In 2006 a memorial to the Third Reich opened its doors on American soil. It was built by a retired German SS officer who was not only a registered member of the Nazi party, but fought on the Eastern Front. Five years after World War II ended, he immigrated to America, where he eventually built this memorial because he believed that history is written by the victors, and that the Nazis were unfairly portrayed as the bad guys. It was abandoned after the owner died in 2013, one day after his 94th birthday.
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The plaque in the front of the building reads "BEFORE YOU PASS JUDGEMENT, GIVE CAREFUL AND EQUAL CONSIDERATION TO BOTH SIDES. It is my duty as an American to inform my fellow citizens about the truth of events that occured [sic] between the years 1920 and 1950."
The plaque on the left side of the building reads "THE FIRST AMENDMENT TO THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the exersise therof [sic]; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to patition [sic] the Government for a redress of grievances."
The plaque on the left was too overgrown to read, while the one in the center was so damaged it is illegible. I was able to use photos from the site prior to its abandonment to figure out what they said.
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Above the main building sits a memorial to all those who died fighting for Nazi Germany. The memorial opens with the phrase "THIS MEMORIAL IS DEDICATED TO THOSE GERMAN AND OTHER EUROPEAN HEROES WHO FELL IN WORLD WAR II, AS WELL AS TO ALL VICTIMS OF ALLIED PERSECUTION AND GENOCIDE. MAY GOD EVER BE WITH THEM."
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The inside of the main building was originally intended to be a museum, meeting center, and shrine to Adolf Hitler. Much of the Nazi paraphernalia is now gone, though the plaques that flanked the shrine and much of the pro-nazi literature remains. Though the city could not forbid him from building this, they were able to invoke zoning ordinances to prevent him from hosting neo-nazi meetings here as he intended to do.
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The memorial and museum building itself was built right next to the owner's house where he kept more nazi propaganda, as well as some German culture society newsletters. He also kept several boxes of notes and calculations related to rocket design and aerospace propulsion prototypes- though as I believe those belonged to his son, there appears to be no ties to Operation Paperclip. Oh, and porn. The floor was a carpet of hardcore pornography.
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This site was not constructed to be some secret project- it was well publicized, to the point it was featured in TIME Magazine. He intended for this site to be open to the public in order to spread his pro-Nazi, Holocaust denier ideology. To this extent he published a website about his memorial, claiming that the Holocaust never happened, the death camps were run by the Allies to exterminate the Germans, and that the war started when "the World Jewish Organization declared war on Germany." From this website I was able to pull several photos of the site prior to its abandonment.
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On a personal note, I've never felt visceral disgust at any other abandoned location like I felt here. This place is an abomination that never should have been built in the first place. That being said, it's important to remember that the hatred espoused by the Nazis did not end when Hitler shot himself- it persevered well into the modern day, and we must be ever vigilant to not let it get a foothold in our society again.
In closing, fuck the Nazis.