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My daughter is studying governments and needed some examples of dictators. A Google search led her to say, “Boy, everybody hates Hitler!” I gave her more examples, but they were all from the past 100 years. Before World War II, did any one person serve as a metaphor for oppression, cruelty, and all-around evil? Slate tackles the question.
The Pharoah. In the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, many Americans and Europeans had a firmer grasp of the bible than of the history of genocidal dictators. Orators in search of a universal symbol for evil typically turned to figures like Judas Iscariot, Pontius Pilate, or, most frequently, the Pharaoh of Exodus, who chose to endure 10 plagues rather than let the Hebrew people go. In Common Sense, Thomas Paine wrote: “No man was a warmer wisher for reconciliation than myself, before the fatal nineteenth of April, 1775 [the date of the Lexington massacre], but the moment the event of that day was made known, I rejected the hardened, sullen tempered Pharaoh of England for ever.” In the run-up to the Civil War, abolitionists regularly referred to slaveholders as modern-day Pharaohs. Even after VE Day, Pharaoh continued to pop up in the speeches of social reformers like Martin Luther King Jr.
But he wasn’t the only example, just the most commonly used. Link -via Breakfast Links
You may be familiar with Claus von Stauffenberg, who conspired to kill Hitler with a bomb and whose plot was the basis for the Tom Cruise film Valkyrie. But do you know about the many other attempts on Hitler’s life? One involved Georg Elser, who worked alone for a year on a plan to destroy the Fuhrer, with a bomb planted in a beer hall.
While Elser was in the bierkeller he noted the stone pillar just behind the speaker’s dais; it supported a substantial balcony along one wall. His rough calculations suggested that a large bomb placed within the pillar would bring down the balcony and bury both the Führer and a number of his chief supporters. The question was how to conceal a device sufficiently powerful to do the job within a piece of solid stonework.
Here again Elser proved to have precisely the qualities needed for the job. Knowing that he had a year to prepare, he went to work methodically, obtaining a low-paying job in an arms factory and taking whatever opportunities presented themselves to smuggle 110 pounds of high explosives out of the plant. A temporary job in a quarry supplied him with dynamite and a quantity of high-capacity detonators. In the evenings, he returned to his apartment and worked on designs for a sophisticated time bomb.
When the bomb finally went off, it killed eight people and injured 64 others -but Hitler was not one of them . Read the whole story at Past Imperfect. Link
There were a lot of plans in place for taking Hitler down (Captain America’s punch to the face notwithstanding) that never quite panned out. Among them, an inventive and elaborate scheme to turn the Fuhrer into a woman:
Cardiff University professor Brian Ford says he uncovered the plan while reviewing recently declassified documents for his new book, Secret Weapons: Technology, Science, And The Race To Win World War II.
British spies figured that if they could lace Hitler’s food with estrogen, over time he would become less cruel and aggressive, Ford says. The idea was to “feminize” Hitler, and make him behave more like his sister, Paula, a “mild-mannered secretary.” The Brits were encouraged by then-recent research into the effects of sex hormones in therapy. “There were agents who would be able to get it into his food,” Ford says, as quoted by The Telegraph. “It would have been entirely possible.”
No one ever put the plan into action, probably because it was crazy–just like some others highlighted in this article over on The Week. Link
Would you love a cat that looks like Hitler? Apparently cats looking like Hitler is such an epidemic that there is an entire website dedicated to cataloguing these Kitlers. If you have one you can post your Feline Führer and show him to the world before he tries to take it over. Link
When we think “Evil Lairs” most of us fondly remember Dr. Evil’s hollowed out mountain with his face on it from the Austin Powers movies (at least I do). In reality there are plenty of actual evil lairs to marvel at. My favorite is H.H. Holmes’ Murder Castle.
This was no ordinary hotel: most of the rooms were windowless, with stairways to nowhere and hallways that ended in dead ends. Holmes also built gas jets into hotel-room walls, a wooden disposal chute and person-size kiln in the basement. This was the perfect place to murder someone.
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Adolf Hitler’s last surviving bodyguard, Rochus Misch, announced that he is no longer able to respond to his voluminous fan mail. Fan mail?
Rochus Misch is 93 and uses a walking frame to move around his apartment. He told the Berliner Kurier tabloid that, with most of the letters he receives asking for autographs, it was “no longer possible” to reply because of his age.
“They (letters) come from Korea, from Knoxville, Tennessee, from Finland and Iceland — and not one has a bad word to say,” said Misch, who is believed to be the last man alive to have seen Hitler and other top-ranking Nazis in the flesh.
Misch published his memoirs in 2008. Link -via Breakfast Links
Recently-unearthed documents from the the German Foreign Office reveal a World War II dog story destined to eventually become a movie. A dog in Finland named Jackie could do a Hitler salute so well that the Nazis considered it a gross insult.
The dog, Jackie, was a mutt owned by Tor Borg, a businessman from the Finnish city of Tampere. Borg’s wife Josefine, a German citizen known for her anti-Nazi sentiments, dubbed the dog Hitler because of the strange way it raised its paw high in the air like Germans greeting the Fuehrer with a cry of “Heil Hitler!”
On January 29, 1941, German Vice Consul Willy Erkelenz in Helsinki wrote that “a witness, who does not want to be named, said … he saw and heard how Borg’s dog reacted to the command ‘Hitler’ by raising its paw.”
Borg was ordered to the German embassy in Helsinki and questioned about his dog’s unusual greeting habits.
He denied ever calling the dog by the German dictator’s name, but admitted that his wife called the dog Hitler. He tried to play down the accusations, saying the paw-raising had only happened a few times in 1933 — shortly after Hitler came to power.
The German Foreign Office was ready to arrest Borg for insulting Hitler, but no one wanted to testify against the man. Link -via Metafilter
Adolek Kohn’s dance at Auschwitz was a powerful and joyful statement, but it wasn’t the first of its kind. Groucho Marx visited his mother’s home town of Dornum, Germany in 1958. He found that the Nazis had destroyed Jewish graves and the records of Jewish residents. Marx then hired a car to take his travel group to Berlin.
It was surprisingly easy to get there. The car slipped through a checkpoint into a devastated gray and brown city of people in solemn clothing. Marx told the chauffer to drive to the bunker where Hitler was said to have committed suicide, where he was supposedly still buried.
The rubble at the site was about 20 feet high. Wearing his characteristic beret but without the trademark cigar, Marx alone climbed the side of the debris. When he reached the top, he stood still for a moment. Then he launched himself, unsmiling, into a frenetic Charleston. The dance on Hitler’s grave lasted a minute or two.
There was no joy in the dance, but the statement was clear. Link -via The Atlantic
Sixty five years ago, on April 30, 1945, Hitler and his wife Eva Braun ended their lives in an underground bunker after Berlin fell.
Shortly afterwards, LIFE photographer William Vandivert was on scene to photograph the destroyed city and the bunker itself. These never-before-published images are now available from LIFE Photo Gallery WWII: Inside Hitler’s Bunker.
This one above is captioned:
With only candles to light their way, war correspondents examine a couch stained with blood (see dark patch on the arm of the sofa) located inside Hitler’s bunker. In his typed notes Vandivert wrote: "Pix of [correspondents] looking at sofa where Hitler and Eva shot themselves. Note bloodstains on arm of soaf [sic] where Eva bled. She was seated at far end …. Hitler sat in middle and fell forward, did not bleed on sofa. This is in Hitler’s sitting room." Remarkable stuff — but, it turns out, only about half right. Historians are now quite certain that Braun actually committed suicide by biting a cyanide capsule, rather than by gunshot — meaning that the blood stains on the couch are quite likely Hitler’s, and not Eva Braun’s, after all.
Link – Thanks Ben!
Previously on Neatorama: 17 Strange Facts About Hitler
Adolph Hitler’s “outburst” scene from the 2004 film “Der Untergang” (“Downfall”) is an excellent example of how a cultural event can go “viral” as an internet meme. Because the original film was in German, complicated overdubbing is not required; creation of a parody can be achieved by the simple expedient of superimposing fake subtitles.
Dozens of such videos can be located with a quick search of YouTube, including ones in which Hitler reacts to sporting events, computer problems, Obama, Palin, Brett Favre, losing his home to foreclosure, the use of the term “grammar Nazis,” and even the existence of the parodies themselves. The most recent example, embedded above, has him ranting about another meme – the “balloon boy” hoax.
Link.
Is the Hitler moustache history? Since World War II it has not been popular, but long before Hitler rose to power, the toothbrush was the signature look of Charlie Chaplin. In fact, the tiny moustache was quite fashionable at one time.
Now comedian Richard Herring is sporting a toothbrush moustache for his Edinburgh show, ‘Hitler Moustache’, in which he rails against voter apathy and fascism. Herring said of his new moustache, "As people passed they would start laughing about five yards behind me. A group of lads called me ‘Adolf’. I haven’t had any sense of anger but I think some people were intimidated or scared."
With such a hairy past, it shouldn’t be suprising that his moustache would get a lot of lip. But Herring is convinced that a Hitler moustache might grow on us — provided we don’t turn up our noses.
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by Kalel.
In 1940, Hitler, incensed by the successful bombing of Berlin by the RAF. ordered the construction of three enormous flak towers to protect the city. Soon afterwards, this idea quickly spread around Germany.
Considered invulnerable at the time – and they pretty much were – many of these colossal structures still stand today, albeit serving much more "civilian" purposes:
The L Tower in Vienna is now, well, you take a guess. If your German is any good then its current name – Haus des Meeres is a complete giveaway. If not, then you may be surprised to discover that it is an aquarium. Instead of weapons of war and people huddling from falling bombs it now houses over three and a half thousand animals, with huge fish tanks containing sharks, turtles and piranhas (in different tanks one assumes). There is even a new tropical house with free flying birds and free-running monkeys.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by taliesyn30.
The Nazi Horten 2-29 fighter plane looked like something from a Star Wars prequel: an all-wing jet capable of speeds up to 600 mph, made mostly of wood.
Designer Walter Horten had lost hundreds of Luftwaffe colleagues during the Battle of Britain in 1940, and he was keen to avenge their deaths by developing a plane that would be pretty much invisible to Britain’s radar system.
He and his brother built and flew the prototype Ho 2-29 just before Christmas 1944, but the war ended before the plane could enter mass production.
The only remaining Horten 2-29 is kept hidden from public view at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum’s Paul E. Garber Preservation, Restoration and Storage Facility outside Washington, DC.
Did the plane truly have stealth capability against WWII radar? A team from Northrup Grumman built and tested a full-scale replica to find out.
Photo by Linda Reynolds/Flying Wing Films
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Marilyn Terrell.
Right up there with “Who did Cain from the Bible marry after Abel died?” (hint: it was one of his sisters), the question of “What happened to Hitler’s descendants (if there are any)?” has dogged historians for decades. No more; a Telegraph piece delves into the English side of Hitler’s family, revealing details heretofore unknown. What I found most interesting was how the article discusses the troublesome enterprise of living with such an infamous name, and the pact the Hitler brothers made to ensure that the Hitler blood line would die out. But on top of all that is the process by which the author, David Gardner, was able to get all the information:
I was about to ask [William Patrick Hitler's] widow the question she had been dreading for 50 years: “Is your real name Mrs Hitler?”
I knew William Patrick would not be answering the door. I had just been to visit his grave, a 20-minute drive away, at the closest Roman Catholic cemetery, where I was given the name and address of his widow, Phyllis. The music stopped and a tall, elegantly-dressed woman peered from behind the screen and spoke with a distinct German accent. Even from behind the grey mesh I could tell the reason for my visit was already dawning on her. She must have envisaged this very conversation countless times over the years.
“Perhaps we will talk about it when the boys are older,” she said. “We were married a long time and my husband never wanted anyone to know who he was. Now my sons don’t want anything to do with it. It was all too long ago. There has been enough trouble with this name.”
Despite my polite attempts to persuade her to tell me more, she was adamant she did not want to talk about her extraordinary family secret. It was only when I drove slowly away from the house that I realised the implications of what Phyllis had told me; that the Hitler line did not die out with William Patrick Hitler when he died in 1987, aged 76. It lived on through her sons. From that first, short conversation with William Patrick’s widow through subsequent dealings with her family over a period of three years for my book, The Last of the Hitlers, and a Channel 5 documentary, set to be screened on February 4, I have kept a pledge not to reveal the name adopted by the Hitler family in New York, nor the town where they live.
Hit the Link to read the rest of this article.
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1. The Milk Diet Even the most die-hard enemy of osteoporosis would probably find it difficult to drink three quarts of milk a day. Not Benito Mussolini. A large portion of his diet consisted solely of moo juice, which he drank to try to quell his stomachaches. He hid this habit from his cohort Adolf Hitler, though, because he thought the habit was "unfascist." |
 (Image: Blue Blood on the Mat by Athol Oakley) |
2. More Milk Diet OK, maybe there are more milk lovers out there than I thought. British wrestler Sir Athol Oakley maintained his physique by drinking 11 pints of milk every single day for three years. That’s 12,012 pints of milk. When asked how he had arrived at that particular amount, he said it was because a wrestler he admired, Georg Hackenschmidt, gave an interview once in which he had professed to drinking exactly that amount. Hackenschmidt met Oakley and informed him that the 11 pints had been a typo – he actually drank just one pint of milk a day. |
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3. The PBJ Diet In this case, "starving artist" almost applies. When Ernest Hemingway was writing his works of literary genius, he certainly wasn’t dining on filet mignon and caviar. Nope, most of his books were written on a diet of peanut butter sandwiches. |
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4. A Diet of Weeds I’d take a diet of PBJ any day over a diet of weeds. Automobile magnate Henry Ford took to eating weed sandwiches on a regular basis after hearing that George Washington Carver – a dietician as well as a scientist – did the same. One story goes that an employee was given the chance to go on an outing with Ford – a prestigious award. When they got back, the employee was asked if he’d like to try it again. "Not if I have to eat another one of those grass sandwiches," he replied. |
| 5. Eating One’s Book As a writer, I have to say this one gives me pause. In 1644, a Danish author wrote a book that addressed how unfortunate the Danes has been since Sweden defeated them in the Thirty Years’ War. The Swedes were not impressed. They captured him and held him prisoner for several years until they finally gave him a choice: eat your book or we decapitate you. He ate the book. |
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6. A Diet of Oranges
Although dictator Idi Amin bestowed upon himself the title of " His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea, and Conqueror of the British Empire [CBE] jaffain Africa in General and Uganda in Particular", in exile he earned the nickname "Dr. Jaffa". Apparently he ate Jaffa oranges like there was no tomorrow, believing that they would act like Viagra for him. He ate fruit pretty much exclusively during this time period – a pretty amazing change for someone who is said to have been a cannibal. |
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7. Goldfish swallowing Anyway, this fad was goldfish sweeping the nation in the 1930s. Not everyone thought it was such a cool thing to do – many towns made it illegal and a Massachusetts Senator tried to pass a bill protecting the fish from "cruel and wanton consumption." Colleges threatened to expel students for such unbecoming behavior. The fad passed (more or less) but not until after the record was established at 300+ goldfish swallowed by one man in one sitting. |
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 Photo: Philadelphia Eagles |
8. Another bad idea? Glass-eating. This one has its roots on college campuses too. Tim Rossovich, a linebacker for the Philadelphia Eagles, liked to prove how tough he was by enjoying a nice bite of beer mug or a light snack of a light bulb (pun intended. Sorry). In 1973, a student at Harvard wasn’t terribly impressed by Rossovich’s stunt, and set out to prove that swallowing glass really wasn’t that difficult. After he ate a light bulb, lots of kids around the Cambridge campus started chomping on good old incandescents. School officials put a stop to it as soon as they found out. |
 Lifebuoy, because we don’t need to see a photo of underwear |
9. Always Wear Underwear If you’re eating right now, put it down. OK. Now you can read this. In 1994, Renato Arganza, a fisherman, found himself stranded at sea when his boat tipped just off of the Philippines. He clung to a buoy for more than four days. When he was finally found, he told his rescuers that he survived by eating his underwear. I’m sure there’s a joke in there somewhere about nutrition and skid marks, but I’m just going to leave that one to your imaginations. |
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10. Baskin Robbins Ice Cream Diet One story even goes like this: he harbored a serious addiction to Baskin Robbins’ banana nut flavor. He found out it was being discontinued and panicked, immediately ordering 350 gallons (some stories say 1,000 gallons) of that particular flavor. Less than a week after it arrived, he announced that he was sick of banana nut and only wanted vanilla from that point on. I can’t find any confirmation for this story, though, so take it with a grain of salt. I, for one, think I could probably manage to survive on nothing but mint chocolate chip for the next 70-80 years. |
| Inspired by the book 5 People Who Died During Sex and 100 Other Terribly Tasteless Lists. | |
