On April 30, 1945, the photographer Lee Miller and Dave Scherman, also a war photographer and a close friend of Miller's, entered Munich with the American 45th Division that was liberating the city. They happened upon a dilapidated and normal-looking apartment building on Prinzenregentplatz 27, and realized, upon entering, that it was Hitler's Munich apartment. They billeted there for three days. Miller wrote her Vogue editor Audrey Winters:
I was living in Hitler's private apartment when his death was announced, midnight of Mayday. . . Well, alright, he was dead. He'd been an evil-machine-monster all these years, until I visited the places he made famous, talked to people who knew him, dug into backstairs gossip and ate and slept in his house. He became less fabulous and therefore more terrible, along with a little evidence of his having some almost human habits; like an ape who embarrasses and humbles you with his gestures, mirroring yourself in caricature.
Before Miller went to Paris in 1929 and became an established fashion and fine art photographer, she was a successful fashion model in New York City.
Vogue cover of the March 1927 edition in an illustration by George Lepape:
I really like the irony and the way she used space in her pictures. Check her out.
(23 April 1907 - 21 July 1977)
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