Few men knew Hitler as well as architect and long-term associate Albert Speer. In his writings, later in life, Speer frequently dove into the late dictator’s psyche, sharing stories of their times together. Speer wrote well, and his anecdotes and analysis of the highest ranking Nazi’s is fascinating. He would often recall how Hitler would be most at ease when meeting with common people. The “little people”, if you will.
Say Hitler was early for a meeting, back in the first years when he had just come to power. He’d stroll around a building where a stage was set up. And he’d talk to people. Like really talk to them, person-to-person. A soldier, a fellow veteran of WWI. A carpenter. He’d have animated talks with them, and Speer was amazed by this because many of the top brass of German high society were vain, arrogant, high and mighty figures. Not Hitler. In a restaurant, he’d compliment the chef on a vegetarian dish. Delighted to find out the man who prepared his food was a fellow Austrian. Things like that.
You’d think of Hitler, the murderous dictator, and imagine some sort of raving madman, foaming at the mouth, endlessly ranting about “the Jews!” And what you got, instead, was a thoughful, soft-spoken man with a deep voice, speaking in a slow and deliberate way, trying to hide his heavy Austrian accent. He’d remember names, remember intimate details about the lives of people he’d only met once, years after the fact. Like a true politician, really. He was warm, personable. And he could also be absolutely terrible, too. Especially to people who belonged to nobility, the Prussian elites, generals from “old families”, with old money and “von” in their names.
The high and mighty men of old Weimar never wanted much to do with Hitler. That “silly little corporal” they would say. They despised him, at worst. At best, saw him as a mere parvenu. Someone who had risen far beyond his natural station in life, and who was utterly undeserving of his position. He never was accepted by ‘polite society’ to the degree he wished he would be. And not for lack of trying… he could engage with them, talk to them passionately about a wide variety of subjects. He frequently tried to woo “old money” but was frequently rebuffed. It tired him. Made him bitter. So the niceness, it faded. He had no need for it anymore, anyway, once absolute power was obtained.
Still, he acted in a friendly way to “the little guy”. To his secretaries, to their husbands. He’d play matchmaker for his staff. Inquire about the children of friends. Allow his old Jewish childhood dentist to leave the country unharmed before the Holocaust kicked off… Hitler is a great and enduring paradox, an enigma — boundless evil in an often surprisingly polite package. A sea of anger and hatred, brewing underneath a surface that could be deceptively charming.
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