Customer Reviews

The Young Hitler I Knew

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An extraordinary first hand, first person account by Hitler's only best friend of their adolescent years together. Fills in many missing years uncovered by most biographers and provides a fascinating insight into the formation of a complex personality, explains many motivations that only became apparent later in his life, solving many puzzles that most biographers have left as 'mysteries'. The subject aside, this is a wonderfully written account of life in Europe and Germany prior to WWI. A must read for any truly serious student of the man or times.

So much of what is taken and accepted as "FACT" about Hitler is full of inconsistencies and assumption. It has been my experience that the public will readily swallow whatever they are fed about "The Great Dictator" without giving so much as a second thought as to whether or not it is correct. I wish I could be indifferent to this and take a neutral stance, but I cannot. I have dedicated six years of my life to studying that of Hitler, and it pains me to witness the widespread ignorance displayed by the majority whenever Hitler's name is mentioned. Which is why this book is so important to me. It is by far the best ever written about his young adulthood and, in short, who he really was as a person. For, in order to understand who Hitler was, one must look into his past.
During the years the two spent together in Linz and later in Vienna, young Hitler was already developing into what he would later become. For getting a deeper perspective of the true nature of Adolf Hitler, August Kubizek is, in my humble opinion, the most reliable source for insight into this complicated human being. No one knew Hitler more intimately than he did. He was also reunited with his old friend three decades after their ways parted in Vienna, and thus gives valuable insight regarding "Adolf Hitler, the Fuehrer". And, as Kubizek remarked, "Hitler didn't change."
The words Kubizek uses to describe his young friend convey the image of a deep, passionate, gifted and serious young man who, due to his great obsession with changing the world around him, did not enjoy his youth in any traditional sense. Kubizek did his friend a great service by writing this book. It is required reading for all serious students of Hitler's incredible life, for it is an honest, first-hand account of the young starving artist, open and unbiased, (unlike any other book ever to tackle the subject.)
Kubizek was, I am convinced, a good man who had nothing to gain and everything to lose by publishing the truth about Adolf Hitler's character and showing the world his "human" side. The world after the war (and today still) was not interested in the truth. So many were then and still are content to make Hitler into the embodiment of all evil, to reject his humanity. But therein lies the danger.

This is one of the most important books ever written on Hitler. It is an honest memoir of Hitler's best childhood friends. There is no book that even comes close to the coverage this book provides of Hitler's early years. Perhaps, the most important section of the book is the chapter where Hitler sees Wagner's opera Rienzi for the first time and sees a larger vision for his own life. Indeed, one aspect of the book is the huge influence of Richard Wagner on both Hitler and a generation of Germans. Check my German history book list on Amazon for more interesting books including a book on Wagner's influence on Hitler.

To have two teenagers getting so excited about going to the opera that they'll wait in long lines, stand for the performance, and still go after a fatiguing day, may be hard for modern readers to imagine. This book takes you back to that time, to a childhood in Europe before TV and radio.

This book is absolutely fascinating. It's in the "read and re-read and re-read" category, and still controversial even today!

At the end of WWII in 1945, Kubizek must have been one of the very few people still alive who had known both the teenage Adolf Hitler AND Hitler's mother before she died. Kubizek writes about the funeral setting and arrangements, Hitler's reaction.

Though controversial, the dialog and reactions for the most part will "ring true" for students of Hitler and the NSDAP from other first-hand source material.

Kubizek tells of almost unbelievable living conditions in a packed, shared room with Hitler and a piano! He writes that he and Adolf once attempted to write an opera together, and that Hitler did play the piano (badly) and had had music lessons. He writes of time before Hitler became a vegetarian. He writes of several very early, pre-WWI, incidents involving Jews.

Kubizek credits Hitler, directly, for encouraging him to pursue his musical career.

After Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany, Kubizek's accounts of further meetings with him, years after being teenage roomates, makes absolutely gripping reading. One amusing sidelight is the clever way Kubizek managed to turn away pressure from various NSDAP officials during the Third Reich period.

Kubizek's is an eyewitness account like no other known. Once you start reading this book, you want more, more, more! (It's really a loss that many more English-speaking historians, researchers, and camera men didn't get to Kubizek before his death!)

To Kubizek's credit, the reader has to consider that, when he wrote these reminiscences, after WWII, he had nothing to gain whatsoever in giving a sympathetic portrayal of Hitler, yet he does anyway.

I never thought I would come across a Hitler book written from a perspective different from all other biographical analysis out there. For example, this book does not begin with the premise that Hitler was born evil and was so his entire life. Instead, it recounts the somewhat poignant experience of knowing Hitler as a teenager who had dreams and passion (as many young people do), yet was one that had unresolved issues to contend with... The reader may even conclude that evil people aren't always born that way, but become so because of life's experiences. The best part about the book is that it's also an intimate, bittersweet account of Central European lifestyles that have vanished. The author's detailed, articulate writing style makes it hard to put this book down.

I didn't think I would learn much of anything about Adolf Hitler through August's book, but I was greatly mistaken. While some try to discredit August, stating he was biased, put words in Hitler's mouth and so on, I found this book to ring true when compared against the accounts of others who were close to Hitler in later years. Quite a lot of the puzzle comes together via this book, and I believe you wind up getting to understand more about what made up the heart, mind, and attitudes of Adolf Hitler.

You'll read things that contradict what has been stated by others. Is August being truthful? I find his accounts more believeable and/or at least begin to doubt what others have stated. Here is one example amongst many: The doctor who attended to Hitler's mother was Jewish, but was well respected by everyone in Linz, including Hitler. His anti-Semitic feelings did not, as some claim, begin with his hatred for the doctor who alledgely failed to tend to his mother correctly.

A chronicle of the adolescent friendship between the author, August Kubizek, and Adolph Hitler before he was "Hitler", this is one of the most interesting and unique books you will ever read. Included in this amazing work are pictures of letters and postcards sent the author from Hitler during the period of their friendship, which adds a very personal dimension to what you are reading.

This book was written almost 50 years after the events occurred, so it is no surprise the author probably got some details mixed up, especially as pertain to plays, operas, etc. that the two frequently attended.

There is a simple reason for Kubizek's exclusion of the Stephanie story from a propaganda pamphlet he wrote for the Nazis in the late 1930's: by showing that Hitler was a social misfit and extremely intimidated by women as a youth, the story could have drastically dimished his image as the "man with the iron will", not to mention the effect it could have had on his appeal to women (on which he heavily relied). There is a known portrait Hitler drew of Stephanie.

The underlying credibility of this book is not questioned by any serious Hitler scholar, and it is considered to be the best source of information on Hitler's early life. You will be glad you read it.

I wanted to read more about the life of Adolf Hitler but I wasn't sure where to start. There are some huge, well-reviewed biographies out there, of course. But Hitler is, to say the least, a complex character, and I didn't want to overwhelm myself at first with a scholarly tome.

So I feel fortunate that I found this book, which is revelatory about Hitler's quite twisted family tree; his schooling, and his teenage years. The curious reader can gain some insight into Hitler's personality and also about the twilight of the Hapsburg Empire, which he (and the author) lived through. According to the Forward by Ian Kershaw (a respected biographer of Adolf Hitler), the author had a ghostwriter, and all I can say is, that person was a skilled writer. Kershaw advises reading with caution in his Forward, since it appears that Kubizek's memories may have been 'plumped up', but this doesn't harm the overall truthful impression this book gives about the youthful Hitler.

Unlike Mr. Kershaw, I don't find it difficult to believe the author's description of young Hitler's infatuation with "Stefanie" or the odd way this infatuation played out. Why should it be hard to believe that Hitler stood moodily on streetcorners waiting for her to appear, and assumed they had a secret bond or connection - when in fact he never even spoke with the girl, and she had no idea who he was? A "celebrity stalker" will assume that a movie star is sending him or her secret messages, etc. Hitler could have had that mentality (among his other problems).

While I don't admire the fact that Kubizek doesn't come out strongly against Nazi ideology, or isn't even mildly critical of Adolf Hitler (even though he wrote his memoir post-WWII, when he would have known everything), that's not the real purpose of this book. It is a memoir of one period of Hitler's life that this author knew intimately, and is written by a relatively simple, undiscerning person - the one person who can be described as an actual, active friend to Adolf Hitler. It is an engrossing, even fascinating, memoir.

This book is not for the uninterested nor the passing historian. It is important to bear in mind that this perspective on Hitler is for a particular period of time, from a particular person. And lacking a relatively thorough understanding of Hitler, one may be compelled to think that the "Young Hitler" was completely different, as if possessed by demons later in life (as some biographers suggest) than the "Fuehrer Hitler".

The Young Hitler, however, is really the only decent, detailed recollection of Hitler before he became active in the Nazi party after World War 1. And the reader will be astounded at the twists and turns in the fortunes of the young Hitler. Indeed, if one wasn't aware that it was Hitler, they might feel some sympathy for the struggling young artist. Surely more than Hitler have struggled to find their way and place in the world, resisting tedious daily work and eduction. And if Hitler had never become someone, this biography might still be an interesting story of growing up in the terbulant years of 1900-1921, with the fall of the Austro-Hungrian Empire and WW1. And it is also an intersting tale of a struggling artist. What aspiring actor in Los Angeles today doesn't struggle to make ends meet, dream of great fame as an actor, but not necessarily work hard?

As Kershaw says in the introduction, there are some half-truths and unique spins from Kubizek, but the essense of his story is true. It is astounding to learn about how a young, teenage Hitler designed bridges and monuments and cities with the conviction that he would one day realize these dreams - and that he eventually did. Or to learn about Hitler's enormous capacity to read and remember.

In this book, one does not really see a maniacal leader determined to conquer Europe and enslave its population. Rather, as it ends, one is left with the impression that Hitler was an old childhood friend who remembered his one friend, and invited him to be a guest of honor at Wagner's Bayreuth festival.

Kubizek had little to do with the Nazi party, politics, or the war, so these issues are largely ignored or simply have no relevance. It is hard to imagine a Hitler book without these things... but here it is.

I would recommend this book to anyone who has studied the life of Adolf Hitler. It brings him to life as a real person better than any other biography of him I've read -- even though Kubizek's book covers only the years of their friendship as teenagers, and their meetings in the late 1930s when the talented musician August Kubizek was a minor provincial official, and Adolf Hitler -- once a frustrated architect and practically penniless -- was leading the Third Reich down a path of conquest that ended in massive defeat and his own suicide.

Despite the introduction by Hitler biographer Ian Kershaw, who does his best to poison the well and cast doubts on many things in the narrative, Kubizek's book rings true, all the way through. Kubizek freely admits a number of times that he cannot remember certain details about their lives together, and confesses his own ignorance about things political -- which fascinated his friend Hitler from a young age.

One gets the distinct impression that Adolf Hitler would have been a very difficult friend indeed, with his self-centered worldview, his demands on one's time, and his interminable monologues. But having said that, it is obvious from Kubizek's words that he loved Hitler as a friend, and truly valued that friendship.

Kubizek tells in detail about aspects of Hitler's life often glossed over by other biographers. He describes Hitler's deep and abiding love for his mother, his occasional, totally unselfish acts such as cleverly persuading Kubizek's father to allow his son to attend college to pursue the musical career he longed for -- even his extreme fondness for sweets such as Viennese pastry.

The book also gives, indirectly, a telling portrait of its author: A quiet, amiable young man, supremely talented in music, content to be his friend's audience of one on so many occasions simply because Hitler WAS his friend and needed someone to listen.

It's doubtful if a book quite like this one exists about any other historic leader. It's a splendid read.