A cinematic exorcism for Hitler’s birthplace​

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Braunau am Inn has the dubious privilege of appearing in the first sentence of the first chapter of Mein Kampf. Adolf Hitler explains there that he considers it a “fortunate destiny” to have been born (at 6.30 p.m. on April 20, 1889, a cloudy Saturday, as noted in his biography of reference by Ian Kershaw) in the small Austrian town. A town, Hitler continues, “situated just on the frontier between those two States [Austria and Germany] the reunion of which seems, at least to us of the younger generation, a task to which we should devote our lives and in the pursuit of which every possible means should be employed.” Hitler goes on to say how little he remembers of his life in Braunau am Inn, which is logical because when he was not yet three years old his father Alois, a customs officer, was promoted and the family moved to Passau in Bavaria, on the other side of the border. In 1898, they moved again, this time to Leonding in the district of Linz. And it is Linz that he always considered his hometown and which he wanted later, when he was in power, to become the most beautiful city on the Danube and the cultural counterweight to Vienna, which he detested so much.

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  Adolf Hitler, Austria, Nazismo, Mozart, Vienna  Leer más