Mein Camp

Simon Waldman is Director of Digital Publishing at the Guardian. He also publishes a really nice Blog. Some time ago, someone gave him a 1938 copy of Homes and gardens magazine which had a gooey, gushing piece about Hitler’s country retreat in the Bavarian Alps. It was the usual tosh. The predominant color scheme of Hitler’s “bright, airy chalet” was “a light jade green.” Chairs and tables of braided cane graced the sun parlor, and the Führer, “a droll raconteur,” decorated his entrance hall with “cactus plants in majolica pots.” (Gosh — nothing changes.) Simon scanned the piece and put it on his site. Then he received a message from the current publishers of H&G demanding that he take it down. So he did, and wrote a nice reply to the Editor. But of course by then the thing was all over the Net. The case raises interesting issues about copyright and fair use, as the NYT pointed out this weekend.