The Only Known Recording of Hitler’s Normal Speaking Voice, As He talks to Finnish General Mannerheim

Hitler on the left, Mannerheim on the right

The Hitler and Mannerheim Recording is a secret voice recording of a private conversation between Adolf Hitler and Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim held in 1942. The Finnish engineer at the broadcasting company Yle, Thor Damen, succeeded in recording the first eleven minutes of Hitler’s and Mannerheim’s private conversation. Since Hitler never allowed anyone to record him off-guard, it had to be done secretly.

Damen’s original purpose was to record official birthday speeches and Mannerheim’s responses. However, Damen decided to continue recording after the conversation switched from official to private.

The SS realized that Damen was recording the conversation, and they immediately demanded to have it stopped. The SS were furious, but Yle was allowed to keep the tape hidden away, never to be opened. The tape was given to head of the state censors’ office, Kustaa Vilkuna, returned to Yle in 1957, and made publicly available a few years later. It is the only known recording of Hitler speaking in an unofficial tone and one of the very few recordings in which Hitler may be heard delivering a narrative without raising his voice.

Hitler talks to Mannerheim

After the invasion of the Soviet Union, despite the initial and overwhelming success of the campaign, the Soviets managed to repulse the German assault on Moscow and stall the entire German advance. Hitler needed his allies to tie down as much of the enormous Soviet military machine as possible. In 1942, Hitler, under extreme secrecy, visited Finland, officially to congratulate Mannerheim on his birthday.

However, Mannerheim did not wish to greet Hitler at his headquarters, as it would have looked like a state visit. Therefore, the meeting occurred at Imatra in Southern Finland.

Interior of the saloon coach where the recording was made.

At Immola Airfield, Hitler was greeted and accompanied by President Ryti, and other military and state officials, to Mannerheim’s personal train, where a birthday meal and negotiations took place.

The conversation is about Hitler explaining the failure of Operation Barbarossa, Italian defeats in North Africa, Yugoslavia, and Albania, armaments in the Soviet Union, and Romanian petroleum wells.

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