CORPORAL HITLER: HERO OR DESERTER?
On a damp and windy day in late February 1932 presidential hopeful Adolf Hitler and his devotees in the National Socialist German Workers’ Party gathered in a secluded corner of a Munich café to discuss an article in Hamburg’s Social Democrat newspaper Echo der Woche. Headlined Kamerad Hitler, the piece suggested the rising star of German politics was not the World War I hero his followers purported him to be, but was in fact an Austrian deserter. The writer alleged that while serving on the Western Front, Hitler hadn’t come under enemy fire, as claimed, but had spent most of his time in the rear at regimental headquarters. The newspaper had withheld the writer’s name, ostensibly to protect that individual from retribution by Hitler’s Sturmabteilung paramilitary thugs.
By the early 1930s Nazi propagandists were on track to build Hitler into the Führer—a godlike supreme leader of the people. During his World War I service in the German army the Austrian-born soldier had received the Iron Cross (2nd and 1st Class) and the Wound Badge, thus his followers were eager to portray him as a hero who had risked his life for the Fatherland. Germany’s Social Democrats were as anxious to tarnish the war record of the “little corporal” by revealing any falsehoods or exaggerations.
In seeking to belittle the increasingly influential Nazi leader, however, those behind the article in handed Hitler the perfect opportunity to take the “hero or coward” battle public by filing a libel lawsuit against the newspaper and its anonymous writer. In a libel action the person making the accusation—the newspaper, in this case—had to prove the claim was true. In addition, the court hearing the action would determine whether the reputation of, most of the witnesses called would testify on Hitler’s behalf.
