One on One [antikvár]

ADOLF HITLER IS KNOCKED DOWN BY JOHN SCOTT-ELLIS Briennerstrasse, Munich August 22nd 1931 Earlier this year, the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei - the second largest political party in Germany - moved into new offices at Briennerstrasse 45, near Konigsplatz. As he approaches his forty-third birthday, its leader, Adolf Hitler, is enjoying success as a best-selling author: Mein Kampf has already sold 50,000 copies. He now has all the trappings of wealth and power: chauffeur, aides, bodyguards, a nine-room apartment at no. 16 Prinzregentenplatz.* His stature grows with each passing day. When strangers spot him in the street or in a café, they often accost him for an autograph. His new-found sense of self-confidence has made him less sheepish around women. A pretty nineteen-year-old shop assistant named Eva Braun has caught his eye; she works in the shop owned by his personal photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann. He has even begun dating her. Walking along Ludwigstrasse on this bright, sunny day in Munich, what can possibly go wrong? A few hundred yards away, young John Scott-Ellis is taking his new car for a spin. He failed to distinguish himself as a pupil at Eton College. 'I had advantages in that 1 wasn't stupid and was quite good at most games,' he remembers, 'yet I squandered all this because of an ingrained laziness or lack of will I was a mess 1 cheated and felt no remorse and when threatened with the sack - "You have come to the end of your tether," is what Dr Alington once greeted me with - 1 always managed to put on a tearful act and wriggle out.' * 'The flat was all in brown and white, really rather ugly and quite plain,' wrote Deborah Mitford in her diary on June 7th 1937, after going with her sister Unity and their mother for tea with Herr Hitler. 1