The Jewish girl who blinded ‘Uncle Hitler’ to his twisted Nazi dogma
‘She developed a close friendship’
HE is remembered as one of humanity’s greatest monsters – but to little Rosa Bernile Nienau, he was simply ‘Uncle Hitler’.
Incredibly when this picture of them was taken, the Nazi leader knew the seven-year-old – whom he called his ‘sweetheart’ – had Jewish ancestry.
It was taken in the summer of 1933 at the Berghof, Hitler’s Bavarian retreat.
His thugs had already begun stirring up hatred, attacking Jewish shops and businesses. But he refused to cut ties with the little girl who had befriended him.
It was only when Martin Bormann, his private secretary, stumbled on Rosa’s lack of ‘German bloodlines’ in 1938 that she and her mother were banned from seeing him. Rosa died of polio in 1943.
The picture, taken by his official photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann, is signed by Hitler in dark blue ink: ‘The dear and considerate Rosa Nienau, Adolf Hitler, Munich, the 16th June 1933.’
It is being sold at Alexander Historical Auctions in Chesapeake City in the US state of Maryland on November 13, and is expected to attract bids of up to $13,000.
In February last year, the auction house sold Hitler’s telephone for $256,000.
Auctioneer Bill Panagopulos said: ‘The signed version is a never-before publicly seen piece, Adolf Hitler inscribing a warm photograph showing him with a charming little girl whom, amazingly, he knew to be a Jew.
‘Hitler was often photographed with children for propaganda. The shocking thing about this is it seems he had a genuine affinity for the girl. I was simply stunned. Rosa and Hitler grew very close, so much so that the dictator refused all efforts to ban her from his company. In the end, he gave in and the girl and her mother were instructed to keep away.’
In the next five years she wrote to Hitler 17 times. The two met when Rosa and her mother, a doctor’s widow, joined other Ger- mans outside The Berghof to celebrate Hitler’s birthday on April 20, 1933.
When the Fuhrer was told that she shared his birthday, he invited her in and gave her strawberries and cream on the terrace. Mr Panagopulos said: ‘She quickly developed a close friendship with her “Uncle Hitler”. Rosa’s grandmother was a Jew so she was onequarter Jewish – therefore “Jewish” under German laws.’
Mr Panagopulos said research showed that Hitler became aware of the girl’s Jewish heritage, but ‘chose to ignore it’, adding: ‘In the book “Hitler, As I Saw Him”, Hoffmann tells us Hitler is said to have overruled Bormann.
‘It delighted him to see her at The Berghof until some busybody found she was not of pure Aryan descent,’ he wrote.