What? Hitler had a neighbor?

I don't want to know anything more

My wife loves reading the NYT.

A few weeks ago at the breakfast table she told me she’d just read an obit in the newspaper about Hitler’s neighbor. He had just died. He was 101 years old.

I put aside all my normal questions. Neighbor? Where? Munich? Berlin? A townhouse next to Hitler’s bunker?

Instead I was smitten wondering what it would’ve been like to have been Hitler’s neighbor. I have friends who live under the cruel oppression of an HOA. I have heard them complain. “Our HOA? They’re just a bunch of fascists.”

Now I had an anecdote to cheer them. “Imagine if your neighbor was Hitler and he was President of your HOA.”

I had to interview the dead.

Tell me about what it was like to live next-door to der fuhrer.

Der Fuhrer?

Yes, the leader of Nazi Germany.

Gott im Himmel! I thought he the leader of a scout troop!

You didn’t know?

I knew nothing.

You didn’t suspect?

He kept to himself. Once in a while he’d yell from the second story of his home; off his balcony. Thousands of people with torches and red and black flags would fill the street. I put up signs asking folks to not block my driveway. I thought it was unusual but I never complained to the authorities.

And before you knew it—he was the “authorities”…

What do you mean? I knew nothing.

Nothing?

He kept to himself. I did get his mail by mistake a few times. I heard gossip he had the postman executed. People talk. They don’t know! Talk is cheap.

What sort of mail? Official mail? From the Reich Ministry?

Ja. Some. But mostly it was bills and invitations to eat Bavarian sausages while sitting through some sales pitch peddling condos in the German Alps. The mistake was understandable. My last name was Littler.

Did he receive threats?

Ja. I don’t know why. He must have been a controversial scout leader.

I told you he was the Fuhrer.

Whatever. One time I got Hitler’s electric bill in my mailbox undt I opened it by mistake. I knocked undt handed it over undt said to him, “What are you doing over there? Running a war?” He laughed.

Did you see him much outside his home in his yard?

Once I saw him in his yard in Bavarian Lederhosen. He loved cosplay. All kinds of uniforms. I asked him if he owned a costume rental company. He laughed.It was fall. We were both in front of our homes, raking undt burning leaves. I shouted to Mr.Hitler, “I love the smell of the leaves burning in the cool Munich air.”

He waved, and shouted back. “Ja! Undt I love the smell of a battalion of Panzer tanks. Laying waste to Polish and Russian villages.” We both laughed. I’m grateful we never had a property dispute. I heard he could be difficult about such matters.

Was he a family man, your neighbor?

He never married. Not until he moved to Berlin. I heard it was a brief honeymoon.

Did he have servants at the house here?

Ja. He kept the place very neat and clean. His landscaper was excellent at following orders. Ach! Hitler would yell if a blade of grass was out of place!

Did he ever yell at you?

Nein! You think I was crazy?That I’d do anything to piss him off? He was the head of our HOA. I’d see him out in the street and I’d wave and he’d give me that weird stiff wave back. I never understood that weird gesture.

It was a Nazi salute.

A what? I knew nothing. I thought he was a scoutmaster. Nothing more.