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Paper-hanging god

Posted by Smokey Stover on December 03, 2008 at 04:40

In Reply to: Paper-hanging god posted by RRC on December 01, 2008 at 14:44:

: : General George Patton is reported as calling Hitler a 'paper-hanging god'. Does anyone know what he meant by that?

: 817 hits for a speech containing "... I am personally going to shoot that paper hanging son of a bitch Hitler ..." Only 2 hits for paper-hanging god: one of which claims to be "in the original text of the tasty prayer", the other claims this prayer is widely quoted - hmmmm. Anyway, I'd say paper-hanging (wall paper) is a reference to Hitler's early unsuccessful career as an artist.

Such factual background as may exist for Hitler's career as a paper-hanger appears to be a statement by an American, John Schimmel, from Wooster, Ohio, who was a schoolboy with Hitler at a time when Hitler was apprenticed to be a painter or a paper-hanger.

"May 15, 1936: Hitler's Childhood Play [audio]

John Schimmel, a Wooster, Ohio man who grew up in Transylvania, remembers Hitler as a schoolmate. "Even at seven, he usually got what he went after," Schimmel says. At the time Hitler was learning the trade of painter and paper hanger. When he figured out the smell of turpentine on his clothes led the teacher to dismiss class early, he made it a point to smell more odiferous "till it nearly drive all of us out of the building," Schimmel explains. When the teacher protested, Hitler said he had no other clothes." See:

[Dead link removed - ed]

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