Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0005390, Fri, 14 Jul 2000 07:51:30 -0700

Subject
Willie Hitler and Berlin's Russian Emigr� Community (fwd)
Date
Body
From: Mark Bennett <mab@straussandasher.com>

Kershaw has only the single anecdote regarding Wee Willie Hitler: an alleged
attempt in the early 1930s to blackmail Hitler by publicly disclosing Hitler
had Jewish blood, which I imagine is discussed in the New Yorker article.
Nothing about Willie's alleged connections with the émigré community.

MAB

-----Original Message-----
From: Galya Diment [mailto:galya@u.washington.edu]
Sent: Thursday, July 13, 2000 5:18 PM
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Subject: Willie Hitler and Berlin's Russian Emigre Community (fwd)


From: Camille Scaysbrook <verona_beach@hotpop.com>

Forget `Pale Fire'! Now *this* is something I'd like to see a movie or play
about!

Camille Scaysbrook


> From: Mark Bennett <mab@straussandasher.com>
>
> Ian Kershaw's recent biography of Hitler contains some anecdotes about
> Willie Hitler. I have not yet finished the book so I don't know if
Kershaw
> discusses Willie's association, if any, with the emigre community, but you
> may want to look into it. Given the Nazis' anti-Semitism and
> anti-Bolshevism I wouldn't be surprised to learn that some unregenerate
> Whites in the emigre community took Willie up. It was a fairly large
> community, after all, and not entirely composed of Sirins and Veras . . .
>
>
>
> In the most recent New Yorker, there is an article about Adolf Hitler's
> family which mostly deals with his nephew, William Patrick Hitler, a son
> of Hitler's half brother Alois and his first, Irish, wife. Pretty much out
> of the blue, with no explanation or further details, the author, Timothy
> W. Ryback, states that when Willie Hitler was living in Berlin in the
> early 1930s (and boasting of his link to his uncle to everyone who cared
> to listen), he "became a favorite of Berlin's theatre crowd as well as of
> the city's large Russian emigre community." Does anyone know more re his
> connection to/with the Russian emigre community in Berlin? I realize there
> were some Hitler sympathizers in the crowd, but Hitler's nephew, at least
> from what we learn of him in the article, does not strike me as someone
> who would have had much in common with the Russian emigres in Berlin
> regardless of their political and ideological inclinations.
>
> Galya Diment
>