HITLER AT HOME

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXX, Issue 4872, 18 July 1936, Page 6

HITLER AT HOME

"SQUIRE OF WACHENFELD." Where do Adolf Hitler and his colleagues plot their successive coups which have culminated in the military reoccupation of the Ehineland? Not in Berlin, whose air and surroundings disagree with the. Fuhrer; but in a lonely and lovely spot in the Bavarian Alps. Here on a hilltop amid fragrant pines he has his "working home." Until recently this was little more than a cottage, where his widowed sister, Frau Raubal, kept house for him and cooked his vegetable dishes. As his power increased, more and more land was bought. At last "Haus Wachenfeld," as his home is called, showed as a smart hill chalet, from whose flagstaff the Fuhrer's self-designed standard proudly boated. To-day he is found abroad soon after dawn striding through the ghostly pines followed by his "war dog," a big Alsatian named Blonda. Suddenly he sits down as a daring idea strikes through his restless brain. And a new stroke for the Fatherland is then and there worked out.

As the "Squire of Wachenfeld," Hitler is a far happier man than when he is in town.

Looking up to the snows or down to the exquisite lakes and villages on Austrian soil, he feels the "Messianic" sense of mission flow upon him.

"I was sent" is a phrase that recurs in all his earnest talk.

Some say this man is a hypnotist. Others consider him a "medium."

As an alpine squire in plus fours, I found the Fuhrer a shy and simple man, wholly lacking in the pose and Caesarian arrogance of his fellowdictator in Eome. The face is lifeless until he smiles. It is that of a mystic who might "hear voices." I ventured to say this to him, adding, "What is it that you hear?" And then he smiled. "Dein volk ist alles," he said quietly, "Du bist nichts." ("Thy people is everything —you are nothing.")

Struck with a new drive for German prestige, this forceful man hurries to the telephone, well pleased and elated, to call his Ministers from Berlin.

No secret meeting here is complete without Josef Goebbels, who moulds all Germanys "thought-con-trol" for the chief.

Sometimes I have seen high naval officers arrive and go up to the house through its tangle of electrified barbed wire and vigilant guards. In these simple rooms every political surprise is decided upon, and rough drafts are made of the Fuhrer's speech in the Eeichstag, which is to spring each new German move of "macht" (might) upon a nervous world.