Hitler’s Boyhood Home in Austria for Sale? Hitler Was Once a Young Boy?
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on November 6, 2009
Tyrannical Nazi leader Hitler's boyhood home is for sale, Austrian locals are alarmed
I never think about Adolf Hitler having once been a little boy. I never picture him playing with little friends, hugging his mother, chasing butterflies, skipping stones. Never.
I know he was child once, having seen the strange “Hitler-gets-cloned” flick The Boys from Brazil many years ago. But I guess I normally imagine that the evil Nazi madman sprung forth from the sulfuric depths of Hell through an erupting volcano. Or up through the Hellmouth beneath Sunnydale. Cheerleader/vampire slayer Buffy Summers hadn’t yet been born to vanquish him like other blood-lusting demons, monsters, and vampires.
Hitler’s boyhood home in Austria is now up for sale, and Austrian locals are worried about who will buy the notorious property and why. Who can blame them?
From BBC News, Hitler house sale alarms locals:
Hitler house sale alarms locals
By John Cummins
BBC News, Vienna | November 6, 2009The sale of Adolf Hitler’s family home in the Austrian town of Braunau am Inn has triggered concern that it could become a shrine for Nazi sympathisers.
The unassuming house where Hitler was born in 1889 has been put on the market priced at 2.2m euros (£1.9m; $3.3m).
Residents and local politicians fear that the property could fall into the hands of far-right extremists.
Braunau’s mayor Gerhard Skiba wants to prevent that happening, but the council does not have the funds to buy it.
The building is currently used by an organisation helping the disabled and has at various times in its history housed a library, bank and technical institute.
Some historians have suggested turning the building into a museum.
However Mr Skiba vigorously opposes the idea, saying it would encourage people from all over the world to visit the site.
For the time being, the only reminder of the building’s infamous past is a small memorial dedicated to the victims of the Nazis.
From The Friggin Loon, Hitler’s House Up For Sale:
Hmm, if you have a spare £2m and don’t mind a shit load of scary tourists and a pissed off council you might be interested in purchasing Adolph Hitler’s childhood home. Yes siree, the house or should I say pub where that devil spawn was born is on the market despite worries it will become a fascist shrine. Momma Hitler gave birth on the first floor of the Gasthof Zum Pommer pub in 1889 and despite the room no longer being there the local authorities in Braunau-am-Inn, Austria are besides themselves hoping the property won’t end up in the hands of extreme right wingers and become a shrine to Hitler’s memory. If they only had enough money in their own kitty they would have purchased the pub themselves but instead are hoping to block the sale in whatever manner they legally can. Heil that!
More Hitler real estate in the news, from March 2009:
The Hitler Files: Luxury spa at Hitler’s lair:
Designers of a luxury hotel spa built on the site of Hitler’s Alpine hideaway are to use Aboriginal healing methods and Chinese feng shui techniques to banish the ghost of the Nazi leader.
The Berchtesgaden Inter-Continental Hotel, rapidly taking shape on what is known as Goering’s Hill, is trying to persuade a high-spending clientele that visiting the place where Hitler planned the invasion of Poland is a pleasurable, even healthy, experience.
With cosmetic cabins built according to the rules of feng shui and beauty products based on the natural healing methods of Aborigines, the Berchtesgaden spa will be indistinguishable from upmarket spas around the world.
However, the 135-room hotel, to be opened in March, plays an important part in a wider debate about the correct way of dealing with the physical relics of the Third Reich.
Only the youngest of Hitler’s victims are still alive and soon a few historical buildings will be the only direct connection that Germany has with the Nazi era.
The Obersalzberg mountain boasts breathtaking views. On a clear day hikers can see into Austria and make out the domes of Salzburg. That is what appealed to Hitler and what makes the mountain a tourist magnet today.
“Is it bad to admire a view like this just because Hitler also admired it?” Gottfried Kerner, a tourist, asked. The retired teacher from Mannheim, clutching an Alpine walking stick, had just taken a short walk from what used to be Hitler’s house, the Berghof, to what was the Nazi leader’s favourite teahouse at Mooslahnerkopf. Every afternoon Hitler would go down to eat a slice of cake; he rose late after working through the night and it was his first daily exercise.
All I can say is… creepy.
Now for some fairly amusing Hitler news… dug up from the 2008 archives:
Gadling.com: Adolf Hitler beheaded! Chaos breaks out at the grand opening of Madame Tussauds’ newest museum in Berlin
By Jeffrey White (RSS feed), July 6, 2008A German man waited patiently in line yesterday for the grand opening of Madame Tussauds’ latest museum in Berlin. He was the second person in the building. What did he do?
He promptly ran to the wax statue of Adolf Hitler on display and ripped off his head, shouting three times as he did, “Never war again!”
Germany’s national tabloid Bild has the whole story today (sorry, it’s in German), and it’s pretty funny.
A man authorities are only calling “Frank L.”, from the Berlin neighborhood of Kruezberg (where I live!) tussled with and injured several security guards on his way to bringing down the Hitler display. Witnesses say he was fanatical and determined.
His girlfriend, who was there, said only, “I am proud of what he did. He was really angry for days about this display. He is a quiet, loving person.”
Police arrested Frank and questioned him, but eventually let him go. He told police that he simply objected to the proximity of the Hitler display to the city’s Jewish museum (though, in reality, they are not that close: Tussauds is near the Brandenburg Gate, while the Jewish museum is more than a 30 minute walk away).
The case has gone to court, and here’s the outcome:
So, how much will Germany fine you if you decapitate Hitler?
The man known in the local media here only as “Frank L” was in court today, where he was given a suspended sentence and fined 900 euros, or roughly $1,200.
Was he sorry? No. He told the court that he’d do it again.
As for the Hitler statue, it is back at Madame Tussauds, in a more secure location.
Related info, including commentary on Oliver Stone’s new Hitler flick:
Greg Gutfeld, Big Hollywood: Daily Gut: Oliver Stone Wants Us to Understand Hitler
Web of Evidence: Waht They Don’t Want You to Know: Oliver Stone suggests Hitler is ‘easy scapegoat’
Telegraph: Oliver Stone’s history: so banal, and yet so offensive
Kurt Schlichter, Big Hollywood: Oliver Stone: I Got Your Hitler Context Right Here
Canada Free Press: The Secret History of the Left
Pam Meister, Big Hollywood: How Do You Put Murderous Dictators in Context? Let’s Ask Oliver Stone!
Daily Mail: Hitler was a scapegoat and I understand Stalin’s point of view, says film director Oliver Stone
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