This Man Owns the Largest Collection of Nazi Artifacts

New York Post ^ | June 27, 2015 | Alex Preston

[nickcarraway]

When he was 5 years old, Kevin Wheatcroft received an unusual birthday present from his parents: a bullet-pocked SS stormtrooper’s helmet, lightning bolts on the ear-flaps. He had requested it especially.

The next year, at a car auction in Monte Carlo, he asked his multimillionaire father for a Mercedes: the G4 that Hitler rode into the Sudetenland in 1938.

Tom Wheatcroft refused to buy it and his son cried all the way home.

When Wheatcroft was 15, he spent birthday money from his grandmother on three WWII Jeeps recovered from the Shetlands, which he restored himself and sold for a tidy profit. He invested the proceeds in four more vehicles, then a tank.

[beaversmom]

lol...I wonder if he did speak/write any other languages?

[PCPOET7]

growing up we had a neighbor that collected ww2 military uniforms and awards. he had a large Nazi collection that he did not show off to people very much because he did not want people to think he had sympathy for Nazis it was the 70 and world war 2 was fresh his generation. I never saw the collection tell years later when I was an adult visiting. his collection started as a collection of allied uniform’s that he got in the 1950 but one day he was given a German ss officer uniform from a German who found out about his interest in uniforms.

[OftheOhio]

They ended up in the collection (military) of a friend of mine. His collection of civil war artifacts to the modern era is truly historical.

[beaversmom]

Very cool.

[nickcarraway]

It’s one thing to collect historical artifacts. It’s another thing to have swastikas all over and sleep in Hitler’s bed.

[Swordmaker]

Creepy.

When I was managing the Old Sacramento Armoury back in the mid-1970s, Ed Faust, the owner of the company, while on a buying trip to Germany found Hermann Goerring's 1937 Mercedes open staff car covered in chicken droppings in a barn. It still had faded Nazi flags on little flag poles on the fenders. It had been parked there by Goering's driver and had not been moved since the war.

New Helvetia Mercantile Syndicate, one of our subsidiaries of Pacific International Merchandising Corporation, Ed's holding company that also owned the Armoury, sold Nazi Memorabilia on mail order advertised in the back of magazines such as Popular Mechanics, Guns & Ammo, and other Mags oriented toward war info—Ed had found the original dies to make Nazi Helmets on one of his previous trips and was making them on the original equipment the Nazi's had used and they were indistinguishable from the originals, painted and sold with original decals, the biker clubs bought them like hot cakes. Ed found things like original cased lots of original SS daggers, and other uniform accessories.

The one Ed found looked like this one, which may or may not be the same car.

In any case, Ed bought the staff car and had it shipped to our Sacramento store in a land and sea box. Our warehouse people spent a lot of time cleaning chicken crap off of the car and it turned out to be pretty nice under all that crap. In fact, it looked almost new. The chicken crap surprisingly seemed to have protected the leather seats. . . or the driver had really leather soaped them well before the CC had gotten on them. Most of the metal work had been covered with a tarp. Ed sold it for a big pile of money. . . he never told us how much but it was in the multiple six figures because of the association with Goering. I do know that Ed bought a top of the line brand new Mercedes right after he sold it. . .

[beaversmom]

Would be cool to find out where the car ended up if that’s not it in the pic. Neat story.

[Swordmaker]

Ed also bought four of those Kettenkrads in pristine condition. . . and they worked. Fun to drive.

[Swordmaker]

Creepy.

From the iron work surrounding his home. . .

“They were from the top of the officers’ gates to Buchenwald,” Wheatcroft told me in an offhand manner. “I’ve got replica gates to Auschwitz — Arbeit Macht Frei — over there.” He gestured into the gloaming.

Now THAT'S creepy. . . and sick.

[Swordmaker]

Would be cool to find out where the car ended up if that’s not it in the pic. Neat story.

I wish I knew. Ed sold it under a seal of anonymity for the buyer.

[tumblindice]

Collecting> hoarding> Obsessive-compulsive disorder
Rich> “eccentric” Poor> looney tunes
This guy: cuckoo for cocoa puffs

What in the heck is a “self-propelled pen”?

[Shadow44]

LOL!

[beaversmom]

The Kettenkrads do look fun.

[Delta 21]

The one in the pic only has a single rear axle.

Thats a badass Mercedes.

[beaversmom]

I could take the kids to school in it, too.

[GeronL]

that would be cool

[beaversmom]

lol...definitely unique! I wonder what it gets on gas mileage? ;)

[GeronL]

if the engine is that old, probably not a lot, lol

[OftheOhio]

Say what you will, some of these collectors know more about history than many Historians.
I don’t know if it’s true or not. I read when Washington got ready to cross the Delaware a young black boy wanted to go too. Washington told him he could better serve by keeping the fire lit, but the young man fell asleep and froze to death that night. This is the legend how the lawn jockey came into being, as honor not racial derision. I have a tear in my eye when I see a lawn jockey now.

[Swordmaker]

What in the heck is a “self-propelled pen”?

Self-propelled "pencil" is mechanical pencil that can push out the lead as you need it. . .