Paula reminisces about Adolf as a child
During the course of her filmed television interview, broadcast in the London area on Channel 9 in 1959, Paula described some aspects of life in the family home when she and Adolf were young children: ... "When my brother Adolf was 2 years old he once climbed to the top of a ladder. Mother heard that he was up there and was frightened to death. She coaxed him to come down, but he stayed up and was very pleased with himself that no one could get at him" (as Paula was 6 years younger than Adolf, she was describing something that she must have been told by their mother as family history). "He had a real dislike of the female sex up to the moment that he was grown up. When mother wanted him to get up in the morning she had only to say to me, 'Go and give him a kiss'. She said it not very loud, but for him to hear and as soon as he heard the word 'kiss' and that he was to get one from me, he was out of bed in a flash because he just could not stand that". "We had a very good mother. My brother loved mother especially. When mother said anything he obeyed and when father said anything he was always against it". "When we children played 'Red Indians' my brother Adolf was always the leader. All the others did what he told them; they must have had an instinct that his will was stronger than theirs" (Adolf Hitler had a fascination with the books written by the German author Karl May, which depicted an heroic view of life in the Wild West of America).
© Michael Williams: revised May 2005
|