Hitler undoubtedly ranks as one of the most evil men to have lived. And perhaps this is the reason that this unusual myth has become so widespread – people love irony and it is very ironic that the man who slaughtered untold numbers of people would be an animal lover, a vegetarian, and a non-drinker. This truly is a myth – read on for the debunking.
The myth: Hitler was a vegetarian teetotaler
All great movements are popular movements. They are the volcanic eruptions of human passions and emotions, stirred into activity by the ruthless Goddess of Distress or by the torch of the spoken word cast into the midst of the people.
There is a little merit to this myth in that Hitler did eat a lot of vegetable dishes and was advised by his doctor to eat a strictly vegetarian diet, but he was not particularly good at sticking to it. Salvatore Paolini, Hitler’s waiter said: “On the whole he never ate meat… but he did like sausages and ham” and this was also confirmed by his cook Dione Lucas who said that his favorite dish was “stuffed squab” (stuffed baby pigeon).
Pulitzer prize winning journalist Otto said in a 1937 New York Times article: “It is well known that Hitler is a vegetarian and does not drink or smoke. His lunch and dinner consist, therefore, for the most part of soup, eggs, vegetables and mineral water, although he occasionally relishes a slice of ham and relieves the tediousness of his diet with such delicacies as caviar, luscious fruits, and similar titbits. He is outspoken about having a sweet tooth and loves confectionery, especially chocolates.” Obviously the term “vegetarian” was less restrictive in days gone by.
As for alcohol consumption, Paolini also confirmed that while Hitler almost never touched the stuff, he did occasionally drink watered down wine with dinner and beer. Fine vintage wines were served at every important dinner Hitler hosted. While he may have generally preferred to abstain, he was certainly not one to force his dinner guests to do the same.
Interesting Fact: Hitler never allowed anyone to see him while he was naked or bathing. He refused to use cologne or scents of any sort on his body and, unlike his eating habits, this is a rule that he did enforce with others also.
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Related Books
 The Pathology of Evil  |
 An American Family in Hitler’s Berlin  |
 Hitler: The Definitive Biography  |
 Hitler and the Holocaust  |
Further Reading
Listverse: 10 More Fascinating Facts that are Wrong
Listverse: Top 10 Most Evil Men
Listverse: Top 10 Assassination Attempts
Listverse: 15 Incredible Historical Photographs
Google WDYL: Hitler
Wikipedia: Adolf Hitler
Wikipedia: Sexuality of Adolf Hitler
History Place: The Rise of Hitler
29 Comments
First comment!….I think!:/
OK, I came over from Facebook to see the post. Funny you posted Einstein or Hitler when asking what we wanted to read because Einstein was on a Nazi hit list.
Hitler was a very sick, mad, peculiar and eccentric person. I think there will always be a fascination about the odd and cruel things concerning this man.
That is interesting – I didn’t know that Einstein was on a Nazi hit list. There will definitely be an Einstein misconception debunked in the future
hitler is a very evil man so why we always remember him ?
I think because of our fascination with evil – we can’t imagine how a normal person can end up so terrible – so it gives rise to our curiosity.
Mostly so the world doesn’t stand by and let that crap happen again.
Definitely.
If we forget him, we risk allowing another.
Quite right!
In my opinion, Himmler was more evil than Hitler. It takes one person to discriminate against groups of people, but quite another to organize the mass murder and Genocide of them.
I agree – on LV there is a list of the most evil Nazis and Himmler rates higher than Hitler.
Well Hitler was correct about the odd thing – I would have no problem banning almost all perfumes and colognes. Most are cloying and awful. Whomever invented Axe cologne deserves a particularly heinous end. dis-Honorable mention to the persons responsible for Adidas fragrance too!
As long as I can keep one or two I don’t mind
Google “Heinrich Himmler and Bhagavad Gita”
You’ll get an understanding of what inspired him to become so unattached to his actions.
Interesting – I will read more about that
Hugo Boss is pretty awesome….
Yep. Love the clothes, hate the colognes.
He read the Bhagavad Gita but never had a true understanding of its message. God told Arjuna to wage war. He told him in person, not in a dream or vision, in front of everyone on the battlefield. God never told Himmler to go out and kill Jews.
And even though Arjuna did his duty, he never achieved the ultimate goal of moksha, because he did after all kill a lot of people, and still had materialistic desires and attachments.
But Hitler never smoked, right? (Other than that, how can I change my picture?)
Yes – he hated smoke – in fact Nazi Germany was the first western country to introduce anti-smoking campaigns. As for changing your image, you do that at gravatar.com
He did, when he was a schoolboy. He even got caught smoking inside school premises and was temporarily expelled.
Later in life, he didn’t.
Good piece but in an article about “Healthy Hitler” the fact he was an amphetamine addict really should be mentioned. There is the idea he did not quite know what his physician was giving him, but it is undoubtedly true, the last part of his life he was speeding to the degree that not many others had.
It is (as your other site has mentioned) he was religious. Not necessarily practicing but certainly no atheist as many religious people claim.
I didn’t mention the amphetamine addiction as it wasn’t too closely connected to his alleged vegetarianism. Also, as you say about his religious views there are many many myths associated with Hitler so there should be more articles on that topic in future
The Otto quote threw me off since its proven wrong by the rest of the article. Then again the quote is from 1937.
As evil as Hitler was I don’t believe he was the most evil person as opposed to the most powerful and corrupt. The Japanese scientist that experimented on people is much harder to read imo but he got pardoned so that makes it worse.
Love the interesting fact. On a side note can we get a android friendly view like listverse?
Hi, Can I ask the scientists name? I’d like to read more and all I can google search is “japanese scientist” which as expected comes up with hundreds of results. Any ideas? Thanks.
Interesting. I’ve read academic sources that claimed Hitler decided to become a vegetarian after seeing the corpse of his niece (who he may very well have been in love with).
Whether or not he stuck 100% to it or not, well…
I’ve also heard that his nutritionist (or whatever you call them) didn’t like his diet and had bone marrow injected into his soup. But I didn’t read anything academic about that…
JT. I find you website most enjoyable reading. Thanks.
I think the fellow is hardly evil as victimised by a svengali whom was very obsessed with his massive cover up. The jews knew too much about Jesus, therefore…
I think he was a revolutionary man.From nthing he made Germany a Power.in refrence with holocaust all the credit goes against him.but who cares…