Golfers are invited to get a ‘Heil’ in one when a controversial crazy golf exhibition opens in Derby, England later this month.

Doug Fishbone and Friends: Adventureland Golf presents artworks by the likes of Jake and Dinos Chapman, David Shrigley, Brian Griffiths, Jonathan Allen, Zatorski + Zatorski, and Doug Fishbone displayed over a golf course.

The course begins with Jonathan Allen’s boarded up library before heading over to Brian Griffiths’ desert island. Elsewhere David Shrigley offers advice and guidance on the participant’s way round the course such as “Respect Your Opponent”. In the context of holiday fun Jake and Dinos Chapman, and Doug Fishbone have created replicas of two dictators for the course which concludes with Zatorski + Zatorski’s black mausoleum-like slabs. After this hole the ball is irretrievable. The game is over!

The most controversial exhibits are a statue of Saddam Hussein by Fishbone, and a statue of Adolf Hitler, designed by the Chapman brothers.
 

 
When a player hits a ball through the Hitler hole, the fiberglass Führer raises his arm in a Nazi salute and says “Nein, nein, nein.”

London-based, American-artist Doug Fishbone claimed the intention was not to ridicule or minimize the suffering caused by these dictators.

However, when the exhibition first opened last year in the popular seaside resort of Blackpool, Michael Samuels, of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, described the Hitler statue as having “absolutely no artistic value whatsoever.”

The exhibition has inspired considerable debate on local newspaper the Derby Telegraph‘s website.

“Bagheera” criticised the exhibition and said: “As someone who lost family members in both conflicts, I consider this grossly offensive. If this is art then, quite frankly, we would be better off without it.”

Manasas called the exhibition a “total waste of public money”, said it was “insulting to the people who died under both monsters” and called for it to be cancelled.

Fellow reader Ianrad51 said: “I think the crazy golf course with Hitler and Saddam on it is sick.”

Other readers praised Quad for bringing the exhibition – called Doug Fishbone and Friends: Adventureland Golf – to Derby.

Ben-Spiller wrote: “Ridiculing tyranny through interactive art that provokes debate about the legacy of mass-murdering bigots can only be a good thing.

“Would Hitler and Hussein have wanted their legacy to include being figures of fun on a crazy-golf course for people from all cultures to enjoy together? Most probably not. This is a good reason to do just that.

“Let’s knock Hitler and Hussein off their self-made pedestals and have fun doing so but let’s also think about the terrible impact of their cruel regimes.”

Doug Fishbone and Friends: Adventureland Golf opens at the Quod in Derby on August 31st, details here.
 

 
H/T Derby Telegraph
 
A tour of the golf course plus an interview with Doug Fishbone, after the jump…

 
Real life villains get the “Legion of Doom” treatment by Brazilian designer and illustrator Butcher Billy.

Artist’s statement:

Some might say all art is a reflection of the times we live in.

If back in the day comics and movies were pretty naive and faced only as pure escapism, today’s fiction has to evoke reality to create something truly meaningful… and frightening.

This series is an experiment where a dictator, a psycho, a murderer (sometimes they are the whole package) or even a suspicious figure from real life is mashed with a comics bad guy - strangely related some way or the other with his counterpart.

The depressing thing? Realising that if the comic book supervillains were actually the ones threatening real life, the world wouldn’t be such a bad place.

See more of Butcher Billy’s designs here.

 

 

 

 

 
Via Nerdcore via Butcher Billy

 
What you’re looking at is Adolf Hitler’s porcelain throne which currently resides in an auto-repair shop in Florence, New Jersey. The toilet was once used on Hitler’s private yacht, the Aviso Grille, “which was between 400 and 500 feet long.”

After the war ended, the Aviso Grille was taken to the United States and ended up in the hands of New Jersey shipyard owner Harry Doan, who illegally charged visitors 25 cents to board and tour Hitler’s Yacht. However, according to Glass, both Doan and the federal government wanted to prevent the ship from becoming a memorial to Hitler, and so it was scrapped in Doan’s salvage yard in the early 1950s.

In the 1950s, a gentleman by the name of Sam Carlani purchased Hitler’s toilet from the salvage yard for his auto-repair shop simply becasue he “needed a new toilet.”

Greg Kohfeldt bought the auto-shop from Sam Carlani almost 20 years ago, and is now the owner of the commode.

The toilet has been a ‘functional tourist attraction’ since 1952, Kohfeldt said. People would take road trips—as I had—just to see it. (Indeed, the toilet is listed in Roadside America’s online guide.)

snip

While Kohfeldt seems proud of his object’s notoriety, he seems remarkably unexcited by the fact that he owns Hitler’s toilet.

As a side note: You think they would have at least cleaned the toilet for this photo. Yuck.

Read more of Hitler’s Toilet Is in New Jersey at Tablet.

With thanks to Adam Parfrey

 
Never let the truth get in the way of a good story. Fritz Lang explains how his meeting with Dr. Joseph Goebbels, the Mad Man of Nazi propaganda, made him flee Germany the very same day.

Director of Metropolis and M, Lang had been called to see Goebbels over his undisguised attack on Hitler in his 1933 film, The Testament of Dr Mabuse - which the Nazis had banned. Instead of the expected interrogation and inevitable incarceration, Doctor Goebbels offered Lang the unexpected position of Head of the National Socialist Film Studios. Goebbels explained that both he and Herr Furher hoped the director would accept. Goebbels then offered his advice on the ending of The Testament of Dr Mabuse, which he had found unsatisfactory. Instead of Mabuse going mad, it would have been better if the mobs had destroyed him with their wrath.

It’s a good story, even if the facts don’t add up. One that’s worth retelling - just to hear Lang build up the dramatic tension with his powers of descriptive narration.
 

 
I knew it! But no one would listen. It’s all in the eyes.

Painting by Dan Lacey.
 
Memes within memes within memes.

We’ve entered the hall of mirrors at the sideshow.

Of the “Hitler reacts” videos, this is particularly stellar in its self-referential brilliance. 300 views on Youtube. Let’s see how fast this goes viral.

“It’s pathetic, being a meme used to mean something.”
 

 
Thanks Mirgun

 
Rick Perry in 1972. Aryan superman, TexaSS division.
 

 
Thanks to Henry Baum for steering me to the Perry photo.

 
If you liked the house that looked like Hitler, then you might appreciate these snaps of cats that look like Der Fürrer, taken from the website Cats That Look Like Hitler (yes, there’s a site for this kind of thing…). It’s managed by Paul Neve, who explains, on the FAQs page, why Kitlers:

Most cats possess that typically feline facial expression that implies a secret longing for world domination. All cats want to rule the world, that’s part of the nature of the species, but to be a genuine Kitler there has to be some other similarity when compared to that ever popular German/Austrian dictator. We’re looking for that toothbrush ‘tache, that most unfashionable of facial adornments. Or the flock-of-seagulls hairdo. Perhaps an evil glint in its eye, or maybe a Kitler will be Sieg Miaowing their paw all the way to their dinner plate. Of course, the best Kitlers will have all of the above.

A website about cats that look like Hitler. Are you mental or what?
Yes. Next question.

Alright, let me rephrase that last question. WHY a website about cats that look like Hitler? Where did the idea come from?
Originally, a Dutchman called Koos Plegt stumbled on the very first Kitler in his hometown of Zwolle in Holland. Once he’d picked himself off of the floor from laughing, he set up a quick blogsite with other examples of the Kitlerian species to entertain his mates. I (Paul Neve) saw that blogsite and once I’d picked myself up from the floor laughing, spoke to Koos about collaborating on a proper website devoted to that laudable example of feline prowess, the Kitler. The result is the CatsThatLookLikeHitler.com you all now know and love. Or hate. Koos has unfortunately disappeared into a subspace vortex or something (or certainly he’s ignoring all contact) so it’s just me all on my lonesome now.

Aren’t you glorifying Hitler?
Let’s get this straight. Hitler was an arsehole. Hitler was a disgusting, pus-ridden lump of excrement from the devil’s own anus. Before we go any further, let’s just reiterate that. As such, I think it’s entirely appropriate to reduce him to an object of ridicule by comparing his physical appearance and styling to a bunch of fluffy, cute moggies.

More Kitlers can be found here.
 

 
More pix of Mein Kats after the jump…
 
Previously on DM

The house that looks like Hitler…apparently

 
Like the History Channel, the British are obsessed with Adolf Hitler and the Second World War. So bad is this obsession that even houses in remotest Wales can remind some people of the former German Führer, as the Daily Mail reports:

The Hitler house: Semi in Swansea looks eerily like Nazi dictator (complete with naff side parting)

This unassuming house in a sleepy part of Swansea is set to become a global internet sensation… for bearing a passing resemblance to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

Its neat brown door brings to mind the fascist dictator’s trademark toothbrush moustache.

And the slanting tiled roof falls at a similar angle to the leader’s greased down, parted hairstyle.

Eagle-eyed tweeter Charli Dickenson spotted the curious similarity and posted the photos on her Twitter page where they have become a big hit.
Comedian Jimmy Carr re-Tweeted the image later as interest gathered on the micro-blog site.

Carr wrote: ‘Morning, here’s a house that looks like Hitler.’

It was sent on by hundreds of his followers and became a trending topic on Twitter.

Adolf Hitler’s actual family home, an unassuming house in the Austrian town of Braunau, was put on the market in 2009 priced at around £2million.

By comparison the two-bedroomed Swansea look-a-like would likely go on the market at around the £70,000 mark.

 

 
With thanks to Suzanne Moore
 

 
WHAT were they thinking?! Methinks the store, New Form, took it a bit too far.

The advertising slogan tells the store’s teenage and twenty-something target market to “Change Style – Don’t Follow Your Leader”.

Poster of Adolf Hitler wearing pink SS uniform sparks outrage in Italy
 
(via Nerdcore)

 
Newly discovered: a tape recording of Nazi officers describing the moment they found the body of Adolf Hitler in his Berlin bunker.  While the recording was made on October 25, 1956, in a courtroom in Berchtesgaden (the place of Hitler’s Bavarian mountaintop retreat), it was unearthed only recently by researchers for the German Spiegel TV channel.

Among those giving evidence that day were Otto Guensche, an SS officer, and Heinz Linge, a valet, who first discovered the corpses of Hitler and his new bride Eva Braun.  The men speak under oath of entering the Fuehrer’s study after hearing shots ring out on April 30 1945.  “When I entered to my left I saw Hitler on the sofa,” said Linge, who died in 1980.  “Hitler had his head bent forward somewhat and I could see a bullethole approximately the size of a penny on the right side of the temple.”

Guensche, who went to his death in 1983 refusing to give details about the dictator’s end, said: “Hitler sat on the arm of the sofa with his head hanging down on the right shoulder which was itself hanging limp over the back of the sofa.  On the right side was the bullet hole.”

From that point, on Guensche and Linge started removing the bodies and preparing them for cremation.  After Berlin fell—and before their story went very far—the pair were captured by the Soviets and whisked off to Moscow.  Their testimony lay hidden all this time in Munich’s public records office. 

Recording Of Nazi Officers Who Found Hitler’s Body Released

 
There you go again, Hitler!  Always gotta be one-upping Ahmadinejad!  First ancestry, now teeth—this race to see who’s so much more totally Jewish has got to stop!

Adolf Hitler had dental fillings made from gold torn from the mouths of Jews in concentration camps, a new book on the F?ɬ

 
A sampling of work here from Israeli artist, Boaz Arad.   According to Arad, the above rug represents (for better or worse), what a Nazi hunter might do if he/she were able to capture the ultimate prize.  The video below Cuisinarts a number of speeches to the point where Hitler’s forced to say, in Hebrew no less, “Greetings, Jerusalem.  I am deeply sorry.”