Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris

localities stagnated in 1926–7. (See Orlow, i.111.)
    136 . Orlow, i.75.
    137 . See Lüdecke, 250–52.
    138 . See Tyrell,
Führer,
196.
    139 . See Krebs, 126–7 on Hitler’s speech in Hamburg in early October 1927.
    140 . See Krebs, 128.
    141 . See Hanfstaengl, 183; Krebs, 134–5.
    142 . The following description draws in the main on Krebs, 126–35.
    143 . Krebs, 133.
    144 . Krebs, 132.
    145 . Krebs, 135.
    146 . Müller,
Wandel,
301.
    147 . Krebs, 128–9.
    148 . Tyrell,
Führer,
212, letter of Walter Buch, 1 October 1928. The document is a handwritten draft of a letter which may never have been sent.
    149 . Hanfstaengl, 15
Jahre,
183. The ‘coffee-house tirades’ were, presumably, outbursts which Hanfstaengl frequently experienced during the regular gatherings of Hitler and his cronies in Munich’s cafés.
    150 . Hanfstaengl, 15
Jahre,
183–4. A similar incident had apparently caused trouble between Hermann Esser and his wife. According to Hanfstaengl, Hitler also found himself for a time
persona non grata
in the house of one of his Berlin benefactors, the later Minister for Post Wilhelm Ohnesorge, on account of pathetic professions to his daughter that though he could not marry he could not live without her. The reliability of the story might be justifiably doubted. Similarly, though Hitler greatly enjoyed the company of Winifred Wagner, the wife of the composer’s son, Siegfried, there are no grounds to believe (as was hinted, for instance, by Heiden,
Hitler,
349) that the relationship was other than platonic.
    151 . See the writer Hans Carossa’s impressions in Deuerlein,
Hitler,
86.
    152 . Müller,
Wandel,
301.
    153 . Hanfstaengl, 15
Jahre,
157.
    154 . Krebs, 126.
    155 . Lüdecke, 252; Hanfstaengl, 15
Jahre,
163.
    156 . Krebs, 129; the Munich police noted in March 1925 that Hitler had bought the black Mercedes as a second car (BHStA, MA 101235/1, PD Mü., Nachrichtenblatt, 2 March 1925, S.17). The car cost a handsome 20,000 Reich Marks – more than Hitler’s declared taxable income in the year 1925. He told the tax authorities that he had purchased the car through a bank loan (Hale, ‘Adolf Hitler: Taxpayer’, 831, 837).
    157 . See
Monologe,
282–3, for Hitler’s preference for Bavarian short trousers.
    158 .Heiden,
Hitler,
184.
    159 . Hanfstaengl, 15
Jahre,
185.
    160 . Müller,
Wandel,
301.
    161 . See Krebs, 127–9, 132, 134
for the
above.
    162 . Hanfstaengl, 15
Jahre,
176.
    163 . Hitler was in Berchtesgaden from 18 July until the end of the month
(TBJG,
I.1, 194–8(18 July – 1 August 1926)).
    164 .
Monologe,
202–5. The first volume of
Mein Kampf,
originally intended for publication in March – the printers had pressed Hitler to no avail in February to let them have the final manuscript (Sonderarchiv Moscow, 1355–I–2, Fol.223) – was eventually published on 18 July 1925. Hitler’s dictation must, therefore, have been of the second volume, work which he completed the following summer, not the first volume, as Toland, 211, thought. This is confirmed in a letter by Rudolf Heß on 11 August 1925 in which he states that Hitler ‘is retreating for about 4 weeks to Berchtesgaden to write the second volume of his book’ (Sonderarchiv Moscow, 1355-I-2, Fol.101). The second volume was published on 11 December 1926 (Maser,
Mein Kampf,
272, 274).
    165 .
Monologe,
206–7. In his related note, the editor, Werner Jochmann, 439 n.60, dates the renting to 1925, though without source, and in variation from Hitler’s own dating in the text. Heiden,
Hitler,
205 also dates it to 1925. Toland, 229, presumes the same date. Hitler himself seemed in no doubt, however, that the year was 1928. It is unlikely that, on a matter of such significance to him, his good factual memory was playing tricks on him. The businessman concerned was Kommerzienrat Winter from Buxtehude, near Hamburg. He had had Haus Wachenfeld built in 1916 (1917 according to Hitler,
Monologe,
202) (Josef Weiß,
Obersalzberg. The History of a Mountain,
Berchtesgaden (n.d., 1955), 59, 67). The house was close to the Platterhof – the new name of what was formerly Pension Moritz. Hanfstaengl thought that the purchase was brought about with the financial help of the Bechsteins. But there is no evidence of this (Hanfstaengl, 15
Jahre,
186).
    166 . Heiden,
Hitler,
205: ‘Seven Years on the Magic Mountain’. Gauleiter Giesler of Munich allegedly referred to the Obersalzberg as the ‘Holy Mountain’ (Weiß, 65).
    167 . For the Berghof,