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100 Shocking Facts About Hitler You Rarely See in History Books

Paulus Refuses To Die

Source: Wikimedia

26. When the battle of Stalingrad appeared lost for the Germans, Hitler expected his General, F. Paulus, to kill himself. His reply was: “I have no intention of shooting myself for this Bohemian corporal”. Paulus surrendered on Feb 2, 1943.

27. In 1919, a man named Michael Keogh stopped an angry mob of 200 men, some carrying bayonets, from killing two right winged political agents they were attacking. In 1930, at a Nuremberg rally, Keogh recognized one of the agents he had saved. It was Adolf Hitler.

28. U.S. Congress brings up Hitler 7.7 times per month.

29. In 1937, a natural gas leak at the local school in New London, Texas led to a huge explosion that killed more than 295 students and teachers, the deadliest school disaster in US history. Adolf Hitler even sent his condolences via telegram.

30. Adolf Hitler never considered the Chinese and Japanese to be below the Aryans. He believed that “their past history was superior to our own.”

31. While looking out over Paris, which had recently been taken, Hitler whistled Disney’s “When You Wish Upon A Star.”

32. At his war crimes sentencing, Hermann Göring, one of Hitler’s leading officers, asked to be shot like a soldier rather than hanged like an ordinary man. The court rejected that request, and he then killed himself using a potassium cyanide capsule hidden inside a fountain pen.

33. Emil Maurice, one of Hitler’s personal chauffeurs and a close friend, was discovered to be Jewish and was marked for removal from the SS by Heinrich Himmler. After learning of Maurice’s Jewish ancestry, Hitler made an exception for Maurice and his brothers and called them “honorary Aryans.”

34. Adolf Hitler commissioned the Volkswagen Beetle. It was intended to be the “People’s Car,” which is the origin of the Volkswagen name.

35. Adolf Hitler in 1938, Joseph Stalin in 1939 and 1942, and Ayatollah Khomeni in 1979 were all named TIME “Person of the Year.”

Pledge Salute Came First

Source: Wikimedia

36. Before the Nazis adopted the salute now commonly called the “Hitler salute,” Americans used it while reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

37. Hitler’s doctor, Theodor Morell, was accused of sympathizing with the Allies after it was discovered that he had given Hitler cocaine eye drops, methamphetamines, and E. Coli.

38. Following his failed 1923 coup, Hitler served just eight months of his five-year sentence. This was the standard punishment for those the judge thought had honorable but mistaken intentions.

39. During World War II, the Comanche Code Talkers used “Crazy white man” as the code term for “Hitler.”

40. Adolf Hitler’s nephew, William Patrick Hitler, served in the U.S. Navy during World War II and received a Purple Heart. After trying to profit from his uncle’s rise to power in Germany, he turned against him and later made his home in the USA.

41. All of the spies Hitler believed he had in Britain were actually double agents controlled by the British.

42. In 1944, just before the Liberation of Paris, Hitler ordered the city governor to reduce it to a “pile of rubble” and to destroy every religious and historical monument. The governor refused, preserving Paris.

43. In his second book, written in 1928, Hitler placed the United States as the most dangerous possible enemy. He viewed most Americans as “Aryans” governed by a Jewish plutocracy, considered the UK a possible ally, described Russians as “incapable of intelligent thought,” and said France was quickly “Negroizing” itself.

44. The Walther PPK, the handgun made famous by James Bond, was the same model Hitler used to kill himself.

45. Hitler prohibited the Nobel Prize and established his own German National Prize for Art and Science, giving one to Ferdinand Porsche, who created the world’s first hybrid car and the Volkswagen Beetle.

D-Day Deception Web

Source: Wikimedia

46. The Allied plan to hide the D-Day invasion used false radio messages, double agents, an Australian actor, and fake invasion plans aimed at Calais, Norway, the Mediterranean, and the Balkans. It worked so well that Hitler thought the real invasion had not started until seven weeks after D-Day.

47. Francisco Franco ordered many of the same deadly xenophobic and religious “solutions” as Hitler and Mussolini, and he was asked to join the Axis during World War II, but he stayed neutral enough that Richard Nixon described him as a “loyal friend and ally of the United States.”

48. Adolf Hitler firmly refused to use poison gas on the WWII battlefield because he had been exposed to it during World War I.

49. After Hitler announced that all American films were banned during the occupation of France, a theater owner reportedly showed Mr. Smith Goes to Washington nonstop for 30 days.

50. When the D-Day forces landed, Hitler was asleep. None of his generals dared to send reinforcements without his approval, and no one dared wake him.

Sources: 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50

About the author

Miss Paws

Hi! I'm Bea Pawswell, your feline-loving fact curator behind FactPaw.com. Equal parts trivia junkie and unapologetic cat whisperer, I spend my days sipping iced coffee, hoarding useless knowledge, and sharing the most fascinating, funny, and bizarre tidbits the world has to offer. If it's weird, surprising, or wonderfully obscure — you bet it’s already in my paws.

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