With such an obvious and apparently flawless military record it is surprising that there should be any room for debate, but Hitler’s record has come under attack for a wide variety of reasons. The case against Nazi portrayal of Hitler as a genuine and relentless frontline trench fighter was pursued by Hitler’s opponents throughout the twenties and into the thirties. These rumours appeared freely in the German press and as long as the debate continued over Hitler’s claim to be entitled to be counted as one of the frontline band of brothers who formed the frontgemeinschaft, the more the legend of Hitler the rear area malingerer took root and grew stronger.
Due to the overwhelming strength of the circumstantial evidence Hitler could not risk a fight with those papers which habitually referred to him as an Austrian draft dodger. Finally however, in 1932, the SDP supporting newspaper Echo Der Woche stepped over the mark by mistakenly labelling him a ‘deserter’ from the Austrian army. Hitler knew this was untrue and in order to protect his precarious reputation he was able to take court action, safe in the knowledge that he could not loose. His court victory was the catalyst for the 1932 pamphlet entitled Tatsachen und Lügen um Hitler which reprinted the testimony of many of his former colleagues concerning the war service of Adolf Hitler.
The controversy was to an extent self-inflicted, and began in Munich in 1913 with Hitler’s initial failure to attend for service in the Austro-Hungarian army. Almost a century later the debate still continues, was Hitler a brave and dedicated warrior as his war record suggests? Or was he in fact a coward and a malingerer who had run away from his native Austria to avoid conscription and who ended up hiding from danger in the rear areas?
Hitler himself played a major role in causing the events which perpetuated a century debate. In 1913 he moved abruptly to Munich from his native Austria. This sudden flight was highly suspicious as his precipitate move took place shortly after he was due for service in the Austro-Hungarian army. As a result of Hitler’s rapid departure the circumstantial evidence was insurmountable and the popular conception was easily fostered that Adolf Hitler was a coward who ran away from Austria to Germany in 1913 in order to avoid military service.
The suspicion that Hitler had something to hide was compounded by the fact that in the pages of Mein Kampf he deliberately gave a false date for his move to Munich. Hitler claimed that he moved to Munich in 1912. Had it been true, this statement would have provided him with some cover against the charge that his move to Germany was simply an attempt to avoid military service as he could claim that he had already moved to Germany long before his Austrian call up in 1913. Fortunately for Hitler he was deemed to be medically unfit and thereby legitimately escaped conscription into the Austro-Hungarian army. In 1932 in order to silence his detractors Hitler actually obtained an official statement from the Austrian government.
Office of the State Government, State Registry Office, Nr. 786
Official Statement
Adolf Hitler, born on 20 April 1889 in Braunau am Inn and resident of Linz, Upper Austria, son of Alois and Klara (maiden name, Plötzl), was found by examination of the 3rd age group in Salzburg on 5 February 1914 to be “too weak for military or support service,” and was declared “unfit for military service”.
Linz, 23 February 1932,
signed Opitz
Following his narrow brush with conscription Hitler spent a happy year working as an artist in Munich, but by 1914 war clouds were gathering over Europe and it is here that the Hitler story takes another remarkable twist.
Although he was an Austrian and technically barred from serving in the German armed forces Hitler volunteered for service in the Bavarian army. In the chaos surrounding the outbreak of war he was somehow accepted and was enlisted in the ranks of the newly raised reserve infantry regiment ‘List’ named after its commander Major Julius List.
There is no question that the account of the battle around Gheluvelt in Mein Kampf is substantially true. However, the awkward truth for the Nazi spin doctors was the fact that this was the only battle he took part in as a fighter.
There is no question that the men on the regimental staff had a comparatively easy life to what was endured by the men in the trenches. The 16th Bavarian RIR had an establishment of 3000, but over 3700 men were killed serving in its ranks, the vast majority from the front line trenches companies. On the other hand, although there were substantial casualties among the runners in 1914, Hitler and most of his tight-knit group of comrades who served in the regimental HQ of the 16th RIR, and who were pictured together in 1916, actually survived the war.
With such a high level of casualties in the frontline companies, there were ample opportunities for promotion, but Hitler was never promoted beyond the rank of Gefrieter, which loosely approximates to a lance corporal. According to Sergeant Max Amann who was interrogated after the war, Hitler was offered the prospect of promotion to the rank of Korporal but begged to be allowed to remain in the role of regimental meldegänger. It is now widely accepted that Hilter’s motivation was self-interest and self-preservation and these were the factors that governed his decisions. Increased pay and Korporal status brought with them the risk of increased danger and discomfort. Hitler knew he had a relatively cushy job and he was determined to hold on to that job.
By 1917 Hitler had recovered from his wounds, however on returning to the front it was obvious that the Imperial German army was under intolerable strain. Constant shell-fire, malnutrition, disease, fatigue, nervous strain, sniper bullets, trench mortars, machine gun fire, plagues of rats, mines and lice were the ever present companions in the trenches. By and large Hitler was able to avoid the worst of these horrors. Comfortably billeted behind the lines in Fournes and elsewhere, Hitler didn’t have to face the nightly terror of the possibility of an enemy trench raid or the chilling prospect of being sent on a trench raid of his own. Most nights he could sleep in a bed, draw hot rations and enjoy the comradeship of his close knit group of colleagues.
The plain fact was that, with the exception of the opening battle of his regiment’s war at Gheluvelt, Hitler had served for the duration of the Great War as a meldegänger in the Headquarters of the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment, known to its members as the List Regiment in honour of its first commander, Major Julius von List. From all of the evidence available to us it would appear that the fighting for the farm at Becelare and Gheluvelt in late October and early November 1914 was the only occasion on which Hitler fought with rifle in hand. By the time of brief action against the London Scottish near Wytschaete in early November he was already serving as a regimental messenger. However the brief combat at Gheluvelt was enough for Hitler to distinguish himself in the field. It is possible that even during his first taste of fighting near Gheluvelt Hitler was already entrusted to carry messages in the field. If that was the case it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that he may never have fired a shot in anger. He had not in fact ever been a trench fighter, and in truth had never served a single day in a frontline trench. However, Hitler was first and foremost a politician; he was not one to miss a photo opportunity which was worth its weight in gold in propaganda terms. The film and photographic record of his trip would help him to convey the impression that he had constantly been in the thick of things.
In any event, his service record was sound. He carried out the duties assigned to him to the satisfaction of his commander. In recognition for his service as a runner, by 9 November 1914 he was selected to serve permanently at Regimental headquarters. He recorded the details of his new position in a letter to Ernst Hepp the Munich lawyer who had helped him when he had fallen foul of the military authorities in Vienna over his call up to the ranks of the Austro-Hungarian army. ‘My job now is to carry dispatches for the staff. As for the mud, things are a bit better here, but also more dangerous. In Wytschaete during the first day of the attack three of us eight dispatch riders were killed, and one was badly wounded. The four survivors and the man who was wounded were cited for their distinguished conduct. While they were deciding which of us should be awarded the Iron Cross, four company commanders came to the dugout. That meant that the four of us had to step out. We were standing some distance away about five minutes later when a shell slammed into the dugout, wounding Lieutenant Colonel Engelhardt and killing or wounding the rest of his staff. This was the most terrible moment of my life. We worshiped Lieutenant Colonel Engelhardt.’
The fact that Hitler had distinguished himself in the early fighting was also recognised by him being awarded Gefreiter status. In the English speaking world the term Gefreiter as it applied to the Bavarian army of 1914 is problematic and has caused some difficulties in interpreting the Hitler story.
Over the centuries the German military tradition has harnessed a variety of incentives to encourage good conduct in the ranks. One of these was to recognise reliable private soldiers (who were known by the title infanterist in the Bavarian army) and rewarding them with an easier life. The word Gefreiter evolved from older German and Dutch – meaning “freed’ or ‘liberated’ person. The title Gefreiter brought with it a series of a negative rights which meant the Gefreitene did not to have to perform many of the most menial duties which the private soldiers loathed so much. The holder of the title Gefreiter was freed from sentry duty. It is important to realise that Gefreiter was not a rank as such but merely a signifier of the status of a trustworthy private soldier, the revised status also brought with it a tiny rise in pay. An infanterist received 70 pfennigs per day while a Gefreiter received 75 pfennigs.
In the Bavarian army of 1914 the rank of corporal was the directly equivalent rank of Korporal. In the Prussian army the equivalent term was Unteroffizier. It is clearly a substantial error to translate Gefreiter to Corporal, but that is what so often happens. It is important to note that, in the Bavarian army of 1914, Korporal was the lowest rank from which orders could be given to subordinates. The “Gefreitene” on the other hand, although they were recognised as reliable private soldiers, had no power of command other men. The holder of the title remained an ordinary private soldier nonetheless and was not authorised to give any form of command.
Hitler’s contemporaries such as Ignatz Westenkirchner, Hans Mend and Balthasar Brandmayer understood the sub-text of the situation and in the inter-war translations of Nazi books such as Heinz’s ‘Germany’s Hitler’, Hitler is consistently referred to as a private and on one occasion as a lance corporal. Alexander Moritz Frey however unfailingly refers to Hitler as a ‘Private’ and indeed this appears in the title of the unpublished article The Unknown Private – Personal Memories of Hitler which came to light after the war.
In order to get round this difficulty the term Gefreiter is frequently equated with the British rank of lance corporal, but it is not altogether helpful as there was no direct equivalent in the Bavarian army. The mistaken assumption that a 1914 Bavarian Gefreiter was equivalent to an non-commissioned officer took root during World War II. By 1940 the role of the Gefreiter in the Wehrmacht had changed to a role which was indeed equivalent to a junior non-commissioned officer such as a lance corporal. The upshot of this difficulty in translation has led to the creation of the popular myth that Hitler was promoted with the equivalent rank of unteroffizier or korporal, this is simply untrue. Of one thing we can be certain Hitler never was a corporal.