Hitler the comedian

[faceless]

Hitler the comedian: Bodyguard reveals a different side to the dictator
By Allan Hall
23rd June 2008

Hitler the comedian is one side of the Fuhrer painted in a new memoir called ‘The Last Witness‘ by one of the Nazi leader's bodyguards. The book, by Rochus Misch - who also served as telephonist in the Berlin bunker - also depicts the scene after the dictator committed suicide.

Hitler, the mass killer, “had a small fund of jokes,“ recalled Misch, who is now 90. “The boss was said to be particularly fond of a couple jokes and told the best ones over and over,“ he said. While Misch did not divulge Hitler's favourite jokes ahead of the book's publication, one joke that Hitler liked to tell was at the expense of his pompous Luftwaffe chief Hermann Goering.

Goering was a man forever designing himself new uniforms and giving himself new orders and decorations. “One day,“ Hitler used to say, “Mrs. Goering came into the bedchamber and found her husband waving his Field Marshall‘s baton over his underwear. "Hermann, darling, what are you doing?‘ she enquired. ‘I am promoting my underpants to overpants!"

Several instances of Hitler‘s humour ended up in a dossier called simply "The Hitler Book" which was compiled for Soviet leader Josef Stalin at the end of WW2. It relates how Joseph Goebbels, the evil propaganda minister, told Hitler a latest scurrilous rumour: that the immensely vain Goering went to bed wearing medals on his pyjamas. “Hitler liked the story so much,” according to the report “that he ordered Hoffmann to make some medals out of gold and silver foil as well as a bombastic citation for bravery to be presented to Goering.”

Another time Hitler and his henchmen roared with laughter all night long after "The Boss" cracked jokes about concentration camp inmates. The same evening he saw that his official photographer Heinrich Hoffmann had drunk too much. “Don‘t stand too near the fire Heini,“ said Hitler. “You‘ll catch alight!“

Such jokes are among those expected to feature in Misch's book, which will be published in Germany next week. Misch said yesterday that although Hitler still laughed during wartime, he had been an even bigger joker in earlier days. “I never saw Hitler laugh deeply. I could not personally state that Hitler had humour. That might have been however because of the fact that I became acquainted with him only after the start of the war. As I knew from the ‘old timers‚‘ Hitler in wartime was a completely different Hitler from before the war."

Misch describes himself as “a last living piece of history“ and his modest flat in Berlin is filled with photos and scrapbooks of his service for a man who murdered millions. The only soldier allowed to carry a weapon in the bunker, Misch joined the SS in 1937 aged 20 and was seriously wounded in 1939 in Poland. He recovered and was re-assigned to Hitler’s chancellery.

It was the memories of the last days in the bunker that have stayed with him throughout his life, particularly April 30 1945 when Hitler shot himself. “There was perfect silence after his death,“ he said. “We waited. We waited maybe 20 minutes. I still don't remember who first opened the door to Hitler's rooms. I was really curious and came forward a few steps. Then somebody opened the second door. And it was then, as the second door opened, I saw Hitler, dead, lying on a chair. Eva Braun, his wife, on the couch completely clothed. In a dark dress and white, white skin. She was lying back.“

He was captured by the Russians, spent eight years in Soviet labour camps before returning to Germany. His book will be published in the UK at the end of the year.

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He sounds like a right laugh eh? The underpants/overpants switch is truly brilliant in its incisiveness...

[pirtybirdy]

Yes, I think that was quite a knee slapping funny he told. Can't wait to run out and buy the book for more outrageously funny jokes and quips from Herr Hitler. YeeHaw...lol!

[faceless]

There's been more than a few of these remixes, but this one is the funniest I've seen... haha

[faceless]

Hitler had shocking table manners
Gorged on cake and suffered flatulence, reveals never-before-seen profile
By Luke Salkeld
17th February 2009

To the wartime world, he was nothing less than a monster. In private, it seems, Adolf Hitler was equally unappealing. According to an aide, the German dictator had 'shocking' table manners, constantly bit his nails and suffered from a 'digestive disorder' that may have resulted in severe flatulence. The secret documents also reveal that he believed official Nazi propaganda about himself and thought 'he was the greatest military genius of all time'.

The Fuhrer's daily routine and 'uncouth' behaviour were revealed in notes taken from a captured high-ranking Nazi and handed to a British agent. The typed four-page profile is dated May 1945 - the month Hitler died - and states on the front: 'This summary must be destroyed within 48 hours.' Despite the instructions, the papers were retained by the agent and returned to England. They have surfaced after 60 years following a recent house clearance and are expected to raise more than £1,000 at auction.

The unidentified German soldier revealed he dined with Hitler about 30 times and kept his diary in the bunker where the Fuhrer saw out the last few weeks of the Second World War. He wrote: 'Hitler eats rapidly, mechanically; for him food is merely an indispensable means of subsistence. He does not smoke and it is strictly forbidden to smoke in his presence as he seems to be very susceptible to laryngitis. He talks in a mellow baritone, without that raucous, unpleasant stridency of his public speeches. At the table and in his speech he shows many facets of rather uncouth behaviour. He abstractedly bites his fingernails, he runs his index finger back and forth under his nose, and his table manners are little short of shocking.'

The Nazi said Hitler would retire to his private rooms late at night where he would drink 'health tea' and listen to his phonograph. He added: 'Hitler ate prodigious amounts of cake (this cake eating was responsible for a slight digestive disorder and the addition of a bay window to his already not too fortunate figure). Quite often he would retire into this privacy with women whom he esteemed very much (during later years particularly with a Miss Eva Braun whose relationship to Hitler is quite unknown). It is not believed that in these sessions with women Hitler's attitude intensified to any more than a platonic relationship.' He continued: '(The rumours about his homosexuality and other abnormal obsessions were rumours and nothing more. If there was any such streak in him, it was a touch of passive masochism in his relationship with women.)'

Talking about Hitler's delusions, the source states that Goebbels' techniques were so effective that 'Hitler himself became very susceptible to this propaganda. 'He then actually started believing that he was a man of exceptional ability in the science of warfare.'

Auctioneer Richard Westwood-Brookes, who is selling the document next month, said: 'It is a highly important document which has clearly survived through extraordinary circumstances. The statement provides a vivid personal description of Hitler in his last days and his behaviour in the bunker. It mentions a digestive disorder which could be a reference to his flatulence, but denies the rumours that Hitler was homosexual. This remarkable document is potentially unique, given the requirement that it should have been destroyed within hours of receipt.'

Terry Charman, senior historian at the Imperial War Museum said: 'Hitler's problem with flatulence has been well documented and was even mentioned in his doctor's diaries.

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