July 12, 1945: Interviewing Hitler’s Sister

 

With the ending of the war in Europe, the US Army had many tasks to accomplish, not the least of which was to interview significant figures of the fallen Third Reich.  Paula Wolff had no significance in and of herself, but as Hitler’s sister she certainly did.  Here is a transcript of her interview:

 

Headquarters 101^st Airborne Division.

    101^st CIS Detachment

    APO 472, U.S. Army

    12 July 1945 (this is the normal date order for documents produced within the US military)

    Memorandum for the Officer in Charge.

    Subject: Interrogation of Frau Paula Wolff (Frl. Paula Hitler) (her name was spelled Wolf in the interview of 5^th June 1946)

    I was born at the estate of my father in Hartfeld, Austria, in 1896. My father was 60 years old at the time of my birth. He died when I was 6. I know nothing of my father’s family. My brother and I spent little of our time together, as he was 7 years older. He attended the Realschule in Styria and spent only his vacations at home. The death of my mother left a deep impression on Adolf and myself. We were both very much attached to her. Our mother dies in 1907 and Adolf never returned home after that.

    Since I was so much younger than my brother he never considered me a playmate. He played a leading role among his early companions. His was favourite game was cops and robbers, and that sort of thing. He had a lot of companions. I could not say what took place in their games, as I was never present. Adolf as a child always came home too late. He got a spanking every night for not coming home on time.

    After my brother finished school he went to Vienna. He wanted to go to the Academy and become a painter, but nothing came of it. My mother was very sick at the time. She was very attached to Adolf and wanted him to stay home. That’s why he stayed. He left the house after her death in 1907. I never saw him from 1908 until 1921. I have no idea what he did at this time. I did not even know if he was still alive.

Laughing at Evil

 

 

“They can’t make that (Blazing Saddles) movie today because everybody’s so politically correct. You know, the NAACP would stop a great movie that would do such a great service to black people because of the N-word,” says Brooks. “You’ve got to really examine these things and see what’s right and what’s wrong. Politically correct is absolutely wrong. Because it inhibits the freedom of thought. I’m so lucky that they weren’t so strong then and that the people that let things happen on the screen weren’t so powerful then. I was very lucky.”

Mel Brooks, 2014

(I originally posted this at The American Catholic, and I thought the culture mavens of Almost Chosen People might enjoy it)

To back up the words of Mr. Brooks:

Olney Theatre’s production of Mel Brooks’s 2001 musical The Producers only has three more performances, but it’s not going to close without a bit of manufactured controversy. Audience members at Montgomery County playhouse are going to have to walk past a small coterie protesting the show’s play-within-the-play, because, the demonstrators say, it makes light of Adolf Hitler and the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany.

“I understand the intent is satire,” says Jeffrey Imm, who is organizing the demonstration through his anti-discrimination group, Responsible for Equality And Liberty. “This is the point of morality: some things we have to recognize as absolute evil. When 6 million people are murdered, we don’t view it with knee-slapping, we view it with reverence.”

Go here to read the rest. Mr. Imm’s group is completely wrong-headed.  Too often Hitler, murderous little jumped up thug, is elevated into being some sort of grand demonic personification of evil.  This is precisely the wrong way to remember the psychopath and the movement he led.  Far better to make him into a clownish figure and condemn him throughout history with laughter and ridicule.