Fact: Hitler was a tax evader
Recent research into papers relating to Hitler has uncovered the fact that when he became chancellor of Germany in 1934 he had evaded paying 405,500 million Reichsmarks in tax (6.3 million USD in today’s currency). Fortunately for Hitler, he was forgiven his tax debts when he was elected. It is believed that he earned 1.2 million Reichsmarks for sales of Mein Kampf alone, and avoided paying 600,000 Reichsmarks in tax on it. The official who forgave Hitler’s tax debt was “rewarded” with a 2,000 Reichsmarks per month tax free allowance (a huge amount considering teachers at the time were paid 4,800 per annum).
Fact: Gandhi was a dirty old man
At the age of 36, whilst married, Gandhi decided to become celibate in order to achieve a state of enlightenment (through the Hindu religion). As he got older, he became more and more fascinated with sex to the point that, second only to non-violence, it was the subject he most talked about. In order to “perfect” his celibate state, Gandhi would sleep naked with young naked women. One of the women was the 16 year old wife of his grand-nephew Kanu Gandhi. When he wanted to share his bed with his 19 year old grandniece Manu Gandhi, he wrote to her father and told him that they were sharing a bed so that he could “correct her sleeping posture”. When his stenographer R. P. Parasuram found him sleeping naked with Manu, he resigned in disgust.
Fact: Martin Luther was an anti-semite
Martin Luther, the famous Monk who started the protestant reformation, is often touted as a hero for standing up against excesses in the Catholic Church at the time, but what most people don’t know is that he was violently anti-Jewish and he made no secret of it. In 1543, he wrote “On The Jews And Their Lies”, in which he recommends that Jews be deprived of money, civil rights, religious teaching, and education, and that they be forced to labor on the land, or else be expelled from Germany and possibly killed (sound like someone familiar from more recent times?) He referred to the Jews as a “base, whoring people, that is, no people of God, and their boast of lineage, circumcision, and law must be accounted as filth.” He said that Jews were “full of the devil’s feces … which they wallow in like swine,” and the synagogue is an “incorrigible whore and an evil slut …”
Fact: Einstein was a philanderer
Einstein is perhaps the greatest mind of the 20th century and he and his most famous formular E=MC^2 are known by virtually everyone. Most people know he had a passion for the violin and that he started out life as a clerk in a patent office; but what most people don’t know, is that he cheated on both of his wives repeatedly. After splitting up with his first wife (because of his infidelity), he married his cousin Elsa. Shortly after that he had an affair with his secretary Betty Neumann. In a new volume of letters held by the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Einstein described about six women with whom he spent time and from whom he received gifts while being married to Elsa.
Fact: Pope Pius IX Kidnapped a Jewish child and had him raised as a Catholic
On the evening of 23 June 1858, in Bologna, then part of the Papal States, police arrived at the home of a Jewish couple, Salomone (”Momolo”) and Marianna Padovani Mortara, to seize one of their eight children, six-year-old Edgardo, and transport him to Rome to be raised as a ward of the state. The police had orders from Holy Office authorities in Rome, authorized by Pope Pius IX. Church officials had been told that a 14-year-old Catholic servant girl of the Mortaras, Anna Morisi, had baptized Edgardo while he was ill because she feared that he would otherwise die and go to Hell. Acorrding to Catholic Church doctrine, Edgardo’s baptism, even if illegal under canon law, was valid and made him a Christian. Under the canon law, non-Christians could not raise a Christian child, even their own. Edgardo was taken to a house for Catholic converts in Rome, maintained at state expense. His parents were not allowed to see him for several weeks, and then not alone. Pius IX took a personal interest in the case, and all appeals to the Church were rebuffed. Church authorities told the Mortaras that they could have Edgardo back if they abandoned their faith and converted to Catholicism, but they refused.
the rest of the 10 facts are on the site
