Book excerpt: August Kubizek met Adolf Hitler in 1904 while they competed for standing room at the opera. Kubizek describes a reticent young man, painfully shy, yet capable of bursting into hysterical fits of anger if anyone disagreed with him. But they grew close, often talking for hours on end. In 1908, they began sharing an apartment in Vienna. After being rejected twice from art school, Hitler found himself sinking into an unkind world of “constant unappeasable hunger.” Kubizek did not meet his friend again until he congratulated him on becoming Chancellor of Germany. The Young Hitler I Knew tells the story of an extraordinary friendship, and gives fascinating insight into Hitler’s character during these formative years.