The Hitler Horses

Once upon a time....well....it starts this way.

At some point in the mid-1930s....at the German chancellery occupied by Adolph Hitler.....there was an addition to the front of the building in terms of art.  Two bronze horses were put on display.  These weren't mega-sized or regarded as five-star art.  It was simply an item of interest.

During the war, the two horses suffered some minor damage.  They were eventually hauled off in 1943 for safe-keeping.

As the war ended.....they were removed from the scene.  No one talks much over why, but my guess was that the two horses in bronze represented a connection to the Nazis and Hitler.  For the Soviets and the new communist government which took over East Germany.....that was enough.

So, they hauled the two bronze horses off to Eberswalde Barracks.  For decades, they sat around and no one said much.  They wouldn't destroy the horses, but they couldn't really display them either.

As the story goes, in 1989.....as the wall was collapsing.....the horses disappeared.  No one even says that a police report was done.  Some reporters indicate that the horses were procured via cash.

This week, over in Bad Durkheim (about an hour south of Wiesbaden).....cops raided some guy's warehouse and discovered the "Hitler Horses".  What they can say is that some older guys (sixties and seventies) were putting the horses up on the market.  The lawyer says these guys are legit owners and this isn't a stolen property situation.  I might think that the lack of a police report on stolen property would clear up this matter and it might be true over it being a non-stolen property situation.

The problem now?  Well.....cops will hand the case to the Pfalz prosecutor and he'll have some time to figure out charges.  Even if you haul the old guys into some court......if there's no stolen property report.....how do you charge them?

The Hitler horses?  Well.....they will go into another storage warehouse and sit for a while.

If you ask me.....by the cops getting aggressive and finding the horses.....it's a big mess.  How do you display the horses?  Back to the chancellery?  No way....it'll lend itself to the Hitler era.  Some public display in a park?  It'd just be a magnet for the Nazis around Germany.  So, in some ways.....they are stuck now with some bronze life-sized horses of historical impact.....but simply not displayable.

So, my prediction.  The two bronze horses will quietly sit for the next three or four decades in some German warehouse, and eventually get stolen by someone else.  History tends to repeat itself, and I think these horses will be around for centuries.....continually getting stolen, continually being recovered, people charged, and the horses never being able to be displayed.