The Life of *Adolf Hitler

Chapter 5:

Though the young *Hitler participated in the Somme he was soon moved to the Belgium front to recuperate from the events on the Somme. Unfortunately (or fortunately as *Hitler may have seen it) his unit was stationed near Ypres.
This would of course lead to one of the most influential and remarkable occurrences in *Hitler’s life. That is of course the remarkable tale of his capture and escape from Canadian forces on the Belgian front. In fact what is even more remarkable is it offers one of the few looks at *Hitler from an unbiased view of the Nazi propaganda machine.

We have two sources for the encounter, one comes from the diary of Canadian soldier James Schoular and the other of course comes from the notes of one Lieutenant Alfred Spencer of the British Army. These two sources give us an entirely clinical and non-Nazi (or *Hitler) source into this look at what was one of the highpoints of the future leaders career. *Hitler himself of course remembers and references the event many times in Mein Kampf and has also written an essay on it (The Art of Evasion and Escape) which is currently required (and tedious) reading for the elite SS and Kommando units at their academies.

Though to begin we might as well consult the diary of James Schoular:

“Tonight the Colonel wants a raid for a Jerry prisoner so we can get some intelligence to go over the top next week. Christ you’d think he wants to kill some of us double. Anyway the boys and I drew the short straw and over the top we go. Thankfully this is the dead of night and we can crawl across without being seen. The Jerrys here are particularly alert though, but they ran out of flares three days ago so we think we won’t be spotted.

Took us two hours but we managed to crawl our way across the muddy ground and reach the Jerry trench without alerting them. We had to be careful as one of them nearly spotted us while we were cutting the wires. Thankfully he walked on and we managed to crawl through. We reached the trench but unfortunately one Jerry spotted us and was about to raise the alarm so Willy clubbed his head in. It was a shame, we might have been able to just nab him and go if it hadn’t been such a quick run. So instead we kept bayonets fixed and raided one of the dug outs.

The first one we hit had four sleeping Germans. We bagged two quietly but the third woke up and tried shouting. That unfortunately woke his bunkmate and we had a bit of a struggle on our hands. The next thing I know some one eyed Jerry with a knife is trying to gut me and I’m wrestling with him in the dark. Lord but he was a monster! Strong and tuff and trying to scream. Badly for me Willy, Parks, Jack, and Peter were having trouble subduing the other three so I had this on my own.

We struggled for a bit and he managed to nick me good in the kidneys before I was able to put him out with my club. Wouldn’t have done to kill him. Though who knew a one-eyed Jerry could put up such a fight? I think I’ll be telling that joke for years!

We managed to drag the four prisoners back across no mans land without any fuss and get safely back to our own lines, which left me feeling very good about myself. The man I knocked out came to about halfway through and struggled a bit before I bludgeoned him again. Hope it didn’t do him any permanent damage.

All in all though it was a good night, only a few scrapes and cuts on us, two dead Germans and four live prisoners for the officers to question until they’re blue in the face. We got to sleep in the next day too, so I couldn’t really complain.”

This gives us a good look at *Hitler as a soldier, and can reasonably prove that many of the stories about his bravery and fighting spirit. This moment garners some memory in *Hitler’s own memories and he speaks rather fondly of the men who captured him, for instance in Mein Kampf the capture is mentioned twice. Once in reference to the struggle of his attempts to reshape Germany as he compares the life and death fight between his adversary, and then once again when speaking of his war years as he remembers the decency with which he was treated by his Canadian captors. Though he wouldn’t speak highly of them he certainly seems to have garnered an odd sort of respect for the British in this conflict and seems almost in awe of their empire building and accomplishments in later life. Though that is a discussion for another chapter.

Meanwhile a quote from *Hitler’s own essay he says “In the war I had been captured by the British, I did not begrudge my captors as they had done so fairly and I had fought ferociously. They treated me well and I made my determination to escape. I was belligerent and unwilling to provide them with any information on the disposition of the German forces so I fear they may have had little use for me. I on the other hand managed to learn much about the state of their morale and upcoming offensives.”

Now this may be a bit of a boast on *Hitler’s part but his own officers make clear that upon his escape he provided a wealth of information about front line conditions in the British trenches as well as a startling insight on the supply situation they faced.

Though a British Lieutenant charged with interrogating *Hitler had this to say about him:

‘Subject was one German Vizefeldwebel (equivalent of a Master Sergeant) captured in a night raid by the colonial boys in this sector. He was fairly tall, blonde and sported an eye patch which I would have assumed made him unfit for combat.

The prisoner was fairly docile and seemed totally at ease. He did however refuse to give any indication on troop strengths and further questioning proved useless as promises of good food and better conditions did not moved him. Least cooperative of the bunch.

I would not recommend a second interview.’

This is one of the precious few recordings of *Hitler prior to his rise to power and though it may not seem spectacularly important to the average reader it does give us an outside look at the man which is rare as most sources are trapped in fortress Europe or simply edited beyond belief by German officials. It is astonishingly rare how often we can get a glimpse into the life of *Hitler via a third or unbiased party prior to 1934 so it is essential the reader understand the potential trove of information this represents.

Now of course history goes on to record that *Hitler would escape from British custody before coming back to his own unit where he was heartily cheered by his fellows. Surprisingly *Hitler himself mentions this sparingly in his biographies mere saying in Auf Ehere:

‘Under cover of dark I would make my escape through a hole I had managed to dig under the fence. Shimmying through I managed to slowly crawl my way towards German lines. The sentry almost shot me he was convinced I was a British raider until he noted my eye patch. It was a night of celebrations in the trenches that night, a good night.’

Unfortunately for history *Hitler makes very few specific mentions of his actions past this period other than mentioning the battles he participated in and historical record itself merely mentions the shuffling around of his unit but we get little information on *Hitler save for his promotion to Feldwebel in late 1916.

From there though events of history would move more to change *Hitler than any of his own actions.



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Well ask and you shall receive :)
 

Deimos

Banned
Interesting that *Hitler would not mention his celebrated return. What is his intention in his own memoirs? Is he going for a brooding person that at this point was already pondering Germany's future and subtly showing his strength is actually his political acumen rather than embellishing his martial spirit?
 
Interesting that *Hitler would not mention his celebrated return. What is his intention in his own memoirs? Is he going for a brooding person that at this point was already pondering Germany's future and subtly showing his strength is actually his political acumen rather than embellishing his martial spirit?

*Hitler himself is a bit of a rambler and a showman. Mein Kampf is still mostly a screed of anti-whatever strikes his fancy while Auf Ehere is his end of life memoirs being recorded.

Auf Ehere is the more interesting one since he is listing his major accomplishments and talking about how he succeeded at his goals while trying to set the course for the future of Germany.
 
I think this TL is dead. Is it?

This TL has not been dropped as a project, I still have all my working notes and about two new chapters that are complete. However, work on my other project (in my sig) real work, school, and my personal life have all gotten in the way of regularly updating any of my TLs.

So the TL is still ongoing but I'm afraid I cannot promise it being regularly updated. I'm more concerned about someone trying to get this thread locked for necro, which I would seriously not appreciate :p
 
So the TL is still ongoing but I'm afraid I cannot promise it being regularly updated. I'm more concerned about someone trying to get this thread locked for necro, which I would seriously not appreciate :p

If I were you I would consider the source and ignore it. The guy trying to whine about necro has (insofar as I could find) no work of writing onsite that caught my eye or impressed me. Your work is very entertaining and well written. Pray continue whenever possible :D.
 

SinghKing

Banned
Well this sounds great please continue. Maybe you could use photoshop to make a image of hitler with a eyepatch.

How's this? EDIT: Although, Hitler's blond ITTL, isn't he? So it'd probably look more like this (sorry for the diminished quality). TTL's Hitler = Nazi version of DCU's Deathstroke...

Eyepatch Hitler.jpg
 
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How's this? EDIT: Although, Hitler's blond ITTL, isn't he? So it'd probably look more like this (sorry for the diminished quality). TTL's Hitler = Nazi version of DCU's Deathstroke...
I think EnglishCanuck was basing Hitler ITTL on the Drakaverse version of him, blond and eyepatch being prominent there
 
How's this? EDIT: Although, Hitler's blond ITTL, isn't he? So it'd probably look more like this (sorry for the diminished quality). TTL's Hitler = Nazi version of DCU's Deathstroke...

I think EnglishCanuck was basing Hitler ITTL on the Drakaverse version of him, blond and eyepatch being prominent there

Correct, this guy is pretty accurate, and if he lost the moustache that would make him perfect!
 
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