Flap Over 65 Year Old Magazine Story On Hitler

Who would imagine there would be an effort to suppress a 65 year old UK magazine article about Hitler's home in the mountains? Well, that's exactly what is going on.

Back in 1938, the British magazine Homes and Gardens ran a rather fascinating feature on Adolf Hitler's mountain home... "A handsome Bavarian chalet 2000 feet up on the Obersalzburg amid pinewoods and cherry orchards... barely ten miles from Mozart's own medieval Salzburg."

The story was a major coup in those darkening days leading up to World War and gave Europe an almost unprecedented look into a small slice of Hitler's private home life. Apparently, there are some who do not want people to be able to read and study certain parts of human history and Simon was quickly ordered by Homes and Gardens to take the pictures of the magazine feature story down from his site...allegedly over 'UK copyright infringement'.

If it weren't for Simon Waldman's courteous nature, Homes and Gardens might not have even known of the posting of the pages from the ancient magazine. Simon kindly sent the following note to Isobel McKenzie-Price, current Homes and Gardens Editor, to share this unusual historical discovery with her...

From Simon's site: http://wow.blogs.com/words/2003/09/at_home_with_hi.html

Here is the e-mail I sent to her originally.

Isobel

Thought this might be of interest to you...a possibly lost bit from your archives.

A month or so ago, my father-in-law showed me a November 1938 edition of Homes and Gardens. He had kept it because it featured a four page photo story on a house that his father had designed.

He hadn't really looked at the rest of the magazine, but I took a flick through, and in the middle of it, I found this fantastic feature on 'Hitler's Mountain Home' - basically an 'At Home with Hitler' feature (with a guest appearance from Goering)

http://wow.blogs.com/photos/hitler/ahcover.html

I put it up on my personal website a month or so ago...and in the last few days, it's been linked from a few places and been looked at by tens of thousands of people from round the world.

I realise it's probably not going to go down as one of your magazines greatest moments...but hey, it's hardly your fault. Huge swathes of British society were pretty friendly towards Hitler at this time.

I wonder if you, or anyone there, knew this article had been published?

Do you have any copies yourself?

Anyway...just thought you'd be interested.

Regards

Simon Waldman

In reply, the editor Homes and Gardens, Isobel McKenzie-Price, asked me to take down the At Home with Hitler spread. She didn't even answer any of my questions...

Dear Mr Waldman

Thank you for your email of 2nd September and for the link to your website. While I personally do appreciate the spirit in which you sent it to me, as a representative of IPC Media I am concerned to prevent the unauthorised reproduction of IPC's material, whenever it was originally published. This piece, text and photographs is still in copyright and any unauthorised reproduction is an infringement of copyright. In the circumstances I must request you to remove this article from your website. Sorry that I had to take this stance, but am sure you will appreciate the legal situation.

Yours Sincerely

Isobel McKenzie-Price

I've taken the scans down. But I think they need an official online home. Here's the mail I sent to Isobel McKenzie Price

Dear Isobel.

Many thanks for your note. Apologies for not replying sooner, I've been away for a long weekend.

I've taken the scans down this morning. I understand your issues and the principles of copyright, but I believe that as:

- I'm not making any money out of this

- I'm not depriving you of any money

- no-one can make any money from the scans (too poor quality), and

- no-one has said or inferred anything damaging about Homes and Gardens

...you're being slightly over the top.

These are interesting and important historical documents. As you are clearly aware. They should be widely available for as many people as possible to learn from them. That they can be, instantly, is one of the great beauties of the internet.

I'm afraid as well, that simply getting them taken off my site is unlikely to be the end of it. These are digital files. They have been seen by thousands of people. It is incredibly easy for people to copy them and put them up on their site anywhere in the world. As of now, I have no idea how many versions there might be on the web.

My suggestion to you is this: you should either find or provide an official online home for these scans, where they can be made available with all the copyright information made clear. If not your own site, there might be other online publishers interested.

I will be happy to provide you with a much clearer set of scans for you to use.

That way will satisfy both our requirements, namely: to keep them within the public view, and within the law.

You will also seem like a very benign and enlightened media owner. And there can be no harm in that.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Simon

The emails above, and much more, are on Simon's site here:

http://wow.blogs.com/words/2003/09/at_home_with_hi.html

To read some of the feedback on Simon's UK site from people who

viewed the magazine pages there:

http://wow.blogs.com/words/2003/09/hitlermy_part_i.html

SEE THE MAGAZINE STORY

Not surprisingly, the magazine pages have spread all around the net

already and appear on a substantial number of sites.

The text is fascinating reading and provides a unique look at one

of the most reviled figures in human history...

http://www.the-crease.org/Cover_2.jpg

http://www.the-crease.org/page193_2.jpg

http://www.the-crease.org/page194_2.jpg

http://www.the-crease.org/page195.jpg

Here is a mirror site in Israel...

http://www.hydepark.co.il/hydepark/topic.asp?topic_id=554707