is that it is impossible to show that Hitler was a mere hysteric, unable to control his temper.

John Hiden and John Farquharson, Explaining Hitler's Germany: Historians and the Third Reich (London: Batsford Academic and Educational Ltd, Second Edition 1989), Pp. 26-27.

The recent Hitler biographer Volker Ullrich concurs:

“Are we permitted to depict Hitler as a human being?” the German media asked in 2004 with the release of Bernd Eichinger’s film Downfall, which depicted the Führer, played by veteran actor Bruno Ganz, during his final days in the bunker in Berlin. The only answer is: not only are we permitted, we are obliged to. It is a huge mistake to assume that a criminal on the millennial scale of Hitler must have been a monster. Naturally it would be simpler to reduce him to a psychopath who used political action to realise his homicidal impulses. For a long time this tendency to demonise Hitler dominated historical research and prevented us from having a clear view of the actual man. In February 1947, from the isolation of his cell in Spandau prison, Albert Speer remarked on the growing tendency in post-Nazi German society “to depict Hitler as a carpet-chewing hotheaded dictator who blew his stack on the slightest of occasions.” Speer thought that was both wrong and dangerous, noting: “If there are no human characteristics in the picture of Hitler, if one ignores his power of persuasion, his winning qualities and the Austrian charm he was capable of displaying, one will never do justice to him as a phenomenon.” In the mid-1970s, after reading his memoirs, the film-maker Leni Riefenstahl wrote to Speer that, for her, the question remained:

What was it about Hitler that allowed him to impress and indeed bewitch not just the German people, but many foreigners as well?…I can never forget or forgive the terrible things that happened in Hitler’s name, nor do I want to. But I also don’t want to forget what a massive effect he had on people. That would be to make things too easy for us. These two seeming contradictions within his personality—this schizophrenia—were likely what produced the enormous energy within his person.

Such references to Hitler’s unique dual nature, the conjunction of winning characteristics and criminal energy, should not be dismissed as mere attempts by Speer or Riefenstahl to distract attention from their own culpability. On the contrary, we must take such statements seriously if we want to understand the seductive force Hitler possessed not just for his own entourage, but for large segments of the German population. In the chapter with the somewhat unsettling title “Hitler as Human Being,” I have tried to use just this approach to go beyond what Fest called examining an “unperson” and gain insights into Hitler’s habits and characteristics.

Volker Ullrich, Hitler: Ascent 1889-1939 (London: The Bodley Head, 2016), Pp. 8-9.

Albert Speer is a traitor, and a true megalomaniac as Irving recalled, but he nonetheless admitted in one of many interviews with Gitta Sereny - a Jewish Holocaust scholar - that Hitler did not rage, or even really raise his voice:

"As military production was of course at the top of Hitler's priorities," Speer said, "I continued to have access to him (Hitler) and in fact, except when I was away, saw him at least twice a week, and often daily when he was in Berlin or we were both on the Berghof. But as of that November he became a changed man. He was never the apoplectic personality people later invented for him; all that nonsense about carpet-biting—a silly American invention. Until that awful winder of 1942, I had rarely heard him rage, or even raise his voice in arguments. In fact, he was most dangerous when his voice was softest.

Gitta Sereny, Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995), Pp. 363-364.

This is such a vastly different picture than we're presented with, I wouldn't be surprised if people have a hard time believing it. That's how powerful Allied propaganda has been. Yet, the Hitler biographer John Toland also confirms:

At the Dreesen several newsmen were circulating a story that the Führer was so distraught over the Czech crisis that he would fling himself to the floor and chew the edge of the carpet. This report had been inspired by a remark of one Hitler aide that the Chief had become so furious that he was “eating the carpet.” This slang expression was taken literally by some American correspondents, who should have translated it into “climbing the walls.” Such naïveté amused Hitler’s adjutants, who had seldom seen the Führer lose his temper. When he did, he occasionally went into a tirade for half an hour but usually his outbursts were brief. “I was present at quite a few such ‘fits,’ ” wrote Wiedemann, “and all I can say is that they were no different from the displays of others with a hot temper and little self-control.”

Some intimates believed the Führer displayed anger for effect. If so, his outbursts that afternoon had surely placed his opponent on the defensive. Chamberlain was already writing him a conciliatory letter. In it he suggested that he himself ask the Czechs whether they thought there could be an arrangement by which the Sudeten Germans themselves could maintain law and order

John Toland, Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography (Doubleday, 1976), p. 480.

Wiedemann's comments can be disregarded, he was an admitted liar and traitor:

Hitler’s dismissed adjutant Fritz Wiedemann. [...] unashamedly explained in a private 1940 letter to a friend, ‘It makes no difference if exaggerations and even falsehoods do creep in.’

David Irving, Hitler's War and the War Path (Focal Point Publications, Millennium Edition, 2002), Pp. xiv.

In my next post I will start posting about Hitler's inner circle.

[Otium]

Anton Joachimsthaler who wrote a book regarding Hitler's death, interviewed Heinz Linge (Hitler's Valet) and Otto Günsche (Hitler's personal adjutant), this is what he had to say regarding their feelings towards Adolf Hitler:

I never could and still cannot understand Linge’s and Günsche’s conduct at the time. Neither of them personally took care of the burning corpses nor of the disposal of the remains. When I interviewed him, Herr Günsche was unable to give me a satisfactory explanation for this. However, one must take into consideration the fact that both Linge and Günsche had spent a long time in daily contact with Hitler and had developed close ties to him. Since both of them liked and respected Hitler, it is understandable that they did not want to see their boss roasting, burning and crumbling to pieces. As secretaries Else Kruger and Gertraud Junge both stated later, Günsche allegedly said that the cremation of Hitler’s body had been the most terrible experience of his life.

Anton Joachimsthaler, The Last Days of Hitler: The Legends, the Evidence, the Truth (Arms & Armour Press, 1998 edition.), Pp. 217-218.

On April 30th 1945, the day Hitler died, he said that he wanted to stay in his bunker until the 'last moment'. In the belief that the Allies would make peace with Germany:

His bunker was to remain intact. ‘I want the Russians to realise that I stayed here to the very last moment.’ Magda Goebbels sank to her knees and pleaded with him to stay, but he gently raised her and explained that his death was necessary to remove the last obstacle in Dönitz’s path, if Germany was to be saved.

David Irving, Hitler's War and the War Path (Focal Point Publications, Millennium Edition, 2002), Pp. 837-838.

and

Hitler’s anguished staff realised that he intended to remain in Berlin and brave the coming storm. Goebbels, Bormann, and Jodl begged him to reconsider. Dönitz and Himmler telephoned; Keitel cornered Hitler alone but was interrupted almost at once.

‘I know what you’re going to say: It’s time to take a real decision, a Ganzer Entschluss! I’ve taken it already. I’m going to defend Berlin to the bitter end. Either I restore my command here in the capital – assuming Wenck keeps the Americans off my back and throws them back over the Elbe – or I go down here in Berlin with my troops fighting for the symbol of the Reich.’

[...]

Besides, as he told Field Marshal Schörner, his (Hitler's) death might remove the last obstacle preventing the Allies from making common cause with Germany.

[...]

He (Hitler) dictated to Ribbentrop four secret negotiation points to put to the British if he got the chance. If the Continent was to survive in a world dominated by Bolshevism, then somehow London and Berlin must bury the hatchet. He instructed Ribbentrop to write secretly to Churchill in this sense. ‘You will see,’ Hitler predicted. ‘My spirit will arise from the grave. One day people will see that I was right.’

David Irving, Hitler's War and the War Path (Focal Point Publications, Millennium Edition, 2002), Pp. 820, 821, 823.

The historian John Toland who interviewed (and recorded) pretty much everyone in Hitler's inner circle, related how Otto Skorzeny (a very interesting character in and of himself) was still very much loyal to Hitler:

I heard from an American about a man named Otto Skorzeny, an Austrian who became famous by rescuing Mussolini in a commando operation. This American had been a GI where the Malmedy massacre [during the Battle of the Bulge] took place. He and a dozen other Americans were stuck during the battle in a hotel, and thought they were go to be killed. Then one night this big face looked down at them and said, "You are now my prisoners." [...] The former GI said that Skorzeny now lives in Madrid, and he asked if I would like to talk to him. I said, "You're talking about 'Scarface,' the guy that was going to kill Eisenhower, a criminal whom you say saved your lives?" In those days, everyone was trying to find Skorzeny, but this former GI was ready to direct me to him.

So I went down to Spain and found him in two hours! I met this huge man, like a mountain, who had a big scar. Wow! I had to tell him that I was John Toland, and that I was going to write a book about the Battle of the Bulge. And he replied, "I've been waiting for you."

Well, he took me home, cooked me dinner, and we had a marvelous time. I could see what a marvelous, historical artifact I had found. He loved Hitler! He wasn't like those other characters who talked about how terrible Hitler had been. Skorzeny offered to put me in touch with former SS men living in South America and elsewhere, people like former Belgian SS commander Leon Degrelle. "Fine," I replied, I'll listen to anybody." And so he became my conduit to the SS.

John Toland, Living History, The Journal of Historical Review, Spring 1991 (Vol. 11, No. 1), pages 5-24.
link | archive

Both Nicolaus von Below and Karl-Jesko von Puttkamer (both adjutants) were still admirers of National Socialism, and loyal to Hitler, as Dankwart Kluge - the author who has definitively refuted the Bogus 'Hossbach Memo' - wrote after having interviewed both of them:

v. Martin and v. Below even expressly speak of falsification (of the Hossbach memo). This is all the more important since they came from opposite political camps. Hoßbach and Kirchbach belonged to the resistance (v. Martin was at least sympathetic). v. Below and v. Puttkamer, on the other hand had a positive view of the National Socialist government.

Dankwart Kluge, Das Hossbach-'Protokoll': Die Zerstoerung einer Legende (Druffel Verlag, 1980), Pp. 45.

David Irving confirms that von Below and his wife Maria, were loyal to Hitler until the end as well:

Among the others I repeatedly visited from 1967 onward was Hitler’s Luftwaffe adjutant [...] Nicolaus von Below remained his most trusted aide from 1937 to the very last hours in the bunker; he performed as a witness at the wedding with Eva on April 29.

[...]

A tall, thin, frail-looking, fair-haired colonel, von Below warmed to my intention of writing about Hitler as he really was. He was one of the most indignant at Albert Speer’s Judas Iscariot betrayal of the Chief.

[...]

Maria von Below remains most pleasantly in my memory. A tall, healthy, maternal lady of noble bearing and generous manner, she fussed around her husband while we talked, her eyes brimming with happiness that at last she could talk openly with a historian about the greatness of their Chief, and the upsurge of national pride, and prosperity that his election had brought to Germany. It was as though she had been bursting to say all these things for years, but had been too frightened to say in the climate of hatred which followed the war.

Like Speer, Bormann’s widow and Walter Frentz, the von Belows had difficulties with their own children, who were brought up and re-educated in the climate of hatred, encouraged and engendered by the Allied licensed German press. All their sons became active left-wingers. After their parents’ deaths, the sons all but disowned their parents.

David Irving, quoted from a draft chapter of his yet unpublished memoirs, Pp. 119, 122.
pdf | archive

Irving also confirms that Christa Shroeder - one of Hitler's four female secretaries - was loyal, as was Winifred Wagner, who was known to engage in post-war 'right-wing' movements:

Once I had coaxed them out of their shell – and many of them, like Christa Schroeder, were badly bruised by their post-war experiences in Allied hands – they readily spoke with me, and they often used surprisingly positive language about the Chief, as they called him. Christa sometimes referred to him as “A.H.,” uttered after a coy pause, as though his name were a religious curse not to be spoken in full; the military officers still unconsciously called him “the Führer” – leader. Winifred Wagner, born Winifred Williams in Hastings, on the coast of southern England, once or twice lapsed more romantically into using the name by which he had announced himself to her during the Years of Struggle, “Wolf.”

[...]

She had daydreamed romantically about “her” Adolf, that was quite clear (and she was, incidentally, physically not unlike Winifred Wagner, who shared Hitler’s attentions). She wistfully recalled the day that the Chief had visited her sickbed in hospital, bringing her flowers.

“Oh mein Führer,” she said with a coquettish giggle, “the people outside will think you are visiting your mistress.”

She was known for her waspish tongue. In 1945, others told me, she was heard to say: “Mein Führer, we have lost the war – haven’t we?”

She could get away with things no field marshal dared to say to him. She told me of their last dialogues, so improbable that no screenwriter would have risked writing them.

Ibid., p. 102, 107.

Walter Frentz who worked for Leni Riefenstahl as a cameraman and who was in the Führerbunker until April 24, 1945 admired Hitler until after the war as well, Irving tells us:

On Lake Constance, I found Walter Frentz, Hitler’s staff cameraman. He too was still powered by a barely concealed admiration for the Chief.

Ibid., p. 113-114.

Riefenstahl herself was loyal too, even though she still had a prominent career after the war.

She seemed to have had a hard time dealing with how to feel about the Third Reich and Hitler. It comes across as if she knew she was supposed to apologise and endlessly hate, even lie, to protect herself from appearing too enmeshed in that time:

Three days after visiting Frentz in 1989, I went to see Leni Riefenstahl. It was June 15, 1989. Like the later Frau Junge, she also effortlessly practiced a two-tier approach to Hitler’s memory, depending on whom she was with. I make no criticism of this – I am well versed now in Germany’s unique criminal law on history.

[...]

Almost as soon as we stepped into her airy open-plan drawing room, Leni Riefenstahl sensed that she could switch off the public voice and slip into a higher gear, while Horstie listened in admiringly. Her eyes gleamed as she recalled those early years of Hitler’s empire. She needed no coaxing to offer us a private showing of her 1934 epic, Triumph of the Will (at that time, she believed its 1933 predecessor, Victory of Faith, was lost for ever).

“Of course,” she said disarmingly, momentarily slipping into safety-gear, “I made it at my own expense and not in any way for the Nazi Party.” I had found in the East German (communist) archives the year before (•• ?) the Propaganda Ministry files documenting the substantial subsidy that Dr Goebbels had granted for the film, but I was too well-bred to say anything that might disturb the mood. Besides, the film itself was proof: as the loudspeaker crackled the Horst Wessel Anthem, the screen filled with the opening title sequence, hewn from blocks of MGM-style granite: im auftrag des führers, the blocks of giant stone thundered: “At the Command of the Führer.”

[...]

The scene changed and the cheers of thousands who have doubtless long passed on and perhaps even later regretted their enthusiasm, filled her basement room. We were riding in Hitler’s open six-wheeled Mercedes, right behind him, looking over his shoulder at the multitudes as he gave his funny little stiff-armed salute.

In those days, it occurred to me, world leaders could safely ride around in open cars. “For the next ten minutes,” Leni was saying, “there is no commentary – just cheering.” That was her idea too.

Ibid., p. 117, 118, 119.

Next is Karl Wilhelm Krause, who has accurately been dubbed 'Hitler's Shadow'. He was Hitler's personal orderly and bodyguard from 1934 to 1939. His memoirs are great, but unfortunately rather melancholy by the end. It was quite an emotional and deeply interestingly read that made an impression on me. Although I suspect they have been shortened, with some politically incorrect details cut out. I say this because Krause gave an interview in the mid 1990s, and he related how Hitler reacted to Kristallnacht, he was angry about it, confirming other witnesses at the time who also knew Hitler was totally out of the loop regarding that event. Yet these details aren't in the English version of his memoirs.

Krause is probably the best source for Hitler's personal behaviour, he was around him all the time in private, and we're not talking about anything political either. He genuinely saw Hitler in private, like nobody else did. Yet this man didn't hate Hitler, he found him easy going and at times, particularly during occasions, a bit pedantic. But nonetheless, you don't get the impression that Hitler was all that odd - he had changing moods like anyone else, but he could also laugh and be contradicted, as Krause relates:

I myself once suffered from catarrh, and therefore didn’t want to be on call, but Hitler urgently required my services. He said: ‘Go to Morell and get injected.’ I answered: ‘I will not be injected and won’t go to Morell – otherwise I’ll be going to him forever.’ I said this out loud, in front of several guests, among whom was von Blomberg, who responded: ‘So, in view of this, let me give you the official order right here and now to do as instructed.’ And here is what I said: ‘And I will disobey the official order.’ Many, among them Himmler, turned to me and asked: ‘What’s got into you to respond to the Führer in this way?’ I simply said: ‘I will do exactly what I want with my own health.’ I am putting this in writing here, just to prove that one could contradict Hitler.

Karl Wilhelm Krause, Herbert Döhring & Anna Plaim, Living With Hitler: Compelling recollections of Hitler's Personal Staff (Greenhill Books, 2018), Pp. 64.

Hitler also regulated what foods he and his staff would eat if the German people could not enjoy the same luxuries:

All meals, however, were prepared using fine butter; mind you, not during the times when Germany was suffering a butter shortage. During that period, rendered fat was used instead. There was no question in Hitler’s mind that his household would be the first to follow the austerity measures. It is true though that Hitler enjoyed eating real caviar with his eggs, but this was extremely rare, and may have happened perhaps only three or four times in a year. When he once enquired how expensive caviar actually was and I told him that one kilo of caviar cost 400 Reichsmark, he immediately issued a strict order that caviar was never to be served again at his table.

Ibid., Pp. 45.

Hitler also did this during the Stalingrad campaign when he forbid, presumably expensive alcohol, from being drunk:

Zeitzler, in protest (of Stalingrad being held), cut his own food rations to the same level as the Stalingrad troops, and within two weeks had lost twelve kilos, more than twenty-five pounds. Hitler, informed by Bormann, ordered him to return to a normal diet, but banned the serving of champagne and brandy at HQ "in honor of the heroes of Stalingrad."

Gitta Sereny, Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995), Pp. 364.

Hitler liked jokes (read the Irving chapter too for an example, p. 104-106):

He certainly enjoyed listening to jokes, especially political jokes. As long as good jokes are told about somebody, he once said, it is a sign that the person is well liked. He disliked ambiguous jokes.

Karl Wilhelm Krause, Herbert Döhring & Anna Plaim, Living With Hitler: Compelling recollections of Hitler's Personal Staff (Greenhill Books, 2018), Pp, 30.

Krause also relates how Hitler was a great entertainer and conversationalist:

Orderlies had coffee all set up in a cosy corner of the room. Everyone got themselves comfortable and it would all turn into a veritable social gathering with guests happily chatting away into the early hours. They spoke about everything and anything – but not about politics. One thing led to another, with even women’s fashion being discussed. These chats clearly supported the view that Hitler was a really good and entertaining conversationalist. This, as it happens, was confirmed to me not only by our German guests but also quite often by visitors from abroad. I, as well, attended most of these late evenings and was privy to most of the goings-on. Mind you, I could only see and hear everything from a distance of one or two metres away from those people who surrounded Hitler. These conversations could often last till late, two o’clock in the morning, or even three o’clock.

Ibid., p. 33-34.

Hitler was also a generous and caring person, as Krause certainly shows:

Once, when the entire Hotel Imperial in Vienna was booked out by Party members, the manager of the hotel submitted a bill of 29,000 Reichsmark. This price seemed to be too high in Brückner’s eyes, but Hitler just told him: 'Oh, go ahead and pay the bill; maybe the man has very large debts.’ When Hitler expressed the wish to own the house in the Prinzregentenstrasse in Munich, he was short of funds. The subsequent release of his book Mein Kampf to countries outside Germany then enabled him to purchase the house.

Ibid., p. 56.

Krause even considered Hitler to be like a father to him:

Until 1938–9 I would say that Hitler was a second father to me, as until then he took care of everything that concerned the staff who were working for him, even with regards to small personal matters. He enquired of housekeeping staff how their respective parents were, he wanted to know their personal wishes and so on. Staff, for their part too, put their full confidence in him and would turn to him, via Brückner, with their own requests and concerns. When he had put something in place for somebody, such as financial support, Hitler would enquire afterwards whether his instructions had been followed. If a close friend was ill, he had flowers sent to him. Thus there was hardly what one might call a ‘partition wall’ between him and us. If someone from his staff wanted to get married, they simply went to Hitler. He would be sure to be most generous to people, and present them with a significant gift. Here are some examples.

Once someone whose livelihood depended on Hitler suddenly found himself unemployed. Overnight this person came into work. It was obviously thanks to Hitler’s intervention. And another example – at the daily cinema screenings both at the Berghof and in Berlin, Hitler, generous in sharing his leisure time, expressly wished for the entire house staff to be present and watch the films along with him.

The following episode further underlines how considerate he was towards others: on 9 November Hitler
stayed at a place that he had frequented in the past. This particular inn had always been a simple hotel. When Hitler drew the curtains shut in his room, one of them fell to the ground. He quickly shut the door so that the owner wouldn’t notice anything. Together we then fixed it.

During the war, once the Wehrmacht adjutants had reported that they no longer expected any flights to arrive that night and that the enemy planes were departing, Hitler would say: ‘I can only go to bed after the last plane has left Germany, and after the last of the people has emerged from their air-raid shelters. I won’t rest easy until such time that I know this has happened.’

Another comment made by Hitler, which I overheard at the Berghof, also supports my opinion that he only
reluctantly agreed to put aside other matters, in order to refocus and concentrate on military matters: ‘Believe me, I much prefer constructing buildings, such as we now have in Munich, than constructing destroyers. This building costs me two million, for a destroyer I pay twelve. I could put six such buildings up and they would, one day, be testimony of our era; but a destroyer, within no time at all, will be nothing but a piece of scrap.’

This kind of personal and direct connection by Hitler with others, and which I described here only in very broad terms, changed during the years 1938–9. Just before the annexation of Austria, he turned visibly more formal. He was so consumed by the affairs of the Wehrmacht that, unlike before, people simply lost their nerve to come up to him with anything that weighed on their mind

Ibid., p. 68-69.

The memoir gets more melancholy from thereon, I would recommend everyone read it. But this shows how utterly distorted the general view of Hitler is today, and has been for decades. As I said in the OP, Hitler had many staff, acquaintances and members of his inner circle who were loyal to him as a person and politically. These are only a few of the instances I have chosen to include in this first post.

[sfivdf21]

Hello HMSendeavor, very interesting thread. It seems to me an excellent idea to speak in this forum about the Hitler's Inner Circle. When talking about "Holocaust" Revisionism (and about the history of the Third Reich and the Second World War in general) the testimony of the Führer's collaborators is of the utmost importance to find out what really happened and who Adolf Hitler really was. I am one of those who thinks that this is a debate that all revisionists should have. I hope you will publish more about the testimonies of Hitler's Inner Circle and their views on the Führer after the war (ie whether they remained loyal to his memory or betrayed him). It would also be interesting to weigh loyalists and traitors in Hitler's Inner Circle and see if there were more loyalists or traitors. I too plan to publish more about Hitler's Inner Circle and his postwar opinions about the Führer in the future. Well actually, in the past I posted two threads similar to yours in regards to Hitler loyalists and traitors. I leave you the links below, they might interest you.

In this first thread the debate I raise is whether the majority of the Germans of the generations who lived in the time of the Third Reich (and supported Hitler) remained loyal to their Nationalsocialist convictions and still loved the Führer after the end of the war or if they changed their views about Hitler and deserted their political ideas: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=13261

In this second book the debate that I raise is how the German people reacted when they learned of Hitler's death:
viewtopic.php?f=20&t=13567

PS: I'm also thinking of publishing in the future the opinions that his main generals and military officers had about Adolf Hitler (you know, Heinz Guderian, Erich von Manstein, Hasso von Manteuffel, Wilhelm Keitel, Alfred Jodl, Sepp Dietrich, Kurt Meyer, Paul Hausser, Adolf Galland, Karl Dönitz, Erich Raeder, Kurt Student, Alfred Kesselring, etc.). In addition, this can also be very useful to debunk the claims that many "history fans" who circulate around the forums about World War II say that Adolf Hitler was a "corporal with the air of a general" and a "bad and incompetent military leader" whose decisions were which caused the defeat of Germany.

[Otium]

It's no secret that Albert Speer is a tricky character in terms of how he portrayed himself during the war, and in his relationship with Hitler. His memoirs are self-serving and chock full of exaggerations and hyper critical derisory comments that all serve to distance Speer from an inconvenient friendship with Hitler, and to present to the public his persona of the "good Nazi". And Speer is not alone, although he is perhaps the best example. Another would be Traudl Junge (one of the Hitler's secretaries), whose memoirs were ghost-written to conceal her true affections for Hitler. Her authentic memoirs are located in David Irving's files at the Institute of Contemporary History (Institut für Zeitgeschichte) in Munich.[1] Junge in later interviews (eg. in the 2003 film Der Untergang) slags Hitler off as a "monster". However, these derisory comments she evidently didn't truly believe. Irving, having known her, observed this fact, she had in reality "remained unchanged" in her views "until the end."[2]

But right now, I'm most interested in Speer. Irving notes that in 1945, Speer was thinking about his own future and how he would portray himself in the wake of Germany's loss of the war. It was at this time that he started to disobey Hitler:

Hitler’s other lieutenants lacked even the will to cheat the enemy of the spoils of war: the arms factories of Upper Silesia fell intact into Russian hands. In January 1945 Speer had not hesitated to order the destruction of Hungarian refineries – a premature act that the OKW was just able to stop in time. By March he was planning less for Germany’s defence than for his own. His character was ambivalent and complex. Later he would claim that he ‘had counted up all the acts of high treason which he had committed from the end of January onward and had arrived at a total of over sixty.’ Hitler never realised this.

David Irving, Hitler's War and the War Path (Focal Point Publications, Millennium Edition, 2002), Pp. 800.

Speer had, as Irving subsequently notes, attempted to sabotage Hitler's "scorched earth" order which would slow the Allied invasion of Germany. I suspect he did this in order to supply evidence for his claims that he was really an apolitical actor who had come to realise Hitler's shortcomings. Evidently historians, despite their conformity, have come to the same conclusions. Volker Ullrich concurs with Irving:

Speer later claimed to have confessed to Hitler that he had systematically undermined his “scorched earth” orders in the preceding weeks, whereupon the dictator stared at him “absently,” without any discernible reaction. But we should be sceptical about this account—as we should be about much of what Speer wrote in his memoirs—since even in the final days of the Third Reich such an open confession of disobedience could have had drastic consequences. After all, the armaments minister was determined to survive Hitler and had already begun to consider his post-war career.

Volker Ullrich, Hitler: Downfall 1939-1945 (London: The Bodly Head, 2020), Pp. 580.

And it's no secret that Speer was shunned by Hitler's inner circle who were still loyal to him after the war as a traitor. Except for the von Below's, whom were loyal to Hitler until their deaths, but also remained friends with Speer and his wife as well. This is important because Speer would get Maria von Below, and presumably Nicolaus (Hitler's Luftwaffe Adjutant) to read the drafts of his memoirs and when interviewed would relate how Speer had embellished certain chapters with lies.

Most notably in Speer's portrayal of life at the Berghof, which included derisory comments about Hitler's alleged "monologues" where his guests would be forced to listen to Hitler speak for maybe 2-3 hours. When Maria von Below read the draft chapter of Speers memoirs on the life at the Berghof, she reprimanded him for having lied about the reality of the situation:

"When everything came to an end," she said, "people fell over each other to represent life at the Berghof as horribly boring, with Hitler spouting endless nothings. Speer was guilty of that too - l say this despite our very real friendship with him. We were staying with the Speers at one point before his reminiscences were published, and I remember saying to him, after he gave us his manuscript to read, 'Now look, the Berghof chapter really isn't true. We all lived through this together, and Hitler's knowledge of history and art was phenomenal. Of course, the repetitions became tedious, but those first years particularly-how can you forget how excited we all were?' I asked him, 'And how many moments there were when we were happy?' "

Gitta Sereny, Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995), Pp. 113.

Clearly Speer's memoirs have to be treated with caution, because not everything he wrote was true.

Ian Kershaw in his characterisation of these discussions is more nuanced than Speer, but still seeks to err on the negative side in contradiction to his own sources:

The spacious and light dining-room had a large round table with a dozen chairs in the centre and four smaller tables, each with six chairs, around it. Hitler sat at the large table with his back to the window, facing a picture by Kaulbach, Entry of the Sun Goddess. Some of the guests - among them Goebbels, Goring, and Speer - were regulars. Others were newcomers or were seldom invited. The talk was often of world affairs. But Hitler would tailor the discussion to those present. He was careful in what he said. He consciously set out to impress his opinion on his guests, perhaps at times to gauge their reaction. Sometimes he dominated the 'conversation' with a monologue. At other times, he was content to listen while Goebbels sparred with another guest, or a more general discussion unfolded. Sometimes the table talk was interesting. New guests could find the occasion exciting and Hitler's comments a 'revelation'. Frau Below, the wife of the new Luftwaffe-Adjutant, found the atmosphere, and Hitler's company, at first exhilarating and was greatly impressed by his knowledge of history and art. But for the household staff who had heard it all many times, the midday meal was often a tedious affair.

Ian Kershaw, Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis (Allen Lane, 2000), Pp. 32-33.

Kershaw claims as we just read, that Hitler's staff regarded Hitler's discussions as "tedious", for this he cites Hitler's Luftwaffe Adjutant Nicolaus von Below whom says no such thing:

Our daily timetable had to accord with Hitler’s routine. He was very easy to get on with, being amiable and correct towards his staff. [Note: Herbert Döhring, Hitler's housekeeper noted that he felt "socially responsible for his staff"] In Berlin I would spend about an hour a day taking applications before joining the other adjutants at midday in our Reich Chancellery office. Hitler would not normally appear earlier from his private quarters. Because of his insomnia Hitler worked into the early hours, when he found the quietness he needed for reflection. We would start with a mutual question-and-answer session to clarify outstanding matters. He would then keep his pre-lunch appointments, which were scheduled to finish by 2 p.m. If he overran the meal would be delayed. Table conversation could be very interesting or extremely tedious, depending on how many times one had been over the subject before.

Nicolaus von Below, At Hitler's Side: The Memoirs of Hitler's Luftwaffe Adjutant 1937-1945 (Frontline Books, 2012), Pp. 15-16.

Kershaw takes ridiculous liberties in only mentioning the part in which Below mentions that the talks could be tedious, by omitting that they were also interesting. He goes further by extrapolating Below's comment to represent the views of Hitler's "household staff" for which not a shred of evidence exists to support his claims. This is just a small example, no doubt of many more liberties taken by hostile mainstream historians who have no intention of honestly portraying the nuanced environment in which Hitler "the person" operated. Instead they have opted for the portrayal of Hitler "the monster".

It would be ridiculous to assume that Hitler only held monologues, and indeed it's really only Speer who goes the extra mile to imply such a thing.

Ian Kershaw, in his characteristically moralising and unprofessionally partisan style, has without any evidence inserted baseless supposition into his supposedly "impartial" Hitler biography in order to portray Hitler's character in the most unappealing way possible, despite being directly contradicted by those who knew Hitler:

Hitler dominated the entire existence of his guests there too (the Berghof). Real informality was as good as impossible in his presence. And Hitler, for all the large numbers of people in attendance on him and paying court to him, remained impoverished when it came to real contact, cut off from any meaningful personal relationship through the shallowness of his emotions and his profoundly egocentric, exploitative attitude towards all other human beings.

Kershaw, op cit., p. 34.

Maria von Below, whom Kershaw had cited on the previous page, directly contradicts this idea when she said:

"You know," Maria von Below continued, "I have never understood how diminishing the gifts Hitler so clearly did have made it any easier for people lo live with having become bewitched by him. After all, he didn't gain the loyally of decent and intelligent men by telling them his plan was murder and allowing them to see that he was a moral monster. He persuaded them because he was fascinating. But to say that today is almost blasphemy. I don't know why so many people want to deny that extraordinary ... spark in him. I often noticed later on how aware he was if one was not awed. I mean, if one seemed at ease with him, I think he liked that. He was immediately very nice to me."

Sereny, op cit., p. 114.

I doubt Maria felt Hitler was a "moral monster", she was after all, being interviewed by a Jewish Holocaust historian, and so probably tailored her speech to suit the prejudices of her interviewer.

In any case, so much for a lack of informality. Hitler, at least according to Maria von Below, appreciated it when people could be informal and at ease with him. Perhaps though, rather than others not feeling at east with Hitler, it was Hitler who didn't feel at east with others? Yet this never crosses Kershaw's mind, perhaps because it would humanise Hitler to an uncomfortable degree by not positioning him as an unapproachable monster.

There are other reminisces too which contradict Kershaw's claims. For example, Hitler's housekeeper Herbert Döhring made a distinction between the Hitler who was friendly and approachable and the Hitler who was preoccupied and not in the mood to be interrupted:

If you knew him well, you would be able to ascertain and sense what the right moment was to speak to him and whether he would even hear it, or whether he wasn’t just lost in thought and hatching a plan. . . In the mornings, when Hitler would come down from his study on the first floor, he walked past each picture humming a melody and allowing himself a lot of time. At that point he was his approachable self, and one could enjoy his company; you would even be able to inform him of something perhaps slightly unpleasant. But if he descended and was whistling then beware. get out of the way and keep your head down.

Karl Wilhelm Krause, Herbert Döhring & Anna Plaim, Living With Hitler: Compelling recollections of Hitler's Personal Staff (Greenhill Books, 2018), Pp. 109-110.

Seeing as Döhring was another one of these men whom spent many years with Hitler, it's a wonder that he could possibly write that Hitler's company could be enjoyed! That is if what Kershaw wrote is true, and evidently, it isn't. The anachronisms great and small between Kershaw's slander and the memoirs of those who knew Hitler cannot support his ridiculous assertions about Hitler's personality.

---

The idea that Hitler had no private life or friends is a myth that's being slowly done away with in recent years. Ullrich in his Hitler biography eschews it, and so do other more recent books:

It is frequently said that Hitler was able, all by himself, to accrue an unprecedented amount of power and was a man without empathy, a private life or human contacts. But if that is so, why should Hitler have needed a close, constantly available circle of people, which – as was not the case with the circles around Stalin , for instance – included a surprising number of women. What were the criteria by which Hitler selected these people? What role did they play in his private and political life? Were Hitler’s social relationships, as little attention as they may have received in the past, perhaps the source of his personal power?

Historians have thus far failed to reconstruct or appreciate the function and the inner workings of this social circle. The conventional historical wisdom, based as it is on ex post facto memoirs, has always been assumed that those servants and political allies who enjoyed “unlimited privileged access” to the Nazi leader never penetrated the “external mantle of the Führer” and got to know him as a person. Conversely it is supposed that Hitler only exploited his loyal disciples, as he did all other people, getting rid of them “as soon as they served their purpose.” But what was it really life to live alongside Hitler? How did confidantes profit from their close connections, based on dogmatic loyalty fealty, to the dictator? How culpable and complicit were they in his crimes? To address these questions, we will look at previously unavailable source material, for instance, personal effects that have never before been analyzed. They include photographs such as the ones contained in the Hoffmann Archive in the Bavarian State Library. These images deserve to be taken seriously and offer just as much insight as the oral and written statements of the protagonists into the network, paths of communication and involvement of Hitler’s inner circle in the criminal activities of the Nazi regime.

Heike B. Görtemaker, Hitlers Hofstaat: Der innere Kreis im Dritten Reich und danach (München: C. H. Beck Verlag, 2019), Pp. 10-11.

Anyone who has read memoirs of Hitler's confidants knows that such claims about Hitler having no empathy, friends, or human contacts is ridiculous. Such a claim simply doesn't stand. If it were true, which it cannot be, Hitler would be so incomprehensible, that it would defy all logic as to how he managed to achieve as much as he did. This fact alone should make anyone question such claims.

Hitler's inner circle thrived beyond his departure from this world on April 30th, 1945. How could such a group of people exist, who had not been loyal and personally enthralled by Hitler himself? It's impossible. They weren't his social captives, they were his friends, acquaintances and employees:

In spring of 2010, a short time after my biography of Eva Braun was published, a gentleman whose name immediately awakened my curiosity got in touch with me via the C.H.Beck publishing house. Claus Dirk von Below was the son of Luftwaffe adjutant and long-time Hitler confidante Nicolaus von Below. Now he wished to speak with me. Over the phone we agreed to meet, and a few weeks later we were sitting face to face in a café in the center of Munich. Our conversation started with his parents’ relationship to Hitler and Eva Braun and the Belows’ life in the dictator’s private circle at his Berghof retreat in the Alps. “I grew up in this circle,” remarked Claus Dirk von Below almost offhandedly, adding that it had by no means disbanded after the Second World War. On thecontrary, the connections between the circle’s members had persisted well into the history of the post-war Federal Republic of Germany. Members had regularly corresponded with and visited one another and had organized larger get-togethers on special occasions. “We all travelled to Heidelberg to receive Albert Speer,” Below recalled about the time after Speer was released from an Allied prison for war criminals in Berlin-Spandau on September 30, 1966. “My parents,” he continued, “were dyed-in-the-wool National Socialists until the day they died.”

All at once, I realized that what Speer called “the Führer circle” had apparently continued to exist without the Führer himself and had kept alive Hitler’s legacy for decades after his death. The Nazi dictatorship may have essentially ceased to exist when Hitler took his own life in the air-raid bunker of the Reich Chancellery on April 30, 1945, but most of his closest servants and associates had survived.

Ibid., p. 9.

[Otium]

Some interesting anecdotes about Hitler from Unity and Diana Mitford (Oswald Mosley's wife) who spent a lot of time with him before the war. Diana in her memoirs notes that Unity spent much more time with her, but she nonetheless recollects her own memories to construct a picture of what Hitler was like.

Diana and Unity first met Hitler in 1935, Unity in February and Diana in March. Diana gives the impression that Unity was much more excited than she was to meet the Fuhrer, and tells us how Unity would often frequent the Osteria Bavaria (now the Osteria Italiana, located at Schellingstraße 62 in Munich) Hitler's favourite restaurant hoping to catch a glimpse of him and hopefully to meet him, which she eventually did. Upon meeting him she wrote a letter to Diana which read in part:

Yesterday was the most wonderful and beautiful day of my life. I will try and describe it to you, though I can yet hardly write.

I went alone to lunch at the Osteria and sat at the little table by the stove where we sat you know last time you were there. At about 3, when I had finished my lunch, the Fuhrer came in and sat down at his usual table with two other men. I read the Vogue you sent me. About ten minutes after he arrived he spoke to the Manager and the Manager came over to me and said ‘The Fuhrer would like to speak to you’. I got up and went over to him and he stood up and saluted and shook hands and introduced me to the others and asked me to sit next to him.

I sat and talked to him for about half an hour, at least of course I don’t really know how long, but I think it was about that. [...] I can’t tell you all the things we talked about as it would take too long. I told him he ought to come to England and he said he would love to but he was afraid there would be a revolution if he did. He asked me if I had ever been to Bayreuth and I said No, but I should like to, and he said to one of the other men that they must remember that the next time there was a Festspiel there. He said he felt he knew London well from his architectural studies, and that from what he had heard and read about it he thought it to be the best town, as a town, in the world. He thinks ‘Cavalcade’ is the best film he ever saw.

He talked about the war. He said it was like the Niebelungskampf, and that international Jews must never again be allowed to make two Nordic races fight against one another.

[...]

Well, I can’t remember more of our conversation but we talked of a lot of things. In the end he had to go. He kept the bit of paper with my name on. Mona told me it was the first time he had ever invited someone he didn’t know to sit at his table like that. He had also apparently made sure my lunch was put on his bill.

So after all that you can imagine what I feel like. I am so happy that I wouldn’t mind a bit dying. I suppose I am the luckiest girl in the world. I certainly never did anything to deserve such an honour.

Nicholas Mosley, Rules of the Game & Beyond the Pale (Dalkey Archive Press, 1991), Pp. 332-333.

Hitler was polite and considerate as can be seen. Diana notes this as well in her memoirs which I will quote in a moment. Before that though it's worth noting that Diana was not an acolyte of Hitler by any means, at least not at the time her memoirs were published. Thus she had no reason to praise Hitler, and in fact according to her son Nicholas in later years she remarked at how meeting Hitler had 'ruined her life' (Ibid., p. 334). Nicholas also recalls that to him it appeared his father didn't really like Hitler and would refer to him as a 'terrible little man' in old age (ibid.). This is complete nonsense of course, Diana herself noted that Hitler was 5ft 9, hardly a "little man", meanwhile Mussolini whom Mosley liked a lot more was only 5ft 7.

Diana notes of Hitler's appearance:

Hitler, at this time aged forty-five, was about 5 feet 9 inches in height and neither fat nor thin. His eyes were dark blue, his skin fair and his brown hair exceptionally fine; it was neatly brushed; I never saw him with a lock of hair over his forehead. If he was out of doors in the sun and wind all day, as he was for example the last day of the Parteitag every year, he quickly got sunburnt, but it did not last for his skin was pale. His hands were white and wellshaped. He was extremely neat and clean looking, so much so that beside him nearly everyone looked coarse. His teeth had been mended with gold, as one saw when he laughed. At the Osteria he was generally in civilian clothes, he wore a grey suit and a white shirt and a rather furry soft hat which he called ‘mein Schako’. His most unusual feature was the forehead. He had a high forehead which almost jutted forward above the eyes. I have seen this on one or two other people; generally they have been musicians. At this little bistro he was in relaxed mood; if he had not been so he would have lunched at his flat.

Diana Mitford Mosley, A Life of Contrasts: An Autobiography (New York: Times Books, 1977), Pp. 123.

Hitler around this time. Photo from March 1, 1935 in Saarbrücken Saarland

Hitler's tidy nature is also attested to by the famous Belgian General of the Waffen-SS Leon Degrelle, who also knew Hitler. (See Chapter IX of his book: Hitler for a Thousand Years)

Diana had spent a lot of time around Hitler, but not as much as Unity:

During the next four years I saw him fairly often, though not nearly as often as Unity did. Since she is no longer here to tell what he was like in private life I will do my best to describe the man I knew. It is only what the French call ‘la petite histoire’; but even in small matters the truth is sometimes interesting.

Ibid.

Hitler, contrary to popular irrational insistence had many friends whom he frequently spent time with:

Besides the adjutant, usually Brückner or Schaub, there were often a few old friends, mostly men but also some women; Frau Troost, wife of the architect, was there occasionally. Frequently Hoffman the photographer and Herr Werlin of Mercedes Benz were with him.

Ibid., p. 123-124.

Of the types of conversation Hitler would have, it varied from motor vehicles, architecture to politics:

We rather dreaded the conversation turning to motor-cars, for the Führer took a deep interest in engines and was apparently expertly knowledgeable on the subject, very boring to us. However like most politicians he enjoyed talking politics, and often Reichspressechef Dietrich would give him a sheet of paper with a résumé of the news, which set him off on more interesting themes. One of his abiding interests was architecture. Without ever having visited Paris, for instance, he knew its beauties and where they stood in relation to one another.

Ibid., p. 124.

This accords perfectly with what Maria von Below recalled about Hitler's supreme intelligence. Leon Degrelle noted this too:

I don't think anyone ever read as much as he did. He read at least one book every day, always reading the end and the index first in order to gauge the book's interest for him. He had the power to extract the essence of each book and then store it in his computer-like mind. I have heard him talk about complicated scientific books with faultless precision, even at the height of the war.

[...]

His knowledge also extended to mechanics. He knew how engines worked; he understood the ballistics of various weapons; and he astonished the best medical scientists with his knowledge of medicine and biology. The universality of Hitler's knowledge may surprise or displease those unaware of it, but it is nonetheless a historical fact: Hitler was one of the most cultivated men of the 20th century. A thousand times more so
than Churchill, an intellectual mediocrity; or than Pierre Laval, with his mere cursory knowledge of history; or than Roosevelt; or Eisenhower, who never got beyond detective novels.

Leon Degrelle, Hitler Democrat (The Barnes Review, 2012), Pp. 24, 25.

Degrelle lists all the extensive works of history and philosophy Hitler was acquainted with. Hitler's ability to read books in a single day and remember them in minute detail was also one of the things observed by Krause:

The moment a new book came out in German, I would usually have it sent to Hitler. I had signed a contract with a large German publishing house in Berlin and they were required to immediately dispatch the books as soon as they had been published. Of course this didn’t apply to cheap novels. I regarded it my foremost duty to present Hitler with the new titles in the book industry myself, and not let other people get in there first, so to speak. Hitler returned the books the morning after I had given them to him, or asked them to be kept for his library, properly categorised.

I often doubted him and didn’t believe that he could have read the books in such little time – overnight practically. And yet I was proved wrong; once, late at night, I gave him a volume of 356 pages (unfortunately I cannot remember its title). The next morning he returned it to me commenting: ‘The book is good. Keep it.’ I was totally convinced that he hadn’t read it – I remember the number of pages. Some days later Dr Goebbels and an adjutant discussed this book over dinner. Hitler decided to join in. I had to fetch the book, turn to the requested page, was told to read it out loud and then asked to read two further passages. Hitler knew the exact page he wanted to hear. Thus he was able to create some sort of consensus between these two disagreeing men. I realised that Hitler must indeed have read the whole book and, by all accounts, quite thoroughly.

Karl Wilhelm Krause, Herbert Döhring & Anna Plaim, Living With Hitler: Compelling recollections of Hitler's Personal Staff (Greenhill Books, 2018), Pp. 60.

Of Speer, Diana notes that contrary to his memoirs he was always very interested in what Hitler had to say, which doesn't jive with his narrative that Hitler was a bore:

Albert Speer was quite often at Hitler’s table; at that time a young architect he has grown into an old writer. On the occasions when I saw him he gave a wonderful imitation of being fascinated by his host; or perhaps he really was fascinated.

Diana Mosley, op cit., p. 124.

Diana also denies that Hitler ranted or went on monologues:

I never heard Hitler ‘rant’ and almost never heard the famous monologue, though I should have been interested to listen to it. In my experience he liked conversation. In certain moods he could be very funny; he did imitations of marvellous drollery which showed how acutely observant he was.

Ibid.

Oswald Mosley in his memoirs goes into a bit more detail:

Hitler impressed me at that time as in no way insane, and this view was reinforced by his private appearance in small parties he gave when Diana and her sister were present. She described him as an extraordinarily gifted mimic, who could mime as well as any actor before a discreet audience. Imitating himself in the days when he used to smoke, rolling cigarettes, licking the sticky paper in all the busy paraphenalia of the old-time continental smoker, he stopped short saying, you cannot do that sort of thing if you are supposed to be a dictator. It is a small point, but paranoiacs do not make fun of themselves. On another occasion he imitated Mussolini being presented with a sword by the Arabs, flashing it out of the scabbard and brandishing it to heaven; then he said: 'I am no good at all that, I would just say to my adjutant, "Here, Schaub, hang on to this" '.

Such private occasions with relatively few people present revealed unexpected qualities, particularly if Goebbels was there as well. Diana was very fond of Frau Goebbels, who, with her husband, was often at dinner with Hitler. Goebbels, distinguished in public by his qualities as an orator and master of mass propaganda, had in private life an almost exaggerated sense of humour which, surprisingly, Hitler shared; it was one of the bonds between them. They also had in common a love of music.

Hitler was a great talker, and lost a good deal of time in nocturnal discussions, sitting up late after supper talking to his staff or to guests, who found his conversation enthralling; in this respect at least he resembled Churchill. The habit apparently began when he could not sleep after speeches, and it no doubt contributed to his ultimate and premature exhaustion. Nothing is harder for an orator than to relax and sleep after such an occasion. Without the use of drugs, or alcohol, to which Hitler was averse, it requires not only a conscious act of will but an endocrine system capable of braking as well as accelerating, which he apparently did not possess.

Oswald Mosley, My Life (London: Sanctuary Press, 2019), Pp. 398.

That Hitler could do imitations and wasn't adverse to mocking himself in good humour is well-known, Ernst Hanfstaengl, one of Hitler's early friends from the Kampfzeit noted this about him. Such observations can be found in John Toland's Hitler biography which is where I first read them , I'm not going to dredge them up just for this post, but they're in there. Hitler during the Polish crisis in August 1939 when his mood was still hopeful for a peaceful outcome even did an impression of the British Ambassador Neville Henderson (Irving, Hitler's War and the War Path, p. 211) Clearly Hitler did have a sense of humour, something that's attested to by many people who knew him intimately, but which is usually glossed over or addressed by nothing other than a sentence or two in standard histories. Noting that Hitler actually had a personality, that he was in truth, quite normal, was and is to a degree quite scary for historians to admit.

Nicholas notes:

Diana’s description of life with Hitler are in style the opposite of those of Speer, she writes of Hitler's jokes, his frankness, his cleverness, his charm; but the substance of her memories is not so very different.

Nicholas Mosley, op cit., p. 338.

He's referring to two quotations from Speer that he produces which note how life was at the Obersalzburg. Basically, quite normal and casual. In this banal environment that is really not unlike any other, and in-fact shows how normal Hitler was in his habits, Speer nonetheless finds a way to portray Hitler as 'too casual' and thus boring. Speer even remarks that this ability to enjoy the leisure of life was a "constant waste of time"! How ridiculous, one can hardly believe it. Damned if you do, damned if you don't I suppose. To each their own as well, perhaps Speer ought to have removed himself from the boring life of cafes, movies, theatre, discussions, and walks among the beautiful landscape of the German alps if he disliked it so much.

Enough with Speer's overly dramatic nonsense. Diana also notes that Hitler had very fine manners, which she emphasises for the sake of historical accuracy:

He was extremely polite to women; he bowed and kissed hands as is the custom in Germany and France, and he never sat down until they did. Such trivialities would not be worth recording were it not for the acres of print about Hitler in which his rudeness and bad manners to everyone are emphasized. I have read books by dons as well as by sensation-seeking journalists in which it is asserted that he had no idea how to behave in company, or that he always hogged the conversation so that nobody but he could say a single word, or that he had no sense of humour, or that he guzzled cream cakes. Novelists have now taken up the theme, and possibly—just possibly—it may be worth while to set down the truth about these little things in so far as I know it from my own observation.

Ibid., p. 124-125.

Such myths are still spread today in newly published books. Degrelle also repudiates this slander, and notes that Hitler cannot be understood at all in such terms: "We must get used to this idea: Hitler was received in what is called high society not as a brute without manners, or as a rather droll eccentric. His success was that of a charmer." (Degrelle, op cit., p. 154)

Another rather trivial anecdote worth mentioning as it supports Diana's credibility, is that she mentions how Hitler never ate cakes, let alone cream cakes, which indeed corresponds to what Krause wrote about Hitler 'would eat no other cakes' other than a specific cake called Stollen which was baked for him by a specific Munich baker. (Krause, op cit., p. 45)

In April 1935 when Oswald Mosley met Hitler, he also noted that he was treated with a certain charm, and notes a variety of revealing statements which lend credence to not only the documentary evidence, but the memoirs of others who knew Hitler reading his foreign policy:

At first. Hitler was almost inert in his chair, pale, seemingly exhausted. He came suddenly to life when I said that war between Britain and Germany would be a terrible disaster, and used the simile of two splendid young men fighting each other until they both fall exhausted and bleeding to the ground, when the jackals of the world would mount triumphant on their bodies. His face flushed and he launched with much vigour into some of his main themes, but in the normal manner of any politician moved by strong convictions. The hypnotic manner was entirely absent; perhaps I was an unsuitable subject; in any case, he made no attempt whatever to produce any effect of that kind. He was simple, and treated me throughout the occasion with a gentle, almost feminine charm. Naturally, it was much easier for me to deal with him than for some politicians, because in the international issues under discussion we had nothing to quarrel about. The men with whom we quarrel in life are those who want the same thing as we do, with consequent clash of interest; Hitler and I pursued different paths.

My ideas for maintaining and developing the British Empire in no way conflicted with what he wanted for the Germans. He did not desire war with Russia, because his aims were limited to the union of the German peoples in Europe, but he wanted assurances from England and Western Europe that they would not jump on his back in the event of a clash between Germany and Russia, would not intervene against him during a life and death struggle with communism. [...] He not only expressed the warmest admiration for the British people, but said he considered Germany, as the leading land power, and Britain, as the leading naval power, to be complementary and beneficent forces, who together could become two pillars supporting world stability, peace and order. In my view, it was at least true that there was no point on the entire globe at which British and German interests clashed.

Oswald Mosley, op cit., p. 396.

Mosley's other anecdotes (particularly page 400) fit in perfectly with the fact that Hitler desired no war with Britain, and preferably not even a war over the Polish-Corridor. But this is not the thread to collate further evidence of this fact.