http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/hitlers-bad-habits-revealed-in-documents-1625428.html
Hitler's bad habits revealed in documents Press Association Wednesday, 18 February 2009 Adolf Hitler's "uncouth" personal conduct, including biting his nails during meals, have been exposed in secret intelligence papers discovered in an unknown house in the South West. The documents paint a picture of Hitler based on information from one of his wartime aides, who describes the Nazi leader as a solitary man "of extremely few but intense emotions" and "shocking" table manners. The account by the unknown German officer, who kept the war diary at the Wolf's Lair military headquarters and dined with Hitler at least 30 times, form part of an end-of-war intelligence report, which is to be sold at auction at Ludlow Racecourse in Shropshire next month. According to the informant, simply referred to as Lieutenant Colonel PW, Hitler "ate prodigious amounts of cake", which contributed to a "digestive disorder", and lost himself in thought during meals. "Hitler eats rapidly, mechanically - for him food is merely an indispensable means of subsistence" he wrote. "Quite often Hitler will sit there throughout the entire meal, turned to his own thoughts, seemingly without listening to the talk going on around him. "However, he does follow the drift of the conversation vaguely, to him the conversation seems to have the effect that music has on others; it stimulates his thoughts and relaxes him." Dated May 1945 - the year Hitler died - and marked "must be destroyed within 48 hours of reading", the report said the Fuhrer spoke "in a mellow baritone, without that raucous, unpleasant stridency of his public speeches". But it added: "At the table and in his speech he shows many facets of his rather uncouth behaviour. He abstractedly bites his fingernails, he runs his index finger back and forth under his nose, and his table manners are little short of shocking." Hitler also preferred stewed vegetables and fruit to meat, herbal tea to coffee and banned smoking in his presence, according to the informant
