Proposed WWII Memorial: Design Dishonors Honorees

Re “WWII Memorial: Sound the Retreat” and “D.C. Follies” (Sept. 20):

As Nicolai Ouroussoff and Christopher Knight note, Friedrich St. Florian’s design for the World War II Memorial in Washington could be interchanged with any of those of Adolf Hitler’s favorite architect, Albert Speer.

How ironic that this memorial--intended to celebrate the triumph of freedom and democracy over totalitarianism--is designed in the pet architectural language of the fascists, the very adversaries the soldiers were fighting to defeat.

JEANNE WYSHAK

Beverly Hills

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Knight and Ouroussoff were right on in their condemnation of that stupid Nazi-looking project design. It’s an insult to the Arizona Memorial in Hawaii, the Marine Iwo Jima Memorial in D.C. and the American graveyards in Normandy. And Lincoln has to look out on it. What a useless waste of money!

J. LARY KUHNS

Woodland Hills

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Why do we need another monument--and one that looks like Hitler’s yet?

World War II has lots of monuments--it was, after all, “a glorious war,” unlike the others that followed. Soldiers returning from World War II were embraced as heroes--that’s monument enough.

Would the money not be better spent to provide needed services to veterans of all wars? VA hospitals certainly could use the millions, but then, that’s not as showy, so who would know?

STEPHANY YABLOW

Sherman Oaks

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Can someone tell me how that is going to cost $100 million? Pipes of gold maybe? Sheesh.

DAVID MECEY

Brentwood

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Late Thursday, in a 7-5 vote, the National Capital Planning Commission approved the memorial’s broad design.