Standing Next to Hitler

Onwards and upwards in ‘Hitler standing with children’ week.

Today, it’s Hitler standing behind a small child at the Berghof, his residence and headquarters in Obersalzberg (and the building where Stauffenberg made his failed assassination attempt).

When not holding children, he enjoyed daily strolls to his teahouse in a spot with a scenic view of the entire valley, and invading Czechoslovakia. 

It’s Hitler standing next to a baby.

There is nothing as touching as a child discovering their hands and reaching out to the world for the first time. Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee that what they find on the other end won’t be one of history’s most efficient mass murderers. 

It’s Hitler cradling an unidentified child.

There are so many of this genre of photo that this week’s theme is going to be “photos of children standing next to Hitler.”

They are all precisely as awkward as you would imagine. 

It’s Hitler with Claus von Stauffenberg (on the left).

Unlike most people featured on this site, Stauffenberg wasn’t fawning over Hitler, but attempting to kill him. He was the driving force behind the plot to assassinate him - on July 20 1944, he entered a briefing room that Hitler was in carrying a briefcase armed with two bombs. He left the briefcase under the table, as close to Hitler as he could manage, made an excuse and left. Unfortunately for Stauffenberg (and all the people Hitler killed in 1945), after he left Colonel Heinz Brandt moved it to the other side of the table in order to get a better look at a map. When the bomb went off, killing four people and wounding many more, Hitler himself was protected by the conference table and only slightly wounded.

Stauffenberg was, of course, executed.

Incidentally, Brandt himself died the next day from injuries caused by the bomb. Probably should have just squinted a bit harder at that map, Brandt. 

It’s Hitler with the 44th President of the United States, Barack Oba…

Oh. My bad. It’s actually a politically uninformed photoshop. 

It’s Hitler with Gertrud Deertz.

Deertz was the wife of Albert Forster, a Nazi politician whose reign as Gauleiter of Danzig-West Prussia during the war saw ethnic cleansing, mass murder and forceful germanisation inflicted on local non-German population. After the war he was sentenced to death for crimes against humanity and executed in 1952 - Gertrud did not hear of his death until 1954. 

Hitler committed suicide in 1945 (or, if you like to believe the internet, still lives in South American despite being over 100 by now). Had he not, it’s safe to say he probably would have followed a similar path to Forster. 

In this photo, they are having a meal, or maybe some kind of alcoholic tea drinking session - delightful!

It’s Hitler with some unidentified Bavarian children. Probably not a childhood photo you’d show the new boyfriend on his first visit home. 

It’s Hitler with film-maker Leni Riefenstahl. I like to imagine he’s putting his hands up for Detroit in this photo, but I suppose not everyone likes electro/house from 2006 as much as I do. 

Riefenstahl’s most famous film was Triumph des Willens, a propaganda film that appeared at the Nuremberg Rally. Whilst the propaganda in her films is found repellant today, they are believed by many to be aesthetically very innovative. Hitler is not particularly known for his films or his aesthetics. 

It’s Hitler with Blondi the German Shepherd, given to him as a gift in 1941. By all accounts he was very fond of her, and she even moved with him to the underground bunker.

Before Hitler committed suicide, he got his doctor to test some of the pills he was planning to use on Blondi. When they worked, he become inconsolable - one death too many, apparently. 

Photo submitted by drittereich