A lot of gossip, nonsense and hearsay is often spoken about people with great historical significance. Adolf Hitler is no exception.
Stamp of Nazi Germany, depicting Adolf Hitler as the Führer of the Reich
Contrary to uneducated popular belief, Hitler was not a homosexual, communist, socialist, atheist, or vegetarian (Reichsführer-SS Himmler was a strict vegetarian; he also believed in astrology and homoeopathy, and claimed to speak with the dead), Hitler never tortured animals, he did not only play White in chess, nor is there any evidence to suggest that he had only one descended testicle (a phenomenon known as cryptorchidism – Mao Zedong suffered from this condition).
The Führer was however, a bit unstable. In fact, there is strong evidence to suggest that the Führer was a paranoid rageaholic.
In his novel HhhH (Himmler’s brains are called Heydrich), Laurent Binet examines the historical evidence whether, once or twice during a meeting, Hitler leaped onto the floor and started chewing the carpet in a blind fit of rage.
‘During the Sudeten crisis the first signs of madness of the Führer were revealed. In those days, the mere mention of Beneš and the Czechs made him so livid he would lose his self-control completely. People have witnessed him throwing himself to the floor and chewing the carpet out of sheer anger. Those fits of madness gave him the nickname Teppichfresser (carpet-eater) among his enemies. I do not know whether he made a habit of chewing the carpets when he completely lost his temper, or whether the symptom disappeared after the Munich agreement.[*]
* Some argue that ‘carpet-eating’ is a German expression which is comparable to the French ‘eating one’s hat’ (to change one’s opinion) and that foreign correspondents have interpreted the expression too literally, which would explain how Hitler got sullied with this legend. However, I have examined the evidence and found no trace of the idiomatic use of the expression.’
– Binet. L. 2010. HhhH [Hitler’s Brains are called Heydrich] Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Meulenhoff (2013) p. 82
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