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

70 DER FUEHRERtoday there is no way of getting to the bottom of the matter. In one thinghe was certainly right: that Hitler thought too highly of his pictures andexpected far too much money. For us the lawsuit is interesting becausethe record of it is one of the very few remaining documents concerningHitler's youth; because its few details confirm the main points ofHanisch's story and strongly indicate its credibility. Since Hitler himselfconceals and falsifies the story of his youth, a few extracts from therecords of this little trial may not be amiss here.At Hitler's request one Loffner, a Jewish inmate of the Home forMen, had located the vanished Hanisch, and had him arrested. Histestimony is preserved in the records; the passage important to us runs:Royal and Imperial District Police Commissariat of WiedenZ 18370 August 4, 1910Reinhold Hanisch Embezzlement, False Registration.Siegfried Loffner, Salesman, XX Meldemann Strasse 27, declares:I have learned from a painter in the Home for Men that the arrestedparty sold pictures for him and embezzled the money. I do not know thepainter by name, only from the Home for Men, where he always satwith the arrested party. . . .Thus Hitler (the 'painter') 'always sat' with Hanisch (the 'arrestedparty'). The close friendship which Hanisch boasts is no invention.One more record:Royal and Imperial District Police CommissariatBrigittenau August 5, 1910.Adolf Hitler, artist-painter, born in Braunau, 20/4, 1889. Permanentaddress, Linz. Catholic, single. Now resident XX Meldemann Strasse27, declares:It is not correct that I advised Hanisch to register as Walter, Fritz. Iknew him only as Fritz Walter. Since he was destitute, I gave him thepictures I painted to sell. He regularly received fifty per cent of theproceeds from me. For about two weeks Hanisch