He ran her a bath and then bandaged her injured fingers as best he could, giving her his own pyjamas and dressing gown.

Finally they broached the subject that had brought them together – Geli Raubal.

‘I knew her from her childhood days in Vienna. I suppose I was almost like an aunt to her at first, but then we became close friends. We lived in the same apartment block, you see. Her mother, who was widowed by then, was out all the time cooking in the Jewish Hostel. I was a few years older than Geli, training to be a midwife while she was at high school. We always got on well. She was so full of life. A charming, happy girl. If I had had a hard day, she made me smile. In the summer we went on cycle rides into the countryside around Vienna, and in winter we went ice skating together. She always attracted attention from boys – and if they said anything indecent, she inevitably gave them a sharp and amusing riposte.’

‘Was Hitler part of her life in those days?’

‘Oh, certainly not. He had had nothing to do with his half-sister since a month or two after Geli was born, which would have been before the Great War – 1908, I think. But, you know, Frau Raubal always admired her brother, even from a distance. No, it was more than that – she worshipped him. She cut out any newspaper stories and told Geli and the other children – Friedl and Leo – all about their clever and talented uncle. She told everyone about his exquisite piano playing, the wonderful pictures he painted and his brilliant mind. He became a mythical, almost mystical, figure to Geli.’

‘How did they meet?’

‘I remember it well – it was when Hitler was in the Landsberg prison after the Munich Putsch. Hitler’s friend Putzi Hanfstaengl had fled to Austria and he looked up Frau Raubal, who was so ashamed of the way they lived that she wouldn’t let him in to her apartment. Anyway, he insisted on taking her and the children to a cafe and paying for a slap-up meal. I think that was when he suggested they should visit Hitler in prison. I believe Hanfstaengl provided the funds for their journey, because it must be five hundred kilometres from Vienna to Landsberg and Frau Raubal was in dire straits. She couldn’t afford new shoes for her children, let alone such an expensive journey.’

‘The prison meeting – that must have been interesting.’