If a movie wishes to establish quickly that a character is an utter creep, it gives him a collection of Nazi memorabilia. Nothing makes an audience recoil more swiftly than a roomful of swastikas and busts of Adolf Hitler. It was this feeling of revulsion that was precisely the reaction to last week’s revelation that Harlan Crow—the billionaire benefactor of Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas—has a serious penchant for collecting Third Reich trinketry.
According to reports in Washingtonian and The New York Times, the property mogul’s mansion in Texas is filled with items such as a signed copy of Mein Kampf, paintings by Hitler, a bust of Hermann Göring, blocks of postage stamps featuring the Führer, not to mention silverware and even dainty linen napkins adorned with Nazi eagles and swastikas.
