OT: DECEMBER IS TRADITIONALLY HITLER MONTH

Supposedly "King Kong" was his favorite film (dunno if this is true)

Getting it out of way, but Hitler wasn’t Jewish.

Is the old canard that Hitler’s birth name was Schicklgruber still hanging around? I was still hearing it in the 1990s. That was his grandmother’s birth name. His father Alois was born out of wedlock to Maria Schicklgruber. Sometime after Alois was born, Johann Heidler owned up to being his father. The Heidler family, to hide Alois’ illegitimacy, legally changed their surname to Hitler. This was 12-years before little Adolf was born. So he was Hitler from birth to death.

Another part of that urban legend is that if his name had been Schicklgruber he would never have risen high in the government because everyone would be laughing at it. But I had the opportunity to talk once to a German high school exchange student about the “funniness” of Schicklgruber to English speaking ears. He told me what I suspected he would, that German compound words and names are very common and Schicklgruber would not even have elicited a smile.

Hitler was nowhere nearly as awful an artist as is sometimes claimed. His subject matter was uninspired, and he was no more than a talented amateur as far as technique went--but he wasn't the total incompetent of legend. Not in any way to glorify him. Many an artist far more talented than A.H. was/is also a moral and human monstrosity.