The Button-Down Mind of Adolph Hitler
Still more evidence for the Roth Effect, the idea that reality is simply far too weird for novelists to credibly portray it in fiction:
[Adolph Hitler] would often break from the serious nature of waging his campaign to "pull the legs" of his entourage of generals and hangers on.
His favourite victim was the Luftwaffe chief Herman Goering, who was notoriously fond of awarding himself medals and decorations.
According to the book by the last surviving member of his bunker, Hitler recounted how Mrs Goering found her husband waving a baton over his underwear in the bedroom and asked him what he was doing.
"He replied: "I am promoting my underpants to OVERpants"", Hitler then joked.
Hitler was said to be so proud of his joke that he had medals made from gold and silver paper for Goering to wear on his pyjamas.
On another occasion he noticed his official photographer Heinrich Hoffman had drunk too much and told him: "Don't stand to near the fire Heini—you might burst into flames."
These laff-riot lines come from a book to be published later this year by "Rochus Misch, 90, the telephonist in the Berlin Bunker where Hitler spent his last days before killing himself in April 1945."
Random question: Does this change Pat Buchanan's opinion of World War II?
