Bidspirit auction | PAULA HITLER'S MEMOIR OF HER

PAULA HITLER'S MEMOIR OF HER BROTHER, ADOLF HITLER - PAULA HITLER-WOLF (1896 - 1960) Younger sister of Adolf Hitler, his only sibling to survive into adulthood. She never joined the Nazi Party and largely remained on the sidelines, though after the war she accepted the charity of ex-SS officers and survivors of Hitler's inner circle. An incredible memoir of a life with Adolf Hitler, a typed manuscript signed at conclusion 'Paula Hitler-Wolf' with a few emendations, 15pp. large 4to., [n.p., but apparently Berchtesgaden, ca. 1953], in German with partial English translation. This is the text of a solicited magazine article sought by an American journalist for publication in 'The American Weekly', though we cannot find any evidence of it having been put into print. Written in a stream-of-thought manner, Paula Hitler is alternately protective of her brother, indignant, and fawning, while at the same time revealing a good deal about Hitler hitherto unknown. The self-typed text reads, in small part: '…four children [my siblings] died early in life, and this fact caused my mother to be extremely careful whenever Adolf and I showed any sign of illness…she also tried to balance the strictness of our father with her own love…When our 65-year-old father died in January, 1903, my brother Adolf was 13 years old…Four years later…mother, who was 23 years younger than father, died…Adolf joined his parents on April 30, 1945…[Adolf] had grown up between two extremes…our father's attitude through life was uncompromising…yield or break…our mother…tried to save the domestic peace…Just like Napoleon in his youth, my brother also was a small gang leader – freedom-loving, impulsive, comradely – never inclined to submit…I have often wondered what would have happened…if his mother hadn't left us so early…whether he would have refrained from his…intention to become an artist…he did not have the strength to detach himself from his mother…their deaths…cleared the way for him to run as a politician….jealousy between Adolf and me played an increasing role…my brother got a lung hemorrhage…he noted our mother's indulgence towards me…Adolf proved himself the most loving, patient and attentive son…My brother Adolf gave me my first piano lessons…listening to melodies from Wagner operas…he himself learned [piano] on his own…he preferred to talk about what moved him to the core: history – music – architecture…he also checked my homework and did arithmetic…his enthusiasm for the Bayreuth master [Richard Wagner]…The outstanding leadership that Richard Wagner assumed as the poet in my brother's soul was not equaled by anyone in other areas…For Adolf it was incomprehensible that a human child could ever confuse the Baroque with the Renaissance!...The greatest disappointment…was probably that moment when, on entering the art academy, he immediately ran into the tried and tested and splendidly established bureaucratism …laden with prejudices…this disappointment was followed by a series of discoveries that he had not expected…he was left to his own devices…the academy and theater-goer Adolf Hitler became a worker…and used every free hour to draw and paint, and in standing-room in the evening at the opera…father wished him to become a state official…the connection between my brother and me was interrupted for 13 years…the move to Munich, the First World War, and the end of the war…[our mother] would have followed the ascent of her son with a fearful heart…she would only have visited Berlin on very special occasions, but she would only have been at home in the familiar rooms, far from all the trinkets and glitter…Worrying about her son's luck and misfortune would have been second nature to her, like Napoleon's mother…Only when my brother was in Vienna did he make it a point to greet me at the Hotel Imperial and this journey was of course carried out in the car. My brother didn't have much time, a stay in Vienna was always short and on the one…he did not even realize how difficult it was to get to the…Hotel Imperial…When I received the invitation to his 50th birthday in Berlin shortly afterwards and we were facing each other in the Reich Chancellery, one of the first questions was: 'Why didn't you come to the Imperial…nobody knew where you were!'…in the summer of 1940 and the last one - a surprise visit to Berlin – I saw him on March 5, 1941 in Vienna, where the harvest of the war was already evident…my brother, whose existence from now on consisted only of responsibility…When I am asked about the death of my brother…I can only say one thing that is clear and unequivocal: Yes! The fact that my brother is dead was out of the question for me from the very beginning after the war was over…The war was lost for Germany, so was his life's work. Too many incomprehensibilities had accumulated to find out from this sum for himself or for any purpose in life. Neither in the present nor in the future. Moreover,