HITLER’S YOUTH

Evening Star, Issue 22638, 3 May 1937, Page 1

HITLER’S YOUTH

A PERIOD OF CONFLICT QUARRELS WITH HIS FATHER ARTISTIC AMBITIONS Herr Adolf Hitler’s father was born the illegitimate child of a poor peasant girl. His name was Alois Schicklgruber, and he adopted the name of Hitler 40 years later only because of a legacy. His strange personality explains a great deal in the 1 uhrer s character, says a writer in the - Daily Express.’ At the age of 13 the father left home and wandered to Vienna, where he became a cobbler. But he aspired to higher things. He wanted to be something great. At 23 he became a Customs official. Not before he was 45 did he marry. His wife—Anna Glasl-Horer—was. 14 years older than he was. The marriage did not last long. It was soon dissolved, and not long after the separation the wife died. One month later he married again. A year passed—and the second wife died. This time 10 months elapsed before he married his third wife— Klara Polzl. She was 23 years his junior. When she bore her first son Adolf—April 20, 1889—the father was 52. Soon he felt he had. worked long enough, and at 56 he retired on a pension. He bought a little house near the town of Linz in Upper Austria, and here he lived with his family. Alois Schicklgruber-Hitler was a conceited, stubborn man. He expected the villagers to call him “ Herr.” Ho quarrelled with everyone, and was soon well hated by all the neighbours. HAD NOTHING TO DO. The sexagenarian had nothing to do. He had no friends, no social life. It was natural that he should, put all his energy into ruling his family. _,He instituted a kind of domestic dictatorship. If he wanted to see Adolf ho put his fingers to his mouth and -whistled. Adolf bad to come, wherever he might he. He had to stand to attention and take his orders.

“ I respected my father, hut I loved my mother,” writes Hitler in * Mein Kampf ’ of his feelings about bis parents. And he really depended entirely upon his mother. She was a simple, uneducated woman, of peasant stock. She worked hard, cooked for the family, took care, of the house and the children—did everything, since there was no one to help her. The character and habits of these two people—his father and mother; —were the, first influence in Adolf’s life. The child lived in a tense atmosphere. Then he went to school in the distant village. “My rough-and-tumble life in the open air, the long way to school, and my association with boys of the most robust type (which sometimes caused my mother great anxiety) turned me into anything rather than a stay-at-home and a bookworm,” says Hitler. “At that time I scarcely gave a serious thought to what profession I should adopt, yet it was clear from the start that I had no sympathy with my father’s career, “ I believe that even at this time of my life I trained and developed my oratorical gifts by more or less intensive argument and discussion with my school companions. I had become a small ringleader who learned his school lessons easily and quite well at the time, but who in other respects was rather difficult to handle. REVOLT IN THE HOME. “ Field and forest used to be our battleground, where the antagonisms between school companions were fought out.” Hitler was proud to be a small ringleader. He enjoyed fighting. And he didn’t care much for school. ,He didn|t care much for his duty, either. His teacher’s report was: “ Adolf is inattentive. He doesn’t want to learn, and he dreams at his lessons —although he is intelligent and could learn if ho wanted to. But he is lazy.”

He tried to find something more interesting than school. He joined the ■ choir of the nearby monastery and took up singing. The pomp and splendour of the church ceremonies impressed him. “What was more natural than that the office of Abbot should appear to me as the highest attainble ideal?’* Adolf Hitler had at this time only one desire—to become an abbot. But this dream soon faded away. “ The hankering after the Church as' a profession proved to be only a phase that soon gave way to hopes more suited to my temperament,” he states. His whole outlook changed suddenly. And this change was due to the fact that he found among his father’s books two illustrated volumes on the FrancoPrussian War of 1870. “It was not long before this great heroic conflict became my greatest inward experience. From then on I became more and more enthusiastic about everything that in any way had to do with war or with soldiering.” HEROIC DREAMS. Adolf dreamed of a heroic life. Ha dreamed of wars—and absolutely neglected his school. He came more and more into conflict with parental authority. His father wanted him to study. Adolf should become what he’ had been—a Civil servant . But Adolf didn’t want to study: “ I had no desire to become a Civil servant, no, not on any account. I became positively sick at the idea of having to sit in an office, deprived of my liberty—not to be master of my own time, but to have to compress ai lifetime in the filling out of forms.” But it was all no good. Father’s will was law. Adolf had to go to the secondary school in Linz. Adolf thought hard. He thought about the future. And he decided to become an artist. Proudly he came to his father with this new idea. But the father said brusquely: “An artist? No. not while I am alive.’The old man became embittered. Bub Adolf was adamant. He declared he would not learn at all if he could not be an artist. And he kept Ms promise. He was an obvious failure in school. Instead of being moved out of the botton class after nis first year, he stuck there for another year. His only good marks were for geography and history. In every other subject his performance was very feeble. Adolf was enthusiastic about his-, tory lessons. His teacher, Dr Leopold Potsoh, was an ardent German Nationalist, who “not only fascinated the' class with his brilliant eloquence, but carried it with Mm.” Potsch abused the' reigning house of Habsburg, and extolled the heroic deeds of the Hohenzollems and of Bismarck. All national-minded Austrians longed for union with the German Empire. They looked with envy at the economic well-being of the Germans. They would have wished for nothing better than the dissolution of the Austro-Hungar-ian Monarchy.,' andthe union, of' their German elements with Germany. V These were the ideas that Dr Potsch hamihered into the heads of Ms pupils. And these ideas to-day are very much alive In the head of Adolf Hitler. During these lessons, Adolf became, as ha himself relates, a “ revolutionary.” When Adolf was 13, Ms father died,but his mother would not allow Mm ta leave the secondary school. An illness came to Ms rescue. Ha had trouble with his lungs and the doctor advised his mother not to send the boy to school for a wMle. Adolf stayed at home for a whole year. But then he had to go to school again. His work was so unsatisfactory, however, that he had to change to a new school, this time at Steyr. Then matters came to a head. Adolf learned simply nothing any more. Hie mother took Mm away. Adolf had attained his end at last.

He sat at home, dreaming, wool'* gathering, helping -with the housework, enjoying himself—for four and a-haJf years. And he would have gone on doing that for ever if his mother had not died. Adolf was now faced with the necessity of eatfdng his own living. He was almost 20 years old. He went to Vienna “ to _become something,” as he says. The carefree years of childhood were over.