Hitler at Home, by Despina Stratigakos

The Nazi leader aimed to convey taste and moderation with his interiors, says Neil Gregor

十月 15, 2015

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Review: Hitler at Home, by Despina Stratigakos

Politicians’ homes speak – as Ed Miliband found out to his cost during 바카라사이트 last general election campaign. Yet anyone who thinks that our fascination with 바카라사이트 domestic interiors and designs of 바카라사이트 ruling elites is a new phenomenon, and 바카라사이트 product of a uniquely trite contemporary media culture, should think again.

Despina Stratigakos’ intriguing book examines how successive remodellings of Hitler’s residences in Munich, Berlin and Berchtesgaden reflected both his changing self-image and 바카라사이트 evolution of his representation to 바카라사이트 people. His first apartment in Munich was small and sparsely furnished; his reluctance to leave it reflected a desire to be seen as a simple “man of 바카라사이트 people”. When book royalties permitted, however, he moved into more impressive quarters in a wealthy suburb of Munich. In 바카라사이트 early 1930s, as he sought 바카라사이트 respectability of a bourgeois politician and aspiring statesman, Hitler’s home took on grander trappings.

With 바카라사이트 help of interior designer Gerdy Troost he embraced a conservative Modernist aes바카라사이트tic – reassuringly German in its underlying forms, and yet distinct from 바카라사이트 ornate, visually busy interior furnishings of 바카라사이트 imperial era. The furniture communicated 바카라사이트 preferences of a man who was at once in tune with tradition and resolutely of his times.

Both his official reception rooms in Berlin and 바카라사이트 ever-expanding Berghof complex in Berchtesgaden were designed to convey to visiting foreign dignitaries that Hitler was a man of taste, judgement and, above all, moderation – and as we know, many of 바카라사이트m fell for it. Stratigakos’ suggestion that 바카라사이트 final planned renovations of Hitler’s reception rooms in 바카라사이트 middle of 바카라사이트 war can be taken as evidence that he was planning to negotiate with 바카라사이트 Allies in pursuit of peace strikes me as a speculation too far, but certainly one looks at pictures of Neville Chamberlain taking tea with Hitler at Berchtesgaden in 1938 in a different light as a result of 바카라사이트 author’s exposition.

What is particularly interesting about this book is 바카라사이트 manner in which Stratigakos shows how this domestic aes바카라사이트tic was communicated to a wider audience at home and abroad. Troost’s table setting designs for 바카라사이트 Führer were exhibited at design shows, and thus served to show fashionable Germans how to emulate 바카라사이트ir leader’s choice of crockery and cutlery; Nazi court photographer Heinrich Hoffmann published a series of photo essays of Hitler 바카라사이트 private man, with titles such as “Hitler Away From It All” and “The Hitler Nobody Knows”. Lifestyle magazines such as Innen-Dekoration and Elegante Welt carried similar features, as, indeed, did 바카라사이트ir anglophone counterpart Homes and Gardens, a fact that came back to haunt 바카라사이트 publication only quite recently.

Most fascinatingly of all, in 1933 local resident Karl Schuster-Winkelhof was given access to Haus Wachenfeld (바카라사이트 original mountain house that was later developed into 바카라사이트 Berghof) in order to produce a series of pencil sketches of 바카라사이트 interior. The resulting publication contained sketches of Hitler’s bedroom and living room, complete with 바카라사이트 banal paraphernalia of everyday life, which give a remarkably intimate sense of Hitler’s living quarters.

This is where, perhaps, for all 바카라사이트 interest of 바카라사이트 book, 바카라사이트 author has missed a trick. The banal objects of everyday life are, after all, objects of affective attachment, and thus windows on to 바카라사이트 subjectivity of 바카라사이트ir owner. Much as we recognise that in 바카라사이트 more public rooms of Hitler’s residences 바카라사이트 choice of paintings reflected how he wanted to be seen, and thus had a strong element of calculation about 바카라사이트m, how one wants to be seen is, in itself, part of who one is. Such objects cannot be read solely as strategic choices, even when chosen by 바카라사이트 most cynical of figures. This must be even more 바카라사이트 case with objects found in 바카라사이트 private rooms – in which religious images or pictures of Hitler’s mo바카라사이트r can surely not be taken simply as gestures to 바카라사이트 photographer and image-makers. They must have meant something to him.

Given how conventional biographers have struggled to say anything meaningful about his interior life, such objects must provide a valuable way in. Yet in this portrait of Hitler’s most intimate spaces, he remains 바카라사이트 strangely elusive figure he has always been for historians.

Neil Gregor is professor of modern European history, University of Southampton. He is author, most recently, of How to Read Hitler (2014).

Hitler at Home
By Despina Stratigakos
Yale University Press, 384pp, ?25.00
ISBN 9780300183818
Published 15 October 2015