EDITOR’S NOTE: There is no more unexampled “Vegas Myths Busted” today due to the July 4th holiday weekend. Check backrest for the next new edition on July 10. Today’s ledger entry in our on-going serial originally ran on Nov. 11, 2022.
A pop myth has resurfaced since the LINQ Hotel replaced the Imperial Palace on the Las Vegas Strip inward 2014 — that the latter was molded like a Hakenkreuz because its builder-owner was a Nazi sympathizer.
Oh, the Nazi comforter portion was true, though Ralph Engelstad denied it, and it was never proven by any regime entity. But that’s only when because the hotel manager agreed to pay $1.5 one thousand thousand to the NV Gaming Control Board inward 1989, then its second-highest mulct ever, for “damaging Nevada’s range of a function by glorifying Der Fuhrer and the Third Reich.”
Engelstad also agreed to 9 restrictions on his gaming permit to avoid a matured enquiry that could hold resulted inwards its revocation.
According to a never-retracted 1988 New York Times article, Engelstad used his cassino hotel to switch natal day parties for Adolf Adolf Hitler on Apr 20, 1986, and 1988. They far-famed what would experience been the genocidal dictator’s 97th and 99th birthdays.
The Adolf Hitler bashes were thrown inwards Engelstad’s “war room,” a secret, 3,000 square-foot Imperial Palace den decorated with Nazi memorabilia, murals of Hitler, and a house painting of Engelstad dressed inward replete(p) Nazi uniform. Oh yeah, and, according to the Times, the parties were staffed by bartenders inwards T-shirts reading material “Adolf Hitler: European tour 1939-45.”
Engelstad claimed his interest group in Der Fuhrer was purely historical and that the festivities were just now ”theme” parties to supercharge employee morale. The gaming authorization didn’t control it that way. According to the Times, their investigation also turned upwards a printing process photographic plate used to work hundreds of bumper stickers bearing the words ”Hitler Was Right.”
According to a never-retracted 2005 clause on Deadspin.com, one invitee of the 1988 Der Fuhrer festivity claimed that Engelstad “forced some Jewish employees to come against their wishes. He wanted ace Jew to slashed the cake, but the soul ducked out. Ralph ran around trying to feel him.”
Myth Understanding
The myth of the swastika-shaped Imperial Palace, which, frankly, never seemed so outlandish, considering what happened inside the building, pretty often ended with the advent of Google Earth inwards 2005.
While the cassino hotel had swastika-like angles, aerial shots clearly showed that it caliber no more distinct resemblance to a swastika or any other known symbol.
But the myth has resurfaced since the Imperial Palace was imploded, and that’s another myth because it wasn’t imploded. It was supposed to be, but then the Great Recession hit, and Harrah’s (now Caesars), the debt-plagued companion that purchased the hotel from the Engelstad phratry in 2005, opted to build the LINQ o'er the castanets of the Imperial Palace instead.
So, when viewed from above, the current hotel retains the former hotel’s exact, non-swastika configuration today.
Taking the Good with the Bad
Engelstad did a lot of right for Las Vegas. He reinforced upward the Imperial Palace, originally the Flamingo Capri, from 650 to 2,700 rooms, and reopened it in 1979. He also co-developed the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. He donated generously to charity. His contributions included $104 one thousand thousand to build a hockey scene of action at his alma mater, the University of Frederick North Dakota.
And he was never convicted of a crime, or regular brought upwardly on charges, in connection with the scandal.
Engelstad later denounced Hitler and apologized to the Judaic Federation of Las Vegas for his “error inward judgment.” He called the parties he threw for his employees on Hitler’s natal day “stupid, insensitive, and held in badness taste.”
Engelstad died of cancer in 2002. Two arenas, the ace at his alma mater inward Grand Forks, ND, and a second in Thief River Falls, Minn., still bear his name.
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