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Hitler’s Pennsylvania Cabin

September 8, 2009

When Adolf Hitler’s yacht was busted up for scrap in the early 1950s, souvenirs wound up all over Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey.

Greg Kohfeldt, who owns the most famous piece of all, Hitler’s toilet, told us that, “A lot of stuff made it into people’s homes. Little things. Portholes, chairs, signs — it’s all over this part of New Jersey. Florence, Bordentown, Fieldsboro….”

Greg referred us to Dick Glass, a 25-year Navy vet and local historian who recalled some of the relics’ final landing spots. According to Dick, one of the portholes is now in a private museum in Gettysburg; a big oak table — the ship’s map desk — is still at the American Legion hall in Florence; and Dick and his dad used screws from the yacht to build their own boat. “They were good brass and bronze screws.”

Dick’s most intriguing story dates to 2004 — or maybe earlier, he couldn’t be sure. Dick got a call from a man in Pennsylvania who had salvaged an entire cabin from the yacht. “It had been cut off of the ship. It was in this guy’s back yard,” Dick recalled. “It had portholes in it and everything. He was German. He was living in it!”

Dick said that the man offered the cabin to him, “but how would I get it here and where would I put it?” He lost track of the cabin after that, but ventured that it “may still be kicking around somewhere” as an odd counterpoint to more noble back yard live-in souvenirs. We’ll certainly keep an eye out for it.

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