The Young Hitler I Knew

by August Kubizek

  Whilst Adolf was in Vienna, I naturally had to send him regular written reports about Stefanie. As it was cheaper to send postcards than letters, Adolf gave me a code word for Stefanie before he left. It was Benkieser, the name of a former classmate. A picture postcard which he sent me on 8 May from Vienna shows how much this Benkieser was still on his mind in spite of his many new and varied impressions in Vienna. ‘I am longing to return to my beloved Linz and Urfahr,’ it reads. The underlining alludes, of course, to Stefanie, who lived there. ‘I have to see Benkieser again. I wonder what he’s doing.’

  A few weeks later Adolf returned from Vienna and I met him at the station. I still remember how we took turns carrying his bag and he urged me to tell him all about Stefanie at once. We were in a hurry because the evening stroll would begin in an hour’s time. Adolf would not believe that Stefanie had not asked after him, for he took it for granted that she was longing for him just as much as he was for her. But, at heart, he was glad that I had not had the opportunity to tell Stefanie about his grandiose plans for the future, as his prospects at the moment were not very bright. We hardly stopped in the Humboldtstrasse to greet his mother before hurrying off to the Schmiedtoreck. Full of excitement, Adolf waited. Punctually Stefanie and her mother appeared. She threw him a surprised glance. That was sufficient – he did not want more. But I got impatient. ‘You can see that she wants you to talk to her,’ I said to my friend. ‘Tomorrow,’ he answered.

  But the morrow never came, and weeks, months and years passed without his taking any steps to change this state of affairs which caused him so much unrest. It was natural that Stefanie did nothing beyond that first phase of exchanging glances. The most Adolf could have expected of her, was the flower, thrown at him with a roguish smile in the carefree atmosphere of the flower festival. Besides, any move of hers beyond the rigid limits of convention would have destroyed the picture of her which Adolf kept in his heart. Perhaps even this strange timidity was prompted by the fear that any closer acquaintance might destroy this ideal. For, to him, Stefanie was not only the incarnation of all womanly virtues, but also the woman who took the greatest interest in all his wide and varied plans. There was no other person, apart from himself, whom he credited with so much knowledge and so many interests. The slightest divergence from this picture would have filled him with unspeakable disappointment.

  Of course, I am convinced the first words he exchanged with Stefanie would have caused that very disappointment, because she was fundamentally a young, happy girl, like thousands of others, and certainly had the same kind of interests. Adolf would have sought in vain for those grandiose thoughts and ideas which he had lent her to such an extent as to make her the female image of himself. Only the most rigid separation could preserve his idol.

  It is most revealing that the young Hitler, who so thoroughly despised bourgeois society, nevertheless, as far as his love affair was concerned, observed its codes and etiquette more strictly than many a member of the bourgeoisie itself. The rules of bourgeois conduct and etiquette became for him the barricade behind which he built up his relationship to Stefanie. ‘I have not been introduced to her’ – how often have I heard him say these words, although in the ordinary way he would make light of such obstacles. But this strict observance of social customs was part of his whole nature. It was apparent in his neat dress, and in his correct behaviour, as much as in his natural courtesy, which my mother liked so much about him. I have never heard him use an ambiguous expression or tell a doubtful story.

  So, in spite of all apparent contradictions, this strange love of Hitler for Stefanie falls into the pattern of his character. Love was a field where the unforeseeable might happen, and which might become dangerous. How many men who had set out with great intentions had been forced off their path by irregular and complicated love affairs. It was imperative to be on one’s guard!

  Instinctively the young Hitler found the only correct attitude in his love for Stefanie: he possessed a being whom he loved, and at the same time, he did not possess her. He arranged his whole life as though he this beloved creature was already entirely his. But, as he himself avoided any personal meeting, this girl, although he could see that she walked the earth, remained a creature of his dream world, towards whom he could project his desires, plans and ideas. And thus he kept himself from deviating from his own path; indeed, this strange relationship, through the power of love, increased his own will. He imagined Stefanie as his wife, built the house in which they lived together, surrounded it with a magnificent garden and arranged his home with Stefanie, just as, in fact, he did later on the Obersalzberg, though without her. This mixing of dream and reality was characteristic of the young Hitler. And whenever there was a danger that the beloved would entirely escape into the realm of fantasy, he hurried to the Schmiedtoreck and made sure that she really walked the earth. Hitler was confirmed in the choice of his path, not by what Stefanie actually was, but by what his imagination made of her. Thus, Stefanie was two things for him, one part reality and one part wish and imagination. Be that as it may, Stefanie was the most beautiful, the most fertile and purest dream of his life.

  * * *

  Chapter 8

  Enthusiasm for Richard Wagner

  I have paired deliberately the chapters about Hitler’s first amour and his passionate enthusiasm for Richard Wagner. They belong together, because Stefanie embodied for Hitler all femininity in one ideal female – this determined the path he would follow for many years; Richard Wagner, the man as well as his work, embodied what German art signified. Stefanie could never have fulfilled the role his ideas and aspirations demanded had she not, by her appearance, conduct and bearing, been the equal of that female ideal represented by Richard Wagner in his great musical dramas. Hitler saw his love as Elsa, as Brünhilde, as Eva of the Meistersinger, in a sense she was a creation of the inspired master himself, and had descended as preordained from Wagner’s dream world into reality.

  The relationship of Hitler to Stefanie was an aspect of his fascination for Wagner. Looked at from another angle, from the first moment he saw Stefanie, his feelings towards Richard Wagner became a true passion, but not until his love for the girl blossomed did his artistic sensibilities extend to devotion. The fact that this love was one-sided and was never seriously returned, and therefore unrequited, drove him ever more forcefully towards the great master in whose work he could find that comfort and consolation which his bitter-sweet love denied him. From his earliest youth until death, Hitler remained loyal to the man from Bayreuth. Just as Stefanie in the course of this strange romance, which was no such thing in the usually understood concept of the term, became a creation of his fantasies, by stages over the years Adolf Hitler probably created his own ‘personal’ Wagner by adding to his perception of the man much that was imaginary.

  Hitler’s musical education was very modest. Aside from his mother, pride of place goes to Father Leonhard Gruner of the choir of the Benedictine monastery at Lambach, who trained Adolf as a chorister for two years. The boy was eight when he joined, and therefore at a highly receptive age. Those who know the culture level of these old Austrian institutions will appreciate that there was scarcely a better musical training to be had than that in a well-led choir. Unfortunately this promising beginning was discontinued even though the young Hitler’s clear, sure voice brought delight to all who heard him sing. His father presumably had little interest in it. The boy’s primary school reports were always endorsed ‘outstanding’ for singing, but the Realschule offered no musical instruction at all. Whoever wished to pursue it had to pay for private tuition or go to music school. Because he spent more than two hours daily on the trek between Leonding and the Realschule, Adolf would have had no time for private musical tuition even if his father had been in favour of it.

  Adolf took a great interest in my own musical education, but the fact that I understood more about music than he did left him restless. From our regular conversations about music he was au fait ama
zingly quickly with all the technical terms and expressions. He had taken the low road, so to speak, while I took the high one, yet he could talk about everything under the sun in music without having studied it systematically. Talking about it awoke in him understanding. I can only say that he had a great depth of feeling for music, and this often astonished me, for in reality he knew nothing about it. This self-tuition had its limits of course as soon as he came to the point of actually playing something. Here one needed to have systematic training, constant practice, determination and endurance, qualities for which my friend had little comprehension, although he did not like to be told so. His great empathy, his fantasies and his unlimited self-confidence reduced to insignificance the qualities of which I had spoken; he was sure he could compete. As soon as he put my viola under his chin and took up the bow he was no longer so certain of victory, however. I recall his surprise that it was not so easy as it looked, and when I took the instrument from him to play him a piece, he did not want to listen. It annoyed him that there were things which defeated his will. Naturally, he was already too old for even elementary instruction.

  One day he ranted at me: ‘Now I am going to see if music is the witchcraft you always say it is!’ and with these words he announced his decision to learn the piano, convinced that in no time at all he would have mastered it. He signed up for lessons with Josef Prewratzky and soon realised that without diligence and endurance it could not be done. His experience with Prewratzky was comparable to mine with my old music sergeant Kopetzky. Prewratzky had no time for intuitive ideas and genial improvisations, insisting on ‘clean finger-training’ and strict discipline. Here Adolf fell into a dilemma. He was far too proud simply to give up on an attempt by which he had set such store, but this stupid ‘exercising the fingers’ left him raging. I weathered the conflict easily, for in musical matters Adolf could not bamboozle me as he might in others. I noticed that his furious outbursts against Prewratzky’s ‘crazy musical gymnastics’ began to fall off – when I crossed the threshold of the 19 Humboldtstrasse apartment it was increasingly obvious that no important progress on the piano had been made, for he avoided even opening the lid of the good Heitzmann instrument in my presence. Prewratzky’s name entered our conversations ever less often and so ‘learning to play the piano’ was quietly laid to rest. I cannot say how long Adolf braved the course. It was certainly not a year although it seemed that an extraordinarily long time passed during which Prewratzky had young Hitler at his mercy. All the same, in Vienna later when we made an opera – unfortunately never completed! – for our student stage, Adolf took upon himself not only the lyrics but the musical composition as well, although he did at least leave the guiding theme to me. This was his way of proving that, despite all the previous contra-indications, what mattered most in music was inspiration, and not finger exercises.

  All the same, Adolf recognised my musical talent without the least envy, and rejoiced or suffered with me in my successes or setbacks as if they were applicable to himself. I found him very supportive and the great strength behind my ambition. His belief in my virtuosity was the most important thing for me; it welded our friendship. It might be that during the day I was no more than an upholsterer’s assistant who repaired moth-eaten old chairs in an atmosphere of dust and humidity, but in the evenings, when I went to the Hitler apartment, I forgot the workshop and found myself transported, with and through him, into the pure, sublime atmosphere of art.

  How faithfully he shared with me in the performance of Franz Liszt’s glorious oratorio Die heilige Elisabeth. My trumpet teacher was Viertelmeister. Imagine my excitement when, during a lesson, he asked me straight out if I would be interested to take part in a performance of the great work. My knees were like jelly. ‘Then let’s begin!’ he exclaimed and without further ado went over the trumpet score with me. Next I practised in the concert hall and got to know August Göllerich the conductor. Even today my heart beats faster when I recall the big day. I was barely seventeen, easily the youngest member of the orchestra. No instrument is so sensitive to poor handling as the trumpet. Below in the tightly-packed stalls I saw my mother sitting next to Adolf, who gave me a smile of encouragement. Everything went off well and I considered that I had merited a portion of the rousing ovation we received. At any rate, Hitler’s applause was for me alone. There were tears in my mother’s eyes.

  After this successful public debut Adolf told me during one of our lonely nocturnal strolls that I should make it my goal to devote myself totally to music. His penetrating words are still with me as though spoken only yesterday: ‘You have got to give up the upholstery work, it will kill you. (Shortly before I had been seriously ill.) It is no good either for yourself or your psyche. You have quite definite talent, and not only as a soloist – that is obvious – but also as a stage or concert conductor. I was watching you constantly in the theatre and noticed how you knew the whole score before it was played. Music is your role in life, there you are in your element. There you belong.’ Adolf had now put into words what I had long felt for myself. To become a musical conductor was the finest life’s ambition I could imagine.

  That he shared my opinion of myself filled me with endless joy. Our conversations became ever more intense about this plan for the future even though the sober facts militated against it. My father was ill. I was his only son and had learnt the upholstery trade so that eventually I should take over a business which, with a great deal of hard work, he had developed from small beginnings. All his hopes, his life energy, were concentrated into his desire to be able to hand over the business to me as a going concern. The fact that, unlike Adolf’s father, he did not attempt to force it on me would make my departure from the path planned for me all the more difficult. He rarely spoke of his concerns for me, but I felt keenly how much his life’s work meant to him.

  In this emotional conflict, Adolf Hitler proved a reliable friend. He had put backbone into my idea of choosing music as my profession, and was very clever at how he went about making it possible. For the first and only time I discovered in him a quality of which I was unaware and which I never experienced in him later: patience. He saw clearly that my father could not be won over for such an enormous decision by a frontal assault, no matter how determined, and had identified the weak point where he should concentrate his attack. My mother had a natural affinity for music and would be receptive to his overtures even though she had a pretty good idea of how much a musical education was going to cost. The road to the father led through the mother. All that would be needed to carry the day, Adolf considered, was a skilful approach.

  In all the difficult situations through which Adolf and I were obliged to struggle, it was to music that we owed our inner development. It must be remembered that in those days there was no cinema or radio and that a chance to listen to music required visiting a concert hall, something that today has become a rarity for most people. For us it was the centre of our world. Everything that motivated and interested us revolved in some way or other around the concert hall. While I fantasised about conducting a great orchestra, Adolf busied himself with designing truly impressive theatres of the most grandiose proportions.

  Additionally, we had met in the auditorium at Linz, and our friendship had developed from that acquaintanceship. The friendship which began from the lowly little provincial theatre would continue to the Vienna Opera and the Burg Theatre and be crowned finally at Bayreuth, where I sat through Wagner Festivals as a guest of Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler.

  Hitler had a natural joy and passion for the concert hall. I am convinced that it had to do with his early childhood impressions, particularly at Lambach. I cannot remember for sure if he ever told me anything about the Benedictine choral performances, here my memory fails me, but I think that on closer investigation one would find that he was probably ever-present. As a choirboy he had access everywhere and perhaps he took an interest in other musical presentations too. The fine Baroque stage was a jewel of its kind, and I can imagin
e that to sing in a choir there would make one enthusiastic for music generally.

  As a twelve-year-old he went to the Landestheater in Linz from Leonding, as he describes in Mein Kampf:

  The provincial capital of Upper Austria had at that time a concert hall which was not bad, relatively speaking. Everything was performed there. When I was twelve, I saw Wilhelm Tell for the first time and a few months later my first opera, Lohengrin. At a stroke I was hooked. My youthful enthusiasm for the master of Bayreuth knew no bounds. Again and again I was attracted to his work and I consider it today to have been my especial good fortune to have experienced the modesty of the provincial presentation, for I knew it could only get better.

  Very nicely put! If asked for my own opinion I would not have spoken about the Linz Landestheater so kindly. Perhaps because I felt I was destined to be its future musical conductor I was more critical in my evaluation of everything there, including the orchestra, than he was. Probably, however, I lacked that intense empathy which made it possible for him to overlook the obvious inadequacies of the place and maintain the illusion of the work being performed. I often had the impression that no matter how defective the presentation might be he saw only the artistic content of the work itself. When, as the result of a stage-hand’s incompetence, Lohengrin fell out of the longboat and, covered in sawdust, arose from the ‘sea’ to clamber back aboard for the remainder of his swan-voyage – which had not only the audience but also Elsa in stitches – even this did not detract from the beauty of the presentation for him. After all, what had these amusing episodes to do with the high idea the great master had had when composing the opera? But, despite his unusual capacity to disregard the irrelevant in this respect, he could be a harsh, strong critic as well.