Missing things like this is why I should never go on vacation. I learned of the video above via a Screenhead post which popped up in my RSS reader, but for reasons unknown to me, no longer exists.

The gist: David Lynch went to Berlin to talk about transcendental meditation. At a press conference, Lynch was joined on stage by “Raja” Schiffgens, Germany’s leading proponent of TM, who announced that Lynch’s foundation had recently purchased Teufelsberg, a large hill in Berlin constructed out of rubble from World War II, with the intention of building a TM center on top of the hill. The Raja then went into a spiel about how the center would neutralize negativity and help create “an invincible Germany…invincible against all alien influences” When asked by an audience member to explain this concept of invincibility, the Raja compared Germany’s quest for invincibility to that of a soccer team (?), to which another audience member responded, “Adolf Hitler wanted that too.” The Raja’s comeback? “Yes, but unfortunately he didn’t succeed.” That’s when all hell broke loose.

I’m not sure if the Hitler fracas had anything to do with this, but if my Babelfish translation of this article is in anyway accurate, Lynch and co. have since been denied permits to build on the Teufelsberg. Lynch has since issued a statement in response to the hullabaloo, which reads in part: “I don’t want to have anything to do with Hitler. We all know he was not a good person who did terrible things.”