User:Howard C. Berkowitz/H/V

Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), was dictator of Nazi Germany, as a young man, spent the years between 1907 and 1913 ‘’’in Vienna’’’, Austria. Many historians believe that those years formed key aspects of his personality. While there will never be complete answers about why he thought the way he did, there is obvious interest in what can make a man who was responsible for millions of death and the ravaging of Europe.

Background
Hitler was born in Braunau, Austria-Hungary to a devout Catholic family of middle class status. Little is known of his ancestry. His father, Alois, An a minor official of the Imperial Austrian customs service, a prestigious white collar position. Alois was widowed twice, and died in 1903. His third wife, Klara Poelzl Hitler &mdash; who was 23 years his junior &mdash; bore him six children, only two of whom reached maturity: Adolf, and his younger sister Paula, who died in 1960. After the dealt of Alois, she moved to a more modest apartment, living on savings and pension. She tried to educate him in accordance with his father's intention, explained by Adolf as "to have me study for a civil servant's career." He grew up in Graz, Austria.

A mediocre student, he dropped out at age 16, as was normal for someone not headed to university. His dropping-out was also encouraged by a lung infection requiring a   This was facilitated by a long illness, which required him to drop out of school for a year. While he called the years between 16 and 19 the happiest of his life, he both rejected a trade and wanted to become an artist, and was concerned with politics. His boyhood friend, August Kubizek, said "he saw everywhere only obstacles and hostility....He was always up against something and at odds with the world...I never saw him take anything lightly." While he rejected formal education, Kubizek said he was always surrounded by books, especially on German history and mythology.

Georg Ritter von Schoenerer had been instrumental, in the 1870s, of introducing "raucous nationalism" to parliament. von Schoenerer's ideology was centered on antisemitism, and extended to anti-liberalism, anti-socialism, anti-Catholicism, and opposition to the Hapsburgs. Hitler had already absorbed ideas from him while at home in Linz, including the "Heil" greeting and the term "Fuehrer", applied to von Schoenerer. von Schoenerer was also sexually puritanical, preaching celibacy until the age of 25, keeping the race pure by avoiding infection from prostitutes.

Music
The music of Richard Wagner influenced him at age 17, both in terms of heroic agendas and antisemitism. He later wrote that "whoever who wants to understand National Socialism must know Wagner."

While it was his friend Kubizek that was the professional musician, the young Hitler apparently could play the piano and compose. He was also fascinated by the staging of opera. Indeed, several historians speculate that his attraction to opera was less for the pure music but more to appeal to his growing sense of how pageantry can affect a large group of people. An interesting thought experiment is whether the Vienna Opera presaged the Nuremberg Party Rally.

First stay in Vienna
Intending to study fine arts, he moved to Vienna in 1907, but failed the entrance examinations both for the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. While the art school suggested his talent might be more in architecture, his failure to graduate from high school barred the School of Architecture from him. It was possible to apply for a waiver, but, as far as is known, he never did so.

The academic counselor for architecture said he needed more experience, but some of his work was interesting. Hitler would continue a lifelong interest in architecture, generally believed to be the core of his friendship with Albert Speer.

By the time Hitler arrived, the influence of von Schoenerer, who had never tried to build a mass party, was in decline. Hitler questioned his willingness to participate in parliament, and thus began to be influenced by Karl Lueger, the "tribune of he people". Lueger was also strongly antisemitic, but less ideologically than von Schoenerer: he would say "I say who a Jew is". Still, Lueger was appointed Lord Mayor of Vienna in 1897, who built the Catholic Christian Social Party. While antisemitic, he was pro-Habsburg, populist, and scial reformer. Hitler did not learn ideology from him, but manipulating the mob.

Mother's illness
Kubizek and Klara did not hear from Adolf after she first moved to Vienna. She disapproved of his withdrawing his inheritance to study, and she said she had become an "old, sick woman."

She developed breast cancer in 1907, and was treated by Dr. Edward Bloch, a Jewish physician to whom Hitler paid much respect and to whom he would send greetings later in life. After heroic but unsuccessful treatment, she died in 1908. The surgical wound had been treated locally with strong-smelling iodoform, which left a lifelong impression. He returned from Vienna to care for her in her last days, during which she was to whisper to Kubizek, "Gustl, go on being a good friend to my son when I'm no longer here. He has no one else."

Return to Vienna
He spent the next four unhappy years in Vienna, largely in poverty and hunger. Kubizek mentions him as surrounded by books, but only slecifically remembers Legends of Gods and Heroes: the Treasures of Germanic Mythology. By August 1909, he was homeless, living on the streets and in the most impersonal of shelters. In February 1910, he was able to move to a dormitory that offered some individuality. Guided by a friend he met there, Reinhold Hanisch, he was guided into a beginning of self-respect, after receiving funds from his sister. While taking part in political arguments at the dormitory, Hanisch said "When he got excited, Hitler couldn't restrain himself. He screamed and fidgeted with his hands. But when he was quiet, he seemed to have a fair amount of self-control and acted in quite a dignified manner." Hanisch remembered only one anti-Semitic comment, and that Hitler spoke of gratitude to Jewish charities, admiration for Jewish resistance to persecution; his friend believes his strong for Jews, which he claims, in Mein Kampf, formed in Vienna, developed later.

Continuing his art and selling some of his work, by 1912, according to Shirer, he was a competent draftsman, producing acceptable architectural work in pencil, oils, and watercolor, but having great difficulty in drawing realistic human figures. Hanisch sold his work, and the other partner was a Jew, Joseph Neumann, with whom he was friendly enough to visit museums.

Ostara and the occult
He took to observing the Parliament, and, according to Heinz, was shocked by the disorder; this led to his antiparliamentary beliefs. Kershaw speculates that his reading included the racist and somewhat occult magazine, Ostara, which focused on "homoerotic notions of a manichaean strggle between the heroic and creative 'blond' race and a race of predator dark 'beast-men' who preyed on the 'blond' women with nimal lust and bestial instincts that were corrupting and destroying mankind and it culture.' The author was a former monk, Joerg Lanz von Liebefels, who formed the "New Templar Order" in a ruined castle.