One of Hitler’s favourite tunes to whistle was the very popular “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?”
100 Mind-Blowing Hitler Facts
The Eiffel Tower was inaugurated the same year Nintendo was founded, and Adolf Hitler was born: in 1889.
Adolf Hitler was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. Don’t worry, the Swedish politician who sent the letter of nomination in 1939 meant it ironically and withdrew his nomination. In an even more ironic twist, Hitler had banned Germans from accepting the awards four years before his name was thrown in the ring.
Hitler’s nephew betrayed him. William Hitler attempted to blackmail his uncle with threats regarding his paternal grandfather being a Jewish merchant. After this failed, he fled Germany and wrote an article for Look magazine titled ‘Why I Hate My Uncle’. It was after this that William joined the US Navy.
Hitler was once nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1939, Adolf Hitler was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. He received the nomination the same year that WWII began. A member of the Swedish parliament only nominated Hitler for the Nobel Peace Prize as a satiric criticism of another historical figure who was nominated. The nomination was promptly withdrawn.
Adolf Hitler was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. A Swedish politician nominated him in 1939 as a joke and subsequently withdrew his nomination.
Dictators together. In 1913 Stalin, Hitler, Trotsky, and Tito all lived in Vienna for a couple of months.
‘Day of Fate’. Important events in German history have frequently occurred on 9 November, dubbed Schicksalstag, ‘Day of Fate’. In 1918, Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated. In 1923, Adolf Hitler’s Nazis attempted the Munich Putsch, and in 1938 they attacked Jews on Kristallnacht. In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell.
An iconic moustache. As a young man Hitler wore a larger, bushier moustache; he trimmed it to its iconic shape so that it could fit under a gas mask during World War One.
Two significant car crashes. On 13 December 1931, Winston Churchill was struck by a car while crossing Fifth Ave in New York City. He had looked the wrong way before crossing the street and was dragged for several yards, sustaining bruises, sprains and cuts. In the same year, a 19-year-old British aristocrat named John Scott-Ellis was driving a red Fiat in Munich and almost hit the future Führer, Adolf Hitler. Scott-Ellis jumped out of his car and apologised, and Hitler only suffered minor bruises. They shook hands, and Scott-Ellis later remarked, ‘For a few seconds, perhaps, I held the history of Europe in my rather clumsy hands. . . [Hitler] was only shaken up, but had I killed him, it would have changed the history of the world.’
Reign of Terror. While the guillotine is commonly associated with the brutality of the French Revolution, the Nazis also used the guillotine during the 12 years they were in power. In October 1936, Hitler secretly ordered 20 guillotines to be distributed to prisons in cities across Germany. According to Nazi records, they were used to execute approximately 16,500 people between 1933 and 1945, including resistance fighters and political protesters – a similar number to the French Reign of Terror.
Hitler’s half-nephew’s service in the US Navy. The son of Adolf Hitler’s half-brother, Alois, William Patrick Hitler was born in England in 1911 but moved to Germany in the 1930s. He was something of a problem for the German Führer, and in July 1939 he published an article in Look magazine titled ‘Why I hate my uncle. . .’ He moved to America in 1939. It has been reported that in 1944 he appealed directly to President Roosevelt to join the fight against his uncle and the FBI deemed it sincere. Though he never saw combat, Hitler served until 1947. He changed his name to William Stuart-Houston and died in 1987.
Bad nominations. Among the nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize are Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini (both 1939) and Joseph Stalin (1945 and 1948). Hitler’s nomination was submitted by a Swedish MP, while Mussolini’s came from an Italian professor. Stalin’s nominations were made by a British MP and a group of Norwegian politicians.