River Inn where Hitler fell
Children liberated by soviets
4 year old Hitler
He derived immense pleasure in killing little jew children. Big gas chambers provided a big rush of adrenaline in his blood stream. But do you know that the killer of thousands of innocent children was saved by a priest in his childhood.
The near-drowning episode also featured in a German book called 'Out of Passau- Leaving a City Hitler Called Home,' by Anna Elisabeth Rosmus, a personal history of her family's connections with it.
Priest Johann the saviour
She wrote; 'The banks of the River Inn provided an idyllic setting for the children to play.'
'In 1894, while playing tag with a group of other children, the way many children do in Passau to this day, Adolf fell into the river.'The current was very strong and the water ice cold, flowing as it did straight from the mountains.
'Luckily for young Adolf, the son of the owner of the house where he lived was able to pull him out in time and so saved his life.'
Hitler would, as a young man and later among his generals, tell stories of how he played cowboys and Indians on the banks of the river but he never once related the near-drowning tale.
'In Passau, however,' said Mrs Rosmus, 'Everyone knew the story. Some of the other stories told about him were that he never learned to swim and needed glasses.'
According to Max Tremmel, a priest who went on to become one of Europe's most famous organists, his predecessor Johann Kuehberger had rescued the terrified Hitler.
Father Tremmel told before his death in 1980 how Father Kuehberger, around the same age as Hitler, had seen the other boy struggling in the waters of the River Inn and dived in to rescue him.
