Hitler Was My Friend: The Memoirs of Hitler’s Photographer by Hoffmann Heinrich

Author:Hoffmann, Heinrich [Hoffmann, Heinrich]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781783030705
Publisher: Frontline Books
Published: 2015-07-02T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

Women and Hitler

‘MY BRIDE IS GERMANY,’ Hitler was wont to say; and although it was jestingly said, there was also an undercurrent of seriousness in the remark. Much as he enjoyed the company of beautiful women, he was determined to remain a bachelor, as he always emphasised, whenever the question of marriage cropped up.

After he had assumed power, he often asked Frau Goebbels to invite a few young actresses to tea, and he took a delight in attending these tea parties, at which he showed himself to be a charming and gallant guest. To each of the girls invited he used to present a bouquet of flowers and a bonbonnière.

On one of these occasions I said to him: ‘Herr Hitler, you have but to make your choice. No woman, I’m sure, would turn you down.’

‘You know my point of view, Hoffmann. It’s perfectly true that I love flowers; but that’s no reason why I should become a gardener!’

He had no preference for any particular type of beauty; personality and a sympathetic character were the things that attracted him. A simple Gretchen or a sophisticated woman of the world, the fashionably slender or the voluptuously curved – each delighted him after her own particular fashion. If he had any preference at all, then I should say that it was a leaning towards the elegant, slim figure. Nor did he object to lipstick and painted fingernails, which were so scornfully castigated in Party circles.

In the old days, when bobbed hair came up at a Party discussion, the more conservative members pleaded that ‘women with hair cut short should not be admitted to Party gatherings’; but Hitler decided in favour of the bob.

He rejected the original uniform designed for the Bund Deutscher Mädchen (the German counterpart of the Girl Guides), declaring that in the matter of feminine uniforms we should do well to follow the example of associations abroad. At the first march-past he saw, he turned to my son-in-law, Baldur von Schirach, who was then Reichs Youth Leader.

‘In old sacks like that, the poor girls won’t attract a single masculine glance. The Party isn’t here to bring up a race of old maids!’

On Hitler’s orders, a well-known Berlin modiste was ordered to design new uniforms for the feminine sections of the Hitler Youth movement, and these much more attractive garments were taken into immediate use.

While he was struggling to achieve power, he had a lively appreciation of women as a political influence, and he was convinced that feminine enthusiasm, tenacity and fanaticism would be the deciding factor. At his meetings, a special role was assigned to the women. Long before the beginning of the meeting, armed with their knitting and sewing, the ‘incorruptibles’ would take their seats in the front rows, thereby preventing opponents, who always showed up at these meetings, from getting too near to Hitler himself.

Their enthusiastic interruptions and the frantic applause with which they greeted Hitler’s speeches were usually decisive in ensuring the success of those early meetings.

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