How Hitler got his strange moustache: Fuhrer's facial hair went from handlebar to toothbrush so he wouldn't get gassed in WW1

Adolf Hitler had favoured a longer handlebar moustache with twisted ends

In WW1 he had to trim the moustache to get a better seal on his gas mask

Facial hair change is featured in History Channel mini series The World Wars



It was the feature that made him instantly recognisable, and in Britain ridiculed.

Adolf Hitler's toothbrush moustache was as much his hallmark as a swastika and his side-parting hair style.

Now the story of how the dictator went from having an elaborate handlebar moustache to the style he is forever associated with has been told in Emmy-nominated series The World Wars.

Before and after: A new series reveals that Adolf Hitler got his infamous toothbrush moustache (right) after he had to trim his handlebar style (left) to allow his gas mask to properly seal during the First World War

The three-part mini series from the History Channel sheds a new light on the conflicts that defined the 20th century, and features dramatic re-enactments as well as interviews with historians and current political figures including John McCain, Colin Powell, Stanley McChrystal and Dick Cheney .

The series, spread over six hours, starts with a First World War soldier discovering that his handlebar moustache, complete with twisted ends, is preventing his gas mask from sealing tightly during a gas attack in a trench.

The soldier, revealed to be a young Adolf Hitler, is then shown trimming the facial hair into a neat square, creating the infamous style.

Stephen David, the series' executive producer, said his research team had learned how Hitler had favoured a longer moustache prior to the outbreak of the First World War while making the programme.

'We're trying to be as factual as we can,' he told The Wrap.



Preference: Hitler, pictured as a young soldier, had favoured a longer moustache prior to the outbreak of the First World War

'Sometimes we have to compress time. He wasn't ordered to shave the mustache, but actually he shaved the mustache while he was in the hospital. Budget-wise, it would have been tough to film there as well as in the trench.'

After the conflict ended in 1918, Hitler kept the moustache, still preferring the trimmed style as he rose to power in Germany in the early 1930s, and it soon became one of his most identifiable features.

Mr David said: ' I think in actuality after World War I that was a fashion, and a lot of people did that. Between World War I and World War II, that was a fashion that a lot of people had. And being that Hitler had it, he kind of killed that fashion.'

Proof? Hitler's preference for a longer moustache is evidence that this photograph appearing to show him cheering the outbreak of war in 1914 was faked

Hitler's preference for a longer moustache at the outbreak of the First World War was recently used by historians to suggest that a famous photograph of him apparently celebrating Germany's declaration of war on August 2, 1914 in Munich was a fake.

The picture, which first appeared in the pages of the Nazi propaganda publication German Illustrated Observer on March 12, 1932, the year Hitler ran for president, appeared to show a 25-year-old Hitler cheering, and he later claimed it was at that moment that he found his purpose in life.

It was captioned: ‘Adolf Hitler, the German patriot, is seen in the middle of the crowd. He stands with blazing eyes – Adolf Hitler.’

However, it has been claimed the photograph was faked by Hitler and his personal photographer Heinrich Hoffmann , as the original negative of the picture was never found, and he can not be seen in newsreel footage of the event.

Ridicule: Hitler's moustache was one of his most identifiable, but also his most ridiculed features - as demonstrated by comedian John Cleese in Fawlty Towers

Satire: Charlie Chaplin was another adopter of the toothbrush moustache, and used this similarity to Hitler to his advantage when parodying him in 1940 film The Great Dictator (pictured)

Mr David said he had initially struggled to find an actor to play Hitler in the series, which has been Emmy-nominated for Outstanding Writing for Nonfiction, Outstanding Sound Editing for Nonfiction Programming, and Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series.

He then cast actor Maximilian Klas as the young Hiter, and Hugh Scully, who had a small role in another History Channel series The Men Who Built America, as the older version of the dictator.



He said: 'The hardest part to find was Hitler. We did a lot of casting, I remember our casting notice was picked up online at one point and a lot of sites were saying, “It's finally good to look like Hitler!”'