20. See Albert Schweitzer, Die Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben: Grundtexte aus fünf Jahrzehnten, 8th ed. (Munich, 2003), pp. 50ff. See also Schmidt, Karl Brandt, pp. 76ff. and 83f.
21. Karl Brandt, “Das Problem Hitler, Nr. 2,” September 27, 1945, p. 6, in Kleine Erwerbung 441–3, BA Koblenz, pp. 75 and 80. See also Ulrich Herbert, Best: Biographische Studien über Radikalismus, Weltanschauung und Vernunft 1903–1989, 2nd ed. (Bonn, 1996), pp. 42–45.
22. See Volker Hess, “Die Medizinische Fakultät im Zeichen der ‘Führeruniversität,’ ” in Die Berliner Universität in der NS-Zeit. vol. 1, Strukturen und Personen, ed. Christoph Jahr (Stuttgart, 2005), pp. 46f.; Schmidt, Karl Brandt, p. 73.
23. See “Gruppenbild der Hochzeitsgesellschaft mit Hitler in Uniform, Göring, Wilhelm Brückner und dessen Freundin, der Münchner Künstlerin Sofie Stork,” in Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, hoff-8918, BSB Munich.
24. See Schmidt, Karl Brandt, pp. 95ff. The decision to make Brandt his accompanying physician came after Hitler’s visit to Italy to see Mussolini in 1934. From that point on, Brandt accompanied Hitler’s travels. See U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, APO 413, Interview No. 64, Dr. med. Karl Brandt, 17./18. Juni 1945, p. 456, in Irving Collection, ED 100, vol. 1002, USSBS: Interrogation Reports, vol. 2, IfZ Munich.
25. See Speer, Albert Speer: Die Kransberg-Protokolle 1945, p. 145; Schmidt, Karl Brandt, p. 131.
26. See ibid., pp. 104f. Later, Brandt moved into the Bechstein Villa in the spring of 1935 and Speer moved there that summer. At the end of May 1937, Speer moved into a studio building near the Berghof that he had designed himself (Inside the Third Reich, p. 84). See Ulrich Chaussy und Christoph Püschner, Nachbar Hitler: Führerkult und Heimatzerstörung am Obersalzberg, 5th ed. (Berlin, 2005), p. 91.
27. Speer later commented that he was “happy to have been granted so obvious a distinction and been admitted to the most intimate circle,” even if life in a fenced-in compound was not to his taste (Inside the Third Reich, pp. 84 and 149). See also Hamann, Winifred Wagner oder Hitlers Bayreuth, pp. 424 and 557f.
28. See Karl Brandt, “Das Problem Hitler, Nr. 2,” September 27, 1945, p. 5, in Kleine Erwerbung 441-3, BA Koblenz. See also Winfried Süss, Der “Volkskörper” im Krieg: Gesundheitspolitik, Gesundheitsverhältnisse und Krankenmord im nationalsozialistischen Deutschland 1939–1945 (Munich, 2003), p. 93; Fest, Die unbeantwortbaren Fragen, p. 200. In Spandau: The Secret Diaries Speer says, in an entry dated July 28, 1949, that Hitler had “forfeited all claim on [his, i.e., Speer’s] loyalty; loyalty to a monster cannot be” (p. 134).
29. See Schmidt, Karl Brandt, pp. 118ff.
30. Ibid., pp. 154ff. and 159ff.
31. Ibid., pp. 177ff. According to Schmidt, there are practically no documents about the conversations between Brandt and Hitler; almost all Hitler’s instructions were given verbally (p. 224).
32. See Rüdiger Hachtmann and Winfried Süss, eds., Hitlers Kommissare: Sondergewalten in der nationalsozialistischen Diktatur, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus, vol. 22 (Göttingen, 2006), pp. 12f. and 19ff. See also Willems, Der entsiedelte Jude, pp. 77ff. 182ff.
33. Cf. Schmidt, Karl Brandt, p. 72: “they chose to be” unaware of the truth. According to Schmidt, “ignorance was at the core of” both Eva Braun’s and Karl Brandt’s “relationships with Hitler.”
34. See Fest, Speer, p. 65; Fest, Die unbeantwortbaren Fragen, pp. 54 and 86. But even Fest, in the end, cannot avoid remarking that Speer was clearly “among Hitler’s most radical followers” (p. 28).
35. See “Brandt. Report on Hitler,” in Headquarters Military Intelligence Service Center, U.S. Army, APO 757, OI Special Report 36, “Adolf Hitler: A Composite Picture (2 April 1947),” F135/4, p. 6, in David Irving Collection, “Adolph Hitler 1944–1953,” vol. 4, IfZ Munich, p. 692. Speer quotes this sentiment of Hitler’s, which he supposedly also expressed in Eva Braun’s presence, in Inside the Third Reich, where he says Hitler told him: “A highly intelligent man should take a primitive and stupid woman” (Inside the Third Reich, p. 92).
36. Karl Brandt, quoted in Schmidt, Karl Brandt, p. 72.
37. See “Originalnotizen von P. E. Schramm über Hitler, gemacht während der Befragungen von Hitlers Leibärzten, Haus ‘Alaska,’ d. h. Altersheim für Lehrerinnen im Taunus, Sommer 1945 in USA-Kriegsgefangenschaft,” p. 169, in Kleine Erwerbung 441–3, BA Koblenz. Under “Eva Braun,” Schramm notes: “Annoyance among entourage”; “has got nothing in life”; “had to be there”; “taste, discreet”; “absolutely no pol[itical] influence”; “runs people down”; “she hated Hoffmann”; “disapproved of Morell.”
38. See “Gruppenbild auf einer Tribüne: Anni Brandt, Eva Braun, Erna Hoffmann, Viktoria von Dirksen (in der Reihe dahinter Unity Mitford), Reichsparteitag der NSDAP 6.–13. September 1937, Hauptmarkt Nürnberg,” in Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive, hoff-16020, BSB Munich.
39. See Lang, Der Sekretär, pp. 49ff.
40. See ibid., p. 52.
41. See Martin Bormann, Leben gegen Schatten (Paderborn, 1996), pp. 12f.
42. For example, there is the following passage in a book by her father (Walter Buch, Des nationalsozialistischen Menschen Ehre und Ehrenschutz, 5th ed. [Munich, 1939], p. 15): “The National Socialist has recognized that the Jew is not a human being. The Jew is a putrid sign of decay.”
43. Fest, Das Gesicht des Dritten Reiches, p. 366. See in this regard Gerda Bormann to Martin Bormann, Obersalzberg, February 7, 1945, in Martin Bormann, The Bormann Letters: The Private Correspondence between Martin Bormann and His Wife from January 1943 to April 1945, ed. Hugh Trevor-Roper (London, 1954), pp. 176f.
44. See Speer, Albert Speer: Die Kransberg-Protokolle 1945, pp. 136ff.
45. See Akten der Partei-Kanzlei der NSDAP, Teil I, Regesten, vol. 1, pp. viii ff.
46. See Schmidt, Karl Brandt, p. 298.
47. Darré, Aufzeichnungen, p. 295.
48. Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, pp. 30ff.
49. See “Aufzeichnungen des Reichspressechefs Dr. Dietrich” (copy), in Kleine Erwerbung 441–3, p. 16, BA Koblenz.
50. See Robert Ley, “Abschied,” in “Aufzeichnungen in Nürnberg 1945,” p. 1, Robert Ley Papers, N 1468/4, BA Koblenz. See also Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936, p. 476.
51. See Robert Ley, “Gedanken um den Führer,” in “Aufzeichnungen in Nürnberg 1945,” pp. 13ff, Robert Ley Papers, N 1468/4, BA Koblenz.
52. See Hoffmann, “Mein Beruf,” p. 59.
53. See Robert Ley, “Gedanken um den Führer,” pp. 13ff.
54. Cf. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, pp. 87 and 93; Gun, Eva Braun, p. 136; Lang, Der Sekretär, pp. 108f.
8. LIFE ON THE OBERSALZBERG
1. See Reinhard Spitzy, So haben wir das Reich verspielt: Bekenntnisse eines Illegalen, 4th ed. (Munich, 1994), pp. 128f.
2. See Henriette von Schirach, Frauen um Hitler, p. 227.