Hitler Lookalike Spotted Near Nazi Führer’s Birthplace
A demonstrator holds a cardboard cut-out depicting German dictator Adolf Hitler at the ‘Deutsches Eck’ memorial in Koblenz to protest right-wing politicians meeting there on January 21, 2017. Image by Getty Images
Austrian authorities are investigating reports of a man appearing in public in Adolf Hitler’s birthplace as the Nazi dictator’s double, including the distinctive mustache, haircut and clothing.
“I have often seen this gentlemen in Braunau and wonder if this means something,” the Oberoesterreichische Nachrichten paper cited a local resident as saying on his Facebook page alongside a picture of the man it said resembled Hitler.
Hitler was born in Braunau am Inn, then part of Austria-Hungary, in 1889.
Prosecutors confirmed the report.
The man, estimated to be 25 to 30 years old, was last seen in a local bookstore browsing through magazines about World War Two, adding he had identified himself in a local bar as “Harald Hitler.
On at least one occasion, he was photographed in front of the house where Hitler was born.
Austria’s parliament voted in December to buy the three-storey house where Hitler was born, which the government has rented since 1972 to control how it is used.
Glorifying Hitler or the Nazis is a crime in Austria, which Nazi Germany annexed in 1938.
—Reuters
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
