Der Fuehrer - Hitler's Rise to Power (1944) - Heiden

Chapter XV'THE UNHAPPIEST OF ALLMEN'BY 1929, ADOLF HITLER WAS LEADING A COMFORTABLE life.In 1928 he had left his worst private worries behind him. In one of themost attractive and expensive thoroughfares of Munich, the Outer PrinzRegenten Strasse, he rented a nine-room apartment which he sharedwith the two Angelas, his sister and niece. He allowed himself thisluxury after the contributions of Emil Kirdorf had enabled him to givethe party a new and magnificent home — the Barlow Palace, a spaciousold patrician mansion in the Brienner Strasse. For the first time in hislife the unsuccessful artist-prince could abandon himself to his passionfor building and designing; with the architect Troost, and Speer hishelper, he introduced new intermediary floors and walls into his 'BrownHouse,' transformed great halls into moderate-sized rooms. He showed agift for creating an impression of size with limited space.The need for size followed him everywhere like a magnified shadowdwarfing his personal stature. Having read that Mussolini had his deskat the far end of a gigantic hall, and compelled his callers to undertake along, painful march across the endless floor, he designed his own studyin the same proportions. The difference was only that Hitler oftenimpressed visitors as a shy, embarrassed creature, cowering unhappilybehind his gigantic desk.