This photo was taken by a Munich photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann during a rally to support the war against Russia on the 2nd of August, 1914. A day before the Reich presidential election, the Illustrierter Beobachter published an image of Adolf Hitler at the rally, with the caption: “Adolf Hitler, the German patriot. When on 1 August 1914 tens of thousands of deeply moved Munich citizens listened to the last notes of the band, suddenly the German anthem washed over the square. In the midst of the crowd stood with shining eyes – Adolf Hitler”.
It became up to Hitler to prove to people that the image of a Nazi leader could show a patriot and a man of the people. The picture aided the Nazi propaganda greatly as it became famous, appearing with captions like, “Adolf Hitler: A man of the People”.
One of the founders and photographers of the Nazi paper, Heinrich Hoffmann, argues that the photograph of Hitler wasn’t planned and that he discovered Hitler in the photo by chance after the future Führer visited his studio in 1929.
He alleges that when Hitler mentioned that he was present in the 1914 Declaration of War, he sought and inspected thoroughly every photo he had taken that day. Hoffman says that he brought out a glass picture negative he planned to throw away and found Hitler in the image.
“I only needed to search for a very short time, one standing there, yes, it’s him – his hair falls over the forehead”, Hoffmann continued, “His face cannot deceive – it was him”.
Many people believe that the photograph was manipulated by Hoffmann to feature Hitler. The claim stands as research hasn’t produced the original of picture nor has intense scrutiny of the newsreel footage helped pick Hitler’s face from the crowd.
Pictures from the war show Hitler sporting a large moustache, as was fashionable at the time. The practice of shaving moustaches down to a “toothbrush” shape was introduced during the war so men could wear gas masks comfortably; before 1914, the fashion was unknown.
However, if the photograph is genuine, then Adolf Hitler in Europe, wore a toothbrush moustache in 1914, grew a big moustache during the war, and then went back to a toothbrush style after the war, which seems very unlikely. If he was actually in Munich and his presence in the crowd wasn’t a story, then there’s a high possibility that the picture was worked on to make him more recognizable to Germans in the Thirties.
RELATED: The Story Of Sarajevo’s Romeo And Juliet, 1993
