There is a biography about Hitler written by his only childhood friend, August Kubizek, which offers a good glimpse into what may have made him the person he was. Here are some choice excerpts from that book.
You will probably be surprised by how similar you are to Hitler.
On his school life
>"His classmates, mostly from solid, good-class Linz families, cold-shouldered the strange boy who arrived daily 'from amongst the peasants'"
p.59
>"In class he rarely came to anybody's notice. He had no friends, contrary to primary school, and wanted none"
p.59
>"He too, was completely alone. His father had been dead for two years. However much he loved his mother, she could not help him with his problems. He just needed to talk and needed someone who would listen to him."
p.32
On his behaviour and conduct towards people and society
>"Adolf set great store by good manners and correct behaviour. He observed with painstaking punctiliousness the rules of social conduct, however little he thought of society itself"
p.38
>"People who knew him in Vienna could not understand the contradiction between his well-groomed appearance, his educated speech and his self-assured bearing on the one hand, and the starveling existence that he led on the other, and judged him either haughty or pretentious. He was neither. He just did not fit into any bourgeois order"
p.38
>"He wallowed deeper and deeper in self-criticism. Yet it only needed the lightest touch - as when one flicks on the light and everything becomes brilliantly clear - for his self-accusation to become an accusation against the times, against the whole world. Choking with his catalogue of hates, he would pour his fury over everything, against mankind in general who did not understand him, who did not appreciate him and by whom he was persecuted"
p.158 / 159
>"There was a strange contradiction which always struck me: all his thoughts and ambitions were directed towards the problem of how to help the masses, the simple, the decent but under-priveleged people with whom he identified himself - they were ever-present in his thoughts - but in actual fact he always avoided any contact with people"
p.164
On his youth
>"I was surprised he had so much spare time and asked innocently whether he had a job. 'Of course not', was his gruff reply [...] He did not consider that any particular work [...] was necessary for him"
p.29/30
>"Many other qualities which are characteristic of youth were lacking in him: a carefree letting go of himself, living only for the day, the happy attitude of 'what is to be, will be'. His idea was that these were things that did not become a young man"
p.43
>"He had no comprehension of enjoyment of life as others knew it. He did not smoke, he did not drink, and in Vienna, for instance, he lives for days on milk and bread only"
p.39
>"When we passed by the Cafe Baumgartner he would get wildly worked up about the young men who were exhibiting themselves at marble-topped tables behind the big window panes and wasting their time in idle gossip, without apparently realizing how much this indignation was contradicted by his own way of life"
p.30
He was also a NEET
On his loneliness and solitary nature
>"Although he always felt a sense of responsibility for everything that happened, he was always a lonely and solitary man, determined to reply upon himself, and so to reach his goal"
p.165
>"But he? Where should he have gone that Christmas Eve? He had no acquaintances, no friends, nobody who would have received him with open arms. For him the world was hostile and empty. [...] All he ever told me of that Christmas Eve was that he had wandered around for hours. Only towards morning had he returned home and gone to sleep. What he thought, felt and suffered I never knew"
p.140
>"'Gustle', she said - usually she called me Herr Kubizek, but in that hour she used the name by which Adolf always called me - 'go on being a good friend to my son when I'm no longer here. He has no one else'. With tears in my eyes I promised, and then I went"
p.137
These ones are about a girl named Stefanie. Hitler and his friend (the author) would turn up at the river in Linz at 5pm each day to watch her and her mother walk past on their daily stroll.
>"I found out that Stefanie's mother was a widow and did, indeed, live in Urharr, and that the young man who occasionally accompanied them, to Adolf's great irritation, was her brother. But from time to time the two ladies were to be seen in the company of young officers. Poor, pallid youngsters like Hitler naturally could not hope to compete with these young lieutenants in their smart uniforms. Adolf felt this intensely and gave vent to his feelings with eloquence. His anger, in the end, led him into uncompromising enmity towards the officer class as a whole, and everything military in general"
p.67
>"To be sure, Stefanie had no idea how deeply Adolf was in love with her; she regarded him as a somewhat shy but, nevertheless, remarkably tenacious and faithful admirer. When she responded with a smile to his enquiring glance, he was happy and his mood became unlike anything I had ever observed in him [...] But when Stefanie, as happened just as often, coldly ignored his gaze, he was crushed and ready to destroy himself and the whole world"
p.67
>"I thought, for a long time, that Adolf was simply too shy to approach Stefanie. And yet, it was not shyness that held him back. His conception of the relationship between the sexes was already then so high that the usual way of making the acquaintance of a girl seemed to him undignified. As he was opposed to flirting in any form, he was convinced that Stefanie had no other desire but to wait until he should come to ask her to marry him. I did not share this conviction at all, but Adolf, as was his habit with all problems that agitated him, had already made an elaborate plan"
p.69
More about Stefanie.
>"And this girl, who was a stranger to him and had never exchanged a word with him, succeeded where his father, the school and even his mother had failed: he drew up and exact programme for his future which would enable him, after four years, to ask for Stefanie's hand. We discussed this difficult problem for hours, with the result that Adolf commissioned me to collect further information about Stefanie"
p.69
>"'Stefanie is fond of dancing. If you want to conquer her, you will have to dance around just as aimlessly and idiotically as the others.' That was all that was needed to set him off raving. 'No, no, never!' he screamed at me, 'I shall never dance! Do you understand! Stefanie only dances because she is forced to by society on which she unfortunately depends. Once she is my wife, she won't have the slightest desire to dance!'"
p.71
>"As with everything that he couldn't tackle at once, he indulged in generalisations. 'Visualise a crowded ballroom', he said once to me, 'and imagine that you are deaf. You can't hear the music to which these people are moving, and then take a look at their senseless progress, which leads nowhere. Aren't these people raving mad?'"
p.70
On his mother's attitude towards him
>"he was anxious to escape the atmosphere that prevailed at home. The idea that he, a young man of eighteen, should continue to be kept by his mother had become unbearable to him. On the one hand, he loved his mother above everything: she was the only person on earth to whom he felt really close, and she reciprocated his feeling to some extent, although she was deeply disturbed by her son's unusual nature, however proud she was at times of him. 'He is different from us,' she used to say"
p.124
>"At long last the great moment arrived. Adolf, beaming with delight, came to see me at the workshop, where we were very busy at that time. 'I'm leaving tomorrow,' he said briefly. He asked me to accompany him to the station, as he did not want his mother to come. I knew how painful it would have been for Adolf to take leave of his mother in front of other people. He disliked nothing more than showing his feelings in public"
p.127
>"His mother was crying and little Paula, whom Adolf had never bothered with much, was sobbing in a heart-rending manner. When Adolf caught up with me on the stairs and helped me with the suitcase, I saw that his eyes too were wet"
p.127
On his plan to make money to impress Stefanie and ease his financial woes by buying a lottery ticket
>"One day when I interrupted the bold flow of his ideas for the national monument and asked him soberly how he proposed to finance this project, his first reply was a brusque, 'Oh, to hell with the money!' But apparently my query had disturbed him. And he did what other people do who want to get rich quickly - he bought a lottery ticket. [...] Adolf was sure he had won from the moment of buying the ticket and had only forgotten to collect the money. His only possible worry was how to spend this not inconsiderable sum to the best of his advantage"
p.111
>"The day of the [lottery] draw arrived. Adolf came rushing wildly round to the workshop with the list of results. I have rarely heard him rage so madly as then. First he fumed over the state lottery, this officially organised exploitation of human credulity, this open fraud at the expense of docile citizens. Then his fury turned to the state itself, this patchwork of ten or twelve, or God knows how many nations, this monster built up by Habsburg marriages. Could one expect other than two impoverished devils should be cheated out of their last couple of crowns? Never did it occur to Adolf to reproach himself for having taken it for granted that the first prize belonged to him by right"
p.114
On his poverty and his attitude towards the rich
>"When we went with empty stomachs into the centre of the city, we saw the splendid mansions of the nobility with garishly attired servants in front, and the sumptuous hotels in which Vienna's rich society - the old nobility; the captains of industry, landowners and magnates - held their lavish parties: poverty, need, hunger on the one side, and reckless enjoyment of life, sensuality and prodigal luxury on the other"
p.163
>"At all costs, he would keep his linen and clothing clean. No one, meeting this carefully dressed young man in the street would have thought that he went hungry every day, and lived in a hopelessly bug-infested back room in the 6th District"
p.163
On his lack of confidence in regards to Stefanie
>"With his memory of his first day in Vienna transfigured by his yearning for Stefanie, Adolf entered the critical summer of 1907. What he suffered in those weeks was in many respects similar to the grave crisis of two years earlier when, after much heart-searching, he had finally settled his accounts with the school and made an end of it. Outwardly, this seeking for a new path showed itself in dangerous fits of depression. I knew only too well those moods of his, which were in sharp contrast to his ecstatic dedication and activity, and realised that I could no help him. At such times he was inacessible, uncommunicative and distant. [...] Adolf would wander around alone for days and nights in the fields and forests surrounding the town"
p.123
>"Stefanie had probable long since become bored by the silent, but strictly conventional adulation of the pale, thin youth, my friend lost himself increasingly in his wishful dreams the more he saw her. Yet he was past those romantic ideas of elopement or suicide"
p.123
>"Adolf, perhaps, already realised that, if he wanted to win Stefanie, he would have to speak to her or take some such decisive step. Nevertheless he felt instinctively that it would abruptly destroy his life's dream if he actually made Stefanie's acquaintance. Indeed, as he said to me, 'If I introduce myself to Stefanie and her mother, I will have to tell her at once what I am, what I have and what I want. My statement would bring our relations abruptly to an end'"
p.124
On his reaction to August (the author) helping a girl from his class who had come over with a question about her work
>"Adolf said nothing. But hardly had the girl got outside that he went for me wildly - for his unfortunate experience with Stefanie he was now a woman hater. Was our room, already spoilt by that monster, that grand piano, to become the rendezvous for this crew of musical women? he asked me furiously [...] The result was a detailed speech about the senselessness of women studying. Adolf got himself more and more involved in a general criticism of social conditions. I cowered silently on the piano stool while he, enraged, strode the three steps along and the three steps back and hurled his indignation in the bitterest terms"
p.156 / 157
>"One day he ranted at me: 'Now I am going to see if music is the witchcraft you always say it is!' and with these words he announced his decision to learn the piano, convinced that in no time at all he would have mastered it. [...] Here Adolf fell into a dilemma. He was far too proud simply to give up on an attempt by which he had set such store, but this stupid 'exercising the fingers' left him raging"
p.78
>"All the same, Adolf recognized my musical talent without the least envy, and rejoiced or suffered with me in my successes or setbacks as if they were applicable to himself. I found him very supporting and the great strength behind my ambition"
p.78
>"He finally reconciled himself to the piano [that August had installed in the boys' shared room]. He could practise a but too, he remarked. I said I was willing to teach him - but here again I had put my foot in it. In ill-temper he snarled at me, 'You can keep your scales and such rubbish, I'll get on by myself'. Then he calmed down again and said, in a conciliatory tone, 'Why should I become a musician, Gustl? After all, I have you!'"
p.154
On Adolf being flirted with while helping his friend to find a room to rent
>"Once more we saw a notice 'room to let'. We rang the bell and the door was opened by a neatly dressed maid who showed us into an elegantly furnished room containing magnificent twin beds. 'Madame is coming immediately,' said the maid, curtsied and vanished. We both knew at once that it was too stylish for us. Then 'madame' appeared in a doorway, very much a lady, not so young, but very elegant. She wore a silk dressing gown and slippers trimmed with fur. She greeted us smilingly, inspected Adolf, then me, and asked us to sit down. [...] The lady was obviously disappointed that it was I and not Adolf who wanted a room, and asked whether Adolf already had lodgings. [...] While she was suggesting this to Adolf with some animation, through a sudden movement the belt which kept the dressing gown together came undone. 'Oh, excuse me gentlemen,' the lady exclaimed, and immediately refastened the dressing gown. But that second had sufficed to show us that under her silk covering she wore nothing but a brief pair of knickers. Adolf turned red as a peony, gripped my arm and said, 'Come Gustl!'. I do not remember how we got out of the house. All I remember is Adolf's furious exclamation as we arrived back in the street. 'What a Frau Potiphar!'. Apparently such experiences were also part of Vienna."
p.153
On his "elaborate plan" to win Stefanie's favour, and his feelings towards her
>"Adolf went on brooding for days and weeks, trying to find a solution. In his depressed mood, he hit on a crazy idea: he seriously contemplated kidnapping Stefanie. He expounded his plan to me in all its deails and assigned me my role, which was not a very rewarded one for I had to keep the mother engaged in conversation whilst he seized the girl."
p.71
>"'You can see that she wants you to talk to her,' I said to my friend. 'Tomorrow,' he answered. But the morrow never came, and weeks, months and years passed without his taking any steps to change this state of affairs which caused him so much unrest"
p.74
>"Instinctively the young Hitler found the only correct attitude in his love for Stefanie: he possessed a being whom he loved, and at the same time, he did not possess her. He arranged his whole life as though this beloved was already entirely his. But, as he himself avoided any personal meeting, this girl, although he could see that she walked the earth, remained a created of his dream world, towards whom he could project his desires, plans and ideas"
p.75
On Adolf's own memories of the time
>>"Hitler's letter to Kubizek of 4 August 1933, using the familiar 'Du' form of address, refers to the years he spent with Kubizek as the best of his life"
p.104
On the perceived contrasts between Adolf and others his age
>"I knew the normal interests of young people of my age: flirtations, shallow pleasures, idly play and a lot of unimportant, meaningless thoughts. Adolf was the exact opposite. There was an incredible earnestness in him, a thoroughness, a true passionate interest in everything that happened and, most important, an unfailing devotion to the beauty, majesty and grandeur of art"
p.194
Hitler after probably reading some Nietzsche
>"Instead of answering, he handed me a couple of hastily scribbled sheets. [...] I could not see any connection between this extraordinary description and the study of architecture, so I asked what it was supposed to be. 'A play,' replied Adolf. Then, in stirring words, he described the action to me. Unfortunately, I have long since forgotten it. I remember only that it was set in the Bavarian mountains at the time of the bringing of Christianity to those parts. I would have liked to have asked Adolf whether his studies in the Academy left him so much free time that he could write dramas, too, but I knew how sensitive he was about everything pertaining to his chosen profession"
p.158
>"While I was undecided whether to list my friend amongst the great musicians or the great poets of the future, he sprang on me the announcement that he intended to become a painter. [...] The first time I went to visit him at home, his room was littered with sketches, drawings, blueprints"
p.96
>"He had been refused by the academy; he had failed even before he had got a footing in Vienna. But he was too proud to talk about it, and so he concealed from me what had occurred. He concealed it from his mother too. [...] He made no attempt to obtain exceptional treatment or to humiliate himself in front of people who did not understand him. There was neither revolt nor rebellion, instead came a radical withdrawal into himself, an obstinate resolve to cope alone with adversity, an embittered 'now, more than ever!' which he flung at the gentlemen of the Schiller Platz [art school]"
p.130
So that's about it. You can read the book in its entirety for free on Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?id=0HyjAwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
I wonder how different the world would've been if Stephanie would've accepted his advances.
Accepted? Or even known?
Heil Mein Führer!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HOk37o4Z-I
>>55336675
The book?
>>55335437
>>"But he? Where should he have gone that Christmas Eve? He had no acquaintances, no friends, nobody who would have received him with open arms. For him the world was hostile and empty. [...] All he ever told me of that Christmas Eve was that he had wandered around for hours. Only towards morning had he returned home and gone to sleep. What he thought, felt and suffered I never knew"
Fug.... that's been my Christmas for a couple years...
