Footage has emerged of the moment an American woman kissed Adolf Hitler – and left the Fuhrer so angry that he fired his security staff for the failing to stop her.
Carla de Vries, from Norwalk, California, asks the Fuhrer for an autograph and manages to give him a quick kiss while sat at the Berlin Olympics in 1936.
Hitler looked less than impressed with the 40-year-old’s efforts and managed to pull away from one kiss before she managed on her second attempt to kiss him on the cheek.
The footage was banned in Germany at the time as it was feared it would make the Nazi security look weak.
Carla de Vries, from Norwalk, California, asks Hitler for an autograph after the mens’ 1500 metres swimming had finished
Ms de Vries pulls herself over the barrier and leans in for a kiss with Hitler
She manages to plant a kiss on the German leader, who facilitated the death of six million Jews
Ms de Vries was eventually pulled away by security guards at the event. Hitler reportedly sacked his security staff for their failure to stop the security breach
Yet the footage was viewed worldwide and she was known as ‘The Woman who kissed Adolf Hitler’.
Speaking out after her kiss, Ms de Vries – who was married to a Dairy farmer called George – later said: ‘Why, I simply embraced him [Hitler] because he appeared so friendly and gracious.
‘I don’t know why I did it. Certainly I hadn’t planned such a thing. It’s just that I’m a woman of impulses, I guess.
‘It happened when I went down to take Hitler’s picture with my small movie camera. Hitler was leaning forward, smiling, and he seemed so friendly that I just stepped up and asked for his autograph, which he wrote on my swimming ticket. He kept on smiling and so I kissed him.’
She added: ‘People sitting near Der Fuhrer’s box began to cheer and applaud so loudly that I ran back to my husband and told him we had better leave.’
In newspapers after the kiss, she was referred as ‘the woman who kissed Hitler’ in two later events that had nothing to do with her Olympic feat.
Carla de Vries (pictured) broke through security to plant a kiss on Adolf Hitler
The first was when she returned home months later, when she prevented an asylum patient from committing suicide. The next year, her husband George De Vries, who owned a huge dairy farm, had to face unions and strikers.
She managed to sneak a kiss just after the mens’ 1500 metre freestyle race, where Hitler – who had banned Jewish athletes from competing at the Games – was watching the even next to General August von Mackensen.
Ms de Vries was travelling through Europe at the time and used her chance to get a close-up picture of Hitler.
Nazi guards attempted to pull Ms de Vries away but undetered, she managed to succeed in giving Hitler a kiss.
General Mackensen laughs as he pushes Ms de Vries away by the end of the 14-second video and the 20,000-strong crowd burst into applause as she made her way back to her seat.
Several SS guards were demoted or fired for their inability to keep Hitler away from the woman.
She can be seen leaning over to the Further as one of the Nazi guards tries to restrain her
The Berlin Olympics held in Nazi Germany were the first Games to be televised across 41 countries.
Hitler saw the Games as a chance to promote his vile ideals of racial supremacy and anti-Semitism to the wider world. The officials Nazi party paper, the Volkischer Beobachter, wrote in the strongest terms that Jews should not be allowed to compete.
When a number of nations threatened to boycott the Games, Hitler appeared to allow athletes of different ethnicities from other countries to participate – yet German Jewish athletes were barred and Jewish athletes from the US seem to have been sidelined in order not to offend the Nazis.
Yet Hitler’s plan to prove the Aryan race were superior was scuppered when Jesse Owners famously clinched four gold medals during the Berlin Olympics.