Chinese Fabrics in Cangrande’s Tomb

When the tomb of Cangrande I Della Scala (1291-1329), master of Verona, was opened on 27 July 1921, besides his sword, they found his partially mummified body wrapped in fabrics, some of which had been clearly imported from China, or China-controlled areas. They were the result of trade on the Silk Road and had been woven with silk, gold and silver yarns, while showing easily recognized motifs connecting them to the Middle Kingdom: dragons, lotus flowers, rabbits. They are today kept at the Castelvecchio Museum in Verona. Even his famous equestrian monument, a symbol of Verona, which can be seen close to Juliet’s balcony has a strong Chinese flavour (see the picture below for a comparison with 7 century funerary figurines).

 

The names cane and mastino (dog and mastiff) are recurrent in the Della Scala dynasty and are almost certainly connected with the title of Khan (translated as cane by early Italian chroniclers) used by Mongols chieftains.

Cangrande – meaning in Italian large dog – is today mainly remembered for his friendship with the poet Dante Alighieri (1265 – 1321) who was a guest in his palace, from 1313 onward, after having been exiled from his native Florence.

The Della Scala were powerful warlords, controlling also Padua and Vicenza, related to Frederic II of Svevia and their genes through marriages were dispersed into all the most powerful European noble families.

 

 

 

 

Leonardo’s defacement goes on, this time at Louis Vuitton

It is official, ladies, LV stylists are out of ideas!

The French designers of posh bags made of plastic seek help from Leonardo Da Vinci, as last resort against sagging sales. This suggestion come from Jeff Koons .

A Song Dynasty poet wrote that the three most distressing things he could imagine were:

Youth damaged by poor education; good tea wasted by bad handling and a magnificent painting debased by an ignorant multitude of spectators.

We should add that the defacement of the Mona Lisa is not a novel idea, since it has been already defaced countless times.

 

The reason for it could be found in the wise words of the abstract impressionist painter, Barnett Newman (1905–1970):
Those who put a moustache on the Mona Lisa are not attacking it, or art, but Leonardo Da Vinci the man. What irritates them is that this man with half a dozen pictures has this great name in history, whereas they, with their large oeuvre, are not sure.

Yes, Jeff Koons is not sure of being a artist, not even an artisan and, therefore, is resorting to parody.

 

 

 

The FBI was created by Bonaparte

Few Americans  know that the founder of the FBI was no one less than a Bonaparte. Charles Joseph Bonaparte (1851 – 1921) was an American lawyer and politician from Baltimore, Maryland, who served in the cabinet of President Theodore Roosevelt.
His father had been Jérôme Napoléon “Bo” Bonaparte (1805 – 1870) an American farmer, chairman of the Maryland Agricultural Society, first president of the Maryland Club and Susan May Williams (1812–1881), from one of the richest families in Maryland.

Bo Bonaparte was the son Jérôme Bonaparte, the last offspring of the Corsican couple Carlo Bonaparte and Letizia Ramolino, former King of Westphalia, 1807–1813 and younger brother of Napoleon I. He was born in Camberwell, England, but lived in the United States with his American mother, Elizabeth Patteson ( 1785 – 1879) a rich socialite.

Bonaparte became first U.S. Secretary of the Navy and later, as Attorney General, created the Bureau of Investigation, which later grew and expanded with J. Edgar Hoover, (1895–1972), who renamed it in 1935: Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
In 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Bonaparte to serve as Secretary of the Navy and in 1906 he was Attorney General, up to the end of Roosevelt’s term. To his credit, he was nicknamed “Charlie, the Crook Chaser.”

7 May 2017. The run-off for the presidential election will see a triumph for Marine Le Pen

The French will vote for their next President in April and May 2017. The first round of the vote will take place on April 23. Then, the two top candidates will face each other in a run-off, on May 7.

After the surprise of Britain’s Brexit referendum and the election of Donald Trump as US president, the lights are on Marine Le Pen and her right-wing program for France. There is a great scaremongering campaign against her, calling her program populist but she is not far from the mindset of Charles De Gaulle. and she is basically a Gaullist and a French nationalist, not a populist.

Who will be the top contenders for the Élysée Palace? The top five candidates are, in alphabetical order: Francois Fillon (Les Republicains), Benoit Hamon (Socialists), Marine Le Pen (Front National), Emmanual Macron (Independent) and Jean-Luc Mélenchon (Unbowed France).

For the first round, there is a consensus that the two final contenders will be Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron.

After the first round, there will be a considerable amount of horse-trading backstage and the winner of the most votes, out of the two, will becomes the President of France. Thus, is out of the question that the opposition, scared by the proposed radical reforms put forward by Le Pen, will concentrate on the independent Emmanuel Macron, who has very high chances of becoming the next President. All the polls seem to agree on it. (1)

But pollsters cannot poll simple people because they will deny their preference (after all voting is personal and secret, why then they should reveal their preferences?). All the media and intellectuals in France are falling into the same trap, believing what they themselves say, as they did with Brexit and Trump. They should dress in a casual way and then go around talking to taxi drivers, waiters, workers outside the factories over a glass of Bordeaux wine. The case of Wilders in Holland cannot be compared to the situation in France and the US, also considering that Wilders’ opponent  did a turn to the right just before the election (a joke went around saying that one did not let Turks in, while the other wanted the Turks out. That being their main difference).

But who is Emmanuel Macron after all?

Emmanuel Macron (born 21 December 1977) is a French politician and senior civil servant of strong socialist leaning. A former investment banker, he studied Philosophy at Paris Nanterre University, and later graduated from the prestigious École nationale d’administration (ENA) in 2004.
Macron then become an Inspector of Finances in the Inspectorate General of Finances (IGF) before becoming an investment banker at Rothschild & Cie Banque!

And we all know by now that if you work as an investment banker you have no heart and no soul, you are at best a sort of Judas always ready to pocket the 30 silver denari. I have met several of them during my life but I never found one who could be set as an example. 

Then, will be the French people so stupid as to vote a wolf hiding under a lamb skin? I don’t think so!

Macron was a member of the Socialist Party (PS) from 2006 to 2009, deputy secretary-general under François Hollande’s first government in 2012 before being appointed Minister of Economy, Industry and Digital Affairs in 2014 under the Second Valls Government. He then resigned in August 2016 in order to launch a bid in the 2017 presidential election. In November 2016, Macron declared that he was not a Socialist anymore but a “Macronist” and would stand in the election under the banner of ‘En Marche!’ a movement he had founded in April 2016.

For all these reasons I firmly believe that, contrary to opinion polls, Marine Le Pen will win in a massive way the run off against Macron. Then she will take France out of the Euro and ask for radical changes at the EU.

 

 

 

1. See for instance this study by George Elliott Morris, a student of Government, History, and Computer Science at the University of Texas at Austin, which tally most of the other polls. http://www.thecrosstab.com/2017/02/14/france-2017-methodology/

If are thinking of sending your son to Yale, think twice, unless he is a girl.

The article written by Peter Berkowitz on the WSJ of 4/4/2017, concerning a suit known as Doe v. Yale makes interesting reading.

Like in Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose interpreting the classics using modern examples, in the eyes of some bigots, could be a dangerous business.

Berkowitz writes: “In late 2013 according to Doe, a female philosophy teaching assistant filed a complaint about a short paper he had written. In the context of Socrates ’ account in Plato’s “Republic” of the tripartite soul, the paper argued that rape was an irrational act in which the soul’s appetitive and spirited parts overwhelm reason, which by right rules. The assistant, a coordinator and an associate dean in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, called Doe to her office and told him his rape example was “unnecessarily provocative.”
Furthermore, she ordered him to have no contact with the teaching assistant and directed him to attend sensitivity training at the university’s mental-health center. She also informed him that he had become a “person of interest” to Yale, which meant that the university had to intervene to ensure he “was not a perpetrator himself,” in the lawsuit’s words. A few months later, the same Title IX office initiated the sexual-assault investigation against him.”

Dr. Doe claims that a university panel found in spring 2014 he had engaged in sexual intercourse with a woman without her consent. But Doe alleges that the woman expressly consented and that was she who had harassed him.

Berkowitz adds: “Doe advances one relatively new and one completely novel legal theory. The relatively new one revolves around Title IX, the 1972 federal law that provides that “no person” may be discriminated against based on sex in educational programs that receive federal assistance.”

Doe points out that the law must protect men as well as women. In punishing him for sexual assault on the basis of allegations that were either unfounded or refuted by facts – to which both sides of the dispute agreed – Yale discriminated against him on the basis of his sex.

Berkowitz ends his article in a somber tone, noting that, if Doe’s story is true, then Yale is no longer satisfied in enforcing correct opinions but demands that you should be of the correct sex. We may add that Yale is stretching the boundaries of censorship intervening in an author’s right to opt for an example he wants to use, while discussing a Greek classic.

A Hellish & Paradisiac book. Andrea Bettinelli Dal Cin’s Review of The Dew of Heaven

By Andrea Bettinelli Dal Cin

I read with great interest The Dew of Heaven published by Cactus Moon of Tempe, Arizona, written by Angelo Paratico. His potrait of a Portuguese Monsignor living in Macao as a villan, the bad guy, sparked initial curiosity which quickly turned into unease that eventually mutated into negative feelings.

Positive things first, negative later.
The book is a great page-turner, where the readers join in a desperate chase for a mysterious diary left by Gino Montecorvo, a Sicilian officer who was sent to China in 1900 to fight the Boxers.
By hints we came to know that, after the war, Gino had settled in Hong Kong and Macau where he built his personal fortune and had a son. This son is a rather awkward character, still living in Hong Kong in the present days. Since the very first pages, we are lead to believe that the diary contains a sort of a dark secret, a mysterious riddle, and the search for it causes death and destruction.

Being myself a lover of history and a keen observer of deviant human behaviour, I must confess that the historical reconstructions presented by Angelo Paratico is extremely accurate down to smallest details. And the craving to peep into the famous diary reaches its climax well into the first half of the book. Finally going through a real catharsis, we have the privilege and pleasure to find it.
The story of Gino finally unravels under our eyes and the await is over, the long dead Italian officer speaks to us directly, with his own words, explaining his youth, his loves, his hopes after volunteering to China and then, at least the bloody secret is manifest, open under our preying eyes.

What was not to my taste about The Dew of Heaven is the viciousness used to portrait the character of the Portuguese Monsignor, a man sexually depraved, an atheist and by nature a murderer without regrets. His badness is clearly exposed to the readers‘ eyes and is rather revolting and disgusting. It is something akin to discovering a poisonous rattle-snake into our own bed. The fact that he is a Catholic high ranking prelate leave a bad taste in my mouth and I am shocked by the daring tones that have been used to describe him. This book is a piece of work structured on several layers, very direct, precise and with a final chapter, which, I confess gave me nightmares for three consecutive nights, leaving scars which will not disappear completely. Despite all its beauty I somehow regret having read this book, I should not have read it. Purity and virginity should be protected and safeguarded always and now mine are irreversibly compromised!
I wish I had not done Angelo a favour reviewing his book. I do prefer Grimm’s Fairy Tales.

 

Carrie Lam will be a brilliant Chief Executive of Hong Kong

I wish to congratulate the new Chief Executive of the Hong Kong S.A.R. Carrie Lam.
I have met her briefly a couple of times and I have to say that I was impressed by her warm and quiet personality.
In spite of her feminine touch she is a determined, highly intelligent and caring woman who will do a great job for Hong Kong.

In Hong Kong we are leading a busy life and the memory-span of people seem to be very short. Now many democrats’ supporters are complaining that the electoral system is unfair because it is limited to a few voters. But they forgot that they themselves deprived us, the people in Hong Kong, to cast a vote on last Sunday, 26th of March, 2017. Less than two years ago they voted down a proposal put forward by Beijing to let 5 millions people vote in the Chief Executive. They did that essentially because Beijing wanted to approve the candidates who were going to run fort the post of Chief Executive.

Incredibly the Democrats did not understand that it could have been a first step in the right direction and that, if Beijing would have not approved, say, legislator ‘Long Hairs’ for the post of Chief Executive, the ball would have been in their camp and the Democrats then would have a clear casus belli against China.

I would like to post here an article dated  June 18, 2015 originally published on RADIO FREE ASIA.

Hong Kong lawmakers on Thursday voted down a controversial electoral reform plan in a humiliating defeat for the government’s Beijing-backed plan to widen the voting franchise in the former British colony.

Following a nine-hour debate that began on Wednesday, members of the city’s Legislative Council (LegCo) voted against the bill by 28 votes to eight, with 34 pro-government lawmakers walking out in an unsuccessful bid to stall the vote.

The bill would have enacted an Aug. 31 plan outlined by China’s parliament, the National People’s Congress (NPC), to allow all of Hong Kong’s five million eligible voters to cast a ballot in the 2017 race for the next chief executive, but would have limited the slate to candidates approved by Beijing.

The NPC’s plan also required approval from 47 out a total of 70 LegCo members to pass, according to the decree by the NPC standing committee that sparked the 79-day pro-democracy “Umbrella Movement” last year.

Pan-democratic lawmakers, who hold 27 seats in LegCo, have vowed to vote the plan down from the outset.

“The message that we are sending to the central people’s government and the SAR government is that Hong Kong people would not want to take on this fake democratic package,” pan-democratic lawmaker and Civic Party leader Alan Leong told reporters after the vote.

“We do not want our vote to be used to legitimize the appointment of a chief executive that belongs, and is accountable, to only … vested interests,” he said.

Leong said the pro-democracy movement isn’t over, however.

“Today is not the end of the democratic movement. Quite the contrary,” he said. “This is the starting point of another wave of the democratic movement.”

Result welcomed

News of the result was greeted with cheering by pro-democracy protesters outside the LegCo building.

“I think all of the civic groups that support genuine universal suffrage should work together now, to see how we can transmit our message to every citizen,” a supporter surnamed Yeung told RFA.

“We should continue to educate them, so they will be able to see clearly the road ahead for universal suffrage in Hong Kong,” he said.

But a pro-reform protester surnamed Fu said Hong Kong couldn’t progress to full democracy until it was more stable.

“Without stability, there’s no way we will get democracy,” Fu said, alluding to Beijing’s claim that the Occupy Central movement was instigated by “hostile foreign forces.”

“Hong Kong can’t allow someone in cahoots with overseas powers to become chief executive,” he said.

Joshua Wong, a prominent figure in last year’s Occupy Central democracy movement, said there was no cause for celebration at the defeat of the bill in LegCo.

“We have neither won nor lost this battle,” Wong told reporters, calling on Hong Kong people to continue to fight for fully democratic elections.

“We shouldn’t allow ourselves to get complacent, because the pro-democracy faction isn’t fighting to reject this bill, but for public nomination of candidates and genuine universal suffrage.”

“Our request is, fight for true universal suffrage, civil nomination,” Wong said. “It is time for us to admit that we need to continue to fight for democracy.”

Beijing displeased

Beijing expressed its displeasure at the outcome on Thursday.

“Such a result is a departure from the mainstream public opinion of Hong Kong,” the South China Morning Post newspaper quoted a spokesman for the State Council’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office as saying.

“It is also not what the central government likes to see,” the spokesman said. “The central government sincerely hopes the various sectors of Hong Kong could unite under the leadership of the chief executive and the SAR government.”

The city’s incumbent chief executive, Leung Chun-ying, didn’t mention the walkout by pro-establishment lawmakers, but blamed pan-democrats for the bill’s defeat.

“The votes cast by those 28 members violate the principle of democracy,” Leung said in a statement. “Universal suffrage for the [2017] election has now been blocked.”

He said fully democratic elections for all of LegCo’s seats were now also in doubt.

“I, the government, and millions of Hong Kong people are naturally disappointed,” Leung said.

Under the terms of its 1997 handover to Chinese rule, Hong Kong was promised a high degree of autonomy and the maintenance of existing freedoms for 50 years.

The city’s mini-constitution, the Basic Law, provides in general terms for progression to fully democratic elections, but is interpreted differently by the pro-establishment and pan-democratic camps.

Anti-Occupy campaigner Robert Chow said the vote marked “a black day for democracy in Hong Kong.”

“Today, Hong Kong was the loser, but it won’t be the loser forever,” he said.

Mainlanders react

Across the internal border, mainland Chinese commentators said the result was significant for the whole of China.

“There are very close ties between Hong Kong and the mainland,” Anhui-based dissident Shen Liangqing said. “The Occupy Central movement had an impact here.”

But he said he wasn’t optimistic about the future of democracy in Hong Kong.

“I think genuine universal suffrage will be very hard to achieve, but … if they don’t fight for it, they will end up getting more and more like the mainland,” Shen said.

Chongqing-based scholar Zhang Qi said he found the reaction to Beijing’s reform plan heartening, however.

“It shows the courage of the pan-democratic faction in Hong Kong,” Zhang said. “If they had gone with the Chinese political reform plan for Hong Kong … they wouldn’t have seen universal suffrage for 60,000 years.”

Official Chinese media warned that Hong Kong could descend into turmoil if mass protests return to the city’s streets.

“We are concerned that a Pandora’s box is being opened in Hong Kong and various devils are [being] released to ruin the [city]’s future,” the Global Times newspaper, which has close ties to China’s ruling Communist Party, said in an editorial.

“People who love Hong Kong should work to keep the box tightly closed so that Hong Kong won’t degenerate from the capital of finance and fashion to a total mess,” it said.

It denied that the result is an embarrassment for Beijing.

“It’s not an embarrassment to the country, but a humiliation to the radical opposition camp,” the paper said.

Reported by Wen Yuqing, Chiu Tse-ho and Lin Jing for RFA’s Cantonese Service, and by Qiao Long for the Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

Here is the original article:

http://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/election-06182015103132

A rose is a rose is a rose. Japan has launched a new Carrier named Kaga

Japan had announced on August 27, 2016 the  launching of a new, Izumo-class helicopter-carrier with a displacement of 24,000-tons named “Kaga” in an effort to protect itself, while the United States under President Obama was somehow abandoning the Pacific theatre.
This ship was commissioned yesterday, the 22nd of March, in Yokohama and it will be carrying only helicopters, equipped for anti-sub warfare, not F-35 fighter jets. Even if it is clear that fighter jets could be also accommodated after a light refurbishing of the bridge.

The name given to this ship – in Italian this name sound ominous, as it is something related to bodily functions – shows that the Japanese government is not afraid to court controversy and it is possible that China will react to this name, Kaga. The same could happen with Australia, as it is something like if modern Germany, launching a new battleship, decides to name it “Bismark” or if Italians to call her “Littorio.”

Kaga was an old province of Japan in present-day Ishikawa Prefecture but the first ship named Kaga supported Japanese troops in China during the Shanghai Incident of 1932 and joined in the Second Sino-Japanese War, in the late 1930s. After the Marco Polo Bridge incident, in July 1937, the ship’s fighter squadrons helped escort ships taking army reinforcements from Japan to China. On 17 August twelve of the carrier’s bombers attacked Hangchow without fighter escort and 11 of them were shot down by Chinese planes. Subsequently, the carrier’s fighter pilots claimed to have destroyed at least 17 Chinese aircrafts in aerial combat while losing five aircraft themselves. On 12 December 1937 Kaga aircrafts were responsible for the Panay incident.
The Kaga was one of the carriers launching planes on Pearl Harbour, on December 1941. Then she took part in the invasion of Rabaul, in the Southwest Pacific, in January 1942, and the following month she participated in an airstrike on Darwin, Australia, to secure the conquest of the Dutch East Indies.

After bombarding American forces on Midway Atoll, the Kaga with three other Japanese carriers, was attacked by American aircrafts. Dive bombers led by Commander Wade McClusky from the Carrier Enterprise severely damaged her and when it became clear she could not be saved, she was scuttled by Japanese destroyers to prevent her falling into enemy hands.
In 1999, the relict of the Kaga was located on the ocean floor at a depth of over 5,000 meters at 560 km northwest of Midway Island.

La fine di Fini

L’articolo uscito oggi su il Giornale circa il mandato d’arresto per Tulliani, cognato di Gianfranco Fini, mi fa tornare in mente certe memorie spiacevoli.

http://www.ilgiornale.it/news/politica/fini-non-poteva-non-sapere-1377178.html

Dopo aver incontrato Bruno Zoratto a Hong Kong, nel 1993, avevo cominciato a collaborare con il quotidiano Il Secolo d’Italia come loro corrispondente dall’estremo Oriente. Un lavoro non pagato all’inizio – solo negli ultimi anni ricevevo un gettone, che non bastava assolutamente a coprire le spese minime – ma che avevo preso seriamente e, pur ricordando sempre l’aureo detto di Ben Johnson ‘Solo i fessi scrivono gratis’ ero soddisfatto e contento di ciò che facevo.

Durante le poche visite fatte alla redazione del giornale in Via della Scrofa a Roma mi ero reso conto del loro stato confusionale e che funzionava solo come megafono di certi ras del partito, non come vero quotidiano di informazione e di lotta. Infatti le perdite erano notevoli e la base dei lettori era inesistente, soprattutto a causa della disorganizzazione nella distribuzione e la mancanza di abbonamenti. Tanto poi a ogni fine anno il contribuente italiano appianava tutte le perdite!
Seguì una visita di Gianfranco Fini a Hong Kong che mi fece conoscere due giornalisti e scrittori con i quali sono tuttora in amicizia, Federico Guiglia, inviato da Il Giornale, assieme a giornalisti di altre testate e Gino Agnese, editorialista del Tempo, e per questo motivo dico grazie al Secolo d’Italia.

Feci delle piccole proposte di rinnovamento, suggeritemi da Bruno Zoratto, Massimo Mariotti, Gabriele Battistello, Guariente Guarienti di Brenzone e da altri amici, ma neppure furono prese in considerazione.

Durante gli ultimi anni di collaborazione con il Secolo d’Italia, grazie alla gestione di Flavia Perina, tenevo una mia rubrica settimane, ogni mercoledì, intitolata Minima Orientalia. E’ stata per due volte parlamentare ed è figlia di Marcello Perina e Wilma Coppola, entrambi dirigenti del MSI.
Quando il Giornale pubblicò le prime notizie circa il vergognoso scandalo della casa di Montecarlo, fu subito chiaro che Fini c’era dentro fino al collo e scrissi a Flavia Perina una email, fra il serio e il faceto, dicendole che “Fini è finito”.
Il risultato fu che la solerte Perina, ora a capo della Adnkronos e fedelissima al suo kapo, mi depennò dalla lista e quella fu la fine della mia collaborazione.

Quanto sta uscendo oggi dimostra che Fini, pur ottimo oratore, non ha mai posseduto la dirittura morale per essere un vero leader politico, forse è stato solo un guitto e, proprio a causa di ciò, s’era circondato di persone che: o ricalcavano la sua moralità, oppure chiudevano due occhi su di tutto, pur di avere la loro fettina di prosciutto. Questa, io credo, è la radice di tutti i problemi che affliggono il nostro Paese e penso che Flavia Perina, che credevo amica, mi debba delle scuse.

Angelo Paratico

Indro Montanelli e il suo incontro con il doppelgänger di Adolf Hitler

Indro Montanelli, nome completo Cilindro Alessandro Raffaello Schizògene Montanelli (1909 – 2001), è stato un grande giornalista, saggista e commediografo.
Fu però un giornalista della vecchia scuola che, come dicono gli anglosassoni, non consentono alla verità di mettersi di traverso a una bella storia…
Fra le bugie propedeutiche di cui è accusato c’è quella di aver raccontato una ‘strana ‘intervista’ fatta ad Adolf Hitler, il 1 settembre 1939, presso il Corridoio di Danzica.
Indro scrisse di essersi appartato per un bisogno personale fra i cespugli, quando da una strada secondaria vide passare su un blindato tedesco con il Fuhrer che spuntava fuori dalla torretta. Quello chiede chi è quello spilungone con l’impermeabile. Gli dicono che è un giornalista italiano. Allora salta giù e gli va incontro, cominciando a sbraitargli in faccia, in tedesco, senza che Montanelli, che pure conosceva il tedesco, capisca alcunché. Dopodiché risalì sul carro e se ne andò via.
Massimo Fini scrisse un bellissimo articolo raccontando di un pranzo con il novantenne Montanelli in un ristorante di Milano durante il quale questa storia rifece capolino:

Poco dopo, proseguendo la conversazione, Indro si vantò di aver intervistato tutti i personaggi importanti della sua epoca. «Mi mancano solo Stalin e Mao». E io, malignamente: «Però Malaparte li ha intervistati». Al che Indro disse immediatamente che non era vero. «Ma io quelle interviste le ho lette» replicai.
«Se l’è inventate» troncò lui.
Passò qualche minuto, eravamo ormai al caffè, e Indro dichiarò di aver intervistato Adolf Hitler. E cominciò uno stupefacente racconto. Il giorno, secondo certi calcoli, dell’invasione della Polonia lui, Montanelli, si trovava, unico giornalista italiano in mezzo ad altri colleghi stranieri, su un certo ponte di una certa città dove sarebbe dovuto passare necessariamente il comando tedesco. E infatti arrivano. Hitler è in piedi su un carro armato vestito da soldato semplice, decorato della sola croce di ferro (e questo, credo, è il solo particolare veritiero del racconto), vede Montanelli, scende dal blindato e punta dritto proprio su di lui. La ragione di questo singolare comportamento risiederebbe, secondo Montanelli, nel fatto che in quel momento il Fuhrer sperava ancora in un intervento dell’Italia a fianco della Germania e quindi gli serviva un giornalista italiano per lanciare un messaggio a Mussolini. «Naturalmente fu un monologo» si schermì con noi Indro, rifacendo la voce abbaiante di Hitler.
«Io non riuscii a piazzare nemmeno una parola. Dopo venti minuti di arringa Hitler girò i tacchi e risalì sul carro armato».
Naturalmente restava da spiegare come mai questa eccezionale intervista, sia pur monologante, non fosse mai uscita. Montanelli raccontò che ci fu un intervento del ministero della Propaganda tedesco sul Minculpop -le interviste al supremo Führer del Terzo Reich erano infatti proibitissime -per cui non se ne fece nulla.

Massimo Fini termina l’articolo concludendo bonariamente:

E forse il segreto della sua straordinaria vitalità e freschezza sta proprio in questo miscuglio di infantilismo e di narcisismo. Noi siamo dei bambini invecchiati, Montanelli è un vecchio bambino.

Ciò che Massimo Fini ignorava è che assieme a Montanelli stavano lo scultore Arno Breker e l’architetto Albert Speer, il quale poi confermò, nel 1979, la veridicità di quello strano incontro. Eppure Adolf Hitler stava a Berlino in quei giorni, chi fu dunque quel personaggio che Montanelli, per così dire, intervistò?

Era sicuramente una controfigura, un doppelgänger, o un kagemusha come dicono in Giappone.
Si dice che di questi doppi Adolf Hitler ne avesse a disposizione più d’uno. Zarah Leander, un’amica e cantante favorita del Führer, confidò a Leni Riefensthal che:

Sì, Hitler aveva dei doppi, anche Eva Braun aveva la sua controfigura, non esistono dubbi in proposito.

Conosciamo il nome di una di queste controfigure del dittatore tedesco, si chiamava, Gustav Weler (o Webber) e si dice che sia stato ucciso dalla SS e il suo corpo fatto trovare ai soldati russi a Berlino, con una pallottola nella fronte. Il suo corpo fu portato a Mosca e seppellito nel recinto della prigione di Lefortovo.

Esiste un filmato russo che ce lo mostra nel giardino della Cancelleria:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHA8wnuUaQQ

Ma quel cadavere era davvero di Gustav Weler? Secondo il chirurgo e scrittore britannico W. Hugh Thomas, autore del libro Doppelgangers uscito nel 1996, Gustav Weler era ancora vivo alla fine della Guerra e fu intervistato da una commissione Alleata per stabilire il fato di Adolf Hitler. Dunque, quello cadavere fatto trovare ai russi era di un ulteriore doppio.

Queste controfigure erano state istruite a imitare la voce e i gesti di Hitler e lo scrittore e storico Nicholas Kinsey aggiunge che addirittura arrivarono al punto di operare la loro spina dorsale, per replicare le cicatrici rimaste su quella di Hitler e causate da ferite ricevute durante la I Guerra Mondiale.