SOME time ago, 'Truth' published the account by a young girl, A Pauline Kohler, of life in Hitler's palatial hide-out at Berchtesgaden, where she had lived for some time. The extraordinary improper living ways of the Fuehrer and his satellites was broadly hinted. But for an outright searchlight to be thrown on the depraved, sordid, ugly, and repulsive facets of the character of the man who 'plunged Europe into war without blinking an eyelid,' the world has had to wait for his former colleague, the now fugitive Otto Strasser, Hitler's No. 1 enemy, to tell his story ! Not hiding the fact that Hitler, who murdered his brother, Gregor, is the object of his most bitter feelings. Strasser presents the German Fuehrer as an abnormal being who indulges in sexual malpractices, who was even guilty of the murder of his 19-year-old niece after she had been the victim of his unnatural attentions, and who is surrounded by a collection of extraordinarily corrupt and monstrously irregular colleagues. Otto Strasser's whereabouts to-day are a mystery. He broke with Hitler before the latter got supreme power, left Germany,
where his brother Gregor hung on till he was assassinated, and was last heard of in France just before the collapse. Now just published are the first English translations of two important books by Otto Strasser, 'Hitler and I' and ' Germany To-morrow.' The preface for the English edition of the first book is dated May of this year, the actual text of the book itself January. But there is, naturally, no clue to Strasser's present abode.
Damning Indictment Of German Morals And Habits
STRASSER, according to Douglas Reed in a foreword to "Hitler And I," is the leader of what is potentially the world's largest Fifth Column. "If Hitler's gigantic venture fails," says Reed, "Otto Strasser will once more loom large in the picture. . . . .Whatever impends, his two books belong to history."
And what remarkable personal history they disclose ! "Hitler And I" makes shocking revelations of the characters of the man who has pitted himself against the world, and his aides, and constitute a damning indictment of German morals and habits.
To what extent the strain of the Great War, and the subsequent exactions which Germany had to undergo as the conquered nation, had in undermining the national character is not determined by Strasser. He is no psychologist, though he does analyse; he is forthright and melodramatic— but the melodrama comes from his facts, or what he alleges to be the facts, and not from his style.
Eye-Opening !
He does, however, give an eye-opening description of Germany in the early 1920's— the immediate post-war years: — "German culture, manners, literature, the theatre and the cinema necessarily reflected these dangerous and troubled times, when morality foundered In the need for forgetfulness, intoxication, sensationalism, and eccentric pleasures.
"Night-clubs sprang up like mushrooms. Naked dancers exhibited themselves to the applause of audiences drunk with liquor and lubricity. It was the era of sadism and masochism, eccentricity and crankiness of every kind. Homo sexuality and astrology flourished."
It was in this sort of atmosphere, that the first stirrings of the Nazi Party were heard. Perhaps it explains the extraordinary stories that Strasser tells of Hitler and his associates, and their practices.
Hitler he shows to be wary of women, irregular in his relationships with them. According to Strasser, the Fuehrer used to say that women destroyed a politician's strength and his judgment. His panic fear of losing himself in a tender emotion hid the jealously guarded secret of his association with three women who played a part in his life.
The first was Frau Bechstein, wife of the famous Berlin pianomaker. She was 20 years older than Adolf, "and lavished on him an ecstatic and faintly maternal devotion." When he went to Berlin he generally stayed with her, and made his political rendezvous there.
"When they were alone, or occasionally even in front of friends, he would sit at his hostess's feet, lay his head on her opulent bosom and close his eyes, while her beautiful white hand caressed her big baby s hair, disturbing the historic forelock on the future dictator's brow. 'Wolfchen,' she murmured tenderly, 'mein Wolfchen'" ("my little wolf.")
This was a purely platonic friendship, says Strasser, but Adolf's second acquaintance was younger, unquestionably more attractive— and indiscreetly talkative, in the manner of adolescent girls. She was the daughter of a photographer named Hofmann, who one day went to demand an explanation from the seducer of Munich, following the beautiful young blonde's too-free chattering.
"Hitler was not yet Chancellor of the Reich, comments Strasser, "but his fame was growing, and Europe was beginning to talk about him.
The matter was soon settled. Hofmann left holding the exclusive world rights for Adolf Hitler's photographs! The complaisant father has become one of the richest and most respected men in Germany. In 1933 his daughter was married to Baldur von Schirach, a young effeminate whom the Fuehrer loaded with favors and created Reich Youth leader.
Hofmann figures again and again in Strasser's book, an inhuman and relentless executor of his sponsor's most scoundrelly orders.
Sordid
But the saddest, ugliest, sorriest, and most sordid of Strasser's stories about Hitler's women concerns the Fuehrer's 19-year-old niece, Angela Raubal, an amusing, pretty, and gay little Austrian.
"Uncle Adolf's menage bored her," says Strasser. "She wanted to go about, meet people, dance. I used to pay her attentions. She was no prude.
He arranged one day to take Gely, as they called her, to one of the famous Munich masked balls. But he was stopped by a telephone message from Hitler.
"I learn," the Fuehrer roared, "that you are going out with young Gely this evening: I won't allow her to go out with a married man. I'm not going to have any of your filthy Berlin tricks in Munich."
Strasser had no choice but to submit. "Next day Gely came to see me. She was red-eyed, her round, little face was wan, and she had the terrified look of a hunted beast.
" 'He locked me up,' she sobbed. 'He locks me up every time I say no.'
"She did not need much questioning. With anger, horror, and disgust, she told me of strange propositions with which her uncle pestered her.
"I knew all about Hitler's abnormality. Like all others in the know, I had heard all about the eccentric practices to which Frauleln Hofmann was alleged to have lent herself, but I had genuinely believed that the photographer's daughter was a little hysteric, who told lies for the sheer fun of it. But Gely, who was completely ignorant of this other affair of her uncle's, confirmed point by point a story scarcely credible to a healthy-minded man.... ..
"Her confidences, once set flowing, were inexhaustible. Her uncle kept her literally isolated. She was not allowed to see a man....."
THIS BIZARRE AND DISGUSTING "ROMANCE" HAD ITS TRAGIC SEQUEL IN THE GIRL'S MYSTERIOUS DEATH, IN 1931. STRASSER DID NOT LEARN THE CIRCUMSTANCES, HE SAYS, UNTIL AFTER THE INFAMOUS PURGE IN JUNE, 1934, WHEN HIS BROTHER GREGOR AND OTHER WHILOM NAZIS WERE MURDERED.
He met his other brother, Paul, in Austria, in the spring of 1935. Naturally, their conversation turned on the death of Gregor. "And to think," said Paul, "that he once stopped Hitler from committing suicide."
Otto Strasser did not know of this, and asked when It had happened.
"Paul hesitated," he goes on, "and then continued in a low voice: 'After he murdered his niece Gely. Gregor told me of it, and I swore to keep it a secret.
" 'Gregor spent three days and three nights with Adolf, who was like a madman. He shot her during a quarrel. Perhaps he did not realise what he was doing. As soon as he had done it he wanted to commit suicide, but Gregor prevented him. It was announced that Gely had committed suicide.' "
Otto Strasser, in November last year, told the story of poor little Gely and her madman lover in "Le Journal," while he was in Paris, and a few days later got an inferential confirmation of the story told by his brother. It came in a message from a Father Pant, a Munich priest living then in exile, and was to this effect:
"It was I who buried Angela Raubal, the little Gely of whom you wrote. They pretended that she committed suicide; I should never have allowed a suicide to be buried in consecrated ground. From the fact that I gave her Christian burial you can draw conclusions which I cannot communicate to you.'"
Lacks Courage
When it comes to character-sketching, Strasser has nothing but contempt for Hitler's personal courage— or lack of it. Throughout the book, he derides and ridicules Adolf in the guise of the hero.
He admits it is on record that Hitler served in the Great War, but declares that where, how, and when he won the Iron Cross he displays on every conceivable occasion is not on record, and concludes it will always remain a mystery. He gives a comic-opera touch to the Nazis' first and unsuccessful uprising, which resulted in five years' gaol for Hitler.
"Like a maniac, Hitler burst into the hall, jumped on to a chair, fired his revolver at the ceiling, and shouted, his hoarse voice half -quenched with excitement: 'The National Revolution has begun!' . . . . The beer-drinkers in the hall, dumb with astonishment, found themselves face to face with Hitler's revolution .... 'It was a stirring moment. Adolf pressed his revolver to his temples. 'Gentlemen,' he declared, 'not one of us shall leave this hall alive in case I fail.'" In reality, of course, Strasser says, Adolf had no more thought of killing any of the others than he had of killing himself. "It is worth noting that the only shot that Hitler fired that day was at the ceiling. ... Twice that evening Hitler swore that failure would mean his death. But he managed to survive.'"
Fled The Scene
Next day saw counter moves and, describing these, Strasser again slashingly accuses Hitler of physical cowardice. "By this time Munich was full of military and police. The procession set out, with Hitler and Ludendorff at its head . . . Hitler, optimistically believing that he had the crowd with him, did not believe there would be any fighting . . . .
"When Hitler's men debouched upon the Feldherrnhalle the police opened fire. What followed is among the most disgraceful episodes in post-war history.
"While Ludendorff, with head high, marched steadily forward towards the police cordon that was firing upon his men, Hitler, whom Ulrich Graf protected with his body, flung himself flat on the ground.
"All the versions that say anything else are false. Hitler flung himself ignominiously to the ground." Thirteen Nazis were killed in that melee, and many wounded, among them Goering. Many more were arrested, but Hitler fled the scene. He was arrested a few days later.
'"There is no doubt that Hitler is unbalanced," says Strasser. "When the man is still, which happens rarely, he seems petrified; otherwise, he seems not to be able to keep still at all. A train exasperates him by its slowness. A car travelling at less than 70 miles an hour he describes as an ox-cart. He takes a plane to save time, but complains in the air that he has no sense of speed ... He is weak, impatient, irascible, unstable, and terrified of endangering his health or losing control of his ideas." Since the middle of 1939, he has never ceased talking of his approaching death.
Strasser's sketch of Goering, who has been nominated by Hitler as his successor should anything happen to the present Fuehrer, is interesting as further indicating the characteristics of the men at the head of Germany, (and it is always to be remembered that Strasser was close to all these men, as close as anyone might get).
"Goering was an officer of the Air Force and an accomplished soldier who would not have chosen an adventurer's life if he could have remained in his profession," says Strasser. "A former pupil of the Cadet School, Hermann had the restricted outlook of the professional officer class. He was a man of barely average intelligence, and of pronounced physical brutality. He liked food, drink, and conviviality."
And of Heinreich Himmler he has this to say: "Himmler was not cruel, but he was incapable of emotion or suffering. 'You've got the soul and sensibilities of a butcher,' my brother Gregor used to say to him.
"Himmler arrested his own brother, at the Fuehrer's orders, and he would have killed his parents without a moment's hesitation if the Fuehrer had ordered him to do so.
Ugly Himmler
"With regard to women, Himmler always reminded me of Gretchen's phrase in Faust, 'Heinreich you inspire me with horror.' He had had only one sexual adventure, which he described to me himself.
"This, he said was at the age of 32. He spent a night at an inn, where he was seduced by the landlady, who was 10 years older than he. He remained attached to the woman who performed this miracle. Compared with this ugly pen picture of Himmler, Strasser's drawing of Rudolf Hess is kindly, although the German leaning to abnormal sexual suspicions pokes through. "Hess was a handsome young man, an intellectual and an artist, an officer and a poet," he says. "He was enthusiastic and faithful. he never faltered in his passion for Adolf Hitler. So great, in fact, was his sentimental admiration for Adolf that evil tongues used to call him 'Fraulein Hess.' I myself believe, however, that the relationship was absolutely pure."
Consider, too, his outline of "the sexually abnormal Julius Streicher." He is shown as the ugliest of the set of unlovely conspirators of the Burgerbrau, the Munich restaurant where the uprising of Nazidom was plotted in the early 1920's.
"Never have I met a man more haunted by erotic fantasies," declares Strasser. "For Streicher the racial theories of National Socialism were merely an excuse for unloading into the 'Sturmer' (his newspaper) the dangerous outpourings of his diseased imagination. 'A sexual crime committed by a Jew on the front page of my paper is like a delicious cocktail, a meal starting with caviare,' he once said to me. He was a man whose ugliness was repulsive to women. During the war he was degraded for an indecent assault on a young French governess."
AND THESE, AND THEIR ILK, ARE THE SORT OF MEN WHO WANT TO RULE AND GUIDE THE WORLD!
Truth (Brisbane, Qld. : 1900 - 1954), Sunday 8 December 1940, page 19
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