The First World War changed Adolf Hitler from an undisciplined young man into a German soldier with an extraordinary ardor. During the First World War Hitler fell into a soldier’s life as though he had been waiting for it all his life.
Hitler Fails Medical
Hitler had previously tried to enlist in the Royal and Imperial Army but failed the medical which stated that he was too weak to carry weapons. This was probably due to the years of poor food and sleeping rough.
Hitler’s failed medical which had kept him out of the Royal and Imperial Army did not stop his ambitions to fight in the First World War. Knowing that it could cause a problem Hitler addressed a petition to the Kaiser asking for permission to join a Bavarian regiment even though he was Austrian. Adolf Hitler’s disability was overlooked and he was drafted into the 1st Company of the 16th Bavarian Infantry Regiment.
Company Runner
Later in his career when Hitler extolled the virtues of military life he cannot be accused of hypocrisy. During World War 1 if nothing else he showed that he did not lack courage. The evidence for this is the fact that he was twice decorated during the First World War. The second time he was decorated he was awarded the Iron Cross First Class for which he was recommended by the regiment’s Jewish adjutant. Hitler even refused leave during the war when it was granted leading one of his comrades to remark that his ‘regiment was his homeland.’
World War 1 saw Adolf Hitler serving as a company runner which was notoriously dangerous. His reputation was that of one living a charmed life which made others want to stay close to him but there is no evidence that as his time as a German soldier Hitler ever made any close friendships or shared any dangers. In fact it was this charmed life fantasy that made Hitler believe that he had been singled out by fate for something special.
In 1918 The German Army was at first successful in its last grab for victory. There were daily victories which were reported, magnified and gloated over in the press. These reports continued even when the Allied counter attacks turned into a full blown offensive.
In ever increasing numbers the Americans began arriving in France. At this point during the First World War the joint commanders of the German forces, Hindenburg and Ludendorff, realized that victory had eluded them forever. Their nerves gave out completely when sailors at Kiel mutinied and they advised the government to request an armistice from the enemy.
Hitler in Hospital
One person who knew nothing of this was Adolf Hitler who had been gassed and was recovering in the hospital at Pasewalk, near Stettin. The only news he had seen was that printed in the newspapers telling of all the German triumphs and victories. When the hospital Chaplain brought Hitler and his fellow patients the news they could hardly believe their nation had thrown itself on the mercy of its enemies.
The only way that Hitler could explain the savage and sudden reversal was betrayal that was only made possible by the pacifists, profiteers and Marxists (Jews for the most part) doing their worst at home while the flower of the nation perished at the front.
As Hitler convalesced all he could see were signs that Germany was about to follow Russia into the abyss of Bolshevism.
Hitler left the hospital in December 1918 and volunteered for guard duty at a prisoner of war camp at Traunstein, close to the Austrian border. This did not last long as in January 1919 its last inmates had left and Hitler was at a loose end. Still in uniform he made his way back to Munich.
Resource -Hitler by Ian Kershaw
Published by W.W.Norton in 1998
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