Hitler the Paperhanger?

[Do-Do]

There seems to be a lot of gags about Hitler being a paperhanger in WWII shorts. My question is: was he? :confused:

[don Jaime]

Not that I'm aware of. He had trained as an artist - some of his bland cityscapes survive - so he may have worked at some point as an interior decorator.

[Sogturtle]

Originally posted by don Jaime
Not that I'm aware of. He had trained as an artist - some of his bland cityscapes survive - so he may have worked at some point as an interior decorator.

...And there was a whole Columbia cartoon devoted to the subject ("He Can't Make It Stick") which was written by Milt Gross (late of MGM). I (and my brother also) believe that he actually did work for a while as a paper hanger, hence the references.

[chuckamuck43]

Turtle is batting 1000 (as usual).

In John Toland's Adolf Hitler he wrote that Adolf did indeed work as a painter and paper-hanger when he was in his late teens and early twenties.

Also, IMHO, the best Hitler burlesques are the Three Stooges'. Moe's Fuhrer is dead on as is Curly's Mussolini.

[J Lee]

The joke was that Hitler was such a bad painter the only art he could do that would get hung up on a wall anywhere was if he wallpapered or painted a house. (the paperhanger/painter gag lived far beyond the cartoons of the 1940s and even makes it into Franz Liebkind's rante about Churchill in Mel Brooks' "The Producers")

[PorkyandDaffy]

Speaking of which, in the first Hitler spoof the Three Stooges did, YOU NAZTY SPY!, the Stooges are paperhangers at the beginning of that film.

[wundermild]

I just stumbled across this (and haven't cross-checked if it's genuine):

http://www.tightrope.cc/hitlerart.htm