Hitler 'was a vegetarian'
myth
Hitler
Omnivore (human as) hoax
Book
Hitler: Neither Vegetarian Nor Animal Lover by Rynn Berry
Quotes
"When my book “Famous
Vegetarians” was published, I was constantly being heckled by hostile
nonvegetarians who asked me why I hadn’t put Hitler in the book. So I decided to
research the matter and discovered five primary sources and countless secondary
sources attesting that Hitler continued to eat liver dumplings, cured ham and
other meats throughout his life; so he was emphatically not a vegetarian. Also,
I have many nonvegetarian friends who claim that they would become vegetarian
were it not for the fact that Hitler had been a vegetarian. Recently the founder
of USA Today, Al Neuharth, said
in an opinion column
that his wife and children were turning vegetarian, but he could never become
one, because he, a World War II veteran, had fought against Hitler, the infamous
vegetarian. For these and many other reasons, I thought it was important to
correct the historical record."-----Rynn
Berry
Although Hitler consumed animal products such as cheese,
butter, and milk, he often tried to avoid meat to placate his
"nervous stomach." He suffered from indigestion and episodic
stomach pains that had troubled him since adolescence, as well
as from excessive flatulence and uncontrollable sweating. The
first evidence of his attempt to cure his stomach problems by
controlling his diet appears in a letter he wrote in 1911
while living in Vienna: "I am pleased to be able to inform you
that I already feel altogether well....It was nothing but a
small stomach upset and I am trying to cure myself through a
diet of fruits and vegetables."
Hitler discovered that when he reduced his meat intake, he
did not sweat as much, and there were fewer stains in his
underwear. He also became convinced that eating vegetables
improved the odors of his flatulence, a condition that
distressed him terribly and caused him much embarrassment.
Hitler, who had a great fear of contracting cancer, which
killed his mother, believed that meat eating and pollution
caused cancer.
Nonetheless, Hitler never gave up his favorite meat
dishes, especially Bavarian sausages, liver dumplings, and
stuffed and roasted game. The European chef Dione Lucas, who
worked as a hotel chef in Hamburg before the war, remembers
often being called upon to prepare for Hitler his favorite
dish. "I do not mean to spoil your appetite for stuffed squab
[fledgling pigeon about four weeks old]," she wrote in her
cookbook, "but you might be interested to know that it was a
great favorite with Mr. Hitler, who dined at the hotel often.
Let us not hold that against a fine recipe though."
Whatever his dietary preferences, Hitler showed little
sympathy for the vegetarian cause in Germany. When he came to
power in 1933, he banned all the vegetarian societies in
Germany, arrested their leaders, and shut down the main
vegetarian magazine published in Frankfurt. Nazi persecution
forced German vegetarians, a tiny minority in a nation of
carnivores, either to flee the country or go underground. The
German pacifist and vegetarian, Edgar Kupfer-Koberwitz, fled
to Paris and then to Italy where the Gestapo arrested him and
sent him to the Dauchau concentration camp (see Chapter 8).
During the war Germany banned all vegetarian organizations in
the territories it occupied, even though vegetarian diets
would have helped alleviate wartime food shortages.
According to the historian Robert Payne, the myth of
Hitler's strict vegetarianism was the work of Nazi Germany's
minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels:
Hitler's asceticism played an important part in the
image he projected over Germany. According to the widely
believed legend, he neither smoke nor drank, nor did he
eat meat or have anything to do with women. Only the
first was true. He drank beer and diluted wine frequently,
had a special fondness for Bavarian sausages and kept a
mistress, Eva Braun, who lived with him quietly at the
Berghof.
There had been other discreet affairs with women.
His asceticism was fiction invented by Goebbels to
emphasize his total dedication, his self-control, the distance that separated him from other men. By this outward show of asceticism, he could claim that he was dedicated to the service of his people.
Hitler was, in fact, "remarkably self-indulgent and
possessed none of the instincts of the ascetic," writes Payne.
His cook was an enormously fat man named Willy Kannenberg, who
produced exquisite meals. "Although Hitler had no fondness for
meat except in the form of sausages and never ate fish, he
enjoyed caviar and was a connoisseur of sweets, crystallized
fruit, and cream cakes, which he consumed in astonishing
quantities. He drank tea and coffee drowned in cream and
sugar. No dictator ever had a sweeter tooth."
Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust by Charles
Patterson