Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler in World War I

Hitler WWI

This World War I postcard from Germany, which shows a burial of German soldiers during the war.  On the reverse, the card is postmarked November 18, 1915.  Most importantly, it is also marked as coming from the 10th Company of the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment in the 6th Bavarian Reserve Division.  The religious leader in the white cassock appears to be Father Norbert (Norbert Stumpf.)  The soldiers with the armbands are medical personnel.  While at full strength, a German infantry company fielded about 240 men, companies were rarely anything close to full strength, so an average of about 100 might be more accurate.  There seem to be about 50 men present in this photograph.

Why is this photograph anything more than one of the hundreds of thousands of routine depictions of World War I ?

Probably because by this date in 1915, Corporal Adolf Hitler was assigned to the 10th Company shown here, according to several expert sources.

I have looked at the photo for hours under magnification and am not able to say that I have found Hitler in the formation.  As his duties also consisted as a message carrier, or runner, to regimental headquarters, it is quite possible he did not attend this burial.

Adolf Hitler WWI Sample 1

This is a known photo of Hitler during the war.  Unfortunately, it seems that many men in his unit sported flourishing mustaches, so that feature does not narrow down identification.  Below is a second known photo.  When Hitler was in a small group having its picture taken, he often stood or sat near the edge of the group.  But the men at the funeral service probably had no idea that the group was having its picture taken.

Adolf Hitler WWI Sample 2

If you can identify the future dictator of Nazi Germany in the top photograph, please let me know who you believe it is!

 

Adolf Hitler in World War I2016-07-31T16:48:01-05:00

The Wisdom of Crowds

Hunting Hitler Web

Read this carefully, because I really need your help in proving or disproving a historical mystery, and after you think about what you have read I would ask you to email me with your opinions.

My interest in World War II probably began at age five and since then, especially concerning the war in Europe, I have tried to read book after book on this subject that has been printed in English or German.  After five decades and at least 1,000 books read, I was pretty comfortable that I understood how the war unfolded and the general ground truth of what happened.

Within the last two years, however, something has changed with the publication of the book Grey Wolf: The Escape of Adolf Hitler, and last fall the appearance on the History Channel of the series Hunting Hitler.  Until these two events, I would have mortgaged the house, sold the dog, taken a second job and wagered every dollar I had, or would ever make in the future, on the premise that Adolf Hitler committed suicide in Berlin on or about April 30, 1945.  That event was a given in World War II history and was supported by a mountain of indicators.

Now, while I still freely admit that the mountain of indicators is still there, this little, itty-bitty voice of doubt has crept into some historical recess of my mind that is now saying, “Not so fast.”

Let’s do a quick review of established history.  The Soviet Army advanced through Poland and was in an operational pause along the Oder River, just east of Berlin.  On April 16, 1945, they launched their attack to take the German capital, concentrating their forces to break through in the Seelow Heights area.  After two days of bitter fighting, the Soviets broke through the German defenses and advanced toward Berlin, while at the same time sending attack wings north and south of the city so as to encircle it.   By April 23 April, Berlin was fully encircled and the Battle for Berlin entered its final stage.  Hitler decided to die in Berlin, while many or his subordinates attempted to escape over the next eight days.  During the last 49 hours of his life, Adolf Hitler married his long-time mistress Eva Braun, dictated his final will and testament and made preparations for his death.  The two committed suicide about 3:30 pm on April 30, 1945.  SS personnel took the bodies of both people outside the bunker, where they attempted to burn them beyond recognition.  A general breakout from the bunker occurred the next day, with some personnel escaping the Red Army, but with most killed or captured.

Grey Wolf, and since I first read it I have discovered that several investigative reporters and historians in South America have come to the same conclusion – one even stating that some of the work in the book was his own – presents a detailed account of how the Nazis amassed a fortune in Argentina and paid off several highly-placed Argentinian leaders to not only look the other way, but to actively assist those Nazis that escaped to their country after the war.  The non-fiction work then goes into detail on how Hitler – and Eva Braun – escaped.  It gives names of those assisting in the effort, presents the most-likely path of escape, tells of the exact U-boat that ferried the Führer across the Atlantic, describes Hitler’s life in the South American country and presents a description of the Nazi leader’s last days.  More incredibly – if that is possible – the work tells how Eva soured on her husband and how she and their two children left the unstable dictator.  In short, Grey Wolf tried to answer the question: Did Hitler, code name “Grey Wolf”, really die in Berlin in 1945?

That all sounded incredible – to the point that I have read the book three times and began a search to verify or disprove the details as they were presented (i.e., what was the history of the U-boat in question; what was the history of the area in Argentina to which the couple fled, etc.)

Then last fall, History Channel introduced their series Hunting Hitler, which not only had one of the authors of Grey Wolf on its investigation team, but was also staffed by several other accomplished experts and led by former CIA case officer and author Robert “Bob” Baer.  Here was a “heavy-hitter”, a graduate of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown, an intelligence columnist for Time Magazine and a consultant on intelligence issues and subjects for CNN.  Mr. Baer simply is not the type of professional who would support a fraudulent effort to answer a legitimate question, because his reputation is his stock in trade.  After watching every episode of the series, my conclusion was that Hitler and Braun could have escaped from Berlin; the short series simply did not have the time or focus to get me to a conclusion that they did escape.

The series lasted three seasons, and in all honesty, I thought they were more interested in continuing the series than actually finding Hitler.  So it may be wise to turn to a new method of analysis to try and prove or disprove this potentially history-shaking subject – the wisdom of the crowd.  This information-gathering and decision-making tool rests on the conclusion that the collective opinion of a group of individuals is more accurate and prescient than that of a single expert.  Behavioral scientists have found time after time that a large group’s aggregated answers to questions involving quantity estimation, general knowledge and many types of reasoning is as good as – and often better than – the conclusion arrived at by any single individual within the group, no matter their education or specialty.  This is also the basis of our jury system and how 12 jurors can come up with the correct verdict.

The readers on this website are real thinkers, as their emails to me indicate all the time.  So if you are reading this post, I would like you to think about your answer to the following question:

What proof would you need for you to conclude that Adolf Hitler probably did not die in Berlin in 1945 and instead escaped to South America?

To help you organize your thoughts let me offer some “baskets” of proof that you could consider – but if you have something else, please develop that.  The goal of this post is to have you send me an email (go to contact the author) and let me hear the wisdom of the reading group, and maybe we can get Bob Baer (who I know) to shake the cage and start another effort.

Basket 1 – Witness Statements.  This might include Argentinians who believe they saw Hitler in Argentina after the war.  How many different witnesses would cause you to believe their conclusions?  What if one or more of the U-boat crewmen that reportedly took Hitler to South America was still alive and made a statement on camera to that effect?  Would it take more than one of these sailors to convince you?  Since they probably are not alive, what about statements from the children of those crewmen?

Basket 2 – Photographs.  If any photographs of Hitler were shown, and were verified by photo experts to have been taken in the 1940s or 1950s, and a forensic expert was able to superimpose them on known photographs to get a percentage of match, how would that affect your opinion?

Basket 3 – Remains or DNA.  I am not sure if anyone has DNA that is known to be Hitler’s or someone in his family, as DNA was not a known tool back then for identification.  What are your observations concerning the use of DNA.  Additionally, if the investigators found what they believe are the remains of Hitler, how would you want that presentation to be handled: a dental records comparison, etc.?

Basket 4 – Eva Braun and the supposed children.  Even if Hitler did escape, he would be long dead by now and Eva Braun would almost certainly be dead unless she was born in 1912!!  But if the couple indeed had children, those individuals could still be alive.  What evidence concerning them would you like to see?  If the investigators find a gravestone in a secluded cemetery for Eva Braun and the burial records show the person was born in Munich on the same day that the famous Eva was, what does that do to the little voice in your head?

Basket 5 – Something else.  No matter how crazy it may sound, let me hear it!

Basket 6 – This is the “I ain’t buying anything they find or show.”  That is important to know as well as it shows a would-be writer or producer the magnitude of the challenge he or she must overcome to change a historical opinion that has been sort of set in concrete for almost 80 years.

So please think about the essential question, Did Hitler really die in Berlin in 1945?  Think about what level of evidence or proof you need to answer this in the negative, if that can be done at all.

And then please write me with your thoughts!

 

 

 

The Wisdom of Crowds2023-09-07T16:39:15-05:00

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler, the Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the Nazi Party, hailed from Ranshofen, a small village in the municipality of Braunau am Inn, Austria.  He was born on April 20, 1889, the fourth of six children of a minor customs official, Alois Hitler – and Klara Pölzl.  At age three, Adolf moved with the family to Passau, Germany, but remained there only two years before locating in Leonding, near Linz, Austria.  This early traveling between the two countries helped Adolf later adopt the feeling that he was more German than Austrian.

Hitler’s father, Alois Hitler, was the illegitimate child of Maria Anna Schicklgruber.  The baptismal register did not show the name of Alois’ father, so Alois received his mother’s surname.  In 1842, a Johann Georg Hiedler married Maria Anna.  After she died in 1847 and he in 1856, Alois was brought up in the family of Hiedler’s brother, Johann Nepomuk Hiedler.  In 1876, Alois was legitimated and the baptismal register changed by a priest before three witnesses.  However, many in the family – and others as well, although they kept quiet – were convinced that Maria Anna, Alois’ mother, was employed as a housekeeper for a Jewish family in Graz, Austria and that this family’s 19-year-old son, Leopold Frankenberger, had actually fathered Alois.  If true (and many prominent historians disbelieve this assertion) that would make Hitler – who hated all Jews and wanted to exterminate them – a quarter Jewish himself in the Nazi way of determining race.

In June 1895, the Hitler family moved to a small landholding at the village of Hafeld near Lambach, Austria, when Alois retired from customs and tried his hand at farming and beekeeping.  Young Adolf attended school at the village of Fischlham.  However, he rebelled against the school discipline, as well as that of his father, and began to emotionally separate from members of the family.  With the farming attempt in shambles, Alois moved the family back to Lambach and a year later to Leonding.  In February 1900, Edmund, Adolf’s younger brother, died from measles, which further pushed Adolf to being a sullen and detached boy, constantly bickering with his father and schoolteachers.  That September, Alois sent Adolf to the Realschule in Linz, Austria, hoping the son would become a customs bureau employee.  This event soured Adolf further, as he had wished to become an artist and attend a classical high school.  His schooling declined, when on January 3, 1903, Alois suddenly died.  Adolf transferred to the Realschule at Steyr, Austria for a year, before leaving school completely.

From 1905 to 1913, Adolf lived in Wien, Austria.  Following a bohemian lifestyle, he was financed by orphan’s benefits; his mother also supported him.  During this time, Hitler worked as a part-time laborer and eventually as a painter of watercolors.  The Academy of Fine Arts, Wien, rejected Hitler for admittance in 1907 and 1908, because of his inaptitude for painting, and the academy’s director suggested that Hitler study architecture.  Klara Hitler died on December 21, 1907, an event that crushed Hitler’s spirit.  Running out of money, he lived in a homeless shelter in 1909 and by 1910, he had settled into a house for poor working men.  He probably began his virulent Anti-Semitism at this time.  Hitler left Austria in February 1914 and moved to München.

At the outbreak of World War I, Hitler volunteered to serve in the Bavarian Army as an Austrian citizen.  He was assigned to the 1st Company of the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment “List Regiment” and served as a dispatch runner on the Western Front in France and Belgium.  He was in combat at the First Battle of Ypres, the Battle of the Somme, the Battle of Arras and the Battle of Passchendaele (Third Battle of Ypres.)  He was soon decorated for bravery, receiving the Iron Cross 2nd Class in 1914.  During the Battle of the Somme in October 1916, he was wounded in the groin area and left thigh by shrapnel from an artillery shell that exploded in the dispatch runners’ dugout.  He subsequently spent almost two months in the Red Cross hospital at Beelitz, not returning to his regiment until March 5, 1917.  Hitler received the Iron Cross 1st Class on August 4, 1918, having previously received the Black Wound Badge on May 18, 1918.  On October 15, 1918, Hitler was temporarily blinded in a mustard gas attack and was hospitalized in Pasewalk.  At this hospital, he received word of Germany’s defeat, and suffered a second bout of blindness.

Now a decorated veteran of World War I, Hitler joined the German Workers’ Party (a precursor of the Nazi Party [NSDAP]) in 1919, and became the leader of the NSDAP in 1921.  On November 9, 1923, Hitler and his followers attempted a coup d’état, known as the Beer Hall Putsch, in downtown München.  The failed coup resulted in a conviction for treason and imprisonment at Landsberg Prison, during which time he wrote his memoir, Mein Kampf (My Struggle).  After Hitler’s release from prison in 1924, Hitler gained popular support by attacking the Treaty of Versailles and promoting Pan-Germanism, Anti-Semitism, and Anti-Communism through the use of charismatic oratory, superb organizational skills and Nazi propaganda.

Slowly, but surely, the Nazi Party gained traction.  After his appointment as Chancellor of Germany in 1933, Hitler transformed the Weimar Republic into the Third Reich, a single-party dictatorship based on the totalitarian and autocratic ideology of Nazism.  Now as Führer and Reichskanzler, his public aim was to establish a New Order of absolute Nazi German hegemony in continental Europe.  His private discussions revealed Hitler’s foreign and domestic policies that had the goal of seizing “living space” (Lebensraum) for the Germanic people in Eastern Europe and Russia.  Hitler directed the rearmament of Germany, the annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia and the invasion of Poland by the Wehrmacht in September 1939.  These actions led to the outbreak of World War II in Europe.  Under Hitler’s rule, in 1941 German forces and their European allies occupied most of Europe and North Africa and invaded Russia.  The Nazis “Final Solution,” the destruction of the European Jews, accelerated at this point.  By 1943, Hitler’s military decisions led to escalating German defeats.  In 1944, the Western Allies invaded France and the Soviet Union reached Poland in the east.  In 1945, the Allied armies successfully invaded Germany.

In the final days of the war, during the Battle of Berlin in 1945, Hitler married his long-time mistress, Eva Braun.  On April 30, 1945, Hitler finished dictating his final testament and the pair committed suicide, Hitler by biting down on a cyanide capsule, while simultaneously shooting himself in the head with a pistol, to avoid capture by the Red Army.  SS troops doused the corpses with gasoline in the garden of the Reichs’ Chancellery and burned the corpses.  Rumors persisted for three decades that Hitler had fooled his enemies and had fled to South America, but all the stories proved false.

Hitler said numerous outrageous things during his career.  Here are a few perverse statements he made about women:

“A highly intelligent man should have a primitive and stupid woman.”

“These women are so oddly primitive.  A hairdresser, clothes, dancing, theaters can distract them from any serious activity.

“The only things they’re willing to read are magazines and novels.”

“With all due respect for older ladies, I would prefer having younger ones nearby.”

“I detest women who dabble in politics.  And if their dabbling extends to military matters, it becomes utterly unendurable.”

“Other women are extremely careful of their appearance, but not beyond the moment when they’ve found a husband.  They’re obsessed by their outlines, they weigh themselves on exact scales – the least gram counts!  Then you marry them, and they put on weight by the kilo!”

“Intelligence, in a woman, is not an essential thing.”

“Spanish women, even though they speak several languages, are outstandingly stupid.”

Adolf Hitler2016-03-28T21:03:53-05:00

Günther Prien and the crew of the U-47

Günther Prien and the crew of the U-47

Günther Prien and the crew of the U-47.  After the U-47 sank the HMS Royal Oak at Scapa Flow, Adolf Hitler invited the crew to Berlin and personally met then as shown here; on the far left is Grossadmiral Erich Raeder.  Prien later autographed the photo (lower right.)  Prien sank 162,769 tons of Allied shipping before he perished with all his crew on March 7, 1941, southwest of the Faroe Islands.

Günther Prien and the crew of the U-472015-09-07T12:52:48-05:00
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