“Hitler’s sweet girl. It made him happy to see her at the Berghof until someone discovered she wasn’t of pure Aryan descent.” (Heinrich Hoffmann). Real photo postcard of Hitler and his “Jewish daughter, ” Rosa Bernile Nienau. Photographer: Heinrich Hoffmann (Adolf Hitler’s personal photographer. On the back of the postcard is printed: photo Hoffman). Berghof – Munich, 1930s.
The postcard was sent on February 14, 1944, from the island of Jersey in the British Channel Islands, which was under Nazi occupation, to Hamburg, Germany, to a recipient named Karl Hennig, bearing the rare “Jersey Postage” stamp featuring a landscape and wall illustration—a government-issued official stamp released by the local authorities in Jersey under German occupation (1940–1945), postmarked with both a British and a Nazi stamp. The postmarks, stamps, and recipient represent the operation of a continuous mailing system between the British postal administration and the German postal administration on an occupied island.
Rosa Bernile Nienau [1926-1943] a German-Jewish girl, who was known as the “Jewish daughter of the Führer” because of her close friendship with Adolf Hitler that lasted from 1933 to 1938. Nienau was born on April 20, 1926 – the day in the year of Hitler’s own birthday, and was the daughter of Bernhard Nienau, a doctor (1887–1926), and Caroline, a nurse (1892–1962). Her father died shortly before she was born. Nienau, her mother Caroline and her maternal grandmother Ida (née Morgenstern) Voit, moved to Munich around 1928. Voit, was a teacher of Jewish origin. So that in fact Bernile’s grandmother on one side was Jewish.
In the spring of 1933, apparently at the mother’s initiative, the mother and daughter visited Hitler’s estate in Obersalzberg. Amidst a stream of visitors, the mother managed to attract Hitler’s attention. Apparently after she told him that he and her daughter were born on the same day, Hitler invited her to visit his place. The fact that Bernile’s grandmother and mother were Jewish was known to Hitler in 1933. The daughter took a liking to the torturer, and he developed a “friendship” with the girl that lasted until 1938. Bernile would visit the Berghof from time to time. In the Federal Archives in Berlin there are 17 letters that the girl wrote to Hitler and his assistant Wilhelm Bruckner, probably with the help of her mother, between January 18, 1935 and November 12, 1939. In one of the letters sent to Bruckner in September 1936, she writes: “During the holidays we were on the Obersalzberg and I was allowed twice to visit the uncle Dear Hitler!… Mother also sends you greetings and lots of greetings and kisses from your Bernile!”. As far as is known, Hitler knew about Rosa Bernile’s Jewish origin, but ignored it and continued to treat her in a friendly manner during those years. This came to an end when Martin Bormann – Adolf Hitler’s unofficial deputy and personal secretary – learned that Bernile’s blood was not entirely German. From that day on, the girl and her mother were forbidden to appear in the Berghof. Hitler learned about this from his personal photographer Heinrich Hoffmann (who took the photograph before us), when he told him that he was forbidden to continue publishing photographs of Hitler with his Jewish “daughter”. In his book “Hitler as I saw him”, Hoffman writes that Hitler said about Bormann: “There are people who have a real talent for spoiling my every joy”. In Hoffmann’s book there is a photograph of Hitler with Nienau and the caption: “Hitler’s sweetheart. It made him happy to see her in the Berghof until someone found out that she was not a pure Aryan”. c. May 1938 the mother was officially asked to stop all contacts with the party leaders, and to stop visiting Berghof with her daughter. A year after Hitler’s secretary ordered the stop of his relationship with the girl, World War II began. Rosa, like millions of Jews, did not survive the war. She died of polio at the age of 17 in a hospital in Munich, about a decade after her first meeting with the Nazi oppressor. Her grave is in the Western Cemetery of Munich.
See also Dynasty Sale 25, item 124.
9×14 cm. Very good condition.
