Young Hitler
The book is divided into two sections: in the first part, a narrative retells the formative years of the young Adolf Hitler between 1907 and 1918, when he lived as a starving artist on the streets and in the asylums of Vienna, and then joined World War I as a volunteer on the Western Front. When the war ends, Hitler comes into contact with members of the Thule Society in Munich, an association of occultists who had launched a political party, the German Workers Party (DAP).The narration ends in 1920 when Hitler takes over the DAP and turns it into the Nazi Party (NSDAP). In an interview with The Guardian, author Claus Hant explained that the events after 1920 are exhaustively documented in the numerous Hitler biographies. But what the biographies do not investigate is the time before then, when Hitler was transformed from inconsequential artist and drifter to towering political leader. Hant says that he has centered Young Hitler deliberately around this momentous transformation. According to Hant, this decisive turning point in Hitler’s life can only be explained satisfactorily now that recent research has unearthed certain previously unknown data and facts.
Heinrich Harrer
In 1996 the ORF-editor and filmmaker Gerald Lehner found in American archives the membership card of Harrer joining the Sturmabteilung (SA) in October 1933. After the Anschluss of March 1938, as Germany annexed Austria, he joined the "Schutzstaffel" (SS) on 1 April. He held the rank of "Oberscharführer" (Sergeant), and on 1 May he became a member of the Nazi Party. After their ascent of the Eiger North Face the four climbers were received by and photographed with Adolf Hitler. Harrer later said he wore his SS uniform only once, the day of his marriage to Charlotte Wegener, daughter of the eminent explorer and scholar Alfred Wegener. After returning to Europe in 1952, Harrer was cleared of any pre-war crimes and this was later supported by Simon Wiesenthal. In his memoir, "Beyond Seven Years in Tibet", Harrer called his involvement with the Nazi Party a mistake made in his youth when he had not yet learned to think for himself.