The story of Mein Kampf. Werner Mather. Mein Kampf's story Mather's controversial claims

22.09.2019

Werner Mather ADOLF HITLER Legend. Myth. Reality

Dedicated to EVE MASER

FOREWORD TO THE 1st EDITION

There are countless books about Adolf Hitler. Already ten years ago, about 50,000 book titles were registered only about the Second World War. Biographies are relatively few in number. Too much in Hitler's life was still considered unclear, and too little could be proved. The essential stages of his life remained in the shadows or - depending on the position of the biographer - were embellished, the known details constantly received new "interesting" interpretation. The documents of the Federal Archives in Koblenz and the materials used by most historians are insufficient to fill all the blank spots. Other sources are too scarce. Some of them, such as the complete materials of Hitler's doctors, which cannot be found in any archives, are considered completely inaccessible or missing. Nothing was known about the documents of Hitler's family. People from Hitler's entourage, as well as his relatives - brothers and sisters and stepbrothers, nephews and nieces, cousins - remained silent for understandable reasons, although they were able to help historians. After the publication of my books “Early history of the NSDAP. Hitler's career until 1924 "(1965) and" Hitler's Mein Kampf "(1966), a word spontaneously revealed treasures of information: valuable witnesses appeared - Hitler's classmates, friends of youth, fellow soldiers during the war years," comrades "in the party, friends and enemies, relatives and heirs - who have provided me with memories and documents. The archives of one of Hitler's cousins, who fell out of sight of the family, revealed some of the documents that historians and biographers have been looking for unsuccessfully for 50 years. For the first time, it was possible to study numerous handwritten letters and notes of Hitler, as well as the records and testimonies of the doctors who treated him that were considered missing.

Now there are no blank spots in the life of Adolf Hitler. Many of the information that has become known have been omitted by me, some are only mentioned. Only what is necessary for understanding the new image is revealed in detail.

Werner Mather

INSTEAD OF THE FOREWORD TO THE 12TH EDITION

Werner Mather made a significant contribution to deepening knowledge about the origin and consequences of the National Socialist dictatorship. His extensive and detailed research work provides an impressive warning against brutal totalitarian politics. Mather's scientific research serves as a constant reminder of the era of National Socialism and thus helps to prevent its recurrence.

Helmut Kohl, Federal Chancellor

Such a detailed study ... was necessary for a long time ... It helps to explain a lot ... The appeal to Adolf Hitler as a fateful character in our history is especially relevant for us Germans.

Helmut Schmidt, former Federal Chancellor

The veils are torn from the legends ... Apparently, the West German historian Werner Mather has dealt the last blow to them.

Lev Bezymensky, Soviet historian and biographer of Hitler

The mass of hitherto unknown details, which were covered with controversy and legends, appear in a clear light.

Andreas Hilgruber, German historian and biographer of Hitler

An invaluable work, an incredible completeness of information that was previously unknown.

A.J.P. Taylor, English historian and biographer of Hitler

Unusual book ... amazing knowledge of all sources.

A textbook work on modern history ... objective ... thorough ... exciting. Werner Mather's objective approach to history was the reason that, whenever possible, I supplied him with unpublished materials for this biography of Hitler.

Prof. Dr. Robert M.W. Kempner, US Prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials

For the first time it became known ... the details and causes of Hitler's illnesses, which even to us, the doctors who treated Hitler, were only partially available.

Dr. Erwin Giesing, Hitler's otolaryngologist

... Finally, a comprehensive biography of Hitler has appeared ... It combines Mather's high professionalism, an abundance of details and deep insight into details ... The world of specialists is amazed.

Der Spiegel

All legends and all clichés are in the past.

German news agency DPA

Thanks to the painstaking work of Mather, a radical revolution was made in the study of the biography of Hitler.

Frankfurter Rundschau

An excellent biography of Hitler ... the fruit of twenty years of work ... a lot of new materials ... about Hitler's origins, his life, his illnesses and death.

Jewish Information Review MACCABI

"German Review"

The author ... not only thoroughly studied the main literature about Hitler and researched all available primary sources of information; he collected materials about people who, for various reasons and at different times, had dealings with Hitler, and absolutely irrefutably backed up his conclusions with expert testimony from doctors, psychologists and graphologists.

"Salzburger nachrichten"

This excitingly written book should help us return Hitler to his real time ... It becomes clear why this book has found so many readers, and in the future there will be even more.

Press (Vienna)

Many riddles are explained in one fell swoop, which otherwise would forever remain unsolved.

Hanauer Anzeiger

Mather's merit lies in the fact that he disassembled Hitler into separate parts, as a result of which reality destroyed myths and legends.

"Welt der Arbeit"

... The most fundamental and detailed account of the life of Adolf Hitler.

"The Evangelical Compass in the World of Books"

The author conducted a full autopsy of Hitler almost a quarter of a century after his inglorious death ... His book debunks all prejudices and exposes many of the allegedly proven details as fantastic fabrications.

Radio station "Deutschlandfunk"

... The most complete biography of Hitler.

Deutsche Zeitung / Christ und Welt

... A fascinating reading ... an extraordinary success.

This book is a fascinating document ... it shows how little we really know about Hitler.

Austrian television

There are very few good biographies of Adolf Hitler. The comprehensive work of Werner Mather, the result of decades of research, is of great importance in this regard.

"Das noye bukh"

CHAPTER 1 ORIGIN AND FAMILY

April 20, 1889, a gloomy Sunday afternoon, when the thermometer showed 7 degrees Celsius above zero with an air humidity of 89 percent, at the Austrian spouses Alois and Klara Hitler at 6.30 pm, shortly before the start of Easter night at the hotel "U Pomeranza" in the city of Braunau -on the Inn a son was born. Two days later, on Easter Monday, at 3:15 pm, when Milleuker's operetta The Enchanted Castle began at the nearby Linz Theater, the Catholic priest of the Braunau parish Ignaz Probst baptized the child, who was given the name Adolf Hitler. Midwife Franziska Pointecker and Clara Hitler's unmarried sister Johann Pölzl were the first to see this puny, dark-haired and surprisingly blue-eyed boy who later became known throughout the world. At the end of a unique life path, on April 30, 1945, he committed suicide, having previously given an order to his entourage to burn his corpse. Neither the doctor nor the priest could help him in these last moments of his life, and no one from his inner circle was able to identify him as Adolf Hitler at the time of the funeral.

In the church book of Braunau with the inscription "Volume XIX, from 30.6.1881 to 1891" there are two records about Adolf Hitler, made by the hand of Catholic priests of different generations: these are the usual certificates of birth and baptism, and then the belated confirmation of death.

The book states:

“Adolf Hitler was born (was) on 20.4.1889 at 6.30, baptized on 22.4. at 3.15 Ignaz Probst; lives in Fore (stadt), 219; born in wedlock, religion kat (olic). Father: Alois Hitler, employee of the Imperial Royal Customs. Mother: Clara, legal daughter of Johann Pölzl, a peasant from Spital, Lower Austria and Johannes, nee Hitler.

Godparents: Johann and Johannes Prinz, living in Vienna III, Leuven Gasse, 28; witnesses: Johanna Pölzl, sister of the child's mother; midwife Francisca Pointecker. According to the baptism certificate issued by the Parish Administration of Dellersheim on June 7, 1876 and signed by the priest Josef Zanshirm, Alois Hitler, born on June 7, 1837, is the legal son of Georg Hitler, a resident of Spital, and his wife Maria Anna, the zak (onna) daughter of Johann Schicklgruber, a peasant from Strones, and his wife Theresa, née) Pfizinger, of all Cat (olic) denominations.

Alois Hitler was born in Strones and on his birthday was baptized by Priest Ignaz Rusküfer in the presence of Johann Trummelschlager and his wife Josefa as godparents. In the 1st marriage of wives (at) to Anna, née) Glasl-Hörer, d. 6.4.1883 here. In the 2nd marriage to Francis Matzelsberger, obv (enchan) 05/22/1883

Even if Adolf Hitler were an ordinary Catholic, like millions of others, church records about the date of his death and about the origin of his father could raise many skeptical questions. Adolf Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945. Only 12 years later, on January 11, 1957, priest Johann Ludwig made an entry in the old church book of Braunau: “By the decision of the Berchtesgaden court of October 25, 1956, 1148/52 was recognized dead. Parish administration Braunau, 11 January 1957 Johann Ludwig. "

On February 17, 1960, the Munich court issued number 2994/48 "Certificate of inheritance of the property of Adolf Hitler" in the name of Paula Hitler, the only sister of the deceased, who, however, died on June 1, 1960, not having time to receive the inheritance, which amounted to two-thirds of the property Hitler. The certificate stated that it was issued "on the occasion of the death of Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler in Berlin on April 30, 1945, on the basis of a will and in connection with the absence of the primary heir, the NSDAP party." Paula Hitler wrote on January 10, 1960: "My most cherished desire is to finally receive a certificate of inheritance, which will give me the opportunity to move into a spacious sunny apartment, so that at least the rest of my life can be spent in the joyful light of the sun, which I have hoped for all my life in vain." What Adolf Hitler said to his nephew Patrick Hitler even before the Second World War has come true: "It will not benefit anyone that he bears the name Hitler."

Both Adolf Hitler's half-sister Angela and his half-brother Alois had already died by this time: Angela on October 30, 1949, and Alois on May 20, 1956.

Adolf Hitler's life was a link in a chain that stretched from dark origins to a terrible end that was not only the end for him. For it is said: "Si monumentum requiris, circumspice" (if you are looking for your monument, look around).

The origins of Adolf Hitler were considered dark and controversial by some of his close associates already at the time when he publicly acted as a political functionary and demanded that every German present a certificate of his ancestry for several generations. In the church books of Braunau, Alois Hitler and Clara Hitler, née Pölzl, are indicated as his parents, which is true. However, with the previous generations of his ancestors, not everything is so smooth in terms of documents. Adolf Hitler's father was born illegitimate and formally remained so until the age of 39. The entries in the wedding book of the city of Braunau correspond to the truth only partially, because there it is indicated, as already mentioned above:

“According to the baptism certificate issued by the Parish Administration of Dellersheim on June 7, 1876 and signed by priest Josef Zanshirm, Alois Hitler, born on June 7, 1837, is the legal son of Georg Hitler, a resident of Spital, and his wife Maria Anne, the legal daughter of Johann Schicklgruber, a peasant from Strones, and his wife Theresia, née Pfizinger, of all Catholic faith.

Alois Hitler was born in Strones and on his birthday was baptized by Priest Ignaz Rüsküfer in the presence of Johann Trummelschlager and his wife Josefa as godparents. In the 1st marriage of wives (at) to Anna, née) Glasl-Hörer, d. 6.4.1883 here. In the 2nd marriage to Francis Matzelsberger, obv (enchan) 05/22/1883

Book. Marriage Records, v. XIII at Ranshofen, 268.

In the 3rd marriage he is married to Klara Pölzl, obv (enchan) 7.1.1885, Prince. marriage records, v. XIII, pp. 68, 281 ".

Despite the persistent efforts of numerous historians, researchers of Hitler's genealogy and biography, it was still not known who his paternal grandfather was. The spectrum of speculation and assertion on this score ranged from the Viennese Baron Rothschild and the Jew Frankenberger of Graz to one of the members of the Ottenstein count family in Lower Austria. In any case, for some biographers there was no doubt that the official grandfather of Adolf Hitler, the miller's apprentice Johann Georg Hiedler, could not be the father of his father. It was known about Adolf Hitler's father, who was born in 1837, that he began to bear the name Hitler only in 1876. What preceded this change of name was still shrouded in obscurity. Some uncertainty was also felt in any references to Adolf Hitler's grandmother Maria Anna Schicklgruber.

Already in the early twenties, when the first decisive successes in Hitler's party-political career appeared, which determined his further life path, some of his political opponents openly raised the question of where, in fact, this noisy "apostle of pure Germanism" came from, who is his grandfather on the father's side and whether he can prove that he does not have at least partially Jewish origin.

The opponents and enemies of the fanatical anti-Semite Hitler would gladly find irrefutable evidence for the assumptions and claims that Adolf Hitler's father is a descendant of a Jew. But since there was no evidence, all sorts of legends and stories began to be invented. Hitler, in his book Mein Kampf, is surprisingly sparse and vague about his parents and their ancestors. He, who, in accordance with the NSDAP program, demanded that every German should document who his ancestors were, which could have tragic consequences if Jews were found among them, he himself ultimately did not answer this question. About his origin, he only said that his father was an Austrian customs officer, "a government official endowed with a sense of duty" and "the son of a small landless peasant", his mother was a caring wife of her husband, a kind and self-sacrificing woman whom he "loved" ... Everything else is just phrases intended to create a legend and use it in National Socialist propaganda.

Hitler, surprisingly well aware of the details of Greek and Roman history, the history of religion, mythology with its many gods and heroes, as well as the Bible, especially the Old Testament, and often in his reasoning in a narrow circle, especially during the Second World War, touched on these aspects that were supposed to reinforce the agreement with him of his already loyal listeners, put himself and his origin in such a framework that they were as easy to manipulate as "history". Beginning in late 1921, he systematically altered and obscured the history of his origin, while expecting that, like many Greek heroes and gods, he would be perceived, regardless of his fathers and grandfathers, as a messenger of history and the embodiment of the legitimate and good aspirations of the German people. This version was effectively supported by systematic analogies with great historical figures known from literature. Considered through such a prism, the details of kinship no longer played any significant role even when it was a question of direct kinship with famous representatives of science and literature, which Hitler really could boast of. He mentioned his father and paternal grandfather with only a few phrases, since it was impossible to do without it. That was enough for Hitler. He was great and mighty, he composed legends about himself on a rational basis and could not stand sober historians who destroyed them.

After January 30, 1933, when Hitler took power into his own hands and began to systematically strengthen it, the voices of those who openly debated its origins were forced to silence in the German Reich. Nevertheless, rumors and "documents" about Hitler's alleged Jewish roots continued to circulate on the sly. For example, already in October 1933, an article was circulating around our hands, published by the Daily Mir-Ror newspaper on October 14, 1933, with a photograph of the grave monument on which “Adolf Hitler” was inscribed in Hebrew letters. The journalists who are keen on inventions, who learned that at the Jewish cemetery in Bucharest, in the 7th row of the 18th section, there is a grave (No. 9) with such an inscription, immediately declared the man buried there the grandfather of the "Fuehrer and Reich Chancellor" Adolf Hitler. The American Jewish magazine Forward and the Polish Jewish newspaper Hint took up the Daily Mirror's claim, claiming that this grave would be "the grave ... of Germany's most anti-Semitic Chancellor." The fact that this Jew from Bucharest, who was born, according to the epitaph and death certificate, in 1832, who died in 1892 and was buried at the expense of the Jewish society "Philanthropy", bore the Hebrew name Abraham Eilien, was only five years older than Adolf Hitler's father and, therefore, could not be Hitler's grandfather, did not interfere with either the creators of this "sensation" or the people who believed in it or wanted to believe. "Some time ago," wrote Forward, "we received a telegram from our Warsaw correspondent that the local Jewish newspaper Haint published a photograph of the grave of Hitler's Jewish grandfather ... It becomes obvious that the information about the Jewish origin of Adolf Hitler is true." Jews who bore the surname Hitler, which was not uncommon in Eastern European countries, became confused and frightened. Some of them, like, for example, Abram Hitler from the Polish city of Sosnovets, changed their surnames.

Such information could not hide from the leading National Socialists. So, for example, the commissioner of the women's National Socialist organization for studies under the Gauleiter of the Weser-Ems district on September 19, 1934, sent a note from the Mirror to the NSDAP study department with a note that it might have "some value for the party archive ". People in power and influence, such as Heinrich Himmler and Joseph Goebbels, became worried and tried to answer this question using their means and capabilities. Himmler, who was constantly concerned about strengthening his positions and had long ago got himself a top secret dossier on the Fuehrer, where materials about Hitler were kept, which could be used at an opportunity (which he, in fact, did later, when he planned to arrest Hitler by the SS and to offer himself to the Western allies as a partner in the war against the Soviet Union), on August 4, 1942, he instructed the Gestapo to investigate the “origin of the Fuhrer”. Everything that was found by the Gestapo in Austria did not deserve the slightest attention. The secret message No. B / 23 / h of October 14, 1942 to the Reichsfuehrer SS contained only information about such insignificant facts as the fact that Adolf Hitler's father was married three times and that for the conclusion of a third marriage, from which Adolf was born , he needed a special permission from the Catholic Church, since he was in a close relationship of the 2-3rd degree with his bride.

A year and a half after the death of Adolf Hitler, old assumptions began to be fueled by new arguments and plausible facts from a source that seemed credible even to serious historians and biographers. It turned out to be Hans Frank, Hitler's governor-general of Poland from 1939 to 1945. On August 31, 1946, in his closing speech at the meeting of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, he said that "he does not want to leave unpaid debts in this world." Not long before that, in his cell of the Nuremberg prison, with the help of the American Franciscan pastor and army priest Sixtus O "Connor, he wrote notes that, since 1953, have haunted all researchers of Hitler's biography, posing in front of them an absolutely insoluble riddle. The papers that Frank, who converted to the Roman Catholic faith in Nuremberg, handed the pastor to the pastor with a request to transfer them to the monastery archives, a former deputy of the Reichstag from the National Socialist Party (1930) and Adolf Hitler's legal adviser wrote: “Once, around the end of 1930 ., I was summoned to Hitler ... He showed me some letter and said that it was "disgusting blackmail" by one of his most disgusting relatives, which concerns his, Hitler's, origin. Alois Hitler (from the second marriage of Hitler's father), who made subtle hints that "in connection with the well-known statements in the press, you must not to bring up certain circumstances of our family's history for public discussion. " The statements in the press, which were mentioned in the letter, were that "Hitler has Jewish blood in his veins, and therefore he has not the slightest right to preach anti-Semitism." However, they were too general and did not provide a reason for retaliation. In the heat of the struggle, all this passed unnoticed. But these blackmail hints emanating from family circles were thought-provoking. On behalf of Hitler, I delicately examined the situation. In general, I was able to establish from various sources the following: Hitler's father was the illegitimate child of a cook named Schicklgruber from Leonding near Linz, who worked for the same family in Graz. In accordance with the law, according to which the illegitimate child must bear the mother's surname, he lived until about fourteen years of age under the name Schicklgruber. When his mother, that is, the grandmother of Adolf Hitler, married a certain Mr. Hitler, the illegitimate child, that is, the father of Adolf Hitler, was legally recognized as the son of the Hitler and Schicklgruber family. All this is understandable, and there is absolutely nothing unusual about it. But the most surprising thing about this story is this: when this cook Schicklgruber, Adolf Hitler's grandmother, gave birth to a child, she was working for a Jewish Frankenberger family. And this Frankenberger paid her for his son, who was at that time about nineteen years old, alimony up to the fourteenth birthday of her child. Subsequently, there was a correspondence between the Frankenbergers and Hitler's grandmother, which lasted for several years. The general meaning of this correspondence boiled down to a mutual tacit admission that Schicklgruber's illegitimate son was conceived in circumstances that compel the Frankenberger to pay child support for him. These letters were kept for many years by a lady who was related to Adolf Hitler through Raubal and lived in Wetzelsdorf near Graz ... Therefore, in my opinion, the possibility that Hitler's father was half Jewish, originating from Schicklgruber's extramarital affairs and a Jew from Graz. Based on this, Hitler in this case was a quarter of a Jew. "

A whole generation of Hitler's biographers racked their brains over Frank's statements, which sometimes led them to the most daring assumptions. It is very doubtful, in particular, the idea that if Frank's version was widely known already in 1930, it would put an end to the career of Adolf Hitler as party leader, since Jews and “descendants of Jews”, in accordance with the provisions of the NSDAP program, were deprived of German citizenship ( clause 4), could only reside in Germany temporarily (clause 5) and were not allowed to hold any official positions, whether at the level of the Reich, state or community (clause 6). Nevertheless, when the famous biographer of Hitler Konrad Heiden, himself the son of a Jewish woman, pointed out in his books, which appeared in 1932 and 1936, some evidence of Hitler's Jewish origin, it did not lead to absolutely any consequences.

Franz Etzinger, a former Catholic priest with political ambition and knowledge of provincial life, pointed out in his sometimes interesting but very unprofessional book, Hitler's Youth. Fantasies, lies and truths ”that the French newspaper Paris Soir on August 5, 1939 published an article by Adolf Hitler's nephew Patrick, who claimed that his uncle was the nephew of a Jew from Graz named Frankenreiter.

Paris Soir no longer exists. Nowhere after 1939 has this newspaper article been reprinted. Perhaps, hardly any of Hitler's biographers saw her with their own eyes. She has always been quoted or referred to "second-hand". However, it was thanks to Etzinger's assertions that it acquired the character of a historical source. The data of Etzinger, who also never saw this issue of Paris Soir, have nothing to do with the truth, as well as the conclusions of the authors who relied on them. Patrick Hitler's interview with the Paris Soir on August 5, 1939, which takes two whole pages and is illustrated with six photographs, does not name either Frankenberger or Frankenreiter, as well as Maria Anne Schicklgruber, Adolf Hitler's grandmother. Likewise, there is no reference whatsoever to Graz or to the possible Jewish origin of Adolf Hitler. This article unequivocally proves only what all Hitler's relatives unanimously said: Patrick Hitler, the son born of the marriage of Adolf Hitler's half-brother Alois and his English wife, was a lazy and loafing man who tried to profit from the fact that Adolf Hitler was his uncle. In Paris Soir, he himself admits that he constantly asked Hitler for money and refused to understand when he irritatedly explained to him that no one had the right to count on income from family relations. Patrick's formulations are very eloquent: “He (Adolf Hitler. - Approx. By the author) said that he was not able to help all those who accidentally bear his last name ... Although he only had to lift a finger to fill the pockets of his closest relatives, he did not tried to do it. " It is instructive enough that Patrick Hitler spoke further about the family and origins of Adolf Hitler. After an interview with Patrick about his famous and adored uncle at that time was placed in English newspapers without Hitler's knowledge, he at first became furious and during one of the meetings accused him of bringing family stories to the general court and caused significant harm to his (Adolf Hitler's) career. “With what caution,” shouted Adolf Hitler, “I constantly hid my personal affairs from the press! These people have no right to know who I am. They don't have to know where I come from and what family I come from ... Even in my book I did not allow myself a word about it, and then suddenly they accidentally find my nephew. Sniffing begins, bloodhounds are sent to look for traces of my past. " To disown the stupid nephew, Hitler, allegedly in the presence of his half-brother, annoyed him that he was not really related to him and that Patrick's father (Adolf’s half-brother) knew this very well. The fact is that he, Alois Hitler, was only adopted by the father of Adolf Hitler. The young half-German, half-English, who was delighted with the mere thought that he was related by kinship with "the greatest statesman", could not believe it. In mid-1933, he began to look in Austria for confirmation of Adolf Hitler's words, but found nothing. His reaction: "I no longer had any doubts: I really am Adolf Hitler's nephew." In October 1933 he returned to Berlin again and informed Adolf Hitler of the results of his "research". Until the winter of 1938, nothing had changed in the relationship between uncle and nephew. At this time, Adolf and Patrick Hitler, who gladly moved in aristocratic Russian society and communicated with barons and counts, often saw each other. Adolf Hitler sometimes helped the son of his half-brother, who constantly begged him for money. He introduced him to the leading NSDAP functionaries and other people who stayed with him in Berchtesgaden, tried to promote him up the career ladder and even gave small sums of money (once a hundred marks and once five hundred), which Patrick himself admits. In the winter of 1938, Patrick Hitler finally left Germany, because his uncle categorically demanded that he finally get down to business, which Patrick Hitler hated. “I had to receive 125 marks a month,” he says. - This meager money was not enough either to live or to die ... in the end I was put in some bank. But I was not allowed to send money to my mother (who lived in England. - Author's note). It was forbidden under German law ... In the end, I wrote to Hitler myself ... He replied: "Unfortunately, I am not able to grant you special privileges."

Hitler. WernerMaser - "AdolfHitler, legends, myths, reality ", Munich, 1977. Biography ...

Werner Mather

INSTEAD OF THE FOREWORD TO THE 12TH EDITION

Helmut Kohl, Federal Chancellor

Such a detailed study ... was necessary for a long time ... It helps to explain a lot ... The appeal to Adolf Hitler as a fateful character in our history is especially relevant for us Germans.

Helmut Schmidt, former Federal Chancellor

The veils are torn from the legends ... Apparently, the West German historian Werner Mather has dealt the last blow to them.

Lev Bezymensky, Soviet historian and biographer of Hitler

The mass of hitherto unknown details, which were covered with controversy and legends, appear in a clear light.

Andreas Hilgruber, German historian and biographer of Hitler

An invaluable work, an incredible completeness of information that was previously unknown.

A.J.P. Taylor, English historian and biographer of Hitler

Unusual book ... amazing knowledge of all sources.

Prof. Dr. Robert M.W. Kempner, US Prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials

For the first time it became known ... the details and causes of Hitler's illnesses, which even to us, the doctors who treated Hitler, were only partially available.

Dr. Erwin Giesing, Hitler's otolaryngologist

Der Spiegel

All legends and all clichés are in the past.

German news agency DPA

Thanks to the painstaking work of Mather, a radical revolution was made in the study of the biography of Hitler.

Frankfurter Rundschau

An excellent biography of Hitler ... the fruit of twenty years of work ... a lot of new materials ... about Hitler's origins, his life, his illnesses and death.

Jewish Information Review MACCABI

"German Review"

Among the thousands of works on the Second World War, the undoubtedly exciting topic for many was and remains the biography of one of the most recognizable personalities in world history - Adolf Hitler. Unfortunately, not only ordinary people, but also historians, theorists, political and military leaders, were unable to take an impartial look at this extraordinary person who plunged the world into World War II. Behind the fog of curses, a stereotypical image from the post-war chronicle, contempt, we risk not learning the lessons from the unfolding tragedy. Of course, it is much easier to frame your opinion on a topic in a formulaic way, because digging further implies thought processes, reading, viewing, discussion, critical thinking. Werner Mather, who is known primarily for his meticulous research into the life and personality of the Fuhrer of the Third Reich, has almost completely moved away from emotions that have little to do with a serious historical approach. Along with monographs Joachim Festa and John Toland, also released in the 1970s, closed many white spots in the chosen theme. His biography of Hitler is considered the most widely read in the world, and it provided a powerful impetus for subsequent work from Bullock (his second attempt to reveal the topic) and Kershaw.

Who is Werner Mather

As I already said, in relation to, when it comes to historical research, the authority and even the personal qualities of the author himself are important, helping, in a variety of works, to separate the worth from the pulp fiction. Mather was born in 1922 in East Prussia to a farmer's family. The Second World War made him, like millions of other German men, a soldier of a doomed army. At the final stage of hostilities in the spring of 1945, together with his comrades, he surrendered to Soviet captivity and was placed in the former Sachsenhausen concentration camp. His hometown was occupied by the Red Army and later became part of the Kaliningrad region. Mather, after his release, returned to study in Berlin, Munich, Erlangen, where he mastered theology, philosophy, pedagogy, political science and history.

Having gained prestige in academic circles, in 1951, Mather was among the few West German historians who gained access to the archives of the Nazi leadership seized by the allies and personal property, including Hitler. Some of the indirect relatives of the former German leader gave the historian the authority to dispose of property that could be of historical significance. Mather had access to the originals of documents, archives, eyewitness accounts, some of which were repeatedly changed in the following years to please the political conjecture of the winners. The first serious research was part of Mather's doctoral dissertation as early as 1954. In 1965, the first serious monograph by the author Die Frühgeschichte der NSDAP was published. Hitlers Weg bis 1924 (Early History of the NSDAP: The Rise of Hitler to 1924), which became a bestseller. He also prepared an updated edition of Mein Kampf, in which he analyzed its content, style of writing, historical background. 1977 saw the light of another highly controversial work by Nuremberg. The Tribunal of the winner (Nuremberg: Tribunal of winners), considering the legal and moral right of the Allies to judge defeated German functionaries and touching on the topic of post-war denazification. And although Mather published another two dozen noteworthy works, his most famous monograph was “Adolf Hitler: Myth. Reality. Reality ", released in 1971 year.

Mather's approach to material

Although, as the author himself writes in the preface, 50,000 books on the topic were written in the first decades after the war, only a small percentage of this array can be called worthy of attention, especially in the context of historical heritage. Mather, having gained access to priceless trophy archives and property after the war, was one of the pioneers who brought the study of Nazi Germany into an independent academic field. Shortly after the end of World War, several biographies of Adolf Hitler were published. Relatively superficial, due to the lack of factual material and eyewitness accounts. In addition, the wounds of the war were still too painful to speak openly about unpopular topics or go against the official line, the so-called Nuremberg Theses... Mather repeatedly refers to the claims made by the first serious biographers of the German leader, represented by Hugh Trevor-Roper , Alan Bullock , Walter Gerlitz and Alan Taylor ... In the 1990s, we witnessed an incredible popularization of the Second World War and the Holocaust, largely thanks to television projects that significantly expanded the understanding of the period. So it is not surprising that it took the author a quarter of a century to close many blank spots by 1971.

With the passage of time after 1945, more and more historians began to move away from the traditional understanding of the image of Hitler as an exclusively tyrant, possessed and sadist. Mather's book is an example of the true academic impartiality that most post-war authors lack. He discards the emotional color of the material and only deals with facts or noteworthy statements (usually verified by cross-checking sources). He does not try to humiliate Hitler or his associates personally, using words such as Austrian corporal, charlatans, drunkard, ignoramus, madcap, which is, for example, in the work of Shearer, no less magnificent from this. For the author, the person he is considering is a projection of an entire era, a historical phenomenon, through the understanding of which one can draw conclusions for the future. Unfortunately, most people are unable to think critically and get away from one-sided beliefs, so Mather's actual dry approach may not be to everyone's taste. His Reich Chancellor was not a crazy tyrant, and not a kind grandfather Adolf - this is an outstanding personality, one of the most interesting and difficult to study in world history.

Working with sources

Mather's meticulous, in a respectful sense, approach to the material is already visible from the first paragraphs of the chapter under the heading Origin and family... The untrained reader will quickly be confronted with an abundance of dates, place names, and names when it comes to the origins of the German Fuehrer. What can we say, if the book is accompanied by, among other infographics, a detailed family tree, restored thanks to the originals of church books up to the 17th century. The author's comprehensive approach to information makes a strong impression and really answers the words from the preface that most of the blank spots are closed. Of course, you should not take this work as the last word, like any other. But this is a really important monograph in understanding the topic, which you instantly read.

As for the memories of people who personally knew Adolf Hitler, Mather did not accept their arguments on academic faith without cross-checking the sources. The book regularly contains comments: "But this does not correspond to reality", "Beautiful story, but having little to do with reality", "There is reason to doubt these words", "The facts do not support this version" etc. The author, without falsely seeking approval, casts doubt on the sources on which a whole generation of historians, including pre-war ones, built their arguments. Even a seemingly as important primary source as the notorious Mein kampf, which for a long time provided information about the biography of Hitler, when checked, turned out to be an unreliable subject of discussion. Where the future Fuhrer of the German people, during his imprisonment in the Landsberg prison, got off with a few unconvincing phrases, detailed explanations and additions are given.

Mather, in places quite harshly, questions the work of his predecessors. First, it tries to impartially assess the documents, facts and evidence already available, taking into account the past decades. Secondly, it offers a whole layer of sources that were not previously known at all. Among them, the greatest resonance was produced by the originals of the records of the doctors of the German commander-in-chief, which made it possible to create a whole separate chapter on Hitler's physical and emotional health. Again, even in the first section on roots, dozens of documentary records come to the surface, the reliability of which is much higher than the memories of people, after half a century. Of great interest are the literally quoted letters from the front, Eva Braun's diary, inquiries from the military and tax administrations, newspaper headlines and party propaganda. The historian does not set itself an end in itself to find flaws in the works of his colleagues, as it might seem, but he proposes to soberly assess the available information without false guesses.

When it comes to a serious monograph, it is simply necessary to work with eyewitness accounts to get a complete picture. Mather rarely takes a statement as true without checking it against other, primarily documentary, sources. He, without any causticity, but with criticism in the case, decomposes the statements of people who personally knew Hitler or were related to him. After the war, dozens, if not hundreds of memoirs were published, from secretaries to translators, from friends of youth to field marshals, and a holistic presentation without a critical approach is simply impossible. The author examines the memoirs written at that time in printed form. He also spent hundreds of hours of interviews with still living witnesses, in particular, with former doctors and the Fuhrer's servant. One of the frequent sources is the protocols of the Nuremberg Tribunal, regarding the statements of the same Jodl, Frank, Keitel, Speer. With the latter, Mather often met, wishing to receive important additions to the book by the former architect of the Reich, which was published in 1969.

Several chapters at once, especially those concerning Hitler's personality as a politician and commander, pay attention to the comments of those close to him. In addition to Speer, whom I have already mentioned above, Mather actively involves the testimonies, stories and memoirs of the military leaders of the Third Reich, which help him to build the image of a man who ruled the fate of Europe from his bunker. Was there that same, almost caricatured, irascibility? How strong the presenters' arguments had to be in order to be heard. How the degree of the Fuhrer's superiority changed in a personal conversation. How detailed he plunged into the circumstances of a particular offensive campaign, what knowledge he had on the topic behind him. Today, it is generally accepted practice to place all failures personally on the commander-in-chief of the Third Reich, and in many respects this is the merit of his generals and field marshals. Again, Mather has a diverse approach to the subject of Hitler's personality, comparing not only testimony, but also documents and medical sources.

Myths that the author undertook to debunk

Unfortunately, history, in its public understanding, cannot be left only in a dry academic sense. A person in modern society is susceptible to vivid emotions, sensations, exciting ideas, ideological oppositions, epithets. And who else can provide a field for such a stirring up of interest, as one of the most extraordinary among recognizable personalities in world history. In the case of Hitler, the myths about him combine at once two main etymological approaches to this concept. First, these are often fictions and fables, deliberately or not spread by incompetent sources. Secondly, these are stories with a tinge of a certain halo of mystery in relation to a contemporary, whose personality has remained a mystery for many, as for ancient people the origin of lightning in the sky. Werner Mather did not undertake the odious, already existing under him, versions of a messiah from the underworld, an international conspiracy of the world government, alien intervention or ancient prophecies of tribes. A scientist of this level is not obliged to take into account the absurdity of individuals. However, he seriously undertook to check the arguments, which, as it seems to their creators, are confirmed in the sources or among the evidence. Among other things, he debunked the misconceptions put forward by his colleagues. Some, like the vagrancy in Vienna, were largely fueled by quotes from Mein Kampf's autobiography and were not questioned for a long time.

Most of the myths associated with the personality of Hitler arose after the end of the war, as an explanatory measure of his deeds. When spectators booed Eva Braun's home color chronicle of The Swastika at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival, the public was not ready to perceive Adolf Hitler as a man, an elderly uncle who can play with children and a dog. Let's call a spade a spade, and today, after another forty years, people will justify their laziness with anything, and confine themselves to some abstract stereotypical understanding of the topic. In this sense, causal relationships, like Hitler was homosexual, so he sent the latter to concentration camps, seem untenable. This is exactly what the author did - separating the wheat from the chaff ... After all, piling up lies and delusions, history will never make sound conclusions from the monstrous consequences of the Second World War. Why did the Fuehrer of Germany do what he did, and whether this will happen again in the future. As some bloody regimes in the second half of the twentieth century have shown, such as Idi Amin in Uganda and Pol Pot in Cambodia, we have a lot to learn from history.

Mather's controversial claims

If there were ideal historical works, recognized by all as impossible, academic science would lose its essence and grasp, in an attempt to separate truth from fiction. To Mather's book, like any other biography of an important person, a lot of questions and criticism arose, both from colleagues and ordinary readers. There are only a few such controversial positions in the book, and it is not that they are in sharp contradiction with common sense - they simply did not find unanimous confirmation in the academic environment, but in at least one case, opposition to the generally accepted version. As you know, one and the same event can be viewed from different angles, with different accents, where even naming, a set of words will be important for perception. So an event that many of us know as Night of the long knives , namely, the elimination of the growing threat for Hitler from the SA and Ernst Rohm, the author repeatedly calls "Rem's Putchem"... Of course, the infamous events of the summer of 1934 had their own prerequisites, and the final decision of the Fuehrer was largely formed with the complicity of the new favorites in the encirclement, and was necessary for the future reform of a strong army. And yet, for sure, many will notice that the historian focuses on the preparing, as he came to the conclusion, a coup d'etat in all its seriousness and scale.

There are two more points to which enough attention is paid in the book, and here I will only briefly give an annotation. Until now, amusing many (seemingly unexpected emotion in the context of the Second World War) topic, namely flight of Hitler's Deputy Rudolf Hess to Great Britain May 10, 1941. Until now, there are sensible discussions on this matter, and yet Mather unambiguously adheres to the version that the attempt to conclude peace with England in such a strange way was sanctioned by Hitler himself. Such a scrupulous author in his research, accustomed to repeatedly checking sources, relies heavily on the post-war memories of several people, ignoring dozens of others. And, perhaps, the most interesting and at the same time controversial topic, which was included in the supplement of the supplemented editions and is available in the translated into Russian - Hitler's paternity ... Together with many hoaxes and deceptions that still stir up the press, Mather is sure that the Frenchman Jean-Marie Lauret (1918-1985) is the son of the former Fuhrer. He conducted a whole investigation, in his characteristic meticulousness and scrupulousness, to confirm the version that during the First World War, Adolf Hitler had a relationship with a French woman and the subject of this was the birth of a son.

So how did the story of Hitler's paternity and the author's version end

The topic seemed interesting to me, and I want to supplement it with information that I found in open sources - of course, only for acquaintance and satisfaction of curiosity - everyone draws conclusions himself - to agree with Mather's version or question it. I did not find an exact causal relationship in the construction of this theory, but it looks like the following. After the war, in a number of French towns in the hinterland, it was rumored that the German Fuhrer, who had sunk into history, had a living son from a French woman, and this connection was rooted in the First World War. Apparently, being busy researching the life of Hitler, Mather came across these rumors back in 1965 and began to work with their sources. In his article, published in 1977, and which, after that, became an appendix to the reprints of his Hitler: legend, myth & reality, he outlined his inventions on this matter and the results of many years of research. One feels with what enthusiasm the historian took up the topic, which can be explained, among other things, by the well-known dictum that we see what we want to see and adjust reality to these judgments.

Mather cites a number of, often unnamed, sources that do not sound like his academic scrupulousness. They say that the presence of Hitler's son was not a secret for his inner circle, including Goebbels, Bormann and Himmler. That after the triumph of the French campaign, the Fuehrer gave the order to find both the former lover and his child and chose to leave everything as it is, having seen in Charlotte Lobjoy a fallen woman, and a drunkard with a swollen face. After the war, a number of people, among them the girl's former neighbors, allegedly claimed that they perfectly remember Hitler, still a young German soldier with a mustache, who often painted the surroundings. The boy Jean-Marie himself seemed to have learned from his mother, on her deathbed, that his son was a German leader. In general, he lived an unremarkable life, having worked for many years on the railroad.

In the 1970s, Mather took him on a series of lecture tours, including visiting former concentration camps, where Loret paraphrased the famous phrase as appropriate and said that "I didn't choose my father"... The historian even transported Hitler's alleged son to his home in Germany, where they had many conversations. In fairness, it is worth noting that Lore himself never strived for fame and only after long persuasion did Mather agree to make his story public. He even refused to be interviewed during their joint trips around the world. A number of anthropological studies were carried out, based on photographs, handwriting, features of appearance. Although the author himself confirms that the examination could not confirm the relationship, she did not rule out the opposite, which, you see, is not a very compelling argument. In 1981, Lauret, with assistance, published an autobiography titled Ton père s'appelait Hitler)