HITLER IN HIS ALPINE HOE

Evening Star, Issue 22448, 19 September 1936, Page 27

HITLER IN HIS ALPINE HOE

REVEALING STUDY DF THE MAN “ Can it be (that I am dreaming ? ” asks Ignatius PHayre, in the ‘ Windsor Magazine,’ by , way of introduction to a most . illuminating description of a • recent' visit to the German Chancellor s ; holiday home., The sole foreign guest in the party looks around a well-spread table at the Tacos ; of world-famous statesmen and ministers whose names conjure up the word “ forriiidable!” Yet all is laughter here to-night,. , Outside, and lar below us, I can see the faint lignts of Mozart’s own mediaeval city of Salzburg twinkling ivaguely. , Hitler liimself was full of a humble war comrade, ho' had that morning received—a. poor carpente.r, who had Deep one of President Roosevelt’s out-o’-works,. and was long on public relief over there. But he had read much about “Mad Adolf’s” rise to power and world fame. The two humble soldiers, it seems, had been gassed on the same day in IUIB, on the Ypres front. So the great man,, stilt a “ bohemian ” and leaning always to the Vplkgemeinsohaft, or “ Companionship of the .People,” at .once .wrote to . his ■fellowvictim. That p’bor emigrant had his passage, and that of his family, paid over to Bremenhaven. He never seeks the society of persons of rank and wealth. “In. my hungry Vienna days,” the “ Squire ” remarked to me, as I peered through ;thovibig terrace. ■-.telescope, iwhich he swungto and fro as he talked, “ I once ;read'.'a slogan over-a cook-shop doer which I have : never .forgotten—Dein ’Volk- istr alles; vDu bist uichts j (>“ Thy .People is Everything; you are ■ Nothing!)” . i Very 'few letters reach this highland home , from Berlin. .. They arrive in sackfuls, at the Chancellery; and they vary from threats by the “ Antis ’’ ; exiled abroad to offers, of money (and ‘of marriage) from fervid women and girls .all over tho Reich, and even in j foreign lands, from England to the United States. j Hero at Berchtesgaden the Jekyll-and-Hyd® personality, of Hitler is al‘most incredibly manifest. By no stretch of the imagination can I picture the Reichfuhrer of the Reichstag, or of the Hall of Audience, as one and the same individual with the carefree and laughing “ Squire of AVachenfeld ” acting as host amid his blossoming cherry orchards. Then our host went on to outline his children’s party for the morrow, with his own trusty air pilot taking the little ones for joy flights in batches of a dozen or so. The bigger boys were to ply bows and arrows at straw targets under tho tuition of grim General Goring himself. So this earth-shaking Hitler could laugh heartily 1 Could this—l wondered —be the same sombre statesmen whom I had seen in Berlin, receiving the envoys of 40 nations in the flowerdecked Hall of Audience in the Presidential Palace? Not a shadow of a smile could then be seen Colourless phrases, an air of weariness upon the speaker; signs of strain about the eyes and mouth. But afar off in this tranquil chalet, amid forest-clad steeps and humble hamlets, these hectic scenes are forgotten. Haus Wachenfeld, by the way, is full of presents from adoring partisans far and near. 1 was laughingly told of a queer story apropos. One Otto Mueller, a “Greek” Nazi, _ who had a prosperous coiffure salon in the shadow of the classic Parthenon, was greatly troubled over all the skits and cartoons in which that unruly “ browlock ” of Herr Hitler’s had so long figured. So that loyal men wrote to his Uncrowned King, at the same time enclosing stern professional instructions to Hitler’s own barber in the opulent Kaiserhof Hotel of Berlin.

That erring artist at home was thereby admonished so to deal with that droopy tuft of hair that it would He down demurely in future, and thus rob foreign mockers of a point which they were prone to exaggerate. Herr Hucller not only received a grateful acknowledgment from Colonel Brueckner, the Leader’s personal adjutant, but a few months later ho was also sent a new set of photographs, to demonstrate, the “ improvement ” which his patriotic counsel had wrought in his far-off hero's personal appearance. So well do the lakes and peaks of this lovely frontier agree with Hitler, that long ago, when he was struggling up the political road (is not his prisonwritten “ testament ” called Mein Kampf, or “My Battle? ” And over three million copies of that book have been sold) —he bought for a song a crazy log cabin on the site of the present Haus Wachenfeld. Later, when unexpected royalties came pouring in from his publisher, Hitler bought a little more land; and by degrees that timber shack began to grow into a villa.

This, in turn, has become a handsome chalet, with toy-carving villages and tiny hamlets forming part of the small estate. The “ Squire of Wachenfeld ” has been his own architect throughout, adding verandahs and garages, as well as wings, for the accommodation of daily and week-end guests. Below the orchard lawns a spacious landing ground is laid out for the Leader’s own “ stable ” of fast planes. He can take off from the Templehof Field in roaring Berlin, and in three or four hours alight in this alpine fairyland of pine woods and lakelets, with simple native folks still in their traditional costume.