August Kubizek provides the only substantial witness account of Adolf Hitler’s early years in Linz and Vienna between 1907 and 1912. Born within nine months of each other, they met in their hometown of Linz where a shared love of art and music, especially the operas of Richard Wagner, brought them together. They became firm friends to the point Hitler became resentful if Kubizek paid too much attention to anyone else. While Hitler dreamt of being a great artist, Kubizek, or ‘Gustl’ to Hitler, dreamt of becoming a famous conductor.
In 1907, Hitler moved to Vienna while August Kubizek remained in Linz to work as an apprentice for his father’s upholstery business which was destined to become his trade. But Hitler somehow managed to persuade Kubizek’s father to allow Gustl to join him in Vienna and be allowed to pursue his musical ambitions.
Vienna
Thus the two friends were reunited and shared a room in Vienna. But while Kubizek was successful in his application to the Vienna Music Conservatory, Hitler failed twice to get a place at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. So ashamed of his failure that for a while Hitler kept it hidden from his friend.
In 1912, Kubizek went back to Linz for a brief visit. He returned to Vienna to find Hitler had moved out and had left no forwarding address. He was not to see Hitler again until 26 years later, in 1938.
Kubizek embarked on what promised to be a successful musical career but cut short by the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. Following the war, he became a council official.
The Reunion
In 1938, Hitler, by now the most powerful man in Germany, was paying a visit to his hometown of Linz when he agreed to meet up with Kubizek. They met in a hotel lounge and reminisced for an hour. Hitler offered to revive his old friend’s musical career but Kubizek, by now 50-years-old, declined the offer. But he did accept Hitler’s offer of funding his three sons through music school, and for years to come Hitler would send birthday presents to Kubizek’s elderly mother.
August Kubizek reminded Hitler of an occasion when, together in Linz, they went to see a performance of Wagner’s Rienzi. Hitler had come out mesmerized, as if in a trance. Hitler gripped Kubizek’s hands and “spoke of a mission that he was one day to receive from our people, in order to guide them out of slavery, to the heights of freedom.” Hitler remembered the occasion well, looked wistfully at his old friend and said, “It began at that hour …”
‘My Childhood Friend’
In 1939 and 1940 Hitler invited Kubizek to sit with him at the Bayreuth Festival in Bavaria, an annual celebration of the music of Richard Wagner. The occasions were, according to Kubizek in words reminiscent of Hitler’s style, the “happiest hours of my earthly existence.” Thus their friendship ended where it had begun thirty years before.
In 1951 August Kubizek wrote his memoirs, Adolf Hitler, My Childhood Friend, in which he which he declared, “No power on earth could compel me to deny my friendship with Adolf Hitler.”
He died, aged 68, on 23 October 1956, the very day the Hungarian Revolution broke out.
Rupert Colley.
Read more in The Clever Teens’ Guide to Nazi Germany, available as ebook and paperback (80 pages) on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Waterstone’s, Apple Books and other stores.
What about Ernst “Schmidl” Schmidt, Hitler’s comrade in arms from the Great War? He became a Nazi and was loyal to Hitler who rewarded him. I believe he and Hitler used to play cards together in the ’30s and ’40s.
Oskar Martin of Tutlingen, Germany was Hitler’s best freind from the Army. Hitler would hide at this man’s home all during his reign. Hitler was shy. MY family knew Oskar before the war and I knew him in the 1960s.
Oskar’s friend seems like a limitless reservoir of eccentricities, among other things. Was Oskar a pensioner by the time of the war or did he have some official function? Or was he just a working man with a warlord in the attic? Curious about his perspective.
You have no idea what the word friend means and I am not going to try to educate you. Knowing somebody does not make them a friend but serving for years in combat and sharing experiences after the war makes a man your friend.
I knew Oskar personally and his extended family. I even slept in the same bed Hitler slept in when he visited Oskar.
Oskar and Hitler had served throughout WW1 together and spent many months in combat together.
What Oskar did for a living is none of your business. If you were not such an ass, I would tell you.
Oskar’s brother lived in Jackson, WY where he befriended my mother’s family in the late 1930s.
Your statement makes no sense at all.
Interesting. Please, if you’d like, do share some anecdotes of Hitler and Oskar. Did Oskar tell you anything about how Hitler was?