The Day We Had Hitler Home

The Day We Had Hitler Home is a 2000 novel by the Australian author Rodney Hall.

Synopsis In 1919 a young German soldier, blinded by gas, joins the wrong queue of evacutees. He is also unable to speak and so cannot tell anyone his name, private first-class Adolf Hitler. As a result, he mistakenly boards a steamer headed for Australia.

Awards and nominations

Miles Franklin Literary Award, 2001: shortlisted ALS Gold Medal, 2001: winner

Critical reception

Joanna Giffiths in The Observer noted that the book "jerks the reader to attention by depositing Hitler into the plot, only to recede into opaque twists and obscuring quirkiness."

Publication history After the novel's initial publication by Picador in Australia in 2000 it was then published as follows:

Granta, UK, 2001

It was also translated into Portuguese (2001) and Spanish (2002).

See also 2000 in Australian literature

References