The Austrian city of Linz, where Adolf Hitler spent several years as a teenager, will again display an Aphrodite sculpture gifted by the Führer after years in storage. The bronze work by Nazi sculptor Wilhelm Wandschneider was brought to Linz in 1942 as a “personal gift” from Hitler, who wanted to make the city the “cultural capital” of the Third Reich. For 65 years it stood in the rotunda of a park overlooking the city where the German dictator lived between the ages of 10 and 18, but it was quickly removed in 2008 after a group of art students uncovered its unsavory origins. Linz’s Nordico Museum, which had kept the work, will now add it to its collections, Doris Lang-Mayerhofer, the chairwoman of the city’s culture and tourism committee, said on Tuesday. The Aphrodite will be accompanied by a detailed explanation, she said, adding that the city wanted to make an “active effort to remember” rather than “dismantling history.” Lang-Mayerhofer, a conservative ÖVP MP, said the decision had received the unanimous support of the parties represented on the city council as well as the backing of the Federal Chancellery. The Greens supported the museum option as it would prevent the statue from becoming a beacon for neo-Nazi pilgrimages, while the far-right FPÖ said it would protect the work from “political vandalism”. Despite Linz’s relative insignificance to Nazi Germany, Hitler named the city one of his “Führer cities” alongside Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Nuremberg. Linz had organized an exhibition in 2008 addressing this troublesome legacy.
Hitler’s Aphrodite “gift” on display again in Austria
