Hitler's Globes

Tom Cruise apparently faces legal action over using the likeness of “the Fuehrer’s notorious globe” in Valkyrie. “In 2007,” it seems, “Robert Pritikin paid $100,000 for the globe and had its likeness copyrighted to keep it from being used in propaganda by sick neo-Nazi groups.”

Aha, but Hitler had a number of globes. Another “notorious” Hitler globe is right here in Berlin, at the German Historical Museum, complete with a bullet hole through Germany supposedly shot by a Soviet soldier. Only its provenance is disputed. The globe in the museum is about the size of the beach ball made famous by Charlie Chaplin — Hitler’s truly notorious globe — but Wolfram Poblanz believes the real one was about the size of a Volkswagen.

     posted 5 January 2009 by Michael Scott Moore

  1. When you shoot a bullet through a globe at Germany in, say, 1944, where do you aim for the “exit wound.” There has to be a second hole.

    e

    — e    Jan 6, 06:07 am    #

  2. Would have been 1945. The museum keeps the globe behind glass, so the “exit wound” isn’t visible. I guess it’s in the South Pacific somewhere, but I’m not sure the soldier — if he existed — thought to aim.

    — Mike    Jan 6, 11:49 am    #

  3. indeed…Poblanz believes the globe in the DHM actually belonged to Ribbentrop…due to its base, designed by architect Paul Ludwig Troost – who also did Munich’s Haus der Kunst….

    — William Thirteen    Jan 6, 12:29 pm    #

  4. I thought Hitler had only got one globe.

    — Bowleserised    Jan 6, 05:23 pm    #

  5. The lone-nut theory has some proponents.

    — Mike    Jan 6, 07:17 pm    #

  6. Then they aren’t diplaying his ball, globe, nut well enough. I would be bugged by this if I saw it. Geeze…I love historical artifacts to the point this is something I think about too much.

    — e    Jan 7, 12:38 pm    #