Thinking Small by Andrea Hiott Read Free Book Online

proper credentials because he had not finished high school. The success that had come naturally to Porsche was what Hitler now strove to patch together after skimming everything he encountered or found. And whereas Porsche never cared much for fame, and certainly had never gone in search of it, it was the attention itself, the very quality of
being known,
for which Hitler longed. He would later write in his autobiography that Vienna was the first time in his life that he
     felt “at odds with himself.” 5 He no longer felt he was in control.
    Adolf lied to his mother about getting into art school. He toldher the city was embracing him with open arms, that he’d been accepted into the prestigious university and all was well. It’s hard to imagine she believed him. Perhaps, as mothers often do, she was able to see through his ruse. These were difficult years for her too; the loss of her husband and the absence of her son weighed heavily on her. Adolf had known his mother was
     sick before he’d left for Vienna, but he’d gone ahead with his plans. When word came that Klara’s condition had dramatically deteriorated, however, Adolf went back to Linz to take care of her, showing more care and responsibility than he ever had in his life, and perhaps ever would again. When his mother died, he sobbed uncontrollably, “prostrate with grief” 6 as Klara’s doctor would later attest. Hitler was eighteen at the time. He grieved for weeks before resolving himself and leaving for the anonymous big city again. Back in Vienna, he was alone in a new way. He had little money, no job and no motivation to find one. After his second rejection from art school, he cut off contact with his childhood friend Kubizek, failing to return to the apartment they shared. Aside from his sister, whom he
     sometimes went to for financial help, Hitler no longer had any ties to his former life.
    Meanwhile, Ferdinand Porsche had grown used to the big city of Vienna and his new status there. He had fallen in love with a girl named Aloisia Kaes 7 ; electricity sparked between them, but of a whole different kind. The daughter of Bohemian artisans, Aloisia was independent and smart; a bookkeeper in the shop where Porsche worked, she was a workingwoman at a
     time when many women would not consider such a thing. She was also tough, a fortunate characteristic for someone who would share life with a man as obsessed (and sometimes, simply selfish) as Ferdinand Porsche, and she too enjoyed cars. Later, Aloisia would unabashedly ride with Ferdinand during the Prince Henry trials, a famous motor race where it was certainly an unusual sight to see a woman in one of the competing cars! She also liked taking his vehicles into the country with him
     to visit his family, all of whom were still living in Maffersdorf.The first such trip they took was right after Ferdinand’s success at the Paris Exhibition; they drove his winning car home to his village. When Aloisia met his mother and father, Ferdinand introduced her as his fiancée. The two were married in 1903, and a year later, they welcomed their first child, a daughter they named Louise, a little girl who wouldn’t take long to get behind
     the wheel; in childhood, she was sometimes seen sitting at the wheel on their way to school!
    As a young man in Vienna, Ferdinand Porsche fell in love with Aloisia Kaes.
(photo credit 6.3)
    In the same year Ferdinand Porsche and Aloisia were married, a Viennese paper did an article about Ferdinand, who was now becoming simply known as “Porsche,” calling him “a tireless creator and worker.” “To dream and to act,” the journalist said, “that is the essence of people like Porsche.” He was not even thirty, and already he had changed the automotive landscape of his country. It all seemed to arrive at
     once—marriage, family, and then, in 1906, a job as chief designer at Austria-Hungary’s primary car company, Austro-Daimler. Porsche was an elite automotive man now,