August Kubizek
The man who knew Hitler best before he became a monster spent four years sharing a room with him — and never saw it coming.
August Kubizek was Hitler's only close friend during the crucial years when the future dictator was transforming from a dreamy provincial teenager into something darker. They met in 1904 at the opera in Linz, bonding over Wagner and grand artistic ambitions. Kubizek was studying music; Hitler claimed he would conquer the art world. For four years, they were inseparable.
In 1908, they moved to Vienna together, sharing a cramped room on Stumpergasse. Kubizek attended the Vienna Conservatory while Hitler... didn't attend much of anything. He'd been rejected by the Academy of Fine Arts twice, but hadn't told his friend. Instead, Hitler spent his days wandering the city, nursing resentments and developing the rigid opinions that would later poison Europe. Kubizek watched his friend grow increasingly bitter, ranting about perceived injustices and sketching grandiose architectural plans that would never be built.
Then, in July 1908, Hitler simply vanished. No goodbye, no forwarding address. Kubizek returned from a visit home to find their shared room empty except for his own belongings. He wouldn't see Hitler again until 1938, when the newly minted Führer summoned him for a bizarre reunion. By then, the awkward young man who had once shared his dreams of artistic greatness ruled Germany.
Kubizek spent the rest of his life trying to reconcile the Adolf he knew — moody and pretentious, yes, but seemingly harmless — with the architect of genocide. He wrote a memoir, but even he couldn't explain how his roommate became history's greatest monster.
Kubizek and Hitler once spent an entire night walking the streets of Vienna because Hitler was so enraged by a performance of Wagner's 'Rienzi' that he couldn't sleep, delivering a passionate monologue about his future greatness that lasted until dawn.
Why untold: Kubizek's intimate portrait of Hitler's formative years was overshadowed by the magnitude of later horrors and the uncomfortable questions it raised about evil's ordinary origins.
Where a Rejected Hitler Found His Ideology
A rejected art student's breakfast conversation changed the course of the 20th century.
Rejected Twice by Vienna's Art Academy
A frustrated young man walked out of the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts in October 1907 after his second rejection—and changed the course of the 20th century.
A Drunk Postman Never Delivered Hitler's Rejection Letter
Hitler applied to art school twice and was rejected both times—but the second rejection letter never arrived because the postman was drunk.
— August Kubizek, 'The Young Hitler I Knew' (1955)
— Brigitte Hamann, 'Hitler's Vienna: A Dictator's Apprenticeship' (1999)
— Ian Kershaw, 'Hitler: A Biography' (2008)