Young Hitler, page 11
Notwithstanding the waves of German attacks, the British held Ypres and the eastern edge of the salient. It was an astonishing display of resilience. Their soldiers were, after all, professional, tough-as-nails Tommy Atkinses, as John Keegan writes: ‘… working class, long-service regulars, shilling-a-day men of no birth and scanty education’.15 They cared nothing for the mystical German patriotism of their young enemy. They were trained to kill, win the war and go home.
The British were astonished at what came at them in those late October battles. Captain Harry Dillon, of the 2nd Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry, beheld ‘a great grey mass of humanity … charging, running for all God would let them straight on to us not 50 yards off’. He had warned his men what to expect, but no one had anticipated this. He had ‘never shot so much in such a short time’. He saw the Germans fall, veer off course, stagger to the ground, until only ‘a great moan’ rose in the night, and men ‘with their arms and legs off’ tried to crawl away.16
Private H. J. Milton similarly witnessed masses of Germans ‘running into death’: ‘… they gave great yells after they started but very few got back. The screams were terrible.’ Some British companies fired an average of 500 rounds per man per day: ‘This storming, we will never forget as long as we live.’17
Within four days the List Regiment had been virtually annihilated, as Hitler wrote in a letter to Popp: 611 of the regiment’s 3,600 men had survived the battle; the rest had been killed, wounded or captured, an 83 per cent casualty rate. ‘In the entire regiment there remained only thirty officers. Four companies had to be disbanded.’18 His regiment lost 349, dead, on 29 October alone, with about four times as many wounded, taken prisoner and missing that day. Hitler recounted all this ‘without a trace of mourning’:19 his regiment, he wrote, had been cut to 600, as though they were lambs to the slaughter. He would later ostentatiously mourn their loss, from a distance in years; at the time, he regarded them as a necessary sacrifice for the Fatherland.
Hitler’s comrades were better able to express the true sadness that struck the Listers. The British stand at First Ypres shocked the German survivors. ‘Only a few regiments have had to give such a heavy toll in blood on their first fight,’ wrote Adolf Meyer.20 The carnage left an indelible scar on Oscar Daumiller, a chaplain with the 6th Bavarian Reserve Division. ‘It is horrible to see the torments, the indescribable injuries,’ he wrote, ‘it is horrible to see how the strife … has shattered the hearts [of the soldiers].’21
Hitler witnessed this horror on his comrades’ faces, as he wrote in Mein Kampf: ‘I remember well my comrades’ looks of astonishment when we faced the Tommies in person in Flanders’ – but he seemed not to share their fear.22 There was something boyish, unnatural, in the way he thrilled to the excitement of war, as though the dead and wounded were play-acting in a great human drama staged for his benefit.
The slaughter of the German Army at the First Battle of Ypres quickly acquired the aura of a heroic sacrifice. The Kindermord inspired the ‘Legend of Langemarck’. Though most of the action took place nearer Bixschoote, the more German-sounding name appealed to the folks back home. The legend has it that tens of thousands of these boys were slaughtered as they marched into battle while singing the ‘Deutschlandlied’ and other patriotic German songs – a story that would appear on the front page of every German newspaper and which, as we have seen, Hitler would appropriate in his version of the List Regiment’s attack at First Ypres in order to identify himself in his readers’ minds with this legendary sacrifice.
It later transpired that many of the young casualties had probably died of friendly fire, cut down by their own artillery. And they sang not out of blind patriotism, but – like the List Regiment when they went into action – in a desperate effort to warn the rear gunners of their location, according to General Horst von Metzsch, general staff officer of the XXVII Reserve Corps, who witnessed the ‘general panic’ as the lines fell apart under fire from the front and rear. The survivors would be ‘mentally shattered forever’.23
The results of this carnage can be seen today, at the German cemetery near Langemarck, a desolate place where rows of flat black slabs designate the identifiable dead. The remains of 24,917 German troops lie in a mass grave, their names etched on the walls, including some 3,000 student casualties of the Kindermord.
Hitler would never forgive or forget the slaughter at First Ypres, particularly the battle at Langemarck. Though he didn’t directly participate in the latter, the legend became seared in his mind until he persuaded himself that he had fought there. It would haunt and goad him for the rest of his life. For Hitler, Langemarck would for ever be sacred ground, scene of the greatest sacrifice of the young heroes of the Reich.24 It would hold a similar stature in the pantheon of German heroism as the Battle of Tannenberg, which had taken place two months earlier on the Eastern Front. In years to come, Nazi myth-makers would orchestrate extraordinary annual commemorations of the battle and recast the Führer as a ‘Hero of Langemarck’.25
Many years later, as conqueror of France and Belgium, Hitler returned to Ypres to erect a memorial and lay wreaths on the graves of the ‘Innocents’. In the interim, before his rise to power, his fury at the massacre at Langemarck would stoke his hatred for those he held responsible for Germany’s defeat. A vast plan of revenge, as we shall see, took shape in his mind long before he executed it.
CHAPTER TEN
‘You will hear much more about me’
Hitler served four days as a foot soldier. After First Ypres he was transferred to the regimental staff as a dispatch runner (Meldegänger, literally ‘message runner’). One of ten in his regiment, he was responsible for delivering typed orders from headquarters to battalion and company commanders nearer the front. The runners travelled on foot or by bicycle, rarely as far as the forward trenches, yet often through fields swept with shellfire. They were the only form of communication when shellfire broke the telephone lines, and hence vital.
Hitler soon found himself enjoying a comfortable war, compared with that of front-line infantrymen. The runners received long periods of leisure and far better conditions in the rear areas than their comrades in the trenches. Hitler never spent weeks in a muddy, rat-infested dugout under constant bombardment among men in various stages of nervous breakdown. In the infantryman’s mind, Hitler and his fellow runners had it easy, and they mocked the support staff as ‘rear-area pigs’ (or ‘base-wallahs’, as the English tended to dismiss those who worked well back from the action).
Contrary to those who dismiss Hitler as a coward, however, he performed a very dangerous job. To run across open ground, in a field exposed to heavy artillery, required great courage. Runners were often forced to ‘dart amid flying shrapnel while most soldiers huddled in underground bunkers’.1 Several, sometimes as many as six, were frequently sent with the same message, in the hope that at least one would get through. On the first day of fighting at Wytschaete, during the Battle of Messines, on 31 October 1914, three dispatch runners were killed and one critically wounded. By the autumn of 1915 Hitler was the only surviving runner of his original unit.2 A series of near misses would earn him the nickname ‘Lucky Linzer’.
Hitler quickly distinguished himself in the role. His commanders and comrades praised his grit and courage at the time, when they had no political motive for doing so. Even in 1932, during Hitler’s ascent, a Social Democrat and trade unionist, Michel Schlehuber, who strongly opposed Hitler’s politics, described his old regimental comrade as a good soldier who never shirked his duties or avoided danger. If Hitler continued to talk up his performance in letters to the Popp family – ‘I have, so to speak, been risking my life every day, looking death straight in the eye’3 – his accounts were beginning to sound truer to his job, even if he was far from delivering messages every day. In any case, was it not a common trait in young soldiers, to reassure themselves as much as their friends and families?
To the consternation of his comrades, however, Hitler seemed to relish running errands, regardless of the risks. ‘I was repeatedly exposed to heavy artillery fire,’ he later wrote, ‘even though it was nothing but a postcard that needed to be delivered.’4 Other recollections bear out the truth of this. He never flinched from accepting a new mission and would often volunteer to take the place of married men. ‘You don’t need to worry about Hitler,’ a fellow soldier said, ‘he always gets through, even if he has to crawl like a rat up to the trench.’5
What interests us – given what happened later – is not whether Hitler was a brave and dutiful soldier (he obviously was), but how he reacted to the war, and how the war affected him. So far, the opening battles seemed to intoxicate, to exhilarate him. His bemused comrades tended to misunderstand the reason for his strange and often irritating enthusiasm. He believed in the cause. Where they fell into cynicism or lost faith, Hitler never abandoned his belief in the sacrifice, for the glory of the German Army and the future of the Reich, a goal for which every man must be willing to give his life. For him, duty to the Fatherland was real and tangible, not mere propaganda. In Hitler’s mind, Germany’s victory would vindicate everything he stood for: German greatness, racial purity, the Teutonic triumph. To the astonishment of his fellows in the regiment, he even spoke of himself as making a personal and decisive contribution to this triumphant outcome.
For now, however, Hitler was just another runner, albeit one of marked eccentricity. In November 1914 he was promoted to Gefreiter, a rank that has no clear equivalent in the British and Dominion armies. Its closest equivalent was ‘lance corporal’, one up from private and second in charge of a platoon section of ten men. And yet Hitler’s new rank gave him no command over other soldiers. His status was more akin to a ‘senior private’: ‘Hitler had merely been recognised as a reliable and trustworthy soldier,’ writes Carruthers.6 His oddness excluded him from serious consideration as future officer material. Nor, in fact, did he seem to want a proper promotion. He liked his job.
To his comrades, in the relative comfort of regimental HQ, Hitler proved a reliable if unusual Gefreiter. He had an irritating habit of never grumbling or sharing the soldiers’ complaints. He eschewed home leave. He was a prudish, self-righteous loner, obsessed with personal cleanliness. He neither drank nor pursued women. He lived on bread, marmalade and weak tea, plus a dumpling or strip of bacon (he was not yet a confirmed vegetarian). He avidly read the newspapers and was familiar with the inflammatory tracts emanating from home, such as the economist Werner Sombart’s widely circulated essay, ‘Our Enemies’. Published in German newspapers in November 1914, the essay formed the outline for Sombart’s 1915 book, Händler und Helden (Merchants and Heroes) and peddled the sort of puerile racial hostility that amused Hitler (e.g. the Serbs were ‘mouse-trap peddlers’, the Japanese ‘clever half-apes’).7
On 2 December 1914 Hitler was awarded the Iron Cross (Second Class) for his part in helping to save the life of his regiment’s new commander, Lieutenant Colonel Philipp Engelhardt, who had stepped out from cover during an attack near Wytschaete. Two dispatch runners reportedly raced forward to shield the colonel and lead him to safety. One was Hitler. Yet his precise role is unclear: a 1915 report gave fellow dispatch runner Anton Bachmann most of the credit; a 1932 report released the year before Hitler came to power not surprisingly gave young Adolf equal credit.
There is no reason to deny the validity of Engelhardt’s statement, made at the time of the award, despite the fact that it was dusted down by the Nazis to shore up Hitler’s war record. ‘I want to stress,’ Engelhardt stated, ‘when during the attack on the axe-shaped piece of forest (later called the Bavarian Forest), I left the cover of the forest near Wytschaete to better observe the attack, Hitler and another courier … the volunteer Bachmann, placed themselves in front of me to protect me from machine gun fire with their own bodies.’8
The most persuasive witness was Michel Schlehuber, the future Social Democrat who would reject the Nazis. Called to give testimony in the 1932 inquiry into Hitler’s war record by his opponents, who sought to discredit the Nazi leader, Schlehuber destroyed their case. Describing Hitler as a good soldier and faultless comrade, he concluded:
I have known Hitler since the departure for the front of the Bavarian 16th RIR. I came to know Hitler as a good soldier and faultless comrade. I never saw Hitler attempt to avoid any duty or danger. I was part of the division from first to last, and never heard anything bad about Hitler, then or afterwards. I was astonished when I later read unfavorable things about Hitler’s service as a soldier in the newspapers. I disagree entirely with Hitler on political matters, and give this testimony only because I highly respect Hitler as a war comrade.9
Clearly both Hitler and Bachmann played a part, as did two other dispatch runners who also received the award. Hitler’s decoration was undoubtedly deserved and not the work of ‘friends’ in high places, as some critics claim. He had no friends in high places. He was overjoyed: ‘It was the happiest day of my life.’ Ignaz Westenkirchner, a fellow dispatch runner, observed: ‘He had now found that for which he had been longing for many years, a real home and recognition.’10
The award would also lead to one of the ‘worst moments’ in his life, with lethal consequences for the officers who nominated him. In a letter to Ernst Hepp, Hitler described the dreadful moment when the award ‘saved our lives’:
[W]hile they were preparing a list of men recommended for the Iron Cross, four company commanders came into the tent or dug-out rather. To make room for them we had to go outside for a while. We had not been out there more than five minutes when a shell hit the tent, severely wounding Lt-Col Engelhardt and either killing or wounding the rest of the headquarters staff. It was the worst moment of my life. We worshipped Colonel Engelhardt.
The colonel lost his life recommending an award to the man who had helped to save his life.
The trenches near Ypres were barely 50 yards apart in places, and on Christmas Eve 1914 the German and British troops decided to share the festive spirit. Across no-man’s-land the Germans shouted, ‘Happy Christmas, Tommy!’ The British replied, ‘Merry Christmas, Jerry!’ Above the German parapet a figure then appeared, and another, and another, walking towards the British trenches. The British held their fire and went out to meet the enemy. They exchanged rum and schnapps, and shared photos of their loved ones. Someone played an accordion.
Thus began the famous Christmas truce, one of the most endearing legends of the First World War. Sergeant David Lloyd-Burch, who served with the BEF in No. 10 Field Ambulance, witnessed the German and English troops ‘burying the dead between the trenches. Cigarettes and cigars were exchanged. It was so exciting … to be above the trenches in daylight. At ordinary times [it] meant sudden death.’11
Along the Ypres salient, the Germans and British sang ‘Silent Night’ together that night, even as the battle raged on in several places. Their generals disapproved of, and later banned, any fraternizing with the enemy. One German runner shared the commanders’ view: in fact, the Christmas truce disgusted Hitler, as he sat fuming in the ruins of Messines village, longing to resume fighting. Heinrich Lugauer, a fellow runner, described him as an ‘embittered opponent of the fraternization with the English’.12 Instead, Hitler spent Christmas under a decorated tree, singing ‘Silent Night’ with a few comrades in emphatic German and taking a macabre interest in two corpses lying near the camp, ‘on whom grass was growing’, as he told a fellow soldier, Hans Mend.13
Hitler never received letters or parcels from home. He claimed that he neither wanted gifts nor allowed his family to send them, a melancholy cover for the fact that he had no family. Indeed, his relatives neither knew nor seemed to care where he was; his sister, Paula, thought him dead. (Paula was then living with their aunt, Johanna Pölzl. In the early 1920s she would move to Vienna, to work as an insurance clerk. The discovery of her private journal in 2005 revealed that her brother used to beat her when she was a child and later refused to allow her to marry Dr Erwin Jekelius, an Austrian Nazi and physician responsible for sending 4,000 of his patients, many of them disabled, to the gas chambers.14)
Hitler thus cultivated the image of a lonely, defiant figure, an orphaned loner who elicited sympathy: ‘… the poor devil takes part in so much,’ Hans Mend wrote, ‘yet has no idea for whom in Germany he’s endangering his life and risking his health.’15
‘Haven’t you got anyone back home?’ Mend once asked. ‘Isn’t there anyone to send you things?’
‘No,’ Hitler replied. ‘At least, no one but a sister, and goodness only knows where she is by this time.’
Hitler ‘just looked the other way,’ Mend recalled, ‘and busied himself knocking the mud off his boots and doing what he could to clean his shirt.’16
His sense of humour was more slapstick than sharp. He saw the funny side to practical jokes, such as when his comrades raised a helmet on a bayonet above the trench parapet to draw enemy fire. ‘Even Hitler, who was usually so serious, saw the fun of this,’ recalled Ignaz Westenkirchner. ‘He used to double himself up with laughter.’17
In January 1915 Hitler gave himself a Christmas gift of a fox terrier that had strayed from the British lines. He lavished affection on ‘Foxl’, as he named the dog, and would remember it affectionately in Mein Kampf and later monologues. ‘It was crazy how fond I was of the beast,’ he recalled in 1942,18 with genuine warmth:
