# Life: Adolf Hitler: Up Close, Never before published Photos



## Battou (Jun 5, 2009)

Adolf Hitler, Up Close - Adolf Hitler: Up Close - LIFE

OK, I know this is one of those elements of history that could errupt into holy particular hell, but I do ask that we look more at Hugo Jaeger's photos and not the man photographed. Hugo Jaeger a German photographer who was granted unprecedented access to Adolf Hitler between 1936 and 1945 as one of Hitler's personal photographers.


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## table1349 (Jun 5, 2009)

From a historical and photojournalistic stand point they are indeed interesting.


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## inTempus (Jun 5, 2009)

Yup, I was checking those out yesterday when they hit the news.  Interesting story about how they were almost found by allied forces but a bottle of booze kept them hidden for decades.

I think they're of significant historical value. I enjoy getting a glimpse of the time period and trying to think what things must have been like back then... how something so horrible could happen.


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## craig (Jun 5, 2009)

There are some really strong photos in that series. I somehow get a feeling that Hitler was actually a human being as opposed to the monster the history books portray. 

Is LIFE digging through the archives for a reason? Stella just posted never before seen photos of Marilyn Monroe from the LIFE archives.

Love & LIFE


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## Garbz (Jun 6, 2009)

This pictures really bring about his human element. Look at all the smiles on the faces of people around him. The history books are quick to mention the tyranny and rightfully so, but few talk about the man who created the autobahn and basically abolished joblessness to build so much.

These pictures are amazing and nothing shows the more human side than the first picture. No people marching, no car drivebys, just another politician shaking hands with smiling faces all around. Show this to someone who's never read a history book and they'd probably think he was a good man. *shudder*


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## PhilGarber (Jun 6, 2009)

gryphonslair99 said:


> From a historical and photojournalistic stand point they are indeed interesting.



Extremely so.


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## Mike_E (Jun 6, 2009)

Taking into consideration what happened on the night of broken glass and seeing Street Of Fire..

My God, the sound of tears falling on dust echos forever.


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## pez (Aug 27, 2010)

Thought I'd add to this old thread a mostly different set, albeit with a totally conflicting claimed provenance:


> *These pictures were taken by a Life photographer between 1939 and 1940 in**Berlin**and were lost for over 50 years because the American photographer disappeared at the beginning of the war, along with his rolleiflex camera. *
> 
> *Shown here are the originals (Used at that time in the production of magazines). The majority are 6" X 9". They were found by a nurse in a Berlin hospital**, who kept them put away during all these years. After her death her daughter returned them to the current editors, who retain the copyrights to Life magazine, which has not been published since the early '70s*


 
However, these are the best of their kind I've ever seen...


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## Warren Peace (Aug 27, 2010)

Excellent.  Im always fascinated by the past.


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## Mustlovedragons (Aug 27, 2010)

Regardless of subject, the history in those photographs is fascinating...as are the photos, themselves.


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## kkamin (Aug 31, 2010)

I think the photos are interesting without a doubt, but I don't really think they paint him in a nice way, or even a more humane way...since we are aware of the context of the photos (what he would eventually do). Hypothetically, someone could have snapped an image of Jeffrey Dahmer (80's serial killer in US) sharing a laugh with a stranger on the street or comfortably checking the ripeness of apples at the grocery store, but he is still a sociopath. The images would be disturbing to me.

The images of Hitler before his warmongering and genocide just make him seem creepier to me. I know he wasn't pure evil and was ultimately acting on motivations he felt were right for whatever reason, but the fact a single human is capable of causing worldwide misery is beyond my understanding. I simply can't look at an image of him without the context.


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## Garbz (Aug 31, 2010)

Since I have no idea who Jeffrey Dahmer is if I saw a picture of him in such a setting I would disagree. And that is my point. We know world wide misery was caused, but look again at the people around him. To them he was great. 

Admittedly they may not think so either looking back, or they may themselves be psychopaths, but that does not change the fact that Hitler was a hell of charismatic leader. It's a real shame the path he took given the following he had.


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## SusanMart (Aug 31, 2010)

Excellent pictures !!!
A real present for all the history lovers


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## rpm (Aug 31, 2010)

to quote a book ive read: 

"The gravest error a thinking person can make is to believe that one particular version of history is absolute fact. History is recorded by a series of observers, none of whom is impartial."

while the focus on Hitler has always been the Nazi-Genocide-WWII elements, we can't forget the good he did for Germany which no other leader has done for their country during those conditions. i'm not praising the man but there is so much that he did that people are unaware of or fear to acknowledge due to fear of praising him. no different than Germany still being portrayed as the villains of WWI in which they weren't if you look deeper into the history...they simply received the short end of the stick. it is the victors that write history...


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## henkelphoto (Aug 31, 2010)

rpm said:


> while the focus on Hitler has always been the Nazi-Genocide-WWII elements, we can't forget the good he did for Germany which no other leader has done for their country during those conditions. i'm not praising the man but there is so much that he did that people are unaware of or fear to acknowledge due to fear of praising him.



Not to turn this thread into something that the OP didn't want, but I have to ask. Just which Germans did he do so much good for anyway? The 5+ million soldiers who died under his leadership, the 2+ million civilians who died as a result of allied bombings and ground attacks, the 160,000 Jews and uncounted Gypsies, gays and mentally disturbed German citizens who were gassed and exterminated by his regime, the women pressed into service as Lebensborn to create perfect babies fathered by SS soldiers, or the millions of Germans left to cope with a totally destroyed country after his suicide? Oh, and the Autobahn and Volkswagons were built mostly using slave labor from his own country and other countries he conquered. 

I'm sorry, but I cannot accept that the man did any good for any German.


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## kkamin (Sep 1, 2010)

I respect everyone who has commented on the post, but I am surprised by people's easy separation of Hitler's crimes against humanity from the rest of his deeds. If you saw images of Osama Bin Laden feeding the poor would you start writing words of praise for his humanitarian deeds? No you wouldn't because he is a misguided, religious zealot, murderer. I understand Bin Laden's motivations of 911 attack exist and are not cartoon evil, but they are to many misguided, religiously radical and murders.

Hitler orchestrated the genocide of millions of innocent people. Of course he was a human being. Of course he was mainly a politician and mainly involved with mundane, behind the scenes meetings and didn't get his hands literally dirty. But when I look at images of him of any type, I am nonetheless looking at a terribly disturbed person no matter what he doing.


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## Garbz (Sep 1, 2010)

This is now a political debate and this will be my last post in this topic. Feel free to discuss further by PM if you wish.



henkelphoto said:


> I'm sorry, but I cannot accept that the man did any good for any German.



Then maybe you should speak to some Germans who lived at the time. In a time of the worst hardships Germany has faced in decades he brought unemployment to zero. He built up the city, built the autobahn. The VW beetle was entirely funded by the Nazi regime, and Hitler himself gave Ferdinand Porche the order to build the car because he envisioned a Germany where anyone could drive regardless of social status. Hence the name Volkswagen (people's car). He did the same thing with radios creating Volksradio directing government funds to improve the quality of life for the people. He got the youth involved in programs (admittedly with the goal of eventually bringing them into the army) however till the day he died my grandpa never once regretted being part of the Hitler Youth programs. They taught him to fly a plane, repair engines, and basically built up his entire career with useful skills that he continued to apply long after war, and these were skills he would never have been able to access himself due to poor background and low social status. 

So yes the man was a monster. The world probably would have been better off without him, but he definitely did some good for many Germans. So much so that in some cases they followed him blindly through a part of history that most of the world wishes to simply forget. 



kkamin said:


> I respect everyone who has commented on the post, but I am surprised by people's easy separation of Hitler's crimes against humanity from the rest of his deeds. If you saw images of Osama Bin Laden feeding the poor would you start writing words of praise for his humanitarian deeds? No you wouldn't ...



Yes I would, but I don't because it doesn't happen. Osama for everything I have been able to see is a religious psycho who seems to think of nothing but killing infidels. He did not do the things he did to improve the quality of life for his people, his actions never gained praise from more than a few fellow terrorists, let alone the population of several countries combined. 

Praise is given where praise is deserved. Hitler was a monster. Yet he did not take over Germany by tyrannical force, he did it by playing politics and in the process did some amazing deeds. 


I'll leave you with some food for thought. Your daughter runs into the street in front of an oncoming bus, just before she gets hit a stranger runs through the street and sweeps her up and brings her to safety. Later that night you go home and turn on the news to find that this guy who just saved your daughter has walked into the city and started randomly killing people. 

What do you think about this person, what would your neighbour think who has no idea about the events earlier in the day?

Think about that one for a little while, and PM me the answer, because I suspect if this thread keeps going it'll get blocked. I've stated my opinion and I won't return to this thread.


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## magkelly (Sep 1, 2010)

Yeah, he brought unemployment to zero all right. Mass murder, businesses being closed left and right and/or turned over to others who supposedly better met certain racial standards that would definitely lead to a few job openings, and some real prosperity for those left behind to take advantage, cough....

I always tend to laugh ironically when people come forward and talk about how much good Hitler did for the Germans and their economy. Yeah, he brought Germany out of bad times but he did it by spilling the blood of millions. Nice, brutally efficient bit of economics that. 

Oh come on you folks didn't think it was ALL about racial idealism, did you? NOT. It was also very much about making jobs, money and the fast acquisition of it. Hitler needed money to shore up the German economy and to start a war. 

So he got it by stealing money, art works, businesses and also unfortunately in the end by killing many people. FYI, a LOT of the gold that funded the German war effort came from people's lost businesses and the belongings of those later executed. The Nazi's were so desperate for it in the end they used to take out gold teeth after they gassed people. They'd melt the gold down, make bars, and then send it to Berlin to be added to treasury to fund the war effort. Munitions etc, they were quite literally bought with blood tainted gold. 

Hitler was a monster no matter which way you look at it. 

As for the photos, they're historically interesting but frankly I've seen much better examples in Life and elsewhere. It's actually not too unusual to see pictures of Hitler smiling and "at home" so to speak. They took a lot of "nice" Hitler pictures for propaganda back then. There are even pictures of him with his follower's children where he looks like a fond uncle. Looking at him you'd never, ever think he was the guy who ordered "The Final Solution."  He looks so benign. The ones that get me most? The ones with the animals. Can you imagine that they LIKED him? They apparently did though. 

These are okay, but they lack the power of some of the stuff they've published. I'm sure there are more, by others too, if you go to Life and look. My Grandparents had stacks of old Life magazines when I was a kid and I spent a lot of time looking at them. As I recall there was one series in particular that they did, photos by some bigwig Nazi's wife. Those were very intimate indeed. He was even sitting with Eva Braun in several of them which he rarely did in public. The woman who did a lot of his propaganda films took some home movies too. They had one big article on those, with stills. Those are just fascinating really. They really stuck with me. I was pretty young then, but I still remember half thinking he couldn't possibly be the man everyone said was so bad. He looked so normal, so NICE, shudder.


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## Arch (Sep 1, 2010)

Were are not really doing this are we?.... do we need anyones opinion of what hitler did on a photography forum?... No.
Just a take on the photos would have been nice.
I am supprised some people keep reeling facts off like the entire world doesn't know already... please.
Locked.


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