HITLER ADOLF: (1889-1945) Fuhrer of the Third Reich 1933-45. An extremely rare, early D.S., Adolf Hitler, one page, oblong 8vo, Vienna, 22nd August 1909, in German. The partially printed document, the main body of which is completed in Hitler´s hand, is an official Austrian Meldzettel (Registration Form) in which Hitler lists his occupation as that of a schriftsteller (writer), provides various personal details including his place and date of birth, Braunau am Inn, Austria, on 20th April 1889, as well as the address of the rooms he was moving from, Felberstrasse 22, and the address of his new lodging, number 27, on the second floor at Sechshauserstrasse 56. With a few ink annotations in the hand of an official to the right of the document, indicating that Hitler moved out of the building on 16th September 1909. Autographs of Hitler in any form from this early part of his life are exceptionally rare. A few small areas of paper loss to the corners, none of which affect Hitler´s text or signature. About VG

The eighteen-year old Hitler had left Linz, close to the town of his birth, in February 1908 following the death of his mother in the December of the previous year, 1907. Financed by a small inheritance and his orphan´s pension, Hitler planned to study fine art in Vienna and had expected to be admitted to the Academy of Fine Arts. His application was rejected twice, the second time without an interview, and it was suggested that Hitler apply to the School of Architecture. However, he lacked the necessary academic credentials for this as a result of not finishing secondary school. Thus Hitler entered into a life of unemployment, indolence and growing anti-Semetism. At the time of completing the present document (a requirement of the Austrian police, essentially to keep track of men of military age) Hitler was moving into a smaller and even more impoverished apartment than the one he had vacated. Less than a month later, Hitler left Sechshauerstrasse, the rent unpaid, his money run out, and descended into a bohemian life of living on the streets. He spent the autumn of 1909 relying on charity hand-outs, selling his clothes, and not working, lost within the multitudes of Vienna’s poor, in the anonymity of the homeless and indigent, until winter forced him into homeless shelters and a men´s dormitory, supported by a Jewish philanthropist. As English historian Sir Ian Kershaw states in his book Hitler 1889-1936 (1998) ´The social decline of the petty-bourgeois so fearful of joining the proletariat was complete. The twenty-year old would-be artistic genius had joined the tramps, winos and down-and-outs in society´s basement´.