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

HE IS BOTH TERRIBLE AND BANAL 51the voting man fell violently ill with a lung ailment, his schooling wasbroken off, and the patient sent to Spital, his mother's home village torecover; there he lived with his aunt, Theresa Schmidt, a peasantwoman. He was described at that period as a big, pale, lean youth. ADoctor Karl Keiss, from near-by Weitra, treated him and said to hisAunt Theresa: 'Adolf will never be healthy after this sickness.' Yet hisfather, from whom he had inherited the predisposition, had lived to besixty-six with the same disease.Whether it' was his sickness or his constant lack of success in hisstudies — in any case in September, 1905, Adolf managed to leaveschool ahead of time without any final examination. Then follows anepisode which — like many others — for unclear reasons he conceals inhis autobiography: in the fall of the same year, 1905, he went toGermany for a few months, his first visit. In Munich he attended aprivate art school in Blutenstrasse, directed by a Professor Grober, andstudied drawing. Photographs from this time have been preserved,showing a sickly figure with a soft, round, smallish head; the nose andeyes and even the famous hair lock are unmistakable, however.According to accounts of fellow pupils, he was quiet, reserved, almostshy; but occasionally there were outbreaks in which he made muchnoise and fuss. He spoke much with his hands, and the short, angular,brusque motions of his head were conspicuous — characteristics whichwere noticed a few years later by comrades in Vienna.But he spent most of the time at home, doing absolutely nothing. InLinz he was often in the house of a comrade whose father was a highgovernment official. Here he found a well-equipped library, discoveredRichard Wagner's prose writings, read the master's thunderingaccusation against the Jews in Music, his gloomy views on Decay andRegeneration. Perhaps it was then that Wagner's picturesquecondemnation of meat-eating made its first impression on him, andperhaps also his doctrine that the whole of history has been a tragedy ofthe noble races; yet Hitler denies having known anything about anti-Semitism in Linz. There was a daughter in the house; the young manadmired her in silence but ventured no utterance. For, he later told afriend in Vienna, she was the daughter of a high official, and his fatherhad been only