Eva Braun’s calculations worked out: Hitler drew her increasingly into his life. This protected him against future suicide attempts and was also a shield against all his other ardent female admirers. Eva Braun confided to her hairdresser (statement by Klaus von Schirach) that Hitler never had sexual intercourse with her. Ada Klein said the same to Nelly Scholter, wife of Bormann’s gynaecologist Dr Scholter, who was friendly with Hitler in the 1920s. There were never sexual intimacies between them, and Hitler exercised the same abstinence towards Gretl Slezak.[99]
Chapter 10
Ada Klein
HITLER SAW ADA KLEIN[100] for the first time at the refounding ceremony for the NSDAP at the Bürgerbräukeller on 27 February 1925. She was a very beautiful Geli-type girl, and stood in a visible position on a stool listening to him speak, as did many others. Hitler noticed her and asked Emil Maurice his chauffeur to find out about her, but in this he was unsuccessful. Ada Klein worked for a small ethnic-racist newspaper, Völkischer Kurier, from where Max Amann recruited her to the Völkischer Beobachter. As she was leaving the Schelling-Strasse offices one day she bumped into Hitler. He exclaimed: ‘Ah, here you are!’ Subsequently they met frequently at Party occasions. Once she was alone with him in the old Haus Wachenfeld on the Obersalzberg where he prepared the coffee himself and discovered that Schaub had left the biscuit tin empty. On another occasion he invited her to Emil Maurice’s two rooms. Shortly after their arrival Emil Maurice took his leave. The door to the second room was open, and Ada saw a bed in it. As she told me, there were never any intimacies. He told her: ‘that he could not marry’, but also: ‘You make me more light-headed than when I add the strongest rum to my tea!’ and: ‘It was you who taught me how to kiss!’
Ada Klein’s friendship with Hitler lasted two years (1925◦– 6). He called her ‘Deli’ and wrote her a few short letters which she kept. When one of her nieces (the two pretty Epps girls were revue dancers occasionally invited by Hitler to his flat on the Prinzregenten-Platz) told him in 1936 that Ada was going to marry Dr Walter Schultze, Hitler said: ‘Then Dr Schultze has found himself a good comrade!’ Dr Schultze was later head of the Department of Health at the Bavarian Interior Ministry.[101]
I met Ada Klein in 1930 on a gymnastics course on Munich’s Carolinen-Platz which was frequented by many employees of the Braunes Haus and the Eher Verlag. After that we lost contact and it was not until the late 1970s that we met again. One day when she visited me in my apartment I told her of my meeting at Easter 1979 with Jean-Marie Loret who was hoping that I might recognise him as the illegitimate son of Hitler, sired during a sexual relationship during the First World War with French girl Charlotte Lobjoies. As neither he nor I spoke the other’s language I was unable to make the identification for this and other reasons. While out walking with him in the Blumenau, when he went ahead of me I think I saw a similarity to Hitler in the gait and posture, but it is easy to deceive oneself in such things.
Chapter 11
Gretl Slezak
GRETL SLEZAK[102] WAS THE daughter of the renowned heroic tenor Leo Slezak who even when old remained an inspiration. Hitler got to know his daughter at the Munich Gärtner-Platz theatre where she played the leading role of the sweet Viennese maiden in Goldene Meisterin. She exuded a magic so captivating that Hitler was blind to her having a Jewish grandparent. Here I must contradict Dr Picker’s assertion on p.288 of Hitlers Tischgespräche[103] where he says that: ‘Hitler’s convictions forced him at Christmas 1932 to break off his especially warm friendship with the much-loved Berlin singer Gretl Slezak.’ The contrary was the case! Hitler maintained his friendship with the charming singer, who had inherited the devastating humour of her father, even after he took power, and he looked forward to every meeting with her. Without his agreement, as a person of some Jewish racial heritage she would never have obtained years of successive contracts at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin in the 1930s.
In March 1938, on the Sunday before the annexation of Austria to the Reich, Hitler invited Gretl Slezak and myself to tea at his flat in the Radziwill Palace. In the so-called Music Room, used for film shows in the evenings at which, apart from the close staff, the SS-Begleitkommando and the house personnel were also present, the tea table before the fireplace was crowded. Hitler enjoyed hearing about the interminable scandals from the performers’ circles and delighted in the stories which Gretl Slezak knew how to deliver with just the right amount of charming malice.
That Sunday nobody knew what Hitler had afoot for the coming week. I had no suspicion that he was on the edge of his seat waiting for the off with Austria and as I see now he was doing what he could to bridge the time gap, i.e. suppress his impatience. The tea hour had already gone on far longer than scheduled, and since we could not remain forever at the fireplace I asked Hitler if he would like to see my apartment, which I had been promising to show him for some time. He agreed immediately and arrived during the evening with a manservant who withdrew after handing me a bottle of Fachinger.
My apartment was located in the Reich Chancellery park. In 1936 Hitler had commissioned Speer to build two houses in the English country-house style on the park side of Hermann-Göring-Strasse. These were originally to have been occupied solely by members of the SS-Begleitkommando and their families. Shortly before they were completed it occurred to me how practical it would be if we secretaries could also live there. In accordance with Hitler’s ruling ‘Nobody should know anything he does not need to know, and if he does need to know then at the last possible moment’, trips out were always advised at very short notice. It always enraged me when I had to drive to my flat on the Savigny Platz not only to fetch my trunk but to pack it first, and so one day after dictation I asked Hitler if it would not be possible for his three female secretaries also to have a flat each on the Hermann-Göring-Strasse. He thought about this and said: ‘Yes, child, that would be good, I would always have you people with me!’ Speer was asked to call by with the architectural plans and Hitler told him to include three apartments for his secretaries. When these were ready for occupation, Hitler instructed Schaub to make me an allowance of 3,000 RM to furnish them and promised to pay a brief visit to see the final result.
To return to that tea night. After leaving the Reich Chancellery, Gretl Slezak had driven quickly to her apartment on the Kurfürstendamm in order to dress for the evening. She arrived with two large five-armed candelabras which she placed strategically in the hope that the candlelight would have a magical effect on Hitler when he arrived. No effort was to be spared! Sitting next to him on the English sofa she tried to stroke his hand but he fended her off gently saying: ‘Gretl, you know that I cannot allow that!’ Although I had discreetly left the room a few times Hitler maintained his reserve and a few hours later his manservant retrieved him intact.
100
Adelheid Klein (b. 12.8.1902 Weingarten). Educated in Switzerland; from August 1927 worked as a secretary for Max Amann at Fritz Eher Verlag, Munich; 1936 married Dr Walter Schultze.
101
Walter Schultze, (b.1.1.1894 Hersbruck, d.27.11.1979 Krailing). SS-Gruppenführer; in May 1945 as head of the Department of Health at the Bavarian Interior Ministry he was interned, and subsequently tried and convicted as a war criminal on two charges of collaborating in the euthanasia programme.
102
Gretl Slezak (b. 9.1.1901 Breslau, d. 30.8.1953 Rottach-Egern). Was trained by her father as a soprano; in 1930 came to the Deutsche Staatsoper in Berlin; 1933–1943 appeared at the Städtisches Opernhaus in Berlin Charlottenburg. Although a quarter-Jewish, Hitler continued to receive her until the war’s end and often invited her to the Reich Chancellery.