I guess neo-Nazis, as well as the likes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other Holocaust deniers, won't be flocking to Walworth County, Wisconsin on June 25 after all.
The grand opening of retired Wisconsin farmer and former SS officer Ted Junker's Hitler shrine is cancelled.
Although the museum's opening day has been called off, TIME's Eric Ferkenhoff reports:
Junker insists the museum is open to anyone. Junker says he has no fear of being targeted, and that if he is attacked, he will gladly die an old man “who lived his life’s dream."
(To clarify, the shrine is dedicated to good guy Adolf Hitler, not the tyrant George W. Bush.)
TIME took a tour of the facility.
Read about the museum.
The setting is deceptively serene and inviting. Deep in the woods of southern Wisconsin, past the antique malls and strawberry fields of Highways 12 and A, a retired farmer stands above a pond and keeps watch over a dozen ducklings and geese. But hanging on a wall behind the gentle 87-year-old man, taped in white lettering on a granite façade, is a haunting welcome to a startlling shrine. “Honorary Hall for Adolf Hitler: Before You Pass Judgment, Give Careful and Equal Consideration to Both Sides.”
This is Theodore Junker’s life’s dream — a temple of sorts that reaches up a high hill, with brick steps leading to a large landing where visitors can admire — or be repulsed by — Junker’s proclamations about “those German and other European heroes” who perished under the tyranny of “Allied persecution and genocide.”
Erecting a monument to one of history’s most reviled figures is only part of Junker's dream. In doing so, he also wants to teach the truth as he sees it: that Hitler did not start World War II and did not despise other races; that the Nazi regime was not a stifling dictatorship; and that there was no extermination of the Jews. If anyone suffered, Junker says, it was the Germans and the rest of Nazi Europe.
This is just great. Wack jobs from all over the world will be descending on Sugar Creek to pay homage at Junker's shrine.
You can bet the Wisconsin Department of Tourism isn't printing out any brochures to promote it. Nonetheless, it will probably be a magnet for Hitler worshippers by word of mouth alone.
(I wonder if Gov. Jim Doyle will be more welcoming to these pilgrims than he was to NRA convention attendees. He'll most likely figure out a way to get some sort of special entertainment tax applied to the attraction.)
Yes, Junker has joined the elite ranks of Wisconsinites that are national, even international, embarrassments. Like others before him, he has brought disgrace to the state.
Wisconsin has a lengthy list of notorious villains and various nut cases.
There's Joe McCarthy, Ed Gein, Jeffrey Dahmer, and Russ Feingold, to name just a few.
Now, we can add Ted Junker to the group.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that Walworth County officials successfully persuaded Junker to reconsider his grand opening.
SUGAR CREEK -- A retired farmer and former Nazi SS officer has told Walworth County officials that he will not open his Adolf Hitler shrine to the public.
Ted Junker, 87, had planned a public opening of the $200,000 memorial June 25.
But after the deluge of international attention Junker's plan received, he has changed his mind, Walworth County Deputy Corporation Counsel Michael Cotter and Walworth County Sheriff David Graves said Thursday. Junker was not answering his phone Thursday.
Graves and Cotter met with Junker at his home Thursday morning to tell him about their concerns about the public opening. Graves said Junker seemed overwhelmed by the mostly negative attention his shrine had attracted. The Sheriff's Department was monitoring threats to his life on the Internet that were coming from groups Graves described as Nazi-hunters.
"I looked at Ted and I said, 'We're becoming concerned about what this event may cause, not only to you because there are some death threats on the Internet that we've been monitoring, but we are also concerned about your family and neighbors in general, and this turning into something you probably didn't want it to turn into. We just really would appreciate it if you wouldn't open it.' He said, 'Then I won't.' "
Graves said Junker also told him he didn't appreciate the attention from neo-Nazi groups, saying he "did not want to be a part of that." The Sheriff's Department also has been monitoring Internet discussions by such groups that want to visit Junker's shrine.
The toothpaste is out of the tube.
The genie is out of the bottle.
The Walworth County Hitler shrine is on the map and internationally known.
There's no going back. The damage is done.
Graves certainly treated Junker gently. I know he's an old man, but I don't see the need to let the guy off the hook for creating a facility that was sure to be a massive headache to the community.
...Junker said he believes that Hitler did not start World War II but was forced into protecting Germany. He denies that any atrocities occurred during the war.
Part of Junker's memorial is also a tribute to the Europeans who died in World War II and "to all victims of Allied persecution and genocide."
Actually, Junker is merely echoing what lib professors say in universities around the country.
Holocaust denier and Northwestern professor Arthur Butz is probably working out plans to visit the shrine.
Perhaps Iranian president Ahmadinejad will schedule a pilgrimage.
Anti-Semitic Cindy Sheehan might want to camp out in a nearby ditch.
Adam Schupack, associate director of the Upper Midwest Region of the Anti-Defamation League, the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism, said he was pleased that local officials took concerns about Junker's site seriously and have addressed it.
"We still have concerns that this site could be turned into a place of pilgrimage since there is nothing the county can do to prevent Mr. Junker from inviting over guests, like neo-Nazis and white supremacists. It is still horrifying to have a shrine to Hitler and we feel it really is an insult, not only to Holocaust survivors and World War II veterans, but to decent people everywhere," Schupack said.
Well said.
Junker's shrine is an insult to decent people everywhere, meaning the ACLU will fight to keep it open.
8 comments:
This shrine to the murderous Hitler, is offensive to the civilized world..
This former SS officer, should be grateful for all of the US officers and men who gave their lives to defend the freedom of expression.
What a repulsive concept!
That said, which is more dangerous:
A) Junker's Hitler Museum
B) DNC Headquarters
C) ACLU Headquarters
D) 9th Circuit Court
E) Nancy Pelosi's mirror
F) Driving with Ted Kennedy
Junker falls in a VERY distant 6th!!!
Are you able to PROVE with moral certainty that Senator Joseph McCarthy was a "nut-case?"
Have you actually READ Stanton Evans' works on McCarthy? Or even Ann Coulter's "Treason"?
Junker is a fruitcake. McCarthy was NOT a fruitcake. Every single one of his assertions was proven correct--if anything, he UNDERestimated the number of spies hired by FDR and HST.
Ditto about McCarthy......His methods were obnoxious, but he was right on most of his accusations. Especially in the State Dept. and in Hollywood.
The only mistake he made was the one that spelled his end, and that was going after the Army.......Which did have subversives, but was an overreach on his part.
Make sure you read about the Venona Project
http://www.nsa.gov/publications/publi00039.cfm
Poison--
Your facts are not quite accurate.
McCarthy had NOTHING, nada, zip, zero (nothing) TO DO WITH HOLLYWOOD'S COMMIES.
His only focus was on the Fed's hiring of SECURITY RISKS.
And the Army employed Julius Rosenberg, for openers, whose SON moved to Russia and gave them the designs for SAM's (inter alia,) after Rosenberg and his wife gave Uncle Joe's boyzzzzz the nuclear bomb.
Army was crawling with dirty frackin' Commie spies, as was State, and Treasury.
Besides which, McCarthy was quite a gentleman--he did NOT name names until he was FORCED to do so by the Democrat majority in the Senate.
He was censured for calling two Senators out--in terms so mild that they make this blog-response seem like holy Hell.
See: http://dad29.blogspot.com/2006/06/joe-mccarthy-primer-for-ignorant.html
First to Marvin--
Your comment is right on the money.
Now, to Dad29 and Pero--
Let me clarify my remark about Joe McCarthy.
At first I wrote that he was a Wisconsinite that had been demonized; but then that threw off the sentence in terms of the Gein and Dahmer examples. There is little debate on Gein and Dahmer being bad guys.
Although many (mostly Lefties) consider McCarthy to be a villain as well as a nut case, that's arguable, as you both point out.
Rather than removing McCarthy from the list or providing any further explanation, I just left it as is.
Lazy? Yes, but I did realize that I was writing something that was highly debatable.
I have to work to get comments on this blog. :)
Sorry, Mary, there's nothing "arguable" about McCarthy.
He was right--on ALL matters of significance--and the only people who "argue" about that are those on the Left, who lost their grip on power, albeit it took a combination of LBJ's and Carter's idiocy to turn the tide.
OTOH, if you wish to maintain that The Left's LIES have made Joe McCarthy 'controversial,' that would be true.
Now for that AM Radio Pundit--who used the term "McCarthyism" and who regularly uses that whimpering, simpering, whine from Welch: "Have you no shame?" as bumper text...
Yes, I'm referring to the myth of McCarthy.
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