Small Peculiar

Though there are differing accounts of how it happened, historians seem to agree that Hitler and Maurice (who looked a bit like Terry Jones of Monty Python) eventually fell out not because of Maurice’s non-Aryan ancestry but because he got romantically involved with poor doomed Geli Raubal, Hitler’s half-sister’s daughter, of whom Hitler was very possessive, probably because he was also romantically (and sexually) involved with her. Maurice wrote of Raubal that “her big eyes were a poem,” which surprised me when I first read them, but then I thought, why wouldn’t a Nazi have poetic sentiments as well as anyone else? Poetry comes from human beings, and Nazis were human beings.

I don’t think I succeeded very well in conveying Himmler’s disconcertingly tiny glasses, which in turn make his eyes seem tiny and convey a sense of shiftiness and secrecy to his overall appearance. I don’t know if he came across that way in person, or if in person as in photographs he seemed to be smirking. It’s probably just the shape of his lips but he often seems to be wearing this enigmatic Mona Lisa kind of smile, as if he’s played a big trick on someone that hasn’t been revealed yet.

Incidentally, speaking of photographs, while researching this comic I came across what I’m pretty sure is the most joyless image in the history of still photography, this 1924 photo of Maurice and Hitler in lederhosen. Is that a lute Maurice is holding?