Untrimmed: Adolf Hitler’s original moustache style in 1914 and his later distinctive toothbrush shape
According to new research into Adolf Hitler's early life, the distinctive, toothbrush shape that adorned his scowling face was not his first preference.
A previously unpublished essay by a writer who served alongside Hitler in the First World War trenches reveals that the future Führer was only obeying orders when he shaped his moustache into its tightly-clipped style. He was instructed to do so in order that it would fit under the respirator masks, introduced in response to British mustard gas attacks.
Had that order never been issued, the tyrant who brought most of Europe to its knees would be remembered as a man with a large Prussian moustache.
The prosaic explanation comes in a new biography of the writer Alexander Moritz Frey, who came to know him when both were lowly privates in a Bavarian infantry division.
In a hitherto unpublished essay, Frey, who died in 1957, wrote of his first meeting with Hitler in 1915: "A pale, tall man tumbled down into the cellar after the first shells of the daily evening attacks had begun to fall, fear and rage glowing in his eyes.
"At that time he looked tall because he was so thin. A full moustache, which had to be trimmed later because of the new gas masks, covered the ugly slit of his mouth."
Stefan Ernsting, who has written the biography, unearthed Frey's essay, The Unknown Private - Personal Memories of Hitler, in archives in the provincial German town of Marbach.
Frey's account provides the first substantial challenge to historians' perceived wisdom on the subject, which has generally been that the Nazi leader was simply following the fashion of the period.
However, whatever adjustments Hitler was forced to make to fit German army gas masks did not save him from being badly gassed and temporarily blinded during a British attack in 1918.
Hitler's moustache was a variation of an early 20th century style called the toothbrush mustache. Before the toothbrush mustache became popular in Germany at the turn of the 20th century, the predominant German mustache style was the Kaiser mustache or "kaiserbart," named after German emperor Kaiser Wilhelm II.
Although such a mustache would be the envy of current Brooklyn hipsters, the Kaiser mustache would have been extremely difficult to maintain. In order to acquire the standard version of the toothbrush mustache, all a German man would have to do is simply snip off the ends of the Kaiser mustache, thereby saving a lot of time in mustache maintenance. A New York Times article from 1907 suggests that the mustache was an American import to Germany and that German men were largely adopting it for convenience's sake, because German women of the time tended to prefer the old-style Kaiser mustache.
The notorious Hitler mustache is a variation of the original toothbrush mustache, which makes the mustache even narrower so that it never protrudes beyond the bridge of the nose. In addition, the Hitler mustache compensated for the narrower length of the mustache by keeping the facial hair under the nose bushier. Before Hitler became famous, his variant of the toothbrush mustache was not particularly popular, often nicknamed as a "Rotzbremse" (German for "snot brake") by Bavarians. In fact, Hitler may have adopted his style of mustache because it was unpopular, reasoning that it would make him look more distinctive from the masses. When Hitler's friend Ernst Hanfstaengl asked him why he kept such an ugly mustache, Hitler replied, "If it is not the fashion now, it will be later because I wear it."
According to a Vanity Fair article Becoming Hitler, which extensively discusses the Hitler mustache,
Experts disagree on the exact year Hitler began wearing the Toothbrush. Ron Rosenbaum, perhaps the only historian to give the mustache its proper due, fixes its appearance with confidence. "It was Chaplin's first, before Hitler's," he writes in an essay from The Secret Parts of Fortune. "Chaplin adopted a little black crepe blot beneath the nose for his Mack Sennett silent comedies after 1915, Hitler didn't adopt his until late 1919, and there's no evidence (though some speculation) that Hitler modeled his 'stache on that other actor's."
But some suggest Hitler began wearing it earlier. According to a recently re-discovered essay by Alexander Moritz Frey, who served with Hitler in the First World War, Hitler wore the mustache in the trenches. Because he had been ordered to. The old bushy mustache did not fit under his equipment. In other words, the mustache that defines Hitler was cut in a shape to fit a gas mask. Which is perfect. Because Hitler was the bastard son of the Great War, conceived in the trenches, born in defeat. He inhaled mustard gas and exhaled Zyklon B. In another memoir, dismissed by some as a fraud, Hitler's sister-in-law Bridget claims she was the cause of the mustache. Bridget Hitler was Irish and lived in Liverpool, where, according to the memoir, the young Adolf spent a lost winter. Bridget (or whoever) says she often bickered with her brother-in-law. Because he was disagreeable, but mostly because she could not stand his unruly 'stache. In one of the great inadvertent summaries of historical character, she writes that in this, as in everything, he went too far.
Despite the multiple conflicting accounts of when Hitler first wore his distinctive mustache, it is doubtful that he adopted it because of Charlie Chaplin. One simple reason that Charlie Chaplin is probably not the inspiration for Hitler's mustache is that self-consciously adopting the mustache of a silent film comedian would have invited people to ridicule Hitler, which would have stopped his rise to power in its tracks. Instead, most of the evidence suggests that Hitler adopted his mustache for more utilitarian reasons either because it was easier to keep hygienic than other German mustache style, because he was forced to cut his old mustache while he was in the military, or because he simply wanted a trademark that would help him stand out as the leader he envisioned himself to be. His moustache is the most instantly recognisable - and sinister - in history.
