No Grand Opening for Farmer’s Hitler Shrine

A retired farmer in southeast Wisconsin has built a memorial to Adolf Hitler, hoping to spread his admiration for the Nazi leader.

But Thursday, Ted Junker, 87, agreed not to hold a grand opening as planned June 25 after authorities asked him to cancel the event.

Junker said he would still allow visitors into the shrine -- a white concrete structure built into the side of a hill nearly a mile from the nearest road, down a narrow dirt path.

“On your property, you can invite anybody on you want,” Junker said. A door to the memorial was propped open with cinder blocks Thursday, and members of the news media who stopped by were invited to see it.

Michael Cotter, deputy corporation counsel for Walworth County, said Junker agreed Thursday to sign a restraining order stating that the memorial would not be open to the public unless he obtained the appropriate permits to do so.

But Cotter conceded that authorities could not legally keep all visitors away from Junker’s home.

“If a person came up to the house, knocked on the door and asked to see the shrine, it would not be against the law,” Cotter said. “But if the neighbors notice 50 people a day are driving down the driveway to see this Hitler shrine, then we would have to take some enforcement action.”

The shrine, which features framed pictures of Hitler and plaques that contend the Holocaust never happened, has prompted outrage from neighbors and Jewish leaders.

“I don’t think there’s anyone around here who supports him,” said Pete Ruby, an employee at a nearby machine shop. “To me it’s a mockery.”

The regional office of the Anti-Defamation League characterized the memorial as “the sickening work of an unrepentant anti-Semite and Holocaust denier.”

“Our concern is that this could very easily become a place of pilgrimage,” said Adam Schupack, associate director for the league’s Chicago office. “The average person who sees what Mr. Junker is doing would be horrified. However, neo-Nazis and white supremacists still glorify Hitler and his works, and they see Mr. Junker in a far different light.... They look up to the [Nazi Waffen] SS; they see them as the elite of the Nazi party.”

Junker says he believes Hitler was the greatest man who ever lived. Junker said he was born in Romania and went to Germany in 1940 and joined the SS. He moved to Chicago in 1955 and later bought a farm near Millard, Wis.

He initially planned to build a much larger Hitler facility.