EARLY YEARS
Ernst Schmidt, the son of a miller, was born in Wurzbach, Thuringia, on December 16, 1889. After leaving school, he became a painter and decorator. According to his own account, Schmidt spent his journeyman’s time working “in various parts of Germany until 1912, in Switzerland in 1913, in France, and, from the spring of 1914 until the outbreak of war… in Bolzano.”
On August 6, 1914, Schmidt joined the First Company of the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment. Other members of the now famous “List Regiment” included Adolf Hitler, Rudolf Hess, Hans Mend, and Max Amann. After initial training in Munich, Schmidt was sent to the Western Front on October 21, 1914 and took part in the First Battle of Ypres. It has been claimed that the List Regiment was reduced from 3,600 to only 611 men during this initial period of fighting!
THE LOVE OF HIS LIFE?
Ernst Schmidt, like Hitler, became a dispatch runner in the early months of the war. Lothar Machtan, author of The Hidden Hitler, has pointed out:
“Employed as regimental runners, they jointly delivered one message with such efficiency – or so we are told – that from November 1914 on they were permanently assigned to regimental headquarters as so-called combat orderlie. As such, they had more freedom within the military hierarchy than other enlisted men…. They were invariably to be seen as a couple, not only when jointly delivering regimental orders to brigade or battalion, but off duty behind the lines.”
Schmidt told a journalist eighteen years later, “I was very much drawn to Hitler.”
Hans Mend, a fellow dispatch runner, claimed that Schmidt and Hitler had a relationship that went beyond friendship:
“We noticed that he (Hitler) never looked at a woman. We suspected him of homosexuality right away, because he was known to be abnormal in any case. He was extremely eccentric and displayed womanish characteristics which tended in that direction. He never had a firm objective, nor any kind of firm beliefs. In 1915, we were billeted in the Le Febre brewery at Fournes. We slept in the hay. Hitler was bedded down at night with Schmidt, his male whore. We heard a rustling in the hay. Then someone switched on his electric flashlight and growled, ‘Take a look at those two nancy boys.’ I myself took no further interest in the matter.”
Machtan has also argued the following:
“Why did Hitler remain a lance corporal throughout the war? His toadying to higher authority, if not his efficiency, should have earned him promotion. We are told that he was offered it but refused. It would probably be more correct to say that he could not bring himself to accept. As a noncom he would sooner or later have been obliged to give up what had hitherto enabled him to tolerate war service so well: Ernst Schmidt, his other faithful partners, a relatively safe existence in the rear echelon, and possibly also, a toleration of the homosexual tendencies he could not have pursued as a noncommissioned officer.”
The List Regiment participated at the crucial Battle of the Somme. On October 2, 1916, Ernst Schmidt was wounded when a shell exploded in the dispatch runners’ dugout, killing and wounding several of them. Among the other casualties was Hitler, who was wounded in the left thigh and spent almost two months in the Red Cross hospital at Beelitz near Berlin. In January, 1917, he wrote to the regiment’s adjutant, Fritz Wiedemann, for permission to return “to the 16th Reserve Infantry Regiment” and serve with his “former comrades”. Hitler also wrote to Sergeant Max Amann to see if he could use his influence to be reassigned to his regiment, his “elective family”. He later recalled that his regiment had taught him “the glorious meaning of a male community”. Eventually, Hitler was allowed rejoin his regiment in March 1917.
In October 1918, Hitler was blinded in a British mustard gas attack. He later wrote in Mein Kampf:
“On a hill south of Werwick, in the evening of October 13th, we were subjected for several hours to a heavy bombardment with gas bombs, which continued throughout the night with more or less intensity. About midnight a number of us were put out of action, some for ever. Towards morning I also began to feel pain. It increased with every quarter of an hour; and about seven o’clock my eyes were scorching as I staggered back and delivered the last dispatch I was destined to carry in this war. A few hours later my eyes were like glowing coals and all was darkness around me.”
Hitler was sent to a military hospital and gradually recovered his sight. While he was in hospital, Germany surrendered:
“Everything went black before my eyes; I tottered and groped my way back to the ward, threw myself on my bunk, and dug my burning head into my blanket and pillow. So it had all been in vain. In vain all the sacrifices and privations; in vain the hours in which, with mortal fear clutching at our hearts, we nevertheless did our duty; in vain the death of two million who died. Had they died for this? Did all this happen only so that a gang of wretched criminals could lay hands on the Fatherland. I knew that all was lost. Only fools, liars and criminals could hope for mercy from the enemy. In these nights hatred grew in me, hatred for those responsible for this deed. Miserable and degenerate criminals! The more I tried to achieve clarity on the monstrous events in this hour, the more the shame of indignation and disgrace burned my brow.”
Hitler went into a state of deep depression, and had periods when he could not stop crying. He spent most of his time turned towards the hospital wall refusing to talk to anyone. Once again Hitler’s efforts had ended in failure.
POSTWAR PALS
At the end of the war, Schmidt returned to Munich. In early 1919, he met up with Hitler, and they worked together as casual laborers. According to Schmidt himself, they also attended the opera in the city:
“We only bought the cheapest seats, but that didn’t matter. Hitler was lost in the music to the very last note; blind and deaf to all else around him.”
Schmidt also pointed out that Hitler had not yet given up hope of being an artist. During this period, Hitler made contact with the well-known artist, Max Zaeper, to whom he “gave several of his works for expert appraisal”.
Hans Mend later told Friedrich Alfred Schmid Noerr that he saw the men together several times:
“I met Adolf Hitler again at the end of 1918. I bumped into him on the Marienplatz in Munich, where he was standing with his friend Ernst Schmidt…. Hitler was then living in a hostel for the homeless at 29 Lothstrasse, Munich. Soon afterward, having camped at my apartment for several days, he took refuge at Traunstein barracks because he was hungry. He managed to get by, as he often did in the future, with the help of his Iron Cross, First Class and his gift of the gab. In January 1919, I again ran into Hitler at the newsstand on Marienplatz. Then, one evening, while I was sitting in the Rathaus Cafe with a girl, Hitler and his friend Ernst Schmidt came in.”
Mend claimed that after the two men left, his girlfriend told him:
“If you’re friendly with people like that, I’m not going out with you anymore.”
THE LOYAL NAZI
Schmidt shared Hitler’s right-wing political opinions. In March 1920, he joined the German Worker’s Party (DAP). Two years later, Schmidt moved to Garching an der Alz, over sixty miles from Munich. He kept in constant touch with Hitler and visited him in May 1924 when he was imprisoned in Landsberg Castle. Schmidt also founded a local branch of the Nazi Party. On the first of May 1925, Hitler sent Schmidt a gilt-edged copy of Mein Kampf that was inscribed to my “dear and faithful wartime comrade”.
In 1931, Ernst Schmidt joined the Sturmabteilung (SA) as a Scharführer (staff sergeant) and rose to the rank Sturmführer (captain). One year later, when Hitler’s political opponents distributed smear stories about him, Schmidt swore several affidavits in his friend’s defense. Hitler rewarded Schmidt generously for his loyalty and discretion, and he was able to build himself a large house in Garching. Schmidt also invested heavily in his building business and purchased an automobile, which was the main symbol of social advancement at the time.
Ernst Schmidt often visited the Reich Chancellory, and in 1934, he was awarded the gold badge of the Nazi Party. Hitler still used Schmidt to promote his image as a brave soldier during the First World War.
In 1937, the Illustrierter Beobachter published an article about “Adolf Hitler and his front-line comrade” and quoted Schmidt as saying:
“If the Führer ever summoned me to perform some special task, I should abandon my job and everything else, and follow him.”
DISSENT AND DEATH
In December 1939, Hans Mend was interviewed by Friedrich Alfred Schmid Noerr (who was also a member of the German Resistance). Mend insisted that Schmidt and Hitler had a homosexual relationship during the war. Soon afterwards, he was arrested and charged with various sexual offenses against women. Mend was sentenced by a special court to two years’ imprisonment. According to prison authorities, Hans Mend died in Zwickau Penitentiary on February 13, 1942.
Schmidt became mayor of Garching… and in 1942, he was appointed district head of the National Socialist German Workers Party. After the Second World War, he was arrested by the allies and imprisoned. In his 1948 de-Nazification hearing, Schmidt admitted that he had been the victim of several blackmail attempts concerning his relationship with Hitler. He referred to a man by the name of Philipp Oberbuchner… who had written several “anonymous letters of malicious content” but had “refrained from preferring charges”.
Ernst Schmidt died in 1985 at the age of ninety-five.