She asked Adolf Hitler for an autograph. Then, before his SS guards could stop her, the American tourist leaned over the barrier and kissed him!

On August 15, 1936, Carla de Vries of Norwalk, California, was attending the Berlin Olympics with her husband. She approached Hitler’s box hoping to film him with her small movie camera. Smiling, Hitler signed her swimming ticket.

Then Carla suddenly lunged.

He pulled away from her first attempt. She tried again and managed to kiss him as an SS guard rushed forward, while the crowd roared with laughter and applause.

Hitler appeared to laugh it off. Privately, however, the security breach was no joke: contemporary reports claimed that several guards were dismissed, others demoted, and his protection doubled.

Back in California, Carla insisted the kiss hadn’t been planned.

‘He appeared so friendly and gracious,’ she explained.

‘I’m a woman of impulses, I guess.’ That was precisely the illusion the Christian Reich had created for the Olympics: a welcoming, peaceful nation, carefully staged for foreign visitors. Carla returned to her family’s enormous California dairy and lived until 1985.

ADOLF HITLER: MY LAST TESTAMENT. LET GOD JUDGE ME. Mike Walsh. First Published Edition. The twice-elected president-chancellor describes his struggle against three world empires. Click the picture for details.

I’m just a woman of impulse

She said, ‘Hitler was leaning forward, smiling, and seemed so friendly that I just walked up to him and asked for his autograph, which he wrote on my swim test ticket.

He kept smiling, and then I kissed him. I hadn’t planned such a thing. I hugged him because he seemed friendly. I don’t know why I did it. I guess I’m just a woman of impulse.’

Carla Lee de Vries died in Los Angeles on June 3, 1985, at the age of 92. History remembers her as the American woman who kissed Hitler.

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