Gandhi's letter to Hitler

Kermit dictator

Herr meets hare

Downfall re-enacted

Fabulous: Brandon Hardesty re-enacts the whole infamous bunker scene from the movie Downfall (which has become a major internet meme, as reported before here and here), and yes it is hilarious.

Downfall meme in danger

I don't get this: so the movie company of Downfall is now ordering DMCA takedowns of all videos that contain footage from the movie from Youtube and other video sites. Why on Earth should they fight a meme that has brought their film so much attention, especially internationally? Of course, we didn't have to wait long for the answer, i. e. a Downfall in which Hitler himself orders the takedown.

The Daily What: Early Bird Special

Mein Kampf re-release

It feels really strange that it will be possible that this book will be re-released, but at least it is to be hoped that it will be an annotated version:

Adolf Hitler's autobiography "Mein Kampf" is to be republished in Germany in 2015 for the first time since being banned under the country's constitution at the end of the Second World War.

Under the post-1945 German constitution, the dissemination of Nazi philosophy has been a crime punishable by fines and imprisonment.

But the copyright, held by the state of Bavaria where the Nazi movement began life in the 1920s, expires in 2015, 70 years after the death of its author in his Berlin bunker.

I remember that one lady I worked for had an inherited original copy of "Mein Kampf". She constantly ridiculed the book, pointing out some passages where Rudolf Heß (who wrote down the dictations of Hitler) had abbreviated some passages of Hitler's rants with "etc. etc."

Adolf Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' to be republished in Germany - Telegraph

Paula Hitler

Did you know that Adolf Hitler had a sister? I didn't too. Paula Hitler didn't have a lot of contact with him in later life apparently, even though he did pay her some financial support. After the war, she was arrested by US intelligence officers in May 1945 and debriefed later that year. She died on June 1, 1960 at the age of 64.

His rapid rise in the world worried me. I must honestly confess that I would have preferred it if he had followed his original ambition and become an architect...It would have saved the world a lot of worries.

Paula Hitler - He was still my brother

The Downfall meme

Bernd Eichinger, German director and producer of the movie Downfall, has commented on the prevalence of the Downfall internet meme, where geeks around the world take the famous "rant" scene from the movie and put subtitles on it, using any topic from Michael Jackson's death to the financial crisis. Eichinger notes that he finds these mashups hilarious and that he is happy the film and the scene in particular is firing people's imaginations.

Downfall writer praises Hitler rant net meme • The Register

Hess's solo flight

One of the most unexpected and absurd turnings in the development of the Second World War:

On May 10, 1941, German official Rudolf Hess made an unauthorized visit to Britain. He was arrested after he broke his ankle in a parachute jump from his Messerschmitt, which crashed just south of Glasgow, Scotland. Hess, whose German title of deputy Führer put him in charge of the Nazi Party apparatus, was on a solo mission. He said he wanted to negotiate a peace in which Britain would be safe from attack if it gave Nazi Germany a free hand in Europe. Dismissed as insane by the British and Adolf Hitler, Hess remained in Allied imprisonment until his death in 1987.

According to the memoirs of Albert Speer, Hitler's main architect, Hitler was quite shocked by the betrayal of the second man in command Hess. Speer described it as one of the hardest blows to the plans of Hitler, as it laid open the internal struggles between the top Nazis.

Howstuffworks "United States Enacts the Lend-Lease Bill: January 1941-June 1941"

Hitler at the Odeonsplatz

A young Adolf Hitler attends a rally in the Munich Odeonsplatz, August 2, 1914, to celebrate the declaration of war.

Adolf Hitler, the young painter

Hitler's new chancellery

For building the Neue Reichkanzlei (Reich Chancellery), Hitler issued a blank cheque to his favorite architect Albert Speer. (In fact, the total costs exceeded 90 Million Reichsmark, more than a billion dollars today.)

Hitler wanted to create an impressive building to wow foreign diplomats, who were supposed to be intimidated by having to walk hundreds of meters through the building on expensive yet slippery marble before they would meet the Führer.

The sheer dimensions of the rooms and hallways (some up to 20 meters in heights) and the extravagant decorations (nearly 150 paintings were bought from museums) were designed to reflect the power of the Third Reich and instill in the visitor a sense of worthlessness.


Even though the building was only lightly damaged by air bombings, the Soviet occupation force decided to tear it down shortly after the ending of the war, as it had become one of the symbols of the Nazi reign. Some pieces of the extraordinary marble mosaics are said to have been reused in a Berlin subway station.

einestages: 70 Jahre Neue Reichskanzlei

Georg Elser's assassination attempt on Hitler

The Bürgerbräukeller was located in Munich, Germany, and by 1923 was one of the preferred gathering places of the NSDAP, or Nazi Party.

It was one of the large beer halls of the Bürgerliches Brauhaus public limited company, and after its merger with Löwenbräu, the hall was transferred to that company. It was from there that Adolf Hitler launched his Beer Hall Putsch and marched to the Feldherrnhalle in 1923.

After 1933, Hitler delivered a speech to the participants of his earlier failed coup, every November 8. It was there on November 8, 1939, that he barely escaped an assassination attempt. Seven people were killed and sixty-three injured by a bomb blast, but Hitler escaped unharmed, because he had left the gathering a few minutes earlier than planned. The would-be assassin Georg Elser was executed in the Dachau concentration camp on April 9, 1945.

On 8 November, 1939, the bomb exploded at 21:20, exactly as Elser had planned, but Hitler had already left the room thirteen minutes earlier. Eight people died and sixty-three were injured, sixteen of them seriously, and Elser's plot to assassinate Hitler had failed.

Elser was killed by gunshot on 9 April 1945, in the Dachau concentration camp, just a few weeks before the end of war.

Georg Elser Arbeitskreis Hildesheim

Felsennest

Es ist der 10. Mai 1940 um 4.30 Uhr in der Frühe. Der Diktator ist mit seiner Gefolgschaft auf dem Weg nach Rodert, einem kleinen Dörfchen bei Bad Münstereifel. Hier, unweit der belgischen Grenze, hat der Diktator eines seiner geheimen "Führerhauptquartiere" einrichten lassen, es trägt den Code-Namen "Felsennest". Vom "Felsennest" aus will Hitler den Feldzug gegen Frankreich und die Benelux-Staaten kommandieren. Kurz zuvor, während der Anreise im Führersonderzug "Amerika", hat er dazu den Angriffsbefehl gegeben.

Um 5.00 Uhr trifft Hitler während der ersten schwachen Anzeichen des Morgengrauens in Rodert ein und wird von Hauptmann Spengemann durch die Anlage geführt, die ihm bis zum 6. Juni als Hauptquartier und Wohnsitz dienen wird. Ab 5.35 Uhr ist beim "Führer" und seinem Gefolge im "Felsennest" dumpfer Geschützdonner aus westlicher Richtung zu hören - der Zweite Weltkrieg hat nun auch im Westen Europas in seiner ganzen Härte begonnen. [...]

Christa Schroeder, eine von Hitlers persönlichen Sekretärinnen, erinnerte sich später, wie der "Führer" vom "Felsennest" schwärmte: "Er war immer wieder begeistert über die schöne Landschaft und äußerte den Plan, nach Beendigung des Krieges in jedem Jahr einmal mit der gleichen Besetzung eine Erinnerungsfahrt hierher zu machen."

Hitlers vergessenes Hauptquartier - einestages