Kannenberg had an important function just before every Christmas. It always gave Hitler special pleasure to send presents to people he liked and to whom he felt close. For birthdays and especially at Christmas Hitler never forgot to select his presents for this personal circle comprised not only of Hitler’s closest colleagues and their wives, and artists and artistes whom he respected, but also people he knew and friends from the old street-fighting days, especially women with whom he had been friendly before taking power and had formed part of his social circle at that time. Hitler often expressed his regret when taking tea with his female secretaries in the Staircase Room that as Reich Chancellor it was no longer possible for him as it had once been previously to go shopping in Berlin for presents. He said that this had always given him great pleasure in the past. Since Hitler wanted to choose the presents for himself, house manager Kannenberg would select pieces of art from Berlin’s most exclusive shops for Hitler to make his choice at the Reich Chancellery. On several occasions he allowed me to assist in the choice.
Before Christmas, Hitler would have Kannenberg set out the presents on tables, chairs and on the floor of the private library and in Hitler’s study. I can still picture these presents before me today◦– paintings, Meissen porcelain, silver trays and bowls, travel necessities, bracelets, dress handbags, opera glasses, hair driers, travel rugs, table lamps, coffee and tea services, silver spoons, gold watches, books and picture frames, articles for the writing desk, leather trunks, car rugs and so on. Hitler would then decide from a long list of recipients who would receive what this year. Julius Schaub kept this list, which also indicated what everybody had received from Hitler in past years.
Kanneberg administered a small empire. Hitler once said of him: ‘He controls the kitchen like a Pasha!’ Kannenberg was absolutely certain of his power, reigned like a sovereign and was not averse, particularly during the war, to making generous gifts from the Führer-household supplies in order to curry favour with prominent individuals. During the war, every year before Christmas, Hitler received from the Iman of Yemen a couple of sacks of coffee beans as a present. Everybody on his presents list would receive a few pounds of the beans, which at that time were very welcome. Anybody in Kannenberg’s good books never went without coffee or other goods then subject to rationing. Frau Magda Haberstock, who stayed during the war as a guest with her friend Kluge on a Silesian property, recalled Kannenberg ‘turning up there with a carload of food and things. We stood there gaping, I can tell you. It was all on the side.’ To my question whether Kannenberg would have accepted money for it, Haberstock replied: ‘No, he wanted to make himself loved!’ To my observation: ‘He was always a bit of a wheeler and dealer,’ Haberstock retorted: ‘A bit is putting it mildly!’
Kannenberg’s wife was very adept and had a good eye for the placing of table decorations and floral arrangements. Flowers were delivered to the Reich Chancellery by Berlin’s leading florist, the Rothe firm in the Hotel Adlon on Unter den Linden. The Kannenbergs were often sent to the Berghof for the visit of prominent guests and to ensure the smooth running of the state dinners. Here Frau Kannenberg would decorate the Great Hall, with its museum-like coolness, with vivid blooms. She was always able to find a blend between the colours of a painting and the flowers she put nearby. Her arrangements always met with Hitler’s full approval. For him she represented the personification of the ideal German housewife. She always styled her hair the same way, the then modern Olympia style; she was well-groomed, circumspect and of quiet demeanour, and without doubt the nicer half of the Kannenberg pair.
Kannenberg himself was small and round, but unusually mobile, even bouncy. He always reminded me of a rubber ball. He had rather protuberant◦– even hyperthyroidic◦– eyes and was perhaps unstable emotionally. Unfortunately he liked intrigue and playing on words: house manager-house manipulator was always a phrase that came to my mind when I thought about him. It was Kannenberg who engineered the fall from grace of Hitler’s long-serving chief adjutant Wilhelm Brückner and the transfer of orderly officer Max Wünsche[41] to the Front. Both were victims of Kannenberg’s intrigues.
In the Führer-apartment and at Obersalzberg the orderlies, or whatever one likes to call them, good-looking young men who wore a white dinner jacket with neck collars, and black trousers, worked as servants, valets and waiters. They were seconded from the SS-Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler and after a training course at the Pasing Waiter’s School were attached to the serving staff of Hitler’s household. This brought them into Kannenberg’s empire, although they were not employed by him or to serve under him. This cut both ways, for Kanneberg felt that he ought to be able to regiment them as he did his own people. This was naturally not acceptable to the SS-Leibstandarte men and they gave adjutant Max Wünsche plenty of opportunity to intercede on their behalf. He had one particular altercation with Kanneberg on personnel matters which the latter did not forget.
When the Italian princess Mafalda visited in 1940, Kannenberg was ordered to Obersalzberg but did not arrive until after adjutant Wünsche and housekeeper Josefa had got everything arranged. Brückner had not been involved in it at all. Hitler was delighted that everything had gone off so well and he praised Kanneberg for the excellent preparations, which of course had not been his. Kannenberg now seized the opportunity to unleash his grudge against Wünsche. Hitler was convinced and ordered Brückner to his presence. When Brückner took the side of Wünsche against Kanneberg, Hitler dismissed Brückner on the spot and sent Wünsche to the Front.
Hitler probably realised later that he had been sold a dummy by Kannenberg but that did nothing to lower Kannenberg in the Führer’s estimation. Since Hitler was so anxious that everything should run perfectly at state banquets and the annual festivals for the arts, and Kannenberg had never let him down, and had always provided the fullest satisfaction, it was not surprising that in time Kannenberg would be allowed some leeway to play the fool. Hitler valued his technical capabilities and enjoyed his clowning, which Kannenberg had brought to a fine art in the 1930s during the picnic outings. On these occasions Kannenberg would delight Hitler and guests with his music and clowning. A pictorial book published by Heinrich Hoffmann in 1937, Hitler abseits vom Alltag, has a number of photos (e.g. ‘A carefree hour in the Harz’) which show Hitler in the completely relaxed type of mood such as he rarely enjoyed later. Kannenberg left the Reich Chancellery in 1945, shortly before the collapse, and fled to the Thumsee in the south. Later in Düsseldorf he opened a hostelry, the Schneider Wibbel Stube, which attracted a lively affluent clientele, perhaps because Kannenberg still had the knack of amusing and entertaining his guests.
But back to the Reich Chancellery. Directly opposite the door to Hitler’s study a couple of steps led to a long corridor, beyond which was the so-called adjutancy wing with the rooms for Hitler’s aides. The first room was the Staircase Room (Treppenzimmer) which will often be mentioned again. Then one came to the rooms of Schaub, Dr Dietrich (Reich press officer), Sepp Dietrich and Brückner (later Alwin-Broder Albrecht). If one went beyond these and descended the staircase one came to the so-called ladies’ saloon, actually the reception room, to the left of which wing doors, always pegged open, led into the film room with its hearth. To the right was the Bismarck room, also known as the smoking room. The dining hall was next to it and annexed to the elongated Winter Garden with its chintz-covered armchairs. The far end of the Winter Garden ended in a fine semi-circular path. From the tall glass doors at that end one had a panorama of the trees in the Reich Chancellery park.
41
Max Wünsche (b. 20.4.1914 Kittlitz, d. 17.4.1995 Munich). 10.7.1933 joined LSSAH; 25.4.1935◦– 31.3.1936 SS-Junker School at Bad Tölz; 20.4.1936 SS-Untersturmführer; 11.9.1938 SS-Obersturmführer, detached to Hitler as orderly officer and later to adjutant until 24.1.1940, duty at Front; 1.6.1940 returned to FHQ as adjutant; 18.10.1940 dismissed with Brückner by Hitler; as an SS man highly decorated; 24.8.1944 SS-Obersturmbannführer and regimental commander; PoW (British); released 1948.