Editorial: Holding the line
…
Monahan: Salome at Harris played by newcomer
Yvonne De Carlo, eye-stunning beauty, in technicolored film
By Kaspar Monahan
…
Portal wages are upheld by Supreme Court
Soft coal miners win decision, 5-4
…
Chinese smash Japanese flank
…
Hitler hideout now only charred ruin
Neighbors think Adolf’s in hiding
By Jack Fleischer, United Press staff writer
BERCHTESGADEN, Germany – Adolf Hitler’s neighbors believe he is not dead but hiding here somewhere in the Bavarian Alps where his fabulous Berghof retreat today is a charred, smoking ruin.
One report in the countryside here is that Hitler, Reich Marshal Hermann Goering, and a party fled toward Hinter See, 30 miles east of Berchtesgaden.
It may be pure rumor, but as one Bavarian farm woman, Frau Theresa Aschauer Scheffau, remarked, “We don’t believe anything Hitler and the Nazis say because they lied to us and betrayed us so many times.”
Frau Scheffau, whose little farm is near Hitler’s Berghof estate, based much of her information on the statements of foreign slave workers who sweated to rush completion of the elaborate system of buildings and tunnels Hitler had here.
Had 70 servants
She said so far as known Hitler himself had not visited Berghof since the attempt on his life last July 20 “if he was here then.” But she said Goering had been a very frequent visitor. He and his wife stayed in a luxurious villa, one of the guest houses of Hitler’s chalet.
“Frau Goering alone had 70 girls on her household staff,” Frau Scheffau said. “And Lord knows how many servants there were altogether for the Fuehrer’s chalet and all the guest houses.”
I got some idea of the size of the establishment from a telephone directory I found in one building. It listed about 600 numbers.
No. 366 was for the underground room of Eva Braun, Hitler’s sweetheart. No. 355 was Hitler’s reception room in an underground bunker. To get Eva in her regular room upstairs, Hitler called 417.
Deputy Fuehrer Martin Bormann had a whole building to himself here. Press Chief Dr. Otto Dietrich and Munitions Minister Albert Speer were others listed in the directory.
Private Nazi capital
Everything indicated that Berghof became more and more the Nazi Party’s private capital as the war went on, especially after Allied bombs made Berlin too hot. But today the great estate was as kaput as the Nazis claim Hitler himself to be.
Most of the buildings and much of the grounds are as devastated as if a big battle had been fought here. However, a task force from the 3rd Division took Berghof Friday night without a fight. Most of the damage was done by Allied air attacks, especially the RAF’s 11-ton battering a fortnight ago.
Blown up by SS
However, Hitler’s own house – Haus Wachenfeld – apparently did not receive any direct hits, in spite of the Air Minister’s claims. Civilians said SS troopers blew it to pieces last Thursday, just before the Americans arrived.
Haus Wachenfeld is painted a hideous, camouflage green like all the other buildings here. Today its metal roof sags crazily. Jagged holes gape in the walls. The inside is devastated.
The famous broad window covering one end, where Hitler gazed at the Alps for inspiration and “intuition,” is a great hole measuring 30 feet high and 10 feet wide.
Three miles of tunnels
The more valuable furnishings were moved into the tunnels which lace this mountainside. One entrance to the tunnels is just behind Hitler’s kitchen. Another is 200 yards behind the SS barracks. A third is near the flagpole where the Stars aud Stripes fly today at half-mast in honor of President Roosevelt.
Those tunnels, winding and carpeted in brown, cover an estimated three miles. In the center of them there is a huge, metal elevator running up to the famous Eagle’s Nest teahouse on the mountain top. The elevator did not work today.
Opening off one section of the tunnels are 20 simply-furnished, square bedrooms with two to six beds – all made and ready to sleep in – in each room.
The corridors themselves are filled with old engraved silverware, valuable china and fine table linen, all initialed “A.H.”
Many books found
In some cupboards there are 20-foot-long bookcases packed with the works of German military writers and books by Allied and German authors about Nazi Germany. Included are a half-dozen red-jacketed copies of Mein Kampf, autographed by the author.
There is also an elaborate wine cellar, stocked among other things with 1,000 bottles of “Veuve Clicquot” French champagne. Another large storeroom is piled with paintings, and still another with the furniture from the chalet.
Among the interesting items turned up by G.I.’s who roamed Berghof today was the negative of a movie reel, showing two nude girls disporting.
Another was a glass sewing case with a sterling silver top, whereon was written in an open, feminine hand: “Eva.”
‘They’re both swell men,’ ‘dead’ flier’s wife says
Cables first husband her love – doesn’t know which one to choose
…
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
Since President Truman has signed that bill so the Kennebunkport, Maine, post office can have a new mural I won’t enter the controversy about the one there now. Maybe the bathing beach ladies are too fat and haven’t enough clothes, but after all, post-office art is still in its infancy.
Why, once the only art you saw in post offices were posters showing front and side views of men’s faces, labeled “Wanted! Reward!” – the most depressing kind of faces, too.
It wasn’t as if they couldn’t have put up nice attractive faces, like Clark Gable’s or Van Johnson’s. But I suppose the post-office officials just belonged to the modern realistic school of art, and never thought of what they were doing to the morale of their public.
George says he’s for less art in post offices, and more and better pens.
Doting mom does her son wrong
Even a mother agrees to that
By Sara Boynoff, North American Newspaper Alliance
…