Skinny Jewish Kid Crushes Hitler's Hat

ALBANY - Richard Marowitz remembers every detail of that April morning in 1945.

''There were 12 of us. We had three Jeeps. It was a warm, spring day,'' Marowitz says, recalling events 60 years ago and thousands of miles away.

The then-19-year-old Marowitz was among a group of American GIs crossing hostile territories and storming the Munich apartment of Adolph Hitler.

Marowitz was a member of the Intelligence & Reconnaissance platoon of the 42nd Rainbow Division during World War II. On April 29, he visited the concentration camps at Dachau. The horrific images are planted in his mind.

''The next day, early in the morning of the 30th, we were called into the command post,'' Marowitz says.

Their assignment was to enter the city of Munich and get to Hitler's apartment. They were met by a pair of German civilians, according to Marowitz. ''The two were spies, sending information to America,'' he says.

''We headed into Munich, about nine miles from Dachau, with those two spies who were going to take us to Hitler's house. There was some damage to the city, although it wasn't as bad as some of the other places I had seen,'' Marowitz recalls.

''There were SS snipers around and all the bridges were blown. The only thing that wasn't blown was a narrow footbridge, and this is how we got in - over the footbridge, and then coming down on the other side,'' he says.

When the platoon entered Munich, there was an eerie dread that still causes Marowitz to shudder to this day.

''It was the weirdest feeling I have ever had in my life,'' he says. ''A dead silence. It was like a ghost town. We knew a city the size of Munich was filled with people, but they were all hiding. The place was desolate.''

As promised, the spies led them to Hitler's apartment. ''We went up and banged on the door. There was a housekeeper who came out, and called us ruffians and couldn't understand why everyone was so mad at Hitler,'' he says.

The platoon stormed the apartment, but no one was there. ''The apartment was in great shape. All the furnishings were in place. There were pictures hanging on the walls, but the drawers were cleaned out, and the closet was empty. Something caught my eye on the shelf in the closet. It was a black top hat. I picked it up. Hitler's initials were engraved inside,'' Marowitz says.

With the adrenaline of the war and the horrors of Dachau running through his mind, Marowitz committed a spontaneous act. He took the hat off the shelf, threw it on the floor and began stomping on it.

Coincidentally, it was the same day that Hitler would take his own life in a Berlin bunker. Marowitz sees a connection.

''Do you know the significance of what happened that day?'' Marowitz asks. ''When Hitler found out some skinny Jewish kid from Brooklyn was jumping up and down on his hat, he committed suicide.''

The city was liberated. A week later, Germany surrendered to the Allies, ending nearly six years of war.

He was born in Middletown, N.Y., a town about 70 miles north of New York City during the depression. ''At the time, the population was about 21,000,'' Marowitz says, ''and that included all the people who were in the state insane asylum.'' At the age of 14, the family relocated to Brooklyn, where they lived within walking distance of Ebbets Field.

At the age of 16, he became a professional musician, joining the union and touring the country with his trumpet.

Marowitz's war experience was far from what he expected. After registering for the Army, he was drafted in May 1944. His dreams of going in as a trumpet player were dashed when he was informed that the bands were closed. He signed up as bugler.

''That was the first mistake I made in the Army,'' he says, thinking that the position would at least keep him close to his music. ''The bugler is also a scout, and a message runner. It's not a very good job to have.''

He learned how to handle a 50-caliber machine gun, and hooked up with Capt. John McLaughlin.

''He was a big, tall, Irishman from L.A. who had a real urge to be in the action, so we usually ended up being places that we shouldn't be,'' Marowitz says. ''We were, at times, in street-to-street, house-to-house fighting, being shot at by snipers firing from rooftops.''

Marowitz volunteered for the Intelligence and Reconnaissance platoon.

''The captain said to me 'Are you crazy? That's the most dangerous platoon there is.' In the I & R platoon, our job was to find the enemy, take prisoners, interrogate them and report back,'' he says. ''We had a 75 percent turnover in that platoon. It was very dangerous, but what a great bunch of guys they were.''

Nearly 60 years and thousands of miles cannot erase the vividness of the memories. ''I swear to this day - I could still see his (Hitler's) head inside of that hat.''

After posing for a snapshot with the crumpled hat on his head and a mocking comb beneath his nose, Marowitz stuffed the hat in his duffel bag. He got out of the Army in 1946 and returned to Brooklyn. When he moved to Albany in 1948, Marowitz threw the top hat into a drawer where it remained for nearly a half century.

Marowitz became a professional magician, performing at conventions and getting a reputation for what he calls the art of ''close up'' magic.

''I got pretty good at it and was considered a magician's magician,'' he says.

In 1993, the old Army gang found each other and had a reunion in Salt Lake City.

''It was the first time I saw the guys in almost 50 years. The guys were all waiting in the lobby saying 'did you bring the damn hat?'''

Marowitz brought it to a reunion in Seattle in 1995, and he says the group must have been some sight.

''We were quite a scene,'' he laughs, recalling the group of 70-something-year-olds running around the lobby of a hotel with a crushed top hat on their heads and black plastic combs under their noses.

Marowitz loaned the hat to the National Museum of American Jewish Military History in Washington, D.C., where filmmaker Jeff Krulik first saw it. Today, at age 80, Marowitz shows no signs of slowing down.

''Hitler's Hat'' was turned into a documentary.
And Marowitz, alongside war buddies Doug Vink- a former tank commander -
and Alvin Cohen, who was a guard at the Nuremberg trials, have been featured in a new book
‘Into the Dragon’s Teeth: Warriors’ Tales of the Battle of the Bulge.’

The book's co-authors, Dan Lynch and Paul Rutherford, introduce Vink, Cohen and Marowitz as young boys, drafted and pushed through military training, ‘shipped overseas to replace the men who’d perished on Normandy’s beaches. The new soldiers were mostly teenagers for whom shaving was still an adventure. Bright-eyed and unsure of what lay ahead,’ the authors note. ‘Then the Germans struck back.’

Vink grew up, one of 13 children, in the shadow of Albany’s Palace Theatre in the 1920s, and drafted into service a few months before his high school graduation at the age of 18. Vink found his destination, not in textbooks, but riding inside of a Sherman tank, fighting for his life.

Al Cohen grew up in similar times, a few blocks south of the governor’s mansion in Albany.
After Japanese war planes attacked Pearl Harbor, Cohen burned with a desire to make a contribution to the war effort and his slight frame not withstanding, worked his way into military service, wielding a heavy .50-caliber machine gun in battle while ducking mortar fire from the enemy.

''We formed this little trio, Doug and Al with their background, and me with my Intelligence & Reconnaissance experience," says Marowitz, the skinny Jewish kid from Brooklyn who toppled the evil empire on a sunny April morning in 1945. ''We bring WW II to people.''

by Thomas Dimopoulos
published in The Saratogian 2003-2004.