Imagine a Golden Age Red Carpet: Sofia Loren, Audrey Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart and … Adolf Hitler. Were America to ever capitulate to Nazi control, the Hollywood Hills would have been der Führer’s choice place of residence. Best of all, he wouldn’t have had to deal with the uptight Los Angeles real estate markets, since Hollywood Fascists had already built him a mansion. The Dictator’s home still stands today, though a remnant of its former glory. And it wont be there for long.
The gates that once guarded Hitler's future home in LA
The luxurious 55-acre ranch deep in the LA hills was originally property of actor Will Rogers. He sold the ranch at the height of the Great Depression to mining fortune heiress Jessie Murphy.
The heiress was soon was befriended by a charming, well-connected German man named Herr Schmidt. According to the
Express, ”Jessie was fascinated by the paranormal and believed that Schmidt had psychic powers. Murphy was spellbound when Schmidt described how he had foreseen that America would fall under the Nazi jackboot but that the country would be rebuilt under German rule,
from her house.”
The Front of The Fascist Mansion, Built for the German Leader
Schmidt, a secret attache for Hitler in California, persuaded Murphy to invest $4 million to transform the property into a Nazi palace fit for a Führer. The result was a lavish, state-of-the-art mansion that boasted a diesel power plant, 375,000-gallon concrete water tank, giant meat locker, bomb shelter and 22 bedrooms. There were further plans to build five libraries, a swimming pool, several dining rooms and a gymnasium with money from Germany, the
Daily Mail reports.
The compound was equipped with a Bomb Shelter, just in case
Only the beginning of the Plans, Foundations were built for lavish amenities
Hitler was a huge fan of the Cinema
Hitler might have been at home in Hollywood. The Third Reich Propaganda ministry, under the command of National Socialist disciple Joseph Goebbels, invested deeply in cinema and art. Some of the most renowned directors of the time moved to Germany to oversee cinematic projects at the invitation of the Nazi State. In 1936, American film awards were lavished upon director Leni Riefenstahl for her Nazi propaganda movie entitled “Triumph of The Will.”
Hitler himself was keen to the art of acting, hiring famed fashion photographer Heinrich Hoffman to take acting shots for hours at a time in his Berlin studio. Hitler’s admiration for the art of propaganda is captured in his infamous memoir, Mein Kampf ~
“The art of propaganda lies in understanding the emotional ideas of the great masses and finding, through a psychologically correct form, the way to the attention and thence to the heart of the broad masses.”
A palace in Tinseltown would have certainly helped to serve this vision.
Hitler, avant garde
The construction of this Hollywood Berghof was completed by a group known as the Silver Shirts, a sinister, fascist organization led by anti-Semite
William Dudley Pelley. Pelley was a notorious fascist and Presidential candidate in 1936, who claimed more than 100,000 followers and the title of “Americas Hitler.” Fascism grew steadily through the late 20‘s and 30’s in America while espousing the slogans that “Capitalism Has Failed You.” The Silver Shirts, who take their name from Hitlers Brown Shirts, recruited nationwide in this period and their numbers grew.
'The American Hitler" Fascist Leader Pelley
The Hollywood Compound was guarded day and night by the group, waiting for the collapse of America and the triumphant New World Order that National Socialism would bring. The house was reported as a peculiarity by its A-list neighbors, who would include the likes of Stephen Spielberg and Harvey Weinstein today. After Pearl Harbor, the Silver Shirts were put on a political blacklist by FDR. Investigators located the compound and arrested the fascist inhabitants as enemy collaborators.
The Mansion was completely self-sufficient, Hitlers huge water tank would have been filled with over 300,000 gallons of water and ready to staff the needs of a new World Leader
The mansion has been sparsely inhabited since the arrests (‘Hitler’s Old Home’ is a tough listing in Yorba Linda) and today is
no more than a ruin of the war. Earlier this year, the remnants of the house were deemed ‘unhistorical’ by the Los Angeles Parks Commission and the property is to be demolished and turned into a picnic place for hikers in the Hollywood Hills. The home’s legacy leaves one to ponder what the world would be like were it not for the brave, American fighting man… and The Rocketeer.
