>then an Iron Cross First Class for singlehandedly capturing an entire French squadron with a pistol.
All bullshit.
Hitler served as a runner but, armed with new evidence, Weber realised that historians had not distinguished between regimental runners, a relatively safe job, and battalion or company runners, who had to brave machine-gun fire between trenches. Hitler was the former, a runner at regimental HQ, several miles from the front, and living in relative comfort.
In unpublished letters, Alois Schnelldorfer, who also served at the List regiment's HQ, told his parents that his own task was "to sit in an armchair and make calls like a postmistress". He also confirmed the frontline view of more generous provisions than the men in the trenches: "I can drink a litre of beer under a shady walnut tree."
Speaking of Hitler's famous first-class Iron Cross – the second class was a relatively common award – Weber said that this was often received by those in contact with more senior officers, typically those posted to regimental headquarters, rather than combat soldiers. Drawing on an unpublished diary by a Jewish List soldier, the documents also indicate a lack of widespread, virulent antisemitism.
Hitler's Iron Cross was recommended by Hugo Gutmann, a Jewish List adjutant, but Weber discovered that when Gutmann was incarcerated by the Gestapo in 1937, List veterans enabled him to survive.
Gutmann referred to a prison guard who took risks to help him, saying: "As a good Catholic he despised the Nazis." Another List ex-comrade helped Gutmann to escape to America.
Weber also unearthed evidence to show that "the veterans of the List regiment did not – as maintained by all Hitler biographies – unanimously support Hitler after the war.
An unpublished 1934 postcard by a Hitler admirer laments his being cold-shouldered by veterans in 1922. Weber found that few frontline soldiers became Nazis, whereas regimental HQ staff became prominent in the party.