"A. HITLER, ARCHITECT"

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 132, 30 November 1935, Page 27

"A. HITLER, ARCHITECT"

Adolf Hitler wanted in his youth to be an architect and in fact studied as a draftsman in Munich, says an American paper. But the only architecture he has ever achieved has consisted in the improvements and additions to his chalet high up in the Bavarian Alps above Berchi esgaden. These are of his own designing, and they give his mountain retreat an interest over and above its interest as the ' weekend capital of the Keich.

Originally a simple wooden chalet perched 200f1; up on the pine-clad slopes of thii Obersalzberg, Hitler's house has attached to itself, a new verandah and g;arage and new wings to accommodate visitors and guards.

Haus Wachenfeld; as the Chancellor calls his plaC'B, differs in no way from thousands oi: other Bavarian chalets except ior the enlargements and the fact that it :is furnished more simply and in rathe: r better taste than the average horn.2 of the Bavarian peasant. One does not know how much of its tasteful interior furnishings was done by Hitlor and how much by his sister, Frau .Angela Raubal, who keeps house for him.

The colour scheme throughout is green. The hall is filled with a show of cactus pla:its, and throughout the living rooms there are cushions and knick-knacks presented by anonymous admirers. In Hitler's bedroom there is a portrait of his mother, who died when he was 18, along with a jewelled hunting hor.i presented to him by some unknown follower and a magnificent rug of silver fox skins sent by some friend j.i the Argentine. Outside thi-re are cherry trees, the fragrance of the pines, and an im-

mense view of great peaks clothed with dark forests, while at nights the lights twinkle down in' Austrian Salzburg, only ten miles away.

It would be difficult to imagine any ruler of a great State using a more unassuming retreat. Hitler in fact has planted his country seat here only because the Nazi leaders did most of their early plotting in these mountains. Munich, the Mecca of German art, where Hitler went in 1912 to study architecture, is only a hundred miles away. The Hitler putsch which gave Munich a day's excitement in 1923 is supposed to have been planned in the parlour of a mountain inn above Berchtesgaden.

In the cellar of the same inn the leaders are supposed to have hidden after the failure of the putsch. The inn continued to be the secret headquarters of the Nazi movement until after Hitler's release from gaol. It was then that he bought Haus Wachenfeld, which ever since has been the real headquarters of "the party." Time was when Berchtesgaden was an unspoiled alpine village whose principal occupation was the carving of woodeir toys. It has more serious matters on hand nowadays, centring in Hitler's expanding chalet, the additions to which have all been kept in harmony with its simple wooden lines. Whatever the Chancellor might have done if he had avoided politics and stuck to architecture, he has made an admirable job of the Haus Wachenfeld of today. If there are blue prints of its additions in existence, they may easily be the only blue prints known which bear the signature "A. Hitler, architect."