This year marks the centenary of Adolf Hitler formally appointing himself as Germany’s new Chancellor. His Nazi Party leapt on a social and political vacuum which had plagued the country ever since it lost World War 1 and was forced to pay reparations to the allied powers.
Galvanising popular support for the 13 years leading up to 1933, it was in that year that the National Socialist German Workers’ Party acquired lawful control of Germany in the March federal election. It was to be the last democratic act in a unified Germany for almost 60 years.
Interpretations of Adolf’s personality vary but the journals go some way in revealing how tyranny may have been his default setting.
In 2005, excerpts from Paula’s diary were published, offering a remarkable insight into the Hitler family.
Revealing how her brother was a bully as a teenager and would often beat her, she recounted some of her earliest memories of Adolf when she was around eight years old, writing: “Once again I feel my brother’s loose hand across my face.”
The journal, typewritten, was one of several documents found by historians Timothy Ryback, whose life’s work has focused on contemporary German history, and Florian Beierl, an authority on Nazi Germany, at an undisclosed location.
