Secrets of Hitler the soldier unearthed

THE world remembers him as a strutting demagogue who held millions in his thrall as he plunged mankind into unparalleled barbarity. But an amazing find in a German archive now sheds new light on Adolf Hitler as a trench-fighter in the First World War.

Hitler's years in the German army during the Great War have long been a mystery because of the lack of first-hand accounts. Now a memoir written by a forgotten German author has been rediscovered.

It paints a picture of a madman in the making - a warrior who braved shells and bullets but who even amid the destruction and privations found time to rail against the English and all other enemies.

These words were written by Alexander Moritz Frey, a young medical assistant in the army of the Kaiser, the first time he set eyes on the man who would later lead his country: "A pale, tall man tumbled down into the cellar after the first shells of the daily evening attack had begun to fall, fear and rage glowing in his eyes. At that time he looked tall, because he was so thin. A full moustache ... covered the ugly slit of his mouth.

"He sat there panting. His yellow face grew red ... and he resembled a gobbling turkey as he began to rant about the English.

"I immediately had the same impression that many had of him later - that he took the military manoeuvres of the enemy personally, as if they wanted to take his precious life in particular."

Frey's writings - in the form of essays and fiction - were eventually forgotten. Historians have spent the decades since the Nazi dictator took his life in his Berlin bunker at the end of the Second World War trying to decipher the Hitler enigma. But nobody really knew what Hitler the soldier was like.

Until now. German journalist Stefan Ernsting recently rediscovered the work that Frey, who served alongside Hitler in the 16th Bavarian Reserve Regiment, left behind.

Ernsting's new biography of Hitler's fellow soldier, The Fantastic Rebel Alexander Moritz Frey, republishes Frey's eyewitness accounts of the man who would change 20th century history. It is the first reliable, first-person account by someone who served alongside Hitler.

Ernsting, whose book is due to be published in English next year, said: "Two or three of his former comrades tried to cash in on having known Hitler during the war, but their testimonies were not useful for historical research because you couldn't separate facts from fiction and most of it was just nostalgia anyway."

Of that night that he first met Hitler, Frey went on: "We gave him something to drink, he calmed down a little and then he got worked up again about the 'impertinence' and 'stupidity' of the enemy. Finally he stuck his head carefully outside, listened around, and, seeing that everything was calm, the shelling long over, he disappeared with an ill-tempered farewell.

"When people claim he had been a coward, that's not true. He spoke, ranted, boasted and distorted the true state of affairs with a certain cunning talent back then as a lowly private, just as he would do 25 years later - to all intents and purposes with the same words - as the holder of unlimited power.

"But he also wasn't brave, he lacked the composure for that. He was always alert, ready to act, back-stabbing, very concerned about himself."

On one occasion he was in a train with Frey and Max Amann, his sergeant and later a Nazi party functionary.

Frey recalled: "Hitler sat opposite us, sleeping with his mouth open... He slept with his chin hanging down and had stretched out his feet in such a way that Amann was wedged in... He gave the sleeping man a kick against the shinbone. Hitler gave a start.

"'Kindly keep your joints to yourself!' said the sergeant in a commanding tone. Hitler understood, then he went red. For a moment he looked liked he wanted to lunge at the other man, but he said nothing.

"Amann said, in a sarcastically pacifying tone: 'Yes, I mean you, Private Hitler'," Frey recalled.

"After the end of the war, in Munich, where we both lived, I often saw Hitler, although I never spoke to him again. I often ran into him in the Maximilianstrasse. He bought his newspapers at the same stand as I did. He bought a lot of newspapers ... The newspaper woman appreciated him as one of her best customers.

"We ran into each other sometimes in Caf Heck. Hitler would sit there together with a half-dozen confidants. He always greeted me hastily, the blood rising quickly in his face, probably because of his antipathy towards me because I did not share his politics.

"As fate would have it, I met Hitler on the evening before his putsch in the Brgerbrukeller." This so-called Blood Putsch was when he tried to seize power, failed and ended up with a five-year jail term.

"It was in Maximilianstrasse again... Nobody appeared to recognise Hitler... the evil, fanatical stare was directed into the empty air, which meant he was walking along in the abundance of his demonical visions.

"He was walking along, not wearing a hat, his permanently oily, shimmering black hair was combed very precisely, and he was wearing a yellow raincoat."

Ernsting stumbled on the trail of Frey's eye-witness accounts of Hitler while reading an anthology of essays about early German science fiction and fantasy writing.

"One essay about Frey mentioned in passing that he had fought alongside Hitler in the First World War," Ernsting recalls. "I thought, wait a minute. I have to check this out."

Ernsting began searching for information and struck gold when he found Frey's essay The Unknown Private - Personal Memories of Hitler in an archive in Marbach.