Eugen Dollmann - With Hitler and Mussolini: Memoirs of a Nazi Interpreter

Copyright 1967 by Eugen Dollmann

First Skyhorse Publishing edition 2017

Foreword 2017 by David Talbot

This book was previously published as The Interpreter by Hutchinson & Co (Publishers) Ltd. in London

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Rain Saukas

Cover photo credit: Art Resource

Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-1594-3

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-1596-7

Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

Obersalzberg, 1939: Balbo, Dollmann and Hitler

Hitlers visit to RomeMay 1938 (from left to right) Hitler, Mussolini, Goebbels, Himmler, Adjunct Schaub and Dollmann

Himmler in TripoliNovember 1938 (Collmann in the center)

Visit of Reichsfrauenfuhrherin ScholtzKlinck to Italy1939: (Dollmann and the Marchesa Olga Medici on her left)

The Contessa Colonna, Duchessa di Sermoneta

Hitler with the Countess Attolico

The Duke and Duchess of Windsor with Hitler at the Berghof

The Crown Princess of Italy with the German Ambassador to Rome, von Mackensen, and his wife

Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the Central State Security Bureau, in Rome28th October 1938

Count Ciano, Mussolini and von Hassell awaiting the arrival of Chamberlain and Halifax in RomeJanuary 1939

Hitler, Dollmann, Ciano and von Ribbentrop in BerlinMay 1938

Mussolini and Hitler

(from left to right) Hitler, Mussolini, Ciano and Keitel in FlorenceOctober 1940

Riccis visit to Goebbels: (from left to right) Goebbels, Dollman, Ricci and Schirach

Osteria AlfredoRome 1938: (from right to left behind table) von Hassell, Rossoni (Minister of Agriculture), Dollmann and Darr

The funeral of Bocchini in RomeNovember 1940: (from left to right) General Karly Wolff, Heydrich, Serena (Secretary of the Facist Party), Himmler and Dino Grandi

Castle of KlessheimApril 1943: General Ambrosio, Hermann Gring and Dollmann

Mussolini at Kesselrings headquarters in ParmaAugust 1944: (from left to right) Dollmann, Mussolini, Major Zolling and Kesselring

FOREWORD

BY DAVID TALBOT

SS COLONEL EUGEN DOLLMANN was not one of the most central figures in Hitlers inner circle, but he certainly was the most dishy. As the Rome-based interpreter who linked together the German-Italian axis during World War II, he had unique access to the Fhrer and his top henchmen, as well as the decadent milieu surrounding Mussolini. He was not as morally depraved as those he served, but his cynicism made him capable of accommodating himself to their baroque evils. Dollmann was a self-serving opportunist who prostituted himself to fascism. That was the succinct historical judgment of Holocaust scholar Michael Salter. And yet, precisely because he did not drink fully from Hitlers poisoned chalice, Dollmann was able to observe his masters from a droll distance like the world-weary characters played by George Sanders. This perspectiveintimate, but detachedmakes his memoirs an utterly fascinating and disturbing reading experience.

Dollmanns companion volumes caused something of a sensation when they were published in Europe under the original titles Call Me a Coward (1956) and The Interpreter (1967). But they have long been forgotten, until now. With Americas descent into its own bizarre nightmare, the discovery of these lost memoirs seems exquisitely well-timed. The inner world of fascist power that Dollmann reveals is both all too human and frighteningly monstrous.

The man who enabled Hitler and Mussolini to communicate with each other was a closeted homosexual, serving a regime that sent thousands of gay men to the gas chambers. This is just one of many ironies that defined Eugen Dollmann. To make things even stranger, Dollmann suggests that Hitlers own fondness for boyish-looking men was a well-known secret in certain German circles during his rise to power.