“Oh Hitler!”“Oh Geli – meine kleine gehaltenmitgemütlichemkirchenkunsterschwartzeweldekirschtorte, is that a hard or a soft G?”“It’s hard. But the rest of me is soft, so soft, mein Fuhrer. You know my name rhymes with gaily, which is an English word meaning happily.”“Mine rhymes with whittler which is an English word meaning one who complains a great deal. But you can call me Uncle Adolph.”No, it’s not like that at all. That’s what it would have been like if I’d written it. Not so good. Hitler’s Niece is a novel that makes you feel queasy and not a little disgusted it’s also impossible to review without spoilers of one magnitude or another, so let me say straight away – this thing between Geli and Hitler? It comes to a bad end. And this guy Hitler, he comes to a bad end too. But not in this book.One of the thrilling qualities of the novel is its ability to peer into any corner, and to choose any distance from which to view its subject, and to switch these points of view around like a cardsharp producing a fifth ace. One moment Hitler is haranguing 7000 people in a tent, and then he’s suddenly snuffling in our ear, his silly moustache tickling our lobe. Ach! Horrible. Ron is writing a meticulous historical novel here, and it's got plenty of good stuff in it, but alas, he goes awry in so many ways. He gets himself completely drunk on detail. He piles it on with a spade. In Ron’s world, more is better. There’s lashings of period detail smothered all over the pages like chocolate in that revolting gateau called Death By Chocolate. It’s like Ron has bought a box full of cans marked Spray-On Historical Details (Germany 1920s) from History-R-Us, that well-known superstore chain. “At noon she took the green trolley to Odeonsplatz and bought a hair waver, two pairs of silk stockings, patent leather heels by Ferragamo, a yellow satin housecoat with pajama trousers, a Vionnet tweed coat cuffed and bordered in nutria, a Lanvin evening gown in black faille and strass, and a Lanvin silver coat with a white fox collar."“Geli strolled by a fair illustration in oil paints of the Sixteenth Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment on its first attack in Flanders in 1914, and then walked to one of Hitler’s many eighteenth-century paintings of Frederick the Great. She realised for the first time that the king of Prussia’s left hand was effeminately posed on his hip, just as her uncle’s often was.”And there’s also great wodges of unfictionalised historical exposition straight out of a boring history book :“An American businessman named Owen Young chaired an international commission that sought to give Germany economic relief by amending many punitive conditions of the Treaty of versailles. Agreeing with Gustav Stresemann, Germany’s foreign minister, the commission established a ceiling of 121 billion reichsmarks in war reparations, to be paid off in fifty-nine yearly installments”Hello? are you asleep yet? I nearly was. As you see, this stuff could have been cut and pasted from some really dull textbook. And there’s much more… but I’ll spare you. It’s not like this is stuff you need to know to understand what’s going off in the life of Adolph, it’s all just noises off, and anyone with the merest grasp of German inter-war history can do without Ron’s history lectures.Well, the main event in this novel is the grisly pas-de-deux of young Geli and the not-quite-fuhrer-yet. There’s a strong and profoundly unhealthy titillation of the reader going on here, of dripping prurience, a literary leer in lederhosen. Roll up, ladeezngentlemen, don’t be shy. Let Ron take you by the hand and lead you step by step closer to Hitler’s very bedroom. Yes! You will see with your own eyes the gorgeous unclothed form of 19 year old Geli – it rhymes with gaily! - in all it's slurplable loveliness; yes! you will see what romping with the future fuhrer is all about. Yes! You will see with your very own eyes - only one dollar one average sized dollar, thankyew - you will see the PENIS of the FUTURE FUHRER! Nobody does it like Hitler! Roll up!Another Ron, Ron Rosenbaum, wrote a great book called Explaining Hitler which includes an extraordinary interview with Claude Lanzmann, director of Shoah. The irascible Frenchman launches into an apoplectic tirade about Hitler’s baby photos. These photos are an obscenity, he says. They should never have been published. All this analysis of Hitler’s life, his mind, his soul, it’s an abomination. Because psychohistory is a figleaf for revisionism. To explain is to understand is to justify. All right, so, don’t be giving Claude a copy of Hitler’s Niece for his birthday present. Because all the gruesome human Hitlers you’ve been previously spared are here! Look - jolly Hitler, jumping Hitler, jesting Hitler, joyful Hitler, happy Hitler, playful Hitler, cringing Hitler, oh no, surely not, no, he wouldn’t, yes yes it’s true - masturbating Hitler. They’re all here. Roll up.I dunno. Ron does do a very good job in painting stroke by stroke Geli’s awful entrapment and predicament. This was not a situation she was going to be allowed to leave and she knew it. That part of this book grabbed me and convinced me (in one of those “yes! it must have been just like that!” moments). But, I dunno. The situation between them was one thing. But Ron goes farther and shows us what he imagines Hitler was “really like”, what he “really wanted” – the truth about Hitler. Which turns out to be fairly pervy S&M sex-game stuff. And even Ron ends up by hinting darkly at stuff he doesn’t wish to describe. “The things he makes me do!” wails Geli, without elaboration. But really, is it not facile – is it not the most lazy form of moral stereotyping, to imagine that because Adolf Hitler was a moral monster , was evil personified, his sexual life must therefore also have been depraved and horrible? Because that's what he was "really like" ? People are funny, you know. Sometimes, even, they’re complex.Not to say, as I say, that Ron Hansen can't write well, he can :p153 :He flinched at hearing the world "love" and his hooded stare fled to four parts of the room.That's good stuff. But the Fuhrer's penis - not so much.
Hitler's Niece is a well written book about Adolf Hitler "relationship" with his niece Geli Raubal. It's a entertaining book nonetheless, if your interested in learning about how Adolf Hitler was before he started his Nazi Rise to power. Hitler once said that "Geli was the only woman I've ever loved" and you can see how that statement is true in the book. However his actions clearly show that he doesn't know what love is, he wanted a very controlling relationship where literally Geli couldn't do anything without his premission. This book also shares light into other head Nazis who at the time were not of any importance besides working for the Nazi Party. If you know your Nazi history and are familiar with some of the head Nazi's you will also see in the book of how they were before the Nazi Rise. Nazi's such as Hess, Himmler, Goring, Goebells, and others. In the end though Geli at the young age of twenty three commits suicide however the author gives a very graphic view that it was Hitler who had killed her and not Geli herself. We then get to read just how far the Nazis are willing to go to cover up this scandal and protect there Fuhur and the Nazi Party. The book also gives a very good insight into the mantipilative, hard boiled mind of Adolf Hitler. In the end though Geli's death is not the only tragedy at the end of the book. We read how a grief stricken Hitler griefs for three day straight then goes to say goodbye to his niece by planting twenty three of her favorite flowers at her gravesite. Then decides to start planning his Nazi Rise to power and the upcoming elections and as the author wrote it best "He held his state on the wall beside Hess's head as if on the doorway with a loved one behind it and just about to enter, or as if he were imagining a history still to be written, imaging six million Jews. With a firm and confident voice he said, "And now let the struggle begin." The final tragedy is that of Geli Raubal herself who in the end had had enough of the good spoiled life her Uncle Alof was providing for her because of the terrible costs it was coming at. She just wanted to go home to Wein but of course never made it and the tragedy of the love she could have had with Emil Maurice if it wasn't for Hitler keeping that apart, who knows maybe they could have been happy together, far away from Germany and Hitler. However like history goes "it's one of those things we will never know."
What do You think about Hitler's Niece (2000)?
Öncelikle bu bir roman. Yani birçok kısmı kurgu. Kurgular başarılı mı? Bence yeterince değil. Hitler bazı yerlerde hiç olmayacağını düşündüğüm şekilde aciz hallere düşüyor ya da ağzından çıkmasını beklemeyeceğiniz cümleler kuruyor. Geli, yani Hitler'in yeğeninin diyalogları daha inandırıcı geliyor çünkü onu daha az tanıyoruz. Bunun dışında Hitler'in en yakınındaki Hess, Goebbles gibi Naziler'in kurgu diyaloglarının da çok başarılı olduğu söylenemez. Yani Hitler'in yeğeni ile olan garip ilişkisini merak edip, daha önce bu konuda basılmış tarihi/biyografik kitapların çevirisinin olmaması ya da artık basılmaması yüzünden bu romanı okudum aslında. Tabi okumadan önce nelerin gerçek nelerin kurgu olduğunu anlayabilmek için biraz dönem bilgisi şart.
—Mirac Rüzgar
So this book is horrifying and disgusting; it starts out incredibly boring, focusing more on Angela, Hitler's mother, than it does on the niece and then gradually shifts to Geli (the niece). Her relationship with Hitler is okay at first, but it starts to get really creepy. He spanks her, controls her life, brandishes guns at her, and more. Hansen gives the reader the unpleasant honor of knowing what Hitler looks like naked. Instead of the mutual friendship and love they seemed to have in the beg
—Courtney Hancock
I was fascinated to learn about Geli, who apparently played a large part in the life of Hitler yet remains a very small persona in the large history of Adolf Hitler. It was difficult to get into the book; it seemed as if the book couldn't decide whether it wanted to be fiction or non-fiction. The writing was clumsy, and it didn't get terribly interesting until a bit into the book. Hansen eventually found the flow, though, and the writing and narrative grew more fluid as the action progressed. As is always the problem with historical fiction pieces such as this one, it is frustrating trying to pick out what an actual recorded occurrence or statement and what was fictitious creativity. In the end, I probably would have preferred reading a non-fiction work, but with the controversy and mystery surrounding Geli's death, a fictional piece had the luxury of picking a side and following it through to its creepy conclusion.The fictionalization of Hitler in this novel was interesting to say the least. He was repeatedly described as "whining" and childish, which was difficult to reconcile with the volume and anger of the Hitler I see in other areas. I am not sure how convinced I was by the portrayal, as I didn't feel that Hitler's peevish side was successfully linked to the public persona that the world pictures his as today.Overall, I was glad to know more about this somewhat hidden part of history, but the characters were not consistent (even in their inconsistencies), and the writing seemed too unsure of its status in the Dewey Decimal System.Warning: spoilers below.This Hitler creeped me the eff out. His grotesque pursuit of his much younger niece and his eventual sexual domineering of her were so disgusting and repulsing that if I never knew the meaning of having my "skin crawl" before, I definitely know now. The description of a naked Hitler with "tan teeth" jerking off while subjugating Geli was perverse and disturbing.I had a distinctly hard time understanding the character of Geli as portrayed in this book. She was an intelligent, bright, and clever girl by all accounts, so I don't see how she could go through fits of jealousy over Hitler's attentions to other girls while he overshadowed every part of her life and often left her feeling violated. She kept wondering if he would ever marry her, wondered about whether he loved her or not, and even thought about doing sexual things with him after he had done disturbing things and betrayed her trust by showing naked pictures of her to all of his comrades.
—Jennifer
