--- description: Not only were Germany-Vatican relations threatened when Chicago's Cardinal Mundelein called Berlin's Adolf Hitler "an Austrian paperhanger, and a poor one at that." Touched on the... title: National Affairs: Peeved Paper hangers image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [U.S.](/section/us/) # National Affairs: Peeved Paper hangers by [TIME](/author/time/) Jun 7, 1937 4:00 AM CUT by [TIME](/author/time/) Jun 7, 1937 4:00 AM CUT Not only were Germany-Vatican relations threatened when Chicago’s Cardinal Mundelein called Berlin’s Adolf Hitler “an Austrian paperhanger, and a poor one at that.” Touched on the raw were two Philadelphia locals of the Brotherhood of Painters, Decorators & Paperhangers of America. Last week they published an angry resolution: “. . . That egotistical anti-Labor dictator might have hung paper at one time, but that does not qualify him for the honorable title ‘paperhanger.’ . . . The only thing Hitler has hung in the past ten years is the liberty of the German people.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6892562/national-affairs-peeved-paper-hangers/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6892562/national-affairs-peeved-paper-hangers/"},"headline":"National Affairs: Peeved Paper hangers","datePublished":"1937-06-07T04:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-19T20:39:13.224Z","description":"Not only were Germany-Vatican relations threatened when Chicago's Cardinal Mundelein called Berlin's Adolf Hitler \"an Austrian paperhanger, and a poor one at that.\" Touched on the...","url":"https://time.com/archive/6892562/national-affairs-peeved-paper-hangers/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME","url":"https://time.com/author/time/"}],"articleSection":"U.S.","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/us/","name":"U.S."}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/6892562/national-affairs-peeved-paper-hangers/","name":"National Affairs: Peeved Paper hangers"}}]}] ```