The Only Secret Recording of Hitler's Normal Voice | The Hitler-Mannerheim Recording

*Timestamps*
0:00 Introduction
3:49 The Soviet Military Apparatus
6:12 The Wehrmacht's Problems with Winter
8:11 Italy's Military Disasters
10:40 Diplomacy with the Soviet Union

As a German, i have heard this recording a few times. It is extremly eerie to hear him talk like a normal person. Like a neighbour. His Austrian accent is almost unnoticeable, his speech could easily pass as High German for someone not paying attention. Also, his choice of words, his pronunciation is almost modern. Not "old fashioned" as you would expect someone to talk in the 1930s or -40s. And to think that this is HIM. Having a random conversation. An i am sitting here, in Germany, listening to it on an American Website decades later... it is insane how history works.

This is quite surprising in some ways to hear how normal he actually sounded like. He is presented via his speeches as he was always super tense, agitated, forceful and hypnotic, a little bit like a lunatic maybe. But he actually sounds just like a German guy I used to work with. Even his tone of voice is similar to him. Shockingly normal

Many people fail to realise one of the reasons his voice was so deep and rasping was because he was badly injured in a gas attacked during WW1 which damaged his lungs and throat which left him with a permanent guttural hoarseness.

This sort of thing is absolutely necessary to hear. Turning the villains of history into goose stepping caricatures and fairytale monsters allows us to distance ourselves from the reality that every unspeakably evil act in history was perpetrated by completely ordinary human beings, as well as all those yet to come.

My father read every known book he could find about the war he served in... THIS recording would have absolutely fascinated him. He died in 1995. I'm sad I can't send this to him! But I listened to the end. Thank you for posting this. (I had NO IDEA!) It was very interesting.

A fascinating historical record, quite literally a miracle that it both survived and was discovered so the world could hear it.

Very interesting. I read once of a woman who was allowed to interview Hitler for some English newspaper during his rise to power in the mid-1930's. She said that he was a perfect gentleman, very polite, and was able to answer her questions IN ENGLISH even though he did not speak it well.

It’s astonishing that the recording wasn’t yanked away immediately by the SS and remarkable that it endured all those years.

I am Dutch, live in The Netherlands. I worked for a German company a couple of years.
Our managing director (Geschäftsführender) was very hierarchic and not easy to approach. When he was in balance his voice sounded normal, charming and strong, like a strong leader should sound and his German language sounded melodious, but when he was angry and started screaming his voice changed into a sharp and schril sound and made me think he sounded like Hitler.
It was scary stm bc he could flip just like that. And after the outburst completely normal again as if nothing had happened.
Quite insane actually if you think of it. But we got used to it.
In our office in The Netherlands when my Dutch Manager had him on the phone now and then and stm my German boss started screaming that out loud I could here him through the phone, lol. Then our Dutch Manager took the phone away from his ear and and held it up high and let him rant every time. Now and then he answered during the rant: oh yes......., yes........ yes.
And then everything turned back normal again.
That is the way to deal with a lunetic.

My grandma met him after a speech or a public appearance of some sort of his that she attended with some friends. Afterwards Hitler did a what you’d call today Meet & Greet. Talking to the people, even signing autographs. She always said what a very nice guy Hitler was in that situation. Very friendly, courteous and even humorous. He smiled a lot and was overall super friendly. People loved him.

Now I understand why everyone was crazy about him. He had a very deep and powerful voice.

I wouldn’t have expected him to have such a pleasant speaking voice or such a nice accent. What an amazing find this recording is - I’m surprised I’m so late to it.

Everyone is surprised.. did you really expect him to shout until his heart exploded every time he spoke?

A recording I have never heard. That was fascinating. Sometimes we forget how crafted and regulated some public people have been. I knew there was strict rules to be around Hitler. This recording is indeed rare. Thank you!

His voice was deeper than I thought it would be. Kind of eerie though because it's a pretty clear recording. The guy that made the recording had no idea that 80 years later millions and millions of people would hear it on something called the internet.WILD!!!!!!!!

his working class language he used was one of the many reasons he was instantly liked by everyone who heard him talk. you read about this man and his ability to almost hypnotize people with his words and speeches is amazing. people would be completely against him, even from the communist party and by the end of his speech they were cheering. time and time again.

He has an authoritative, deeper voice than I expected. No wonder people paid attention to him.

That's so creepy.
He always sounded like some weird person that has nothing in common with me, but here sounds like any friend of mine (I'm German). The choice of words and pronounciation are so much more like modern day German compared to his crazy speeches....

Hitler sounds much more intimidating when he’s calm, that’s scary shit.

I wonder if anybody would ever be able to somehow put his voice and an AI speech synthesizer and force it to speak English so you could kind of have an idea of what he would sound like if he were to ever have spoken English? Just from guessing what it would sound like it seems like it's slightly deeper than any of the movies I've ever seen him portrayed in.

An extremely critical moment in history captured, incredible

My mom's mom survived him, following a soldier back here to the US. I have heard enuf voice and would really like to find a transcript of what he is saying. Looking up what the sparce German words meant was tedious with the words being so long and in another language but worth it to the overall understanding.
Funny it starts with the narrator saying again and again that he didn't let people record him and how unlikely it was then boom he starts playing it.

He actually has a deeper voice than I had imagined. I could even hear the subtle rasp that is so prominant in his speeches. Calming too in a weird way.

Seriously man, I just discovered you, but you are great to watch and listen to. I get absolutely zero vibes of unnecessary bias either way. You could have literally been talking about your favorite cereal company. This is what I expect from Historians. Thank you for being so professional. SUBSCRIBED!

It’s so weird that in movies he is made to sound like a high pitched whiny man but really his voice is comparable to darth vader.

Yeah, it really is surprising to hear how deep the voice is compared to the usual speech voice. It is a voice that doesn't easily get drowned out. It's somewhat creepy.

My father grew up in the farmland outside of Bayreuth. He was 5 when the war ended. I asked him what they had seen of Nazis there and he said almost nothing, and that they rarely ever came through there at all. I also asked him what they actually saw of the war and fighting. He told me they only occasionally saw flashes (bombs) on the horizon and nothing more. After the war when was older and got a job, he delivered bread in the area around the Zeppelinwiese where they launched Zeppelins, but also was where Hitler gave many of his speeches.
And he also told me how peanut butter was introduced to German children from parachuted supplies dropped by the Allies (Berlin Airlift).

Thank you so much for providing your hard work and producing this short history video. I am 62. I have been interested in WWII ever since I was 10. This was a real treat thank you again. Best regards

As a native Austrian, I can hear traces of his Austrian heritage, particularly at the 7m30s mark, he slipped a little more into Austrian German. Besides that, he’s remarkably “high German”. His inflection, flow, and verbal selection is quite modern and contemporary. Perceptively, he’s settled, confident, but does not appear arrogant to me - an interesting and unexpected mix of being “personable”, even though he should have never made beyond “being a paint artist”.

Never realized I had never heard him just speaking. He has a voice made for radio.
Very deep. Very strong. Gives you a better insight into his oratory skill and why it was effective. Very interesting.

Hitler's voice is way deeper than I had imagined; as another poster said almost like Darth Vader. It certainly gives one chills.

He has a much deeper voice than what I would have thought listening to him screaming his speaches into microphones. I really am very surprised. Deep and rather calm. I would never have guessed it was him. 🇿🇦

I find this incredibly fascinating.. I understand very little German and just to hear certain phrases that I DO know coming from Hitler in a normal voice.. it's just fascinating.

It’s like seeing someone that’s always mad chilling and having a normal conversation

Fascinating. The faster he spoke, the higher his voice got and when speaking slowly it was unbelievably deep.

It would be nice to see if Hitler's voice could be analyzed by an AI program then converting his style of voice into English. This might lend you a better comprehension of the nuance in the conversation.

As someone who has studied Hitler and this time period this is really something else indeed

As a Finn - quite interesting piece of history that our President Mannerheim played a part in :D

It is totally fascinating to hear their candid feelings about the massive armaments of their enemies.....the fact that in the decades before the information explosion of the Internet, they had no actual, idea how formidable their adversaries could be. It was mostly guess work.

Fascinating to not only hear Hitler’s voice but hear him worry the unimaginable or untenable situation he was in, as if every historian and tactician had not warned against having a two front war!

as a german it's extremely weird to hear him talk normal. Sounds like a conversation at work or between neighbours

It is like hearing an actor talking in real life for the first time after only knowing them for an exagerated character they played in a film. Such a normal everyday sounding man.

Hitler's normal voice distorted by the tech of the time sounds exactly like one would expect it to sound from the speech recordings. Sounds like he basically just put a lot more power into his voice when acting.

I hope that more people watch this to hear that true evil doesn't come to earth with warning signs all over and that the people who voted for him, supported him and even those who carried out unspeakable acts of evil weren't any different from us.
It's becoming very clear to me that people are very oblivious to their potential of unleashing endless suffering onto this planet.

The mind of Hitler has always fascinated me. I have tried a couple of times to learn German so I can understand his speeches. Reading subtitles or hearing it dubbed is not the same thing.

it's amazing to hear this, just your regular german/austrian guy and i understand every word of it. the acting classes let him go unhinged in his public performances though

I'm impressed by Mannerheim's german. He was born in a swedish speaking family in Finland while Finland was part of the Russian Empire. He studied art in Paris and he made a god chunk of his military career in Russia. He spoke 6 languages fluently

His voice is much deeper than the other speeches you commonly watch. I guess probably the technology for recording audio on film probably sent voices up an octave up or two.

Didn’t imagine him having such a deep voice.

I’m not jumping directly and only on the “he was evil” (he was evil and many others too) train like most do anyway. However, his figure and development fascinates people(neutrally!) from a historic point of view all over the world up to this day. It’s incredible how he went from absolutely nothing to one of the most known people who have ever lived on this planet.

I've heard germans speak like this online. This tone, this calmness. That'e crazy hearing this, usually media has always depicted him as speaking like a bit of a tweaking pyschopath.

He did plenty of speeches in his normal voice as well. Look up his Operation Barbarossa speech.

As a german from south Bavaria I can tell you, the austrian dialect of Hitler is clearly recognizable.

Polite, friendly, ... these were often descriptions from his private environment. But also, cold and unapproachable.
It's also interesting that all his "Du-Freunde" (in German) from his time in Munich have disappeared from his environment over time. Some of them violently, like Ernst Röhm.
He supposedly didn't like the familiarity of the German "Du" at all.
I think the following statement by Ted Bundy also applies to him very well: “I am the most cold-hearted son of a bitch you will ever meet.”

Subbed your channel the second I discovered it.
Love history. Way more interesting than fiction.

His working class vocabulary was what made him understandable for the working class and farmers. But the vast amount of self studies it took to get to the level he was at politically and as a speaker,....he was a natural. He made NS a polished ideology :)
The clips of the speeches we are often presented with are at the crescendo of his performance (And never with subtitles,....I wonder why?). Most of the time he spoke in a much calmer manner, but always with a razor sharp focus. He cut right to the bone of the matter in a simple language.

Hitler was supposedly 5’9”, so it surprised me how deep his voice sounded on this recording. One’s vocal pitch is partly determined by body size, so I wonder if the recording as presented is an accurate representation.

My history lesson teacher was from Germany and had been a member of some youth majorette or something to that effect. She had numerous cassettes of her own recording of Hitler. However, not privately conversations.

His voice is far deeper, coarse and imposing than I'd imagined.

For these years I have believed that Hitler's natural way of speaking was based on the earlier version of Standard German pronunciation called "die deutsche Bühnenaussprache" as standardized by Theodor Siebs in 1898 since his German pronunciation was always clear with Spanish-r (alveolar trill) coming out from his mouth.

I am an American who grew up partly in Germany and speak German. I have heard Hitler speak in a normal voice in a movie called Swastika. It brought together a variety of "privately" shot film clips from all over the place. I believe the segment I am thinking of took place in at Berchtesgaden. I was not only surprised by how little of an Austrian accent he had, but also by his ability to charm others (though, after I thought about it, I realized he could never have gotten to where he did without some ability in this regard).

Thank you for posting this video, amazing to hear, actually I can honestly say that his, constant, consistent pitch was nothing that I could have ever imagined, very controlled and actually calming and straight forward...incredible...again thank you!

as an audio engineer myself we have a saying in the stu: "ABR - Always Be Recording" we also used a mic called the "Emo Hitler" that he actually spoke into - worked for UMG/Interscope which all of those mics came from A&M ... crazy history

He had a very captivating deep voice. Nice to hear him not screaming for a change!

I find it incredibly interesting that Hitler actually pronounced "Tanks" in English the first time, and then Mannerhein essentially said "35,000 what??" and Hitler then repeated it in German. Strange he would do that.

Sounds a lot scarier and intimidating than I was expecting honestly. You can tell he has a very very strong, commanding voice even when in a calm manner.

All these years have passed however seldom a day goes by without hearing this man's name .

I have heard of a recording existing of his natural voice, however, today is the first day that I actually heard it. 5-28-23.
Honestly, most Americans have never heard his natural voice.

He sounds like an absolute chad, may he rest in peace.

Props to the audio engineer. You always record.

I just discovered this channel and subscribed. As for this video,I always had a fascination with the history of nazi Germany. My wife doesn't like it but accepts it as she knows I'm a history buff. My grandfather disowned me for it as he told me many times that we are Americans and he fought to destroy them. He thought I joined a nazi party and had sympathy for them even though that is so far from the truth. This video was really great to hear. Thanks for sharing.

as a German, his speech seems so normal, so modern and that’s scary
Edit: reading these replies is so funny even a year later

Well, he didn't use the thundering "R" in his normal voice. He also has an audibly and relatively strong austrian accent in that recording (it's only a little sharpness in his consonants - most austrians I know or heard speaking (including Schwarzenegger) have a noticably strong accent in German, so Hitler must have trained that away a little when he came to Germany as it seems). The translation is not 100% accurate, but he also used a little bit of a somewhat antiquated way to phrase his sentences in German - it's not overly present, most of what he says and how he says it is still used in modern German, but some of it seemed a bit outdated to my ears.

Wow, his "normal" voice is so low pitched and strong. He actually sounds calm and friendly.

He does have a rather deep and professional voice to convince.

Not everyone was swayed by his performance in speaking, but too many were!

Voices,looks and manners can hide many sorts of evil.

Didn't expect such a rich and charismatic voice, it's the kind of voice that can naturally pierce through the sound of a crowded room and most likely aided him in his early day while speaking in beer halls and such.

This was absolutely amazing. Hearing him normalizing his voice has an eerie satisfying feeling to it. That's the most frightening point I can think of is why this should never go viral. Haha

The biggest concern I have is the view that he was some sort of singular evil, when he was merely a man motivated to a goal in concert with others. The biggest concern is that we are unable to see the next one.

Some experts have claimed that during WWI his throat may have been affected and slightly damaged by poisonous gas, therefore changing the sound of his voice.

If I recall correctly, at that time tape recording was first done in the usa and was not of common use. The most commonly available to germany during the war was either disc recording (a raw record recording as was common for the production of records) or a "wire" recorder that operated the same as a reel-to-reel tape recorder would.

He sure sounds different from what I expected. His normal voice is much more pleasant than his screaming voice.

The fact that before unlisting into the army he tried multiple times to get into an art school is just.... Well, it's hard to explain.

a much deeper voice than I expected

Clip-Share is the closest thing we’ll ever get to a time machine. This is amazing.

Wow. Incredible & Fascinating to hear this. He is very strong sounding, which I guess is not a surprise. I have listened to this a few times over as it is so interesting.

If anyone wants to hear him talking normally like this on other occasions, look up (on Clip-Share) his last speech on January 30 1945 and his Stalingrad speech in Lowenbraukeller in 1942 :), there’s also another when he’s talking with a British reporter on film in a video done by Mark Felton

For me this shows with absolute certainty how monsters are among us. What I find so fascinating here is the candor, he was the monster next door, and also at the helm.

The 'slit throat' sign is standard when getting someone who can't hear you properly to shut a machine off, I use it all the time to get some one to shut a car or a bike or something off if I'm working on it.

Never once realized that we only hear him in clips when he's chanting and yelling speeches. Very educational and slightly terrifying.

His normal voice gives me more chills than his shouting and screaming. It is haunting in some way...

It’s not so odd, people thought he mesmerized crowds. This is mostly because of those two sisters (I’ve forgotten their names) who worked the Nazi apparatus as radio personalities along with Lord Ha-Ha and Tokyo Rose. They said he hypnotized them. I’ve often thought that was a cute excuse for why they did war propaganda, a way to lessen their jail sentences after WW II. Thanks to Michael Jackson showing Leni Riefenstahl’s movie 🎥 I was able to see him in action. He was outstandingly good. What a performance! I realized he must have learned to do this as a child after watching German silent movies 🎥. If you watch “Metropolis” as I did, in college, when it was a rare film impossible to see - If you see it in silence as I did, it has much greater impact and you do a lot of private thinking. German silent screen stars are incredible! They express an impressive range of emotions. And there is a lot of emotional impact in many scenes. Not every theater back then had a pianist creating a background score. After I saw “Metropolis”, which I knew to be one of Hitler’s favorites, I walked around for hours. I lost all track of time. The Arbeiters, Workers, were an incredible reflection of Nazi slave labor. I began Holocaust studies in earnest the very next day. Hitler was truly an evil man to make that movie 🎞 which was a plea for compassion for factory workers into an actual living, breathing reality.

what stands out to me as a german speaking person is that he pronounces the 'r' completely different than in his 'other voice' and his thick Austrian accent

Very helpful historical documentation you shared thank you.

Hearing his real voice humanizes him I’d think. Since you’re not hearing him in the speech voice. Either way, he was one of the most destructive people to ever exist.

So weird to hear... In TV and movies, he's almost always portrayed to sound like a scrawny teenager ranting about this or that, but in reality he sounded indistinguishable from most men. We like to imagine that we can identify bad people with physical traits, even augmenting them after death so people will think even harsher of those bad eggs- but the capability to carry out atrocities lie within each and everyone of us. No mustache, scar, accent, or cut of a gib can be an indicator that a person will cause harm.

I’ve listened to this a few times, fantastic.

people think he had that nasal voice tone he had when he was screaming during his speeches. But his normal talking voice was surprisingly deep.