ELDRED, Pa. — As artwork goes, it’s stunning — a giant tapestry of a blond, blue-eyed hunter holding a spear, a falcon perched on his arm, a fox sneaking behind his feet and a stag immediately behind him. Oak leaves and acorns surround the hunter.

For its age, likely more than a century old, the tapestry is in wonderful condition.

As a piece of history, it’s chilling. Even a bit upsetting. It’s not so much the tapestry itself, but where it came from and what might have happened in its presence that could cause the unsettling feeling.

The hand-embroidered tapestry was commissioned by Nazi Heinrich Himmler, the right-hand man to Adolf Hitler. The architect of the Holocaust, Himmler is known as one of the most evil men in history. The piece of art that once hung on the dining room wall of Himmler’s villa in Tegernsee, Bavaria, is on loan to the Eldred World War II Museum.

Himmler was the head of the SS and chief of the German Police. He was the architect of the “Final Solution” and was in control of the concentration camp system.

TEGERNSEE

Himmler’s villa at Tegernsee was overtaken by Allied forces in May 1945. A young soldier, Christian Lisella from Summit Hill, was attached to the 636th Tank Destroyer Battalion, and part of the forces that occupied Tegernsee.

Lisella had joined the U.S. Army in the summer of 1942, and served with the battalion through 1945 throughout Africa and Europe and in the five major battles of World War II, including the Battle of the Bulge. Lisella helped in the liberation of Dachau in April 1945, and earned a Bronze Star.

When the soldiers entered the upscale villa of Himmler in Tegernsee, many took items that they could carry. Some experts speculate the looting was for the soldier to have a souvenir from their wartime travels, while others estimate it was in retribution for the crimes they had seen along the way.

No one’s quite sure why Lisella did what he did.

Museum Executive Director Liz Threehouse explained the young soldier’s actions some 80 years ago.

“(The soldiers) went into the place and I found out from the family that there was a young lady there. They told her they weren’t going to hurt her. The guys were taking stuff from all over. (Lisella) saw this on the wall,” she said, gesturing to the tapestry on display in the museum. “He took it down, folded it up and stuck it in his stuff. This was May. In September he was home and discharged.

“He kept it rolled up. He never displayed it. He showed it to a few people. It got rolled up and stored.”

It stayed in Lisella’s possession from when he removed it from the wall until his passing, and his family members — who appreciated its significance, but didn’t want to display it in their homes — loaned it to the museum. That helps track the authenticity of the piece, as does a tag on the back of the tapestry that has information leading to the piece’s designer, Professor Karl Diebitsch, and the assembler, his sister Elsie Siefert. On that patch is one of only two places where the SS is visible on the piece, the other is the front lower right corner.

“He designed many things for the Nazi SS. He was an artist,” Threehouse said of Diebitsch, “everything from paintings to tapestries. He also designed the black Nazi SS uniform that was manufactured by Hugo Boss.”

SYMBOLISM

“It’s all very symbolic, the oak leaves are very symbolic of the Third Reich and strength,” Threehouse said. Referring to the hunter in the tapestry, she said, “He’s very Nordic looking. Himmler was friends with Professor Karl Dietrich. Himmler was into history himself. He thought he was a reincarnated knight from the Germanic Aryan age.”

History has it that Himmler felt he was a reincarnation of Henry the Fowler, a pre-Christian Saxon. He was said to be obsessed with the Nordic “Aryan Race,” the master race that he believed created civilization.

“The tapestry speaks for itself,” Threehouse said. “It’s an Aryan looking guy.”

Kyle Dunn, curator, agreed that while there are no obvious signs of the Third Reich on the tapestry, the hunter himself is certainly one.

“One big giveaway that it was a Nazi piece was the stark blonde hair, and blue eyes,” Dunn said. “It was the superior race that was going to take away the world’s problems. If you want to be cool like these German ancestors who came before you, this is what you’re supposed to look like.”

Other symbols on the tapestry are more subtle — the oak leaves and acorns.

“They’re a symbol of high military distinction and military rank, similar to how we would put an eagle feather on a high-ranking military cap,” Dunn said of the leaves. “Oak leaves are used in a lot of military depictions. It’s a symbol of superiority, high rank, bravery, leadership. The German uniforms have oak leaves incorporated a lot.”

The acorn symbolizes endurance and resilience.

DISPLAY

The tapestry is on display at the museum, not in the Holocaust room with some darker artifacts directly relating to the horrors of the camps, but in the open, with uniforms, helmets, mannequins and a parachute, along with the other items.

As a reporter spoke to Threehouse, several visitors stopped to see it, exclaiming their amazement that something so beautiful could come from such a dark time, and such evil.

Threehouse said it’s important to history that items such as this are shown to the public.

“Sometimes people want to fictionalize everything that happened” in World War II. “This guy really lived, Himmler,” she said. “He had riches in places and power. We (American soldiers) came in and liberated and took this right out of his house.

“We get a visual, a dimension of history. It’s a part of history that can be taught. It’s just an authentic piece of history. It gives you a visual dimension to say these people existed. This gives you a little bit of insight into his leisure home on the lake and his child and wife.

“He had a lot of SS meetings at this place. It might give some insight into what went on in this guy’s mind,” she continued. “There’s a lot of ego in it. You could take a deep dive into the psychology of the SS and the Third Reich. Something you put up on the wall in your dining room would be something you admire, you identify with — this is our history, this is who we are, we are mighty warriors. This is what this guy, who was a big architect of the Holocaust, identified with.”

EVOCATIVE

Mixed emotions come with it.

Dunn said, “We’re always happy to preserve items for the next generation to see. If you forget the past it will likely happen again. That’s one of our museum’s founding statements.”

To see something that was owned by Himmler makes things more real for people who might be generations or decades separated from the horrors perpetuated during that period.

“To see how persuasive the Nazi party was when it was rising up in the 1920s and 1930s, it was a period of mass indoctrination,” Dunn said. “It’s something we hope will never happen again. Around the world, holocausts are still happening.”

He spoke of nations where genocide still occurs — Darfur, Rwanda, Myanmar. “You need to stay vigilant.”

One cannot tell from looking at a person, or at a picture of someone like Himmler, of the evil that lurks inside. The same dichotomy comes when viewing the tapestry.

“It’s so ornate and professionally made,” Dunn said. “They definitely put a lot of work into that.

“Knowing who it belonged to and where it was, and the time period it existed in, it gives a whole other air to it.”

Really, that’s what a museum is about, the stories.

Dunn said, “Every artifact in our museum has a story attached to it. You can almost feel the history as you move through the museum. It’s an amazing experience to come through here.”