The Flight of the Phoenix
Sunlight fell through the windowed arches and dropped in pools of gold upon the grey platform. From above, the same summer glow fell through the skylights, drenched the tops of trains, the dark suits and khaki uniforms of those who came and went in stuttered droves or marched with determined eyes towards a distant point. It fell in gilt layers upon the rails and against the paintwork of the whispering giants.
The station was hot, the air thick with particles of soot and dust that fell through the golden shafts like black snow and drifted down, down towards the ground in the airless glass cavern. It was full of people, people in a hurry, on their own, in pairs or in hunched and hurried groups, a world away in their minds, though their feet scampered across the same earth as the hundreds around them, as they scurried towards their carriages, their only concern that the train would pull thoughtlessly away as they reached for the warm brass handle upon the heavy door.
Myriad noises echoed across the concrete; the hiss of trains as they sighed to rest and the grinding of wheels; the quick, staccato chatter of passers-by and guards and drivers and baggage men. There was the echo of footsteps, the rhythmic click of high heels and the regimental tap of quarter-irons and somewhere the laughter of children and the bark of an unseen dog.
There was the smell of coal, that unique railway smell that sat strong and solid through the decades and brought back memories of far away; the sadness of departure, the joy of return, the confusion of the crowd, the certainty and the mystery of the destination and the excitement of the rickety flight along the two thin rails towards a world unknown.
That morning, that early summer morning in June 1944, Bobby Harper, three years old and dressed in a coat for which he had no need, overlarge suitcase and gas-mask case to hand, eyes wide with trepidation and anticipation, walked in a crocodile towards a distant carriage located somewhere along the curved shoreline of platform as the surf of steam hissed from the depths to evaporate beneath the sun-soaked dome. With him were others who were to make the journey to another land across the distant metal and concrete sea.
He was to leave Islington behind. Six hundred and seventy-four bombs had been dropped between 1940 and 1941 and now the V1s were here; soon the V2s would come; it was no longer safe to be there.
Bobby had no idea why he was here and no idea where he was going and when he stepped onto the train and into the stuffy carriage with strangers upon a journey to another land, he had no idea when he would return.
As the train pulled away, he saw the golden eye of the station recede into the shadows and felt the hot sun pour through the carriage window.
Somewhere, far away, other strangers fought across fields and between hedges and over bridges, shot at men they had never met because the men they had never met were shooting at them.
They aimed for one thing, a small, distant pinpoint of darkness that had slowly strangled the light of Europe with twisted words and barbarous acts and spread spectre-like across the continent. A small pinpoint of darkness that had put the lights out in London, Glasgow, Sheffield, Birmingham, Manchester and all places in between. A small pinpoint of darkness that had stolen Bobby Harper from all he knew and thrown him as a stranger into a strange land, with strange people who spoke in a strange tongue.
The train juddered across the points and turned its back on London, its eyes turned north.
Part One
THE DISTANT HORIZON
The Butterfly Effect
‘How horrible, fantastic, incredible, it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas masks here because of a quarrel in a far away country between people of whom we know nothing.’
Neville Chamberlain, British Prime Minister, 27 September 1938
The Butterfly Effect, a term first suggested by the meteorologist and chaos theory scientist Edward Lorenz, suggests that, in theory, a butterfly flapping its wings in New Mexico could cause a hurricane in China.
It was hyperbole used to express a genuine concept (originally it was a gull flapping its wings, but a butterfly was deemed more poetic), applied to weather models, to show that even the tiniest variable could have an unexpected effect upon events elsewhere. It became a metaphor for the effect of events, either in time or in physical distance, having an effect upon something apparently unrelated far away. The Urban Dictionary describes it as: ‘The scientific theory that a single occurrence, no matter how small, can change the course of the universe forever’. That sums it up perfectly.
This is the fascinating thing about history. I would not be in front of this keyboard at this moment had someone, fifty, five hundred or five thousand years ago, decided to go left instead of right.
Here’s a story to highlight the point.
Alois Schicklgruber was born on June 7, 1837, in a small place called Strones, in North-West Austria. He was illegitimate, the result of the conjoining of a peasant girl, Maria Schicklgruber and a passing fancy known, at the time, only to Maria.
The butterfly had probably flapped its wings a couple of centuries prior to this event, but this was the point at which the high winds, caused by the inconsequential first flutters of those wings, began to gather the clouds, to turn them grey with the heaviness of the oncoming deluge and charge them with the restless particles of the storm to come.
When Alois was five years old, Maria married Johann Georg Heidler. He at last had a father figure. Johann would have an impact on the young man but, one could surmise, not necessarily in the right way, whatever his intentions.
When Maria died five years later Alois, at the age of ten, was sent away from his home to live with his step-father’s brother, Johann Nepomuk Heidler, a well-off farmer in a place quite nearby, called Spital. It is not really known why Johann Nepomuk took Alois under his wing. The two theories postulated are fairly obvious: one, which said that he was really Alois’ father and two, that he did it out of the kindness of his heart. Johann Nepomuk was married to a woman fifteen years older than him, Eva Maria Decker, might not have wanted the scandal and could not therefore publicly acknowledge his paternity. To take him in quietly to help out his bereaved brother was possibly a good way to get his son into his custody. This, however is speculation and in all probability, the eventual outcome to this tale of insects and hurricanes, is that the final suggestion is more than likely the correct one. We shall see.
Whether this was a successful move on the part of the two Johanns and young Alois is uncertain. What is certain is that at the age of thirteen, Alois left the farm for Vienna to become and apprentice cobbler. This was a drastic move, even allowing for the fact that they were different times and independence at an early age was to be encouraged. Vienna was about sixty-seven miles away, some considerable distance in what was, pre-war, a quite isolated area without the benefits of today’s highways and transport. The chances are that it was simply to give him a trade; apprenticeships were commonplace in most of Europe and would not have been seen as out-of-the-ordinary. He stuck at this for five years or so until he grew tired of it and then, as the Austrian government drove forward a campaign to recruit people from rural areas to become civil servants, joined the customs service in a semi-military capacity. In 1871 he wound up at Braunau am Inn, near the German border. This was in 1855. Alois was eighteen. Now he was on the social ladder as well as the career ladder. He eventually rose, in 1875, to become an inspector of customs, but could go no further due to a lack of education.
In between times, Alois became adept at doing what men do, namely drinking and copulating. He was what we nowadays would call a ‘serial philander’ or, more simply, a randy womaniser.
Now, I make no excuses for him. A man lives by the sword and he dies by the sword. Every action has a consequence, but there are certain aspects of Alois’ life that, with the benefit of hindsight and today’s willingness to accept the psychology of environment, might explain Alois’ behaviour. He was illegitimate. This was frowned upon in the mid-nineteenth century and his birth certificate was marked with the dreaded word ‘illegitimate’ scrawled across it and a blank chasm where the name of the father should have been. His mother died when he was ten, a mother about whom he might well have had mixed feelings due to her ‘waywardness’ and his resulting bastardy, the fact that she was his mother, that there was a bond and that this bond, this unique love, had been taken away. On top of this, his step-father rejected him and sent him away. We don’t know what went on in Johann Georg’s mind; he might have sent Alois away with the best of intentions or for the worst, most selfish reasons; he didn’t want a kid hanging onto his coat-tails. He might also, as has been said, have been sending him back to his rightful father.
These circumstances can have a great impact on a young mind. For Alois, it seems that there was a residue of rejection glowing within him and that he was searching constantly for a stability that would never really come to him. It is easy to dismiss philandering as simply the wanderings of uncontrolled lust, but sometimes it is a search for love.
Alois’ searchings began in the 1860s and was quickly fruitful. In 1869 he had an affair with Thekla Penz. On October 31, 1869, Thekla gave birth to a girl, Theresia Penz. Thekla later married Johan Ramer and went on to have at least six children with him. It’s not known why she and Alois failed to stay together, but I suspect that, knowing what Alois got up to in later years, she made the wise choice.
In 1873, he married Anna Glasl-Hörer. Anna was fourteen years older than him (he was 36, she was 50) and, as John Simkin said in 1997:
‘It is unlikely to have been a love-match. The marriage to a woman fourteen years older than himself had almost certainly a material motive, since Anna was relatively well off, and in addition had connections within the civil service.’
Was this all a part of his social mobility and his new-found status? Or the excitement of sex with a wealthy woman? The fact that she was the daughter of a customs official might have strengthened his social standing and suggests that perhaps this was a marriage of convenience rather than love, at least on his part. The woman was in poor health and might well have been disabled by illness at this stage or soon after the marriage. No doubt it was heady, combustible mixture of all these things that attracted Alois.
‘In a small town like Braunau am Inn, his position was a prestigious one. A customs Inspector's wages were equivalent to the principal of the local school, with a generous pension provided upon retirement. With his military-like uniform, cocked hat embroidered with gold braid, and a sweeping mustache, Alois made quite an impression. Although one colleague called him rigid, others said he was a warmhearted, earthy man with a wry sense of humor and a gift for friendship.’
Hitler: 1889-1933 - Donna Faulkner
It wasn’t long, however before Alois was back at his old ways. He began an affair with 19-year-old Franziska ‘Fanni’ Matzelsberger, a waitress at a local inn. She was one of numerous affairs, but she was probably the one that broke the camel’s back as Anna and Alois separated in 1880.
In 1876, 16-year-old Klara Polzl left her family farm and went to live with Alois and Anna as a household servant. Klara was the daughter of Johann Baptist Polzl and Johanna Heidler; the niece of Johann George Heidler, Alois’ stepfather. This meant that she was a second cousin to Alois, at least on paper, but without Alois’ certain paternity, it was at this stage not possible to say.
Then, in 1877, Alois changed his name from Alois Schicklgruber to Alois Hitler.
Hitler was an alternative spelling to Heidler, as was Hüttle and Huettler. It means ‘smallholding’ in German, but the name Heidler comes from ‘one who lives near a subterranean river’ – a heidl. Quite why this particular spelling, ‘Hitler’, was chosen, is unknown. What is known is Alois’ reason for changing his name. Johann George, on his deathbed, had left Alois both money and his name, along with an admission of his paternity. Johann Georg died in 1857, so this took a while to seep into Alois’ brain, but it was a name to be added to his birth certificate and might well therefore, in his eyes at least, have given those around him one less reason to look down upon him. It could be because he wanted to find his own identity, to give himself some solid, legitimate roots and perhaps, with a touch of foresight, ensure that his future children had a ‘name’. Perhaps it was just for the money left to him by Johann Georg. Who knows?
On 13 January 1882, Fanni gave birth to Alois’ illegitimate son, whom they also called Alois. On 6 April 1883 Anna Glasl-Hörer died. This left Alois free to marry Fanni and, on 22 May that year, the ceremony took place. His son was then legitimised. On 28 July, Alois Jr got a sister, Angela.
Prior to their marriage, no doubt in a quite reasonable fit of jealousy, Fanni had demanded that Klara Polzl be removed from Alois’ presence and by doing so remove any temptation he might have had.
In 1884 Fanni became ill with a lung disorder (probably tuberculosis) and was moved to Ranshofen, a small village nearby, either to promote recovery or to protect others. At this point, Klara took the opportunity to return to Alois’ home (or might have been there already to care for Fanni and the children, depending upon the source taken) and an affair commenced.
‘As to Alois Hitler's feelings, there is no escaping the fact that he married Klara Polzl partly out of convenience. Barring a miracle he knew full well that Fanni would not recover from her illness, and knowing that in the meantime he needed someone to mother his children, Alois Hitler obviously traveled to Spital to bring Klara back to the family home in Braunau. Moreover, because we know that Alois Hitler was a man devoted to logic and duty above all else, it is safe to speculate that while visiting the Polzl family home he arranged with Klara's parents for a future marriage... Johann and Johanna Polzl were certainly in favor of the union… Alois Hitler was an extremely good catch for a rural peasant girl.’
Adolf Hitler’s Family Tree – The Untold Story of the Hitler Family – Alfred Konder
At any rate, Klara returned to the Hitler household in Braunau am Inn where she had a close friendship with both Fanni and her mother, Maria Matzelberger (Maria Matzelberger would later serve as a godparent for two of Klara's children). Thereafter she frequently visited the dying Fanni in Ranshofen, which was just outside of Braunau, and spent considerable time helping nurse her. Fanni died, aged just 23, on 10 August 1884. Klara Polzl remained as Alois’ housekeeper. On 7 January 1885, Alois slid into his third marriage, to Klara and their first child, Gustav, was born on 15 May 1885 (for those of you, like me, with limited maths ability, 15th May minus 9 months does not equal 7 January). The marriage, because of the risk of consanguinity and the confirmation of Alois’ parentage, had to be appealed to the church for a humanitarian waiver. The waiver was given and the wedding went ahead in a small ceremony, after which Alois went to work.
Gustav died of diphtheria in December 1887. Before that, in 1886, Klara presented her husband with a girl, Ida. Ida also died of diphtheria in 1888. In 1887, Klara gave birth to another son, Otto, but he died only a few days later.
Then, in 1889, on 20 April, Adolphus Hitler, to become known as Adolf, was born.
In 1892, the family moved to Passau and then in 1894 (according to Alfred Konder; 1883 according to Anna Rosmus in Hitler’s Nibelungen) to Linz, both work-related moves.
In March 1894, Klara gave birth to Edmund, but he died at the age of only 6 in 1900, probably of measles. Their final child, Paula, was born on 21 January 1896.
It was not necessarily a happy family. Alois was prone to the effects of alcohol and:
‘Robert G. L. Waite noted, "Even one of his closest friends admitted that Alois was 'awfully rough' with his wife [Klara] and 'hardly ever spoke a word to her at home.'" If Hitler was in a bad mood, he picked on the older children or Klara herself, in front of the rest.’
Hitler: A Biography – Ileen Beer
At the age of 58, Alois retired and bought a farm in Hafeld. As a farm, it was unsuccessful and he lost money. On 3 January 1903, as he was having a glass of wine at a local gasthaus, he died, probably from either a stroke or a heart attack, but it has also been noted as a ‘lung haemorrhage’ or ‘pleural haemorrhage’, a fairly broad term that can be due to various primary causes.
Klara died of breast cancer on 27 December 1907. Adolf was ‘devastated by her death’. According to Dr Eduard Block, who had treated Klara’s condition, Adolf was devastated by her death.
He had been, like his father before him, deserted by his mother. He was left with a bullying, drinking father, had lost numerous siblings to disease and had as skewed a vision of what was normal as anyone of his young years should have had, which was to be reinforced by the waste and humiliation of the Great War yet to come. Every significant other around him had, in some way, faded away. That virgin paper of childhood, upon which the world etched its message to the formative child, was blotted and scored beyond redemption. Instead of turning the pain and anger in upon himself, instead of finding a way to contain the explosive emotions, Adolf Hitler erupted outwardly and, in the shockwave, caused devastation to every generation outside of and including his own in an attempt to right the perceived wrongs of his life.
What is astounding, out of all of this, is that Bobby Harper, a young boy, from Islington, London, along with millions of others, who had never met or heard of Alois, Klara or Adolf Hitler, had their lives turned inside out and, in many cases, curtailed.
The total number of deaths caused by World War Two was between 50 million and 85 million. 5,700,000 people or 8.23%[1] of the German population as of 1939 died as compared to 450,000 or 0.94% of the 1939 population from the United Kingdom and its colonies and 419,000 or 0.32% of the 1939 population from the USA[2]. I use these figures solely as something for us in those countries to relate to, not to make the rest of the world’s losses any less significant. This does not include the military wounded which increases the figures of those affected massively, especially when disability and the effects upon families and communities are taken into account.
This was caused by one man who, by the merest chance of nature and timing, in the beat of a butterfly’s wings, changed the world forever.
The sky was darkening across Europe and yet no one was aware of the storm flickering upon the distant horizon.
[1] Wirtschaft und Statistik October 1956, Journal published by Statistisches Bundesamt Deutschland. (German government Statistical Office)
[2] Clodfelder, Michael (2002). Warfare and Armed Conflicts – A Statistical Reference to Casualty and Other Figures, 1500–2000 and Commonwealth War Graves Commission Annual Report 2013-2014 & 2014-2015