- 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
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