He Was My Chief

September 1, 2009
There is something creepy yet fascinating about these two memoirs by individuals who spent years working daily with Adolf Hitler. Schroeder began her association with Hitler in 1933, serving as one of his personal secretaries, while Linge became Hitler's valet in 1939. Nearly every day for years, they saw Hitler up close and personal, observing his quirks, charms, rages, brooding silences, unpredictability, and very strange work habits, which usually consisted of staying up most of the night and then sleeping into the late morning and not being functional until later in the day. Neither seems to have known much about the darkest side of Hitler's ambitions as he set about killing millions and destroying much of EuropeSchroeder declares no interest in politics. Instead, the reader is hooked into Hitler's seeming ordinariness, as the Fhrer takes his daily afternoon tea while chatting with his secretaries about art, language, and movies. Linge, who was with Hitler to the very end, supposedly helping to burn his body, also provides accounts of those who surrounded Hitler (he seems to have liked Goebbels quite a bit). For German-reading scholars of Hitler and Nazism, this is all old news, since Linge's memoirs were originally published in 1980 and Schroeder's in 1985. The rest of us can now contemplate the remarkable picture that these books offer. VERDICT The scariest thing about these books is their showing that Hitler could be quite charminga seemingly regular guy, or at least as regular as anyone who killed millions could ever be. Of interest to anyone seeking more insight into the everyday life of one of history's monsters.Ed Goedeken, Iowa State Univ. Lib., Ames

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