Young Hitler (Kindle Single) by Paul Ham

Author:Paul Ham [Ham, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Endeavour Press
Published: 2014-08-17T23:00:00+00:00

6 - Soldier, 1917-1918

HITLER’S REGIMENT ENTERED 1917 grimly conscious of having failed to distinguish itself in offensive action. At Ypres and the Somme, they had been comprehensively ‘stabbed in the front’.[150] Henceforth, the troops’ combat duties would be largely limited to ‘meandering through quiet sectors’.[151] Morale plunged: 29 cases of serious indiscipline, for AWOL, desertion, disobedience, self-mutilation and cowardice, had been reported in the last months of 1916, among men who had previously enjoyed good-to-excellent records.[152] The situation was set to worsen.

Hitler had not been exposed to the collapse in morale. For several months, until March 1917, he had been convalescing in Berlin and Munich. As his wound recovered, he heard to his dismay that he would be returned to a different unit. From Munich he wrote urgently to Captain Weidemann, regimental adjutant: ‘…it is my pressing wish to be with my old regiment and old comrades.’[153] His request was granted. On rejoining the Listers on 5th March 1917, he promptly resumed his dispatch duties.

Hitler had assumed the regiment would be the same as the one he left in the first week of the Somme, nine months earlier. Instead, he received a rude shock. He returned to a mood of deep disaffection with the progress of the war. The previous year’s battles had reduced the Bavarian division to a husk. The better parts were being sent elsewhere, and the better soldiers (including Iron Cross recipients like Hitler), offered the chance to join more effective units. The residue languished, morosely awaiting orders, virtually dormant.

Bloody flashpoints interrupted these long periods of inactivity. In May the regiment briefly participated in the battles of Arras and Vimy Ridge. They withstood several British attacks, which briefly raised their spirits (the regiment often proved their mettle in defence). They were hauled off Vimy Ridge in early July, just before the successful Canadian offensive, and sent back to the scene of their worst losses in 1914: the trenches in Flanders. On arrival they enjoyed a leisurely spell with free beer, sack races, a tug-o-war and grenade-throwing competitions. There is no record of Hitler’s involvement, though one can safely assume he did not participate in the sack race.

In mid-July the regiment joined a fresh attack on the well dug-in British forces near Gheluvelt. The infantry endured nerve-wrenching periods in the trenches, sucking through gas masks as they awaited the order to attack. They were bombed, gassed and repulsed – without setting eyes on an Englishman. Many suffered the effects of mustard gas, which tore at a man’s lungs and often left him temporarily blinded. Their new commander, Lieutenant Colonel Anton von Tubeuf, an arrogant, unpopular officer, described his frontline troops as ‘exhausted by nervous strain and constant bodily over-fatigue, worn out from the inhalation of gas-filled air’.[154] As a runner, Hitler was not among them: his involvement in the 10-day action amounted to a few deliveries.

Despite these setbacks, the regiment’s casualties were relatively light. Indeed, in all of 1917 the List Regiment lost 478 men dead, or 13.6

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