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189: Hitler’s Yacht

189: Hitler’s Yacht

This American Life (Unofficial)

July 13, 2001

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Show Notes

Nearly this entire show is devoted to the story of the boat known as "Hitler's Yacht." It's a modern-day fable about what happens when the free market, the media, the World War II buffs, the Neo-Nazis, and the Jews all collide over a huge Nazi tourist trap. The boat arrived in America after World War II, and though there's no evidence that Hitler ever set foot on the decks, the name was attached to the vessel in the 1950s, and it stuck. Reporter Alix Spiegel describes the story of the vessel as "the biography of a collective fantasy."