Hitler was the perfect boss

by sara star | December 4, 2008 at 07:36 am

565 views | 18 Recommendations | 16 comments

Is there a good side in every one? Are we all born good? What causes us to turn away from compassion? Is it the nature of politics?

History has condemned him as the megalomaniac who brought death and misery to millions.

But for one woman, the name Adolf Hitler evokes a smile not a shudder.

She is Rosa Mitterer, who worked as a maid for the Fuhrer at his mountain retreat in Bavaria in the 1930s.

Rosa is 91 and until now has kept a vow of silence about her experiences. She has chosen to break it after realising she is the last survivor of the circle who served the tyrant in the years before he launched the Second World War.

Rosa Mitterer is the sole survivor of those who served Adolf Hitler in the years before the Second World War. And her verdict on her former master: 'He was a charming man, someone who was only ever nice to me, a great boss to work for. You can say what you like, but he was a good man to us.'

Rosa's remembrances of life at the court of the tyrant make gripping reading. She saw leading Nazis come and go. Himmler, the evil party secretary; Bormann, whom she described as a 'dirty pig'; and the club-footed, sexually-obsessed propaganda minister Goebbels.

Rosa went into Hitler's service at the age of 15 in 1932 when she was Rosa Krautenbacher. Her sister Anni had worked as a cook at Hitler's Berchtesgaden retreat since the late 1920s.

'She said he needed a housemaid and I would fit the bill,' Rosa recalled. 'I remember so clearly the first day I spoke to him in the kitchen. I said I was Anni's sister and that made him smile, because Anni was his favourite. I only ever knew Hitler as a kindly man who was good to me".

In 1935 she fell in love with local businessman Josef Amorts and handed in her notice. She was told she could leave immediately..

'I only met Hitler once more, on December 10, 1936, when Anni married Herbert Doehring, manager of the Berghof. He came to the wedding and was nice to me, saying he missed me.'

Rosa married in 1939 and had three daughters. She later remarried. A great-grandmother, she now lives in Munich. After the war she had to confront the reality of the man for whom she had worked so willingly. And in particular the reality of the Holocaust.

'That he had ordered such terrible things, I just couldn't believe it,' she said. 'Even now, I prefer to remember the charming facets of his personality.'

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lefty_liberated

at 07:46 on December 4th, 2008

This story is nauseating. Oh and this woman [edited]. Any notion that there's a good side to hitler is directly related to her lack of conscience.

sara star

at 12:22 on December 4th, 2008

I welcome comments, but please withhold the profanity.

lefty_liberated

at 23:16 on December 4th, 2008

In the u.s. we've got a little something called the 1st ammendment. Hitler sure didn't believe in freedom of expression did he...

sara star

at 13:04 on December 5th, 2008

No one is questioning your freedom to speak but it does not mean attacking others, like Hitler did. Voicing your anger is one thing, attacking is another.

Babel-Fish

at 22:59 on December 4th, 2008

"She added: 'I didn't have to be a Nazi party member or anything. After a while I relaxed a bit. Apparently it was Hitler's orders that Anni and I be taken to church every Sunday because he thought this would be "good for us".

'Another time he came into the kitchen, saw me and said, "Ahh, I see our little one has grown a little plumper!".'

Part of her duties involved sorting out the fan letters and presents that were delivered in their thousands to the house.

'There were cigars, jars of jam, flowers, pictures,' she recalled. 'We gave most of them away to poorer peasant families nearby on Hitler's orders.'"

It shows a Hitler before 1936 and she left his service in 1935. He was of course anti-jewish then but I wonder if the sense of power changed him and that over the years after this sort of kindness that may of been genuine.

Did he gradually decline into a sewer pot of evil or did he have two characters one he showed to his lowly servants employees and the other behind a desk of power. Some declared the man to be mentally insane, if that was true did he gradual enter into this insanity and change from a fairly good mixed up person to one of great evil due to power and feeling invicible.

I tend to think its the later. One point for sure we should not make attacks on this lady as she was just as shocked by Hitlers evilness as we all are. The last line of the article you seeded states just that.

sara star

at 04:13 on December 5th, 2008

Thank you Babel for adding to the story.

If we are shown compassion, we become compassionate. Perhaps that is what is missing in poliitcs, where they constantly attack each other and call it freedom of speech. I believe we should be able to voice our opinions, but in a way that does not attack the other person. Or otherwise, we feed the Hitler seed in us.

I like to think that is why Obama won.... He didn't attack his opponents.

Dion tried not to in Canada, but we weren't ready for that. That is OK. We will evolve in our own time. Time for more women to head for Parliament Hill.

Babel-Fish

at 04:22 on December 5th, 2008

Your welcome.. and power to women that care about people and their country.

Rob Walker

at 04:08 on December 5th, 2008

I'd also keep in mind that she was 15 years old at the time, and probably just glad she had a 'good' job. If she had been working there longer I'm sure her opinion would have changed, but this was before the pogrom and anti-jewish sentiment was just starting to really show itself in German society - at that time it would have been difficult to track back to Hitler himself.

Babel-Fish

at 04:27 on December 5th, 2008

We must remember Hitler was not on his own, there were loads of despots with blood on their hands and it pains me that some of them excaped the punishment. I agree with you totally.

jjenet

at 05:30 on December 5th, 2008

Interesting and inspiring story. Yes God had made all of us Good, but we our self are responsible for our deeds. Also the environment is effective for our nature or behavior. After all if we all have mutual understanding this world would be Heaven and full of Peace.

God Helps us to follow this.

Cheers.

Jordan Yerman

at 05:37 on December 5th, 2008

Even the most nefarious of evildoers doesn't necessarily hurt everyone around him. There are advantages to treating the hired help well.

Sputnic

at 11:34 on December 5th, 2008

Perhaps Hitler was a Nonce and wanted to get into her panties

lefty_liberated

at 10:17 on December 7th, 2008

leftylib

at 09:46 on December 7th, 2008

Chacha

at 04:05 on December 20th, 2008

I do believe that he's not a perfect evil. There's a reason why mister Adolf Hitler has to rule the country in his own way. He did what he think good to make the country to be better. I think, it's just his inborn personality why he is being good to other people but he is evil to jewish people. I heard from my brother that being ultimate good might lead also to ultimate evil. I think, that's the personality I perceive to mister Adolf Hitler.

That is all.