HITLER may well have been a regular guest on a boat which now cruises on Windermere.

Alexandra, sister ship to the motor cruiser built for Goebbels, Hitler's minister of propaganda, was owned by propagander film director Leni Reifenstahll, a woman friend of the Nazi dictator.

Now the beautifully-restored boat cruises the peaceful waters of Windermere, although it still flies the flag of the Imperial German Navy.

Owner Bob Johnson said: "We are entitled to fly the flag because the boat was considered part of the German navy and was used as a lighter between Kiel and Berlin during the war.

"Of course the other flag we fly - the 'Kaizer's Yacht Club' - is just a spoof."

Built in 1929, the boat was also once owned by Eric Remarque who wrote the book "All Quiet On The Western Front," which later became a classic film about the horrors of the trenches in the First World War.

As the Russians advanced at the end of World War the boat, and several others, were scuttled in a murky lake near Berlin and stayed out of sight on the bottom for three years.

It was raised by the Czechoslovakian chairman of Skoda and partially restored. Mr Johnson said that when the Berlin Wall came down the boat went first to Lake Constance, on the Swiss border.

Various owners made half-hearted attempts at restoration and she was eventually brought to England where it languished on the River Dart, until Mr Johnson restored it and moved it to Windermere.

During restoration all sorts of reminders of its Nazi history were found including a small jug with a picture of German general Rommel dressed in an SS uniform and a German Army campaign badge.

With a hull of riveted steel and powered by a big Mercedes marine Diesel engine the launch must have been fast and powerful when new.

Now she is largely confined to a sedate eight knots, which the owners think is plenty for a lake the size of Windermere. "The faster you go the smaller the lake seems," said Mr Johnson.

The move from Germany to England has also brought a sex-change for the cruiser. "All German boats are given male names and it was known as Alexander. Here the convention is for female names, hence Alexandra," said Mr Johnson.

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