Conversations with Adolf Hitler: Volume IV

Hitler: And when they next asked him about my personality, just like you are doing throughout these conversations, seeking to hear abnormalities in my mind, Dr. Bloch again rebuked them saying, and I quote his words:

Dr. Bloch: While Hitler was not a mother's boy in the usual sense, I never witnessed a closer attachment. Their love had been mutual. Klara Hitler adored her son. For example, she admired his watercolour paintings and drawings and supported his artistic ambitions in opposition to his father at what cost to herself one may guess. Hitler was the saddest man I had ever seen. [Following Klara’s death]. 

DG: Yes, if we are quoting the good doctor, as you call him, he also said this of your pious, frugal mother: 

Dr. Bloch: "Sie würde sich im Grabe herumdrehen, wenn sie wüsste, was aus ihm geworden ist." ("She would turn in her grave if she knew what became of him."



DG: Later, in an interview, dated March 14th, 1941, he said the following:

Dr. Bloch: At the time Frau Hitler was in her early forties. She was a simple modest, kindly woman. She was tall, had brownish hair which she kept neatly plaited, and a long, oval face with beautifully expressive gray-blue eyes. She was desperately worried about the responsibilities thrust upon her by her husband's death. Alois, twenty-three years her senior, had always managed the family. Now the job was hers.

It was readily apparent that son Adolf was too young and altogether too frail to become a farmer. So, her best move seemed to be to sell the place and rent a small apartment. This she did, soon after her husband's death. With the proceeds of this sale and the small pension which came to her because of her husband's government position, she managed to hold her family together.

The Hitler’s had only a few friends. One stood out above the others; the widow of the postmaster who lived in the same house.

The limited budget allowed not even the smallest extravagance. We had the usual provincial opera in Linz; not good, and not bad. Those who would hear the best went to Vienna. Seats in the gallery of our theater, the Schauspielhaus, sold for the equivalent of 10 to 15 cents in American money. Yet occupying one of those seats to hear an indifferent troupe sing Lohengrin was such a memorable occasion that Hitler records it in Mein Kampf!

The family diet was, of necessity, simple and rugged. Food was cheap and plentiful in Linz; and the Hitler family ate much the same diet as other people in their circumstances. Meat would be served perhaps twice a week. Most of the meals they sat down to consisted of cabbage or potato soup, bread, dumplings and a pitcher of pear and apple cider.

For clothing, they wore the rough woollen cloth we call Loden. Adolf, of course, dressed in the uniform of all small boys; leather shorts, embroidered suspenders, a small green hat with a feather in its band ....

He was tall...