Ronald Haymans bok om forholdet mellom onkel Adolf og hans niese Geli er en ansamling av ulike oppfatninger, ulike synspunkter og ulike faktabeskrivelser – knyttet til dette forholdet. Den ene personen/kommentatoren kontradikterer den andre, hele veien. Du ser det samme i ulike dokumentarer, spillefilmer og artikler om dette forholdet. Det er dermed vanskelig å vite nøyaktig hvordan relasjonen mellom den viljesterke og ondskapsfulle kommende diktatoren og hans unge lovende niese artet seg. Jeg tror imidlertid de fleste er enige om at det i bunn forelå en gjensidig affeksjon og beundring. De berørte hverandre på forskjellige måter, og lidenskapen var nok til syvende og sist stor i dem begge, i dette høyst uvanlige og «forbudte» forholdet som endte i tragedie og med en onkel som nesten fikk et sammenbrudd. Adolf Hitler skal angivelig sågar ha uttalt at Geli var den eneste kvinnen han noen gang hadde elsket. Og Geli var etter alt å dømme svært sjalu på onkelens fremtidige kone, Eva Braun.
Nedenfor følger utdrag fra den velskrevne og langt på vei objektive boken til Ronald Hayman – i kronologisk rekkefølge. Utdragene omhandler hovedsakelig karakteristikker av Adolf og Geli – og deres forhold.
«1908: 4 June Angela (Geli) Raubal born in Linz; 8 August Hitler breaks off his relationship with Angela (his half-sister and mother to Geli) and family.»
Adolf om Geli som han kalte «lille Geli»: «Women play a bigger role in men’s lives than men are inclined to acknowledge (..). (..) The greatest gap I find – a yawning chasm – is when I sit down to breakfast in the morning and when I come home at lunchtime or in the evening to find that I’m alone, quite alone. Her cheerful laughter was always a joy to me and her innocent chatter was a pleasure. Even when she sat next to me in silence, doing crossword puzzles, I felt surrounded by good health and wellbeing.»
Adolf om Geli: «I can sit next to young women who leave me completely cold. I feel nothing, or they actually irritate me. But a girl like (..) Geli – with [her] I become cheerful and bright, and If I have listened for an hour to [her] perhaps silly chatter – or I have only to sit next to [her] – then I am free of all weariness and listlessness. I can go back to work refreshed.»
«(H)e idolised this girl, who was twenty years younger than himself, took her with him whenever he could – in short, he fell in love with her. (..) [Geli] was flattered and impressed by her now famous uncle, she enjoyed going about with him (..).»
«It was not until thirteen years later that Hitler, whom she called ‘Uncle Alf’, started calling her Geli (..).»
«Briefed to idealise him, Kubizek is at pains to show how attractive the young (from the late teens) Hitler was. In the foyer of the opera house women would give him more than a casual glance, and once, when a liveried servant handed him a message, his nonchalant reaction was: ‘Yet another.’ During his years in Vienna, says Kubizek, he had no affairs and lived with exemplary self-control.»
«Combining girlishness with womanliness, [Geli] was warm, gentle, affectionate, tactile, straightforward, direct, uninhibited, unpretentious, unprudish, kind, lively, playful, provocative and a member of the family.»
«Hitler’s adjutant Julius Schaub said Geli was full of animal spirits, always ready for a joke, and extraordinarily self-possessed.»
«(..) Eva Braun’s elder sister, Ilse, found that ‘when he looked at me, beads of sweat formed between my breasts’, and at the end of the war several of the women in the bunker offered to die with [Hitler].»
«Hitler took a lot of visual pleasure in the female body. According to Ernst Röhm, ‘He thinks about the peasant girls. When they stand and bend over at their work, so that you can see their buttocks, that’s what he likes, especially when they’ve got big round ones. That’s Hitler’s sex life. What a man!»»
«Hitler’s reputation was itself a powerful aphrodisiac, and opportunities were plentiful. According to Emile Maurice, «Very often girls in their teens threw themselves under his car in the hope of getting injured and subsequently being comforted by him. Others presented themselves in Berchtesgaden, often almost naked under their light coats or their BDM (Young Nazi Girls) uniforms, bent on offering their virginity to the Führer. Others tore open their blouses when he passed.»»
«Geli was still in Vienna, completing her last year at school. She was nineteen when she took her Abitur. Hitler then went to fetch her, and it was in Obersalzburg, during the summer, that they began to enjoy each other’s company. He called her his princess (..).»
«‘Geli was deeply revered, indeed worshipped, by her uncle. To him she personified perfect young womanhood – beautiful, fresh, unspoiled, gay, intelligent, as clean and straight as God had made her. He watched and gloated over her like some servant with a rare and lovely bloom, and to cherish and protect her was his one and only concern.»»
«‘He liked to show her off everywhere; he was proud of being seen in the company of such an attractive girl.’ (..) On her side Geli was proud to have captivated him and to be seen with her hand on his arm. (..) [Hitler] knew his appeal lay in his power as a speaker, but the charisma he had acquired under the floodlights extended into his everyday life, and Geli knew that other women would have been delighted to swap places and have him as their escort.»
«Not unaware of other people’s reactions to him, Hitler enjoyed his ability to charm them. Maria von Below, widow of Nicolaus von Below, an air ace who later became his Luftwaffe adjutant, said: ‘I don’t know why so many people want to deny that extraordinary spark in him. I often noticed later on how aware he was if one was not awed. I mean, if one seemed at ease with him. I think he liked that. He was immediately very nice to me.’ One reason he had become fond of Geli was that she never seemed over-awed.»
«‘[Geli] admitted to me at times Hitler made her do things in the privacy of her room that sickened her but when I asked her why she didn’t refuse to do them she just shrugged and said that she didn’t want to lose him to some woman that would do what he wanted… She was a girl that needed attention and needed it often. And she definitely wanted to remain Hitler’s favorite girlfriend. She was willing to do anything to retain that status. At the beginning of 1931 I think she was worried that there might be another woman in Hitler’s life because she mentioned to me several times that her uncle didn’t seem to be as interested in her as he once was.»»
«When Henny asked (Geli): ‘Which would you prefer – to be loved or to be in love?’ the answer came without hesitation: ‘What I want is to be in love – of course. Being loved is boring, but to love a man, you know, to love him – that’s what life is about. And when you can love and be loved at the same time, it’s paradise.»»
«‘Certainly, it flattered her that her serious and unapproachable uncle, who was so good at hiding his feelings from everybody else, was fond of her. She wouldn’t have been a woman if she hadn’t been flattered by Hitler’s gallantry and generosity. But it seemed simply intolerable to this child of nature that he should want to mother her every step (..).»»
«During 1926, when [Hitler] had the affair with Mitzi, and during the second half of 1927, when he was often seen with Geli, he had been glad to have a whiff of scandal surrounding his life. It encouraged people to talk about him, and he had nothing to lose, being such a long way from gates of power. He was saying that twenty or even a hundred years might have to elapse ‘before our idea is victorious’.»