LIFE - Adolf Hitler's Private World

Inside Hitler's Apartment

Sun, 01 Jan 1939 03:00:00 EST

A rare look inside Hitler's apartment, what he saw each day, and how he lived. This room in his Berlin apartment in the "New Chancellery" reflects the Fuhrer's baroque, often sentimental taste. Between 1936 and 1945, Hugo Jaeger served as one of Adolf Hitler's personal photographers and was granted unprecedented access to the Fuhrer's private moments. Here are rare and never-before-published color images from Jaeger's astonishing collection.

Hitler's Quiet Place

Sun, 01 Jan 1939 03:00:00 EST

Hitler's apartment in the vast "New Reich Chancellery," built by chief Nazi architect Albert Speer. This and other rooms were designed as places where the Fuhrer could relax and entertain guests, or conduct state business.

Adolf Hitler's Office

Sun, 01 Jan 1939 03:00:00 EST

Hitler's 1,200-square-foot office/study in the New Chancellery was used for military meetings and strategy sessions from 1944 on.

The View From Hitler's Desk

Sun, 01 Jan 1939 03:00:00 EST

Another view of one of Hitler's many offices in his many residences throughout Europe -- this one the 1,200-square-foot room in the New Chancellery where the Fuhrer worked, strategized, and plotted with fellow Nazis and generals. "In starting and waging a war," he argued, "it is not right that matters, but victory."

A Grand Entrance

Sun, 01 Jan 1939 03:00:00 EST

Sentries guard the entrance to Adolf Hitler's office in the Chancellery. Hitler was obsessed with oversized architecture and overly grand monuments that would awe and humble any visitor.

Hitler's Apartment

Sun, 01 Jan 1939 03:00:00 EST

Hitler's tastes in art was traditional and often mawkish. "Anyone who sees and paints a sky green and fields blue," he famously said of modern artists, "ought to be sterilized."

A Watercolor by Adolf Hitler

Sat, 01 Jan 1910 03:00:00 EST

A watercolor painting by Hitler. "In the realm of architecture, as in painting and sculpture, Hitler really remained arrested in the world of his youth: the world of 1880 to 1910," the Nazi architect Albert Speer wrote.

Inside Hitler's Mountain Getaway

Sat, 01 Jan 1938 03:00:00 EST

A room in Hitler's Berghof, the mountaintop Bavarian estate where Jaeger often held slideshows of his color photographs for the Fuhrer and guests. Berghof was, by all accounts, the home closest to Hitler's heart.

Hitler's Mountain Getaway: The Furniture

Sat, 01 Jan 1938 03:00:00 EST

The interior of Hitler's Berghof estate reflected his conception of what a "Germanic" style should look like.

Strength Through Joy

Mon, 01 May 1939 04:00:00 EDT

An interior swimming pool aboard a "Strength Through Joy" cruise ship, part of the Nazi regime's program of leisure activities. Hitler wanted German workers to receive ample holiday time because, he said, "I want a determined people with strong nerves." See more of Hitler, and his galvanizing effect on crowds, in Among the Crowds.

Sick Bay for the Strong and Joyous

Mon, 01 May 1939 04:00:00 EDT

A sick bay aboard the Nazi cruise ship Robert Ley. The ship, named after the head of a Nazi version of a labor union, was one of the first cruise ships built expressly for the purpose of leisurely cruising.

Inside Hitler's Munich Office

Mon, 01 Jan 1940 03:00:00 EST

Adolf Hitler's office in Munich. In this building, in 1938, the infamous Munich Agreement was signed by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, giving Germany a portion of Czechoslovakia.

Phone, Flowers, Hat

Sun, 01 Jan 1939 03:00:00 EST

This 1938 photograph from Adolf Hitler's Chancellery office in Berlin, published in LIFE magazine in 1970, has an eerie domesticity about it. The telephone, the note pad, the flowers, the glimpse of a fringed lampshade in the mirror -- all of these items suggest a rather dull, comfortable, middle-class sensibility. Viewed now, however, the presence of Adolf Hitler's hat -- as if casually tossed there by a man arriving for work at his well-appointed office -- lends the otherwise placid scene a hint of brutality.