Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris

(IfZ, MA-731 (= HA, Reel 1), ‘Notizen für Kartei’, 8 December 1938, and report on visit to Kubizek).
    119 . See Jetzinger, 117–22, 133–81; Smith, 101 n. 30. Jetzinger had a personal animus against Kubizek, and his own – rival, though second-hand – account of Hitler’s youth did most, deliberately, to discredit Kubizek. See Hamann, 83–6.
    120 . See Hamann, 77–86.
    121 .Kubizek, 17; Jetzinger, 140–41.
    122 .
MK,
15; Paula Hitler testimony, NA, NND-881077, 3 _ 4.
    123 . Kubizek, 22.
    124 . Kubizek, 18–25.
    125 . Kubizek, 22–3.
    126 . Kubizek, 17, 19, 112.
    127 . Kubizek, 75–86.
    128 . Smith, 103. Adolf was so stirred by a performance of Wagner’s early opera,
Rienzi
(which glamorized the tale of a fourteenth-century Roman populist who in the opera purportedly attempted to unify Italy but was ultimately brought down by the people he had led) that he took Kubizek on a long nocturnal climb up the Freinberg, a mountain outside Linz, and lectured to him in a state of near ecstasy on the significance of what they had seen. Kubizek’s account (111–18), is, however, highly fanciful, reading in mystical fashion back into the episode an early prophetic vision of Hitler’s own future. Plainly, the strange evening had made a lasting impression on Kubizek. He reminded Hitler of it when they met at Bayreuth in 1939. On the spot, Hitler seized on the story to illustrate his early prophetic qualities to his hostess, Winifred Wagner, ending with the words: ‘in that hour, it began’ (Kubizek, 118). Kubizek, more impressed than ever, subsequently produced his post-war, highly imaginary depiction, with the melodramatically absurd claim at the forefront of his mind. This has not prevented the ‘vision’ on the Freinberg being taken seriously by some later writers. See e.g. Joachim Köhler,
Wagners Hitler. Der Prophet und sein Vollstrecker,
Munich, 1996, ch.2, esp. 34–5.
    129 . Köhler,
Wagners Hitler,
takes this on to a new plane, however, with his overdrawn claim that Hitler came to see it as his life’s work to fulfil Wagner’s visions and put his ideas into practice.
    130 . Kubizek, 83.
    131 . Kubizek, 18–19.
    132 . Kubizek, 97–110.
    133 . Kubizek, 64–74; see Jetzinger, 142–8; and Hamann, 41–2.
    134 . Kubizek, 106–9; see Jetzinger, 166–8.
    135 . According to Hitler himself, the trip lasted two weeks (
MK,
18). Kubizek, 121–4, reckons it was around four weeks, and is followed by Smith, 104. Jetzinger, 151–5, concluded that Hitler’s recollection was probably correct. The dating can only be determined by the postmarks (some indistinct) and dates (not always given) on the cards which Hitler sent to Kubizek. See Hamann, 42–4. The length of Hitler’s visit is scarcely of prime historical importance.
    136 . Kubizek, 129; Hamann, 43–4.
    137 . Kubizek, 129.
    138 . Kubizek, 127–30. The objections came primarily from Leo Raubal, the husband of Adolf’s half-sister, Angela. He tried to persuade Klara that it was about time that Adolf learnt something sensible. Adolf raged to Kubizek: ‘This pharisee is ruining my home for me’ (Kubizek, 128). Adolf won the battle. According to thelater testimony of a neighbour, he insisted so firmly on his intention of becoming an artist that he finally persuaded his mother to send him to the Academy in Vienna (IfZ, MA-731 (= HA, Reel 1), ‘Adolf Hitler in Urfahr’).
    139 . Gerhart Marckhgott, ‘“Von der Hohlheit des gemächlichen Lebens”. Neues Material über die Familie Hitler in Linz’,
Jahrbuch des Oberösterreichischen Musealvereins,
138/I (1993), 275–6. The entry by Aunt Johanna – twice-noted – in the family household-account book is undated, but from internal evidence can be seen to fall at the end of Adolf’s time in Linz. Brigitte Hamann (196) suggests that it dates from August 1908, and that Adolf persuaded his aunt to loan him the money during a summer visit to the family home in the Waldviertel. Why, then, Aunt Johanna would have entered it in the family household-book which was kept in Urfahr is not apparent. It seems more likely, as Marckhgott infers, that the loan was made the previous year, in 1907, while Klara Hitler was still alive, and when Adolf needed to secure some funding before he left to take the admission examination for the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. As Marckhgott points out, the loan – amounting to about a fifth of Johanna Pölzl’s entire savings – perhaps sparked the protest by Leo Raubal