Viewing History at a Personal Leval

I've had very few opportunities to meet famous or historical characters, but the few times that I have met people who have a public image, I've found the personal impression very different from the image you see in the media.

What about the monsters of History? Have you ever wondered what it would be like to know a monster like Hitler not as a Historical personality, but as a Human being? Does it even make sense to think of someone like Hitler as a Human being with human characteristics.

Recently the Daily Mail had an article about Rosa Mitterer, who was a maid to Hitler in the 1930s and remembers him not as a monster out of history, but rather as a "charming" employer.

I found the article fascinating, here are some highlights:

Source: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1091768/Hitler-perfect-boss-Former-maid-breaks-silence-charming-dictator.html

... for one woman, the name Adolf Hitler evokes a smile not a shudder.
She is Rosa Mitterer, who worked as a maid for the Fuhrer at his mountain retreat in Bavaria in the 1930s.
...

And her verdict on her former master: 'He was a charming man, someone who was only ever nice to me, a great boss to work for. You can say what you like, but he was a good man to us.'

Rosa's remembrances of life at the court of the tyrant make gripping reading. She saw leading Nazis come and go. Himmler, the evil party secretary; Bormann, whom she described as a 'dirty pig'; and the club-footed, sexually-obsessed propaganda minister Goebbels.

Rosa went into Hitler's service at the age of 15 in 1932 when she was Rosa Krautenbacher. Her sister Anni had worked as a cook at Hitler's Berchtesgaden retreat since the late 1920s.

'She said he needed a housemaid and I would fit the bill,' Rosa recalled. 'I remember so clearly the first day I spoke to him in the kitchen. I said I was Anni's sister and that made him smile, because Anni was his favourite. I only ever knew Hitler as a kindly man who was good to me.'

...

Recalling her first direct request from her master, she said she was drying some porcelain cups when he came down the stairs.

'Hello,' he said softly. 'Sorry to trouble you, but could you make me some coffee and bring some gingerbread biscuits to my study?'

Coming into such close proximity to Hitler made her feel faint, she said, but she soon became accustomed to life at Berghof.

...

'That he had ordered such terrible things, I just couldn't believe it,' she said. 'Even now, I prefer to remember the charming facets of his personality.'