>>68680522
I guess that's pretty interesting, hit me with it

Note: Adolf would have been around the age of 21 at this time

On Reinhold's first impression of Adolf at the homeless accomodation

>"The neighbor on my right looked sad, and so we asked him questions. For several days he had been living on benches in the parks where his sleep was often disturbed by policemen. He had landed here dead tired, hungry, with sore feet. His blue-checked suit had turned lilac, and the rain and the “burning” in the asylum bleached it. We gave him our bread because he had nothing to eat. An old beggar standing near by advised him to go to the convent in the Gumpendorferstrasse; there every morning between nine and ten soup was given to the poor. We said this was "calling on Kathie", probably because the name of the Mother Superior was Katherine. My neighbor’s name was Adolf Hitler."

On Adolf describing himself at the time

>"He told us that he was a painter, an artist, and had read quite a lot, that his father was a small customs official in Braunau-on-Inn and that he had attended the Realschule in Linz. Now he had come to Vienna in the hope of earning a living here, since he had already devoted much time to painting in Linz, but had been bitterly disappointed in his hopes. His landlady had dispossessed him and he had found himself on the street without shelter”

Interesting.... please, go on.

On Adolf's living conditions during winter time

>“During the day we tried to earn a little money at odd jobs, and in the evenings we had our gatherings. When the winter cold set in, conditions for the poor like ourselves were much harder. Hitler went daily “calling on Kathie” to get his soup and afterward trolled to the Western Railway Station, where sometimes there was an opportunity to carry a passenger’s bag for a few pennies. But often he got nothing at all, and we had to share our bread with him.”

OP here.

On Adolf’s poverty and lack of direction in life

>“After his father’s death Hitler’s family received a pension of fifty kronen monthly, but his sister, who had just been married, received this pension and Hitler got nothing. He was not earning enough with his package-carrying for food, and in the evening in the Home we used to give him some horse-sausage or the like. It was a miserable life, and I once asked him what he was really waiting for. He answered, “I don’t know myself”. I have never seen such helpless letting-down in distress."

On Adolf’s attitude towards work

>"When I asked him what the matter was and whether we were going to keep on working, he answered that he must recuperate now, that he must have some leisure, that he was not a coolie. […] he never had enough self-control to force himself to work. Often I didn’t know what to do with the orders because it was impossible to make Hitler work. In the morning he sat in the hall of the Home, and was supposed to be making drawings while I was busy canvassing the frame manufacturers and upholsterers. But then political discussion would start and generally Hitler would become the ringleader. When I came back in the evening I often had to take the Tsquare out of his hands, because he would be swinging it over his head, making a speech.”

On Adolf's physical appearance during his early 20s

>"Hitler wore a long coat that Neumann had given him because he couldn't dispose of it in the Jewish quarter, and he wore an incredibly greasy derby hat on the back of his head. His hair was long and tangled and he grew a beard on his chin"

Cheers for sharing, felt sorry for him when I read mein Kampf, The book got boring after Vienna

>>68685283
I have a bunch more quotations but I hate spamming them with no other posts between as it appears as a rather off-putting wall-of-text. And yes my interest in his life pretty much focuses from his birth to the age of around 25 / 26 when he joins the army.


On Adolf's view of women and his experience with them

>"But Hitler's high opinion of love and marriage, and his strong condemnation of men's disloyalty, didn't prevent him from having very small regard for women. He used to lecture us about this, saying every woman can be had. All you have to do, he said, is to wear your hat on the back of your head, so your face will be as visible as possible. And he himself did wear his derby on the back of his head. He often said that it was the woman's fault if a man went astray. A decent man can never improve a bad woman, but a woman can improve a man. Then he used to relate an experience he had had when he was very young, to prove his self-control. During one of his vacations from high school, in the country, he met a milkmaid who appealed to him, and who liked him, too. Once, as she was milking the cow and he was alone with her, she behaved rather foolishly. But Hitler suddenly thought of the eventual consequences and ran away, like the chaste Joseph, knocking over a big pot of fresh milk."

Hitler sounds like he could've been a /pol/ack

On Adolf's love for Wagner and the opera

>"We often went to the scenic railway in the Prater, where we could hear the organ play "Tannhauser". Hitler listened quietly and explained the action to us. Once he grabbed my hand excitedly and said, "That's the passage! Do you hear? That's the passage!". On our way home he tried to explain the opera to us and sang some passages. In his excited way he could only hum a few tones and fidget with his arms. But he could describe the scenes very well, and what the music meant. I don't think that it was a real understanding of music, though; he had more of a sense for what was going on on the stage and what had to be performed. For Wagner he had a great enthusiasm, and said sometimes that opera is really the best divine service. Everything about him was somewhat exaggerated."

On Adolf’s view of German mythology and the ideal political state

>“If the Germans had remained faithful to their old mythology, they would today be a united nation, and would have reached a higher standard of civilization. He meant that the Germanic faith, if retained, would have become more ideal with the changing times, and in this connection pointed to the Greeks, in whose faith he said ideals were revered as gods. He was a particular admirer of the structure of the Greek state, where scholars and philosophers exerted a strong influence, a thing we should have emulated. That had been the epoch of philosophy, but in our technical age philosophy was badly neglected. He asserted that it would be easier to combat misery if there were more philosophy. And moreover, he said, there should be more business men in the government, that is should not be, as it was, full of jurists and bureaucrats”

On Adolf’s appreciation for religious belief

>"We talked of the necessity of religion, as there had been published in the Arbeiterzeitung an article mocking a Corpus Domini procession. Hitler condemned it strongly on the ground that the religion of the common people was being destroyed without a substitute being offered to them. He often said religion was necessary, and that if there were none it should be created.”