Darling Debo
Last night the Führer was talking about which of us was going to the Parteitag, and he says he specially wants you to go. Isn’t it wonderful. I told what a marvellous rider you are and he thinks you are so beautiful and wants you to see the Parteitag while you are young. So of course I said you would be thrilled and he arranged it all, on the spot. Isn’t he kind and sweet. He talked a lot about Farve and his speech1 and said he should thank him very specially when he sees him at Nürnberg.
I must rush off now, but I know you will be excited when you get this.
Lots of love from Honks
Darling Boud
You can’t think how thrilled your Boud was – in fact we all were – to read your letter to the Fem, the Fem was out when it arrived & your Boud died to open it but she managed not to. I am so glad you are in Corsica because ever since we went there I have thought it the most heavenly place in the world – do you remember the attractive French officer Yobboud fell in love with in that fortress in Ajaccio, and is he still there?1
Boud ee ub je eedjend vegudden je Boudle2 because she thinks the whole time about you. I was so terribly sad to be coming back knowing my Boud wouldn’t be there, and altogether your Boud has been so much in despair about it all & so miserable that she couldn’t write until now.
I feel sure you are having the most wonderful time & I envy you all the sun & bathing like anything.
Baby [Erdödy] is here, she came back to England with me in my car & we both return to the Continent next week. She sends you lots of love. I think she is quite enjoying it here. Yesterday Aunt Puss3 took us both to a play & was killing as usual. The Widow adores Baby & wants her to go to Totland Bay. The other day there was a huge headline in the E. Standard – ‘BLACK WIDOWS DOOMED IN CASE OF WAR’. Naturally we all supposed it included the Widow but it turned out that it means the Black Widow spiders at the Zoo, because their bites are fatal & they intend killing them at once in case a bomb or something might break their cage & let them loose. Isn’t it killing. The Widow stayed here for two nights she was a scream, she wore a shiny green satin blouse which Farve insisted on calling her ‘imperméable’, he also kept saying she had à ‘coiffure à la jolie femme’.4 We all shrieked.
Well Boud I have enjoyed writing to you because I almost feel as if we had had a chat.
Very best love from Yobboud
Darling Nard
It is a shame you can’t come to Bayreuth, & also to the Berg1 tomorrow, I am really awfully excited for that because it’s the only side of his life which I don’t know at all. Magda will be sorry you’re not in Bayreuth, won’t she.
What I couldn’t tell you on the telephone was this. You remember my little friend from Vienna who you said was like an Indian, & his pretty blonde fiancée who asked the Führer for an autograph in the Osteria. Well yesterday she telephoned & said could she come & see me for five minutes, but her fiancé mustn’t know anything about it. So this morning she came, & she was here when you telephoned. You know Heinz, her fiancé, was a member of the SS in Vienna – I believe since 1932. He was a tremendously enthusiastic Nazi & really risked everything for the cause during the Schuschnigg Regime. Well it seems that just after the Machtübernahme2 his father, also a member of the Partei, who had brought him up to be very ‘national-denkend’ [nationalistically minded], told him that both his (Heinz’s) mother’s parents were Jewish. Of course poor Heinz was completely erledigt [shattered] when he heard it, & wanted to shoot himself at once, which it seems to me would have been the best way out. Though, officially, he doesn’t count as a Jew as both the grandparents were baptized. But for Heinz, being a real Nazi ‘aus Überzeugung’ [by conviction], that naturally made no difference. His father made him promise not to do anything until they had had a reply to their Ersuch [request] to the Führer, but so far there has been no reply, & in the meanwhile of course he is having what is practically a nervous breakdown. Well it seems that there are several half-Jews who have, at one time or another, been allowed to remain in the Party on account of special Verdienste [services]. So they hope that he also will, though of course this will anyhow, from his own point of view, have ruined his life. So she came to ask me if I would help her, & I told her that if she would write a personal letter to the Führer I would give it to him personally. Isn’t it awful for them, poor things. I must say it gave me an awful shock when she told me.
At lunch, a man who was there, said the Osteria was just like an Italian Osteria, ‘nur viel sauberer’.3 At that the Führer looked at me out of the corner of his eye & then started to blither [giggle] quite uncontrollably, & when he had sufficiently regained his composure he said ‘Das hört sie gern’.4 I think the man was amazed. When he left he said, ‘come to the Berg any day you like between now & the 20th’. Later I rang up & said might I come today, but he sent a message to say that today he has Besprechungen [meetings] but would I come tomorrow. It is a shame you’re not here.
Well now I will run out & post your dress. I will finish this letter after my Obersalzberg visit, so I can tell you about it. Later. I have just returned from posting your dress, and just as a matter of interest I must tell you what it was like, & I think you might speak to your Minister O.5 about it. Well I had to fill in six long & quite unintelligible forms, and then take one of them to the Reichsbank in the Briennerstrasse. Of course, all this didn’t matter at all to me as I have all the time in the world & a motor; but imagine some wretched person who had to work hard & had no motor! I think it really might be changed, do speak to the Minister about it. 20th July. Well I arrived back late last night from the Berg, & will tell you about it. It was really simply heavenly. Well the drive up takes about 20 minutes, & when I arrived at the house, there were the Führer & Wagner waiting for me on the balcony or terrass. I was taken to them through the house, & they both said, ‘Wo ist die Schwester?’6 so I explained. Well I must say I never in my life saw such a view as one sees from that house, the whole chain of mountains lying at one’s feet so to speak. Well the Führer & Wagner & Schaubchen7 & I went & had tea in the big room or hall. It is simply huge & hung with wonderful pictures & tapestry, & at one end it has a raised platform with a big round tea table & a huge Kamin [chimney], & at the other end the whole wall is one huge window. The effect is simply extraordinary. The window – the largest piece of glass ever made – can be wound down like a motor window, as it was yesterday, leaving it quite open. Through it one just sees this huge chain of mountains, and it looks more like an enormous cinema screen than like reality. Needless to say the génial [brilliant] idea was the Führer’s own, & he said Frau Troost8