No Hitler memorial after all

Awwww. Too bad, so sad.

A retired farmer who claims he was a Nazi SS officer has agreed not to publicly open a memorial he built to Hitler in southeastern Wisconsin, county officials say.

Ted Junker, 87, had planned a grand opening for his shrine June 25 on his farm near Millard, about 50 miles southeast of Madison. Word of the opening generated a crush of publicity.

But Walworth County officials met with Junker on Thursday morning and persuaded him to keep the shrine closed, said Mike Cotter, county deputy corporation counsel.

Cotter said county officials had struggled with how to classify the shrine for zoning purposes. They decided Thursday to consider it an assembly hall or museum. As such, Junker would need permits from the county to operate, Cotter said he told Junker.

Junker is quoted in the article as saying that he'll still allow private parties to visit his sick little shrine, so buck up there, skinheads.

Oh, and like the article I quoted in yesterday's post on this subject, the AP reporter who wrote this story made a mistake about Junker's service with the Waffen-SS.

Junker told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel he volunteered to join the German Waffen-SS, Hitler's feared special police, in 1940 and served in Russia.

Um, that "special police" force would be the Gestapo, which was administered by the SS, but was not the same as the Waffen-SS, which Junker says he served with. You could look this stuff up, you know.