Just before the men’s 1500 meters free-style swimming ended, a woman wearing a red heart, who had repeatedly tried to take pictures of Adolf Hitler at close range and had the Black Guards repeatedly stop her, broke through the barrier during the elation of the end of the race, shook Hitler’s hand and kissed him to the laughter of the crowd of 20,000.
Adolf Hitler was in a very joyous mood and so laughed along with the crowd, clapping while the woman went back to her seat.
The woman named Carla De Vries was a 40-year-old American on a tour of Europe. Her brother-in-law, in a statement, said; “She wanted to meet Hitler but I’m surprised at the way she did it”.
She, however, gave her reasoning, saying when asked why; “Why? I simply embraced him because he appeared so friendly and gracious. People sitting near Der Fuehrer’s box began to cheer and applaud so loudly that I ran back to my husband and told him we had better leave. I don’t know why I did it. Certainly, I hadn’t planned such a thing.
It’s just that I’m a woman of impulses, I guess. It happened when I went down to take Hitler’s picture with my small movie camera. Hitler was leaning forward, smiling, and he seemed so friendly that I just stepped up and asked for his autograph, which he wrote on my swimming ticket. He kept on smiling and so I kissed him”.
While the woman received a pleasant reception, his guards didn’t face the same fate. Most of Hitler’s guards were dismissed disgracefully while even more were demoted in rank for their failure to stop the woman.
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