August Kubizek

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August Kubizek, 1907

August Friedrich “Gustl” Kubizek (born August 3, 1888 in Linz ; died October 23, 1956 in Eferding ) was an Austrian musician and friend of Adolf Hitler during his time in Linz and Vienna (1904–1908).

Life

After attending the community school , August Kubizek began an apprenticeship as an upholsterer in his father's company in Linz . Between 1904 and 1908 he was friends with Hitler, who was about 9 months younger than Kubizek, and the bond between the two was primarily the shared love of Richard Wagner's music .

According to Kubizek's memoirs, in the spring of 1908 the young Hitler succeeded in convincing Kubizek's father to let him study music at the conservatory in Vienna. Previously, he had had strong reservations about his son's considerations to turn his musical inclinations into a profession and preferred to let him learn something practical.

In Vienna, Hitler and Kubizek lived together for a few months in a room with the Czech Zakreys to sublet. While Kubizek was doing military service in the Austrian army for eight weeks in the autumn of 1908, Hitler moved out of the shared room without leaving a message about his whereabouts.

From October 1912 to 1914 Kubizek worked as second conductor at the city theater in Marburg an der Drau . He then took part in the First World War until 1918 . After the war Kubizek worked as Kapellmeister in Vienna and from 1920 to 1945 as City Office Manager and Kapellmeister of the city band of the Eferding Music Society (Upper Austria).

On August 1, 1914, Kubizek married Anna Funke, a violinist from Vienna. The marriage resulted in three sons: the composer Augustin (1918–2009), Rudolf (1923–2017) and Karl Maria (1925–1995).

In 1933, Kubizek congratulated Hitler on his appointment as Reich Chancellor . In April 1938 there was another meeting between Hitler and Kubizek in Linz, in 1939 and 1940 Kubizek was invited as Hitler's personal guest to the Wagner Festival in Bayreuth , where he attended the performances together with Hitler. In 1942 he became a member of the NSDAP .

After the war ended, Kubizek was arrested because of his private relationship with Hitler. He spent 16 months in the Glasenbach detention camp and was interrogated several times. His memories and the Hitler letters survived in a wall of his house in Eferding.

Significance for historical research

In 1953, as a contemporary witness , he published a book about his childhood friendship with Adolf Hitler. Some historians doubt some of this because of the lack of evidence and evidence. After the publication of Franz Jetzinger's book Hitler's Youth: Fantasies, Lies - and Truth in 1956, in which the author violently polemicises against Kubizek and states, among other things, that “90% of Kubizek's statements [in his book] (…) were stupid and false “And tried to substantiate this with elaborate demonstrations, Kubizek was for a long time considered a less reliable witness in historical Hitler research . There are numerous errors of Jetzinger in the assessment of Kubizek and others. a. again with Werner Maser and Joachim Fest . The more recent research - so z. B. Brigitte Hamann - estimates Kubizek as a largely credible witness and considers most of his statements to be true.

The only thing that is questioned in research is the anti-Semitic attitude of Hitler already asserted by Kubizek for his time in Vienna, which is not found in any other source about this period and through Hitler's friendship with Jewish roommates during his time in the Vienna men's dormitory in Meldemannstrasse , such as Josef Neumann or Siegfried Löffner, seems questionable. For a long time, Kubizek's memory that Hitler had joined the anti-Semitic union in 1908 and that he, Kubizek, had “registered at the same time” was considered wrong for a long time. Hamann suspected that Kubizek had tried to attribute his own, independent entry into the Bund in later years to Hitler and, for the sake of credibility, tried to make the early Hitler appear as an anti-Semite. However, Christian Rapp was able to prove that this alliance of anti-Semites actually existed (cf. the exhibition he co-curated about the young Hitler in the Museum Niederösterreich , February 29, 2020 to August 9, 2020).

Fonts

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Kubizek, pp. 7, 19.
  2. ↑ Two simple people , article from October 7, 1953 on Spiegel Online .
  3. ↑ Radio program "The young Hitler" , Ö1, 9: 05-9: 30 pm, about from minute 9:14.
personal data
SURNAME Kubizek, August
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kubizek, August Friedrich (full name); Kubizek, Gustl (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian musician and friend of Adolf Hitler during his time in Linz and Vienna (1904–1908)
DATE OF BIRTH August 3, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Linz , Austria
DATE OF DEATH October 23, 1956
Place of death Eferding , Austria