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A Ballerina Who Stabbed an SS Guard With a Stiletto and Other Historic Rebels

Khalid Elhassan August 10, 2020 34 min

31. Spiting the Fuhrer

Hitler posing in front of the Eiffel Tower. Wall Here

Hitler looked forward to gazing at a captive Paris from atop the Eiffel Tower. However, prescient members of what would become the French resistance had anticipated that the Fuhrer and his Nazi sidekicks would derive great pleasure from surveying the French capital from that perch. To deprive them of that satisfaction, they cut the lift cables for the tower’s elevator cars.

Without an elevator, the only way to reach the top of the Eiffel Tower would be via a strenuous climb of 1500 steps. Hitler was in his 50s, and was hardly in the best of shape. So he decided to do without. Instead of treating himself to a view of Paris from atop the Eiffel Tower, the Fuhrer had to settle for posing for photos with Paris’ iconic symbol in the background.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.