Helene Bechstein

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Helene Bechstein , née Capito (born May 21, 1876 in Düsseldorf , † April 20, 1951 in Berchtesgaden ) was the wife of the piano manufacturer Edwin Bechstein and a patroness and admirer of Adolf Hitler .

Autograph of Helene Bechstein, wife of the piano manufacturer Edwin Bechstein

Admirer of Hitler

Helene Bechstein was married to Edwin Bechstein, a son of Carl Bechstein , who was the owner of the C. Bechstein piano factory . The couple had two children: Edwin and Liselotte; she had a motherly bond with Winifred Wagner . The Bechsteins met Adolf Hitler through Dietrich Eckart in June 1921 in their Berchtesgaden villa. Helene Bechstein eventually became a very early admirer of Hitler. During his imprisonment in 1923/1924 in Landsberg am Lech , she visited him often and at one point posed as his adoptive mother. She introduced Hitler, who was not very stylish, into better society in Berlin and, with the help of Elsa Bruckmann and Winifred Wagner, helped him achieve a new image. a. she taught him table manners and had him dressed again. In her Berlin salon, Hitler met many influential personalities such as B. Known to the von Hammerstein family and General Kurt von Schleicher .

Bechstein and Hitler gave each other presents, so Hitler said she received a dog and a dog whip from her and she in turn allegedly received the original manuscript of Mein Kampf from him . Helene Bechstein called Hitler "Wolfchen" and would have liked to have him as a son. The Bechsteins supported Hitler with large sums of money and often guaranteed high credits. They also financed the first issues of the party newspaper Völkischer Beobachter . Through the Bechsteins, Hitler also came into contact with the Obersalzberg , where he bought a previously rented house in 1933 and later built the Berghof .

After the National Socialists came to power , Hitler received the NSDAP's Golden Party Badge on December 20, 1934 . She joined the NSDAP in 1943.

Some parts of the works of art from Helene Bechstein's private collection are currently in Russia as part of looted art from World War II .

literature

  • Anton Joachimsthaler : Hitler's List - A Document of Personal Relationships . Herbig, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-7766-2328-4 .
  • Ernst Klee : The cultural lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 .
  • Geert Mak : In Europe , 2004; German: 2005 In Europe. A Journey Through the 20th Century , Settlers, ISBN 3-88680-826-2 .
  • James Pool & Suzanne Pool: How do you finance Hitler ?. Nieuwe en onthullende feiten over de secret geldschieters van het Derde Rijk , Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1979.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Ernst Klee: The culture lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 35f.
  2. ↑ Ulrike Leutheusser , Astrid Harms, Thomas Hausner: Hitler and the women . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt , Stuttgart 2001, p. 42
personal data
SURNAME Bechstein, Helene
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Capito, Helene (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German patroness of Adolf Hitler
DATE OF BIRTH May 21, 1876
PLACE OF BIRTH Dusseldorf
DATE OF DEATH April 20, 1951
Place of death Berchtesgaden