Bizarre: Given some historical context, it’s funny how absolutely
insane this sounds:
Guardian: At Home with the Fuhrer.
My discovery was an article headlined ‘Hitler’s Mountain Home’ – a breathless, three-page Hello!-style tour around Haus Wachenfeld, Hitler’s chalet in the Bavarian Alps. In it, the author, the improbably named Ignatius Phayre, tells us that ‘it is over 12 years since Herr Hitler fixed on the site of his one and only home. It had to be close to the Austrian border’. It was originally little more than a shed, but he was able to develop it ‘as his famous book Mein Kampf became a bestseller of astonishing power’.
The great dictator, it seems, was quite the interiors wizard: ‘The colour scheme throughout this bright, airy chalet is light jade green. The Führer is his own decorator, designer and furnisher, as well as architect… has a passion about cut flowers in his home.’
And he is seldom alone in his mountain hideaway, as he ‘delights in the society of brilliant foreigners, especially painters, musicians and singers. As host, he is a droll raconteur… ‘
Oh, and look who’s practising his archery in the garden: ‘It is strange to watch the burly Field-Marshal Göering, as chief of the most formidable airforce in Europe, taking a turn with the bow-and-arrow at straw targets of 25 yards range.’
And on it gushes, all accompanied by various photos of Hitler and friends admiring the view, examining plans for the house, and one delightful shot of Adolf relaxing on a deckchair with ‘one of his pedigree alsatians beside him’.
Next time you read an over-excited ‘inside the home of’ article, bear in mind that the subject might be a psychopathic dictator bent on world domination and mass murder.
(The article then descends into a convoluted mess of copyright claims and counterclaims, BTW, in case you’re interested. But the bizarre stuff is what got me ;)
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