Hitler’s Watch Sells for $1.1 Million at Controversial Auction

Jewish leaders opposed the sale, calling it “an abhorrence” in an open letter

Despite fierce objections from Jewish leaders, a Maryland auction house has sold a wristwatch believed to have belonged to Adolf Hitler for $1.1 million.

Alexander Historical Auctions, based in Chesapeake City, Maryland, sold the controversial artifact to an anonymous buyer on July 28, per the company’s website. The auction house also sold other Nazi-related items, including a golden eagle from Hitler’s bedroom, several of the genocidal dictator’s sketches and paintings and a dress that belonged to Eva Braun, Hitler’s wife.

Report an ad Auction house officials believe Hitler received the reversible gold watch, made by Andreas Huber, on April 20, 1933, his 44th birthday. It bears the letters “AH,” a swastika and a Nazi eagle emblem, as well as two dates: April 20, 1889, Hitler’s birthday, and January 30, 1933, the day he became chancellor of Germany.

A French soldier nabbed the watch on May 4, 1945, when his Allied unit reached Hitler’s summer house in Bavaria, according to Alexander Historical Auctions.

“The watch and its history have been researched by some of the world’s most experienced and respected watchmakers and military historians, all of whom have concluded that it is authentic and indeed belonged to Adolf Hitler,” per the auction house.

Before the sale, 34 Jewish leaders co-signed an open letter urging Alexander Historical Auctions to cancel the auction, which they described as “an abhorrence.”

Report an ad “Whilst it is obvious that the lessons of history need to be learned—and legitimate Nazi artifacts do belong in museums or places of higher learning—the items that you are selling clearly do not,” wrote Rabbi Menachem Margolin, chairman of the European Jewish Association, in the letter. “That they are sold to the highest bidder, on the open market, is an indictment to our society, one in which the memory, suffering and pain of others is overridden for financial gain.’”

Watch details The watch, made by Andreas Huber, bears the letters “AH,” a swastika and a Nazi eagle emblem. Courtesy of Alexander Historical Auctions Bill Panagopulos, the president of the auction house, defended the sale, telling the Washington Post’s Andrew Jeong that he found the Jewish leaders’ views frustrating. He declined to identify the person who purchased the watch, but he did say the person was a European Jew.

He added that he and his family have received death threats because of the auction, and that most of the auction house’s sales have nothing to do with the Nazis.

“Many people donate [Nazi artifacts] to museums and institutions, as we have done,” Panagopulos tells the Washington Post. “Others need the money, or simply choose to sell. That is not our decision.”

This isn’t the first time the auction house has come under fire for controversial sales. In 2011, the company sold the diaries of Josef Mengele, the Nazi doctor who tortured Auschwitz prisoners by subjecting them to inhumane medical experiments.

Report an ad As for who buys these types of artifacts, Panagopulos told the Daily Beast’s Dan Ephron in 2011 that the buyers are “often Jews representing Jewish organizations or Jewish collectors who intend to open their own museums.”

Contrary to popular belief, buyers are not neo-Nazis, who are “too poor and too stupid to appreciate any kind of historic material,” Panagopulos tells the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s (JTA) Cnaan Liphshiz.

“What we sell is criminal evidence, no matter how insignificant,” he tells JTA. “It is tangible, real in-your-face proof that Hitler and Nazis lived, and also persecuted and killed tens of millions of people.”

The auction house ultimately moved forward with the sale, although the watch’s $1.1 million purchase price fell short of the pre-auction estimate of $2 to $4 million.

Report an ad “This auction, whether unwittingly or not, is doing two things: one, giving succour to those who idealise what the Nazi party stood for. Two: Offering buyers the chance to titillate a guest or loved one with an item belonging to a genocidal murderer and his supporters,” wrote Margolin in the open letter. “Either way, this cannot stand.”

Sarah Kuta is a writer and editor based in Longmont, Colorado. She covers history, science, travel, food and beverage, sustainability, economics and other topics.

In the 1930s my great-uncle (My grandmother’s brother) owned a small gas station/diner North of Birmingham. The Chicago and St. Louis mobs used to send runners down to the Miami mob along that route. Phones could be tapped, and mail intercepted so they used couriers.

My uncle had a man pull in one day with a flat tire and overheating engine. He’d already had a flat so he was down two tires. Back then oil had to be changed every 600 miles. He needed an oil change, some other minor repairs on his car, two tires, and a replacement rim for the one he’d been running with a flat. It took them until the next day to get the wheel. So he ate dinner at the diner and stayed in the guest room.

They could not take a check from an Illinois bank for the repairs. So he paid about half with cash and swapped my grand uncle a fancy Swiss gold pocket watch, and a 38 Smith and Wesson Model 10 revolver for the balance and promised to pick them up and pay the tab on his way back.

The guy never came back and my great uncle became the proud owner of a really nice Swiss watch and revolver

Later on, the guy was arrested and they saw who he was. My great uncle owned Machine Gun Kelly’s watch and revolver.

If only he had the provenance.

You can believe it or not.

It’s an ugly watch but I would buy it to preserve the history. The holocaust refrain “Never forget” (which applies to many things from slavery to WW2 to 9/11 to the Russia hoax) has taken a huge hit in recent years as we’ve seen monuments vanish, history rewritten, subverted, obliterated.

Pieces like this are life changing. Many years ago there was a “World War 2 through Russia eyes” exhibit in San Diego. It was a collection of WW2 artifacts including Hitler’s globe, desk, Stalin’s overcoat, various Nazi and Soviet items. It made that history real. I even read a good bit of Mein Kampf and remember Hilter writing about using teachers and heroes in ways that could have been written about Democrat politics and strategy. It was one of those nothing new under the Sun moments.

WW2 was my parents’ and their parents’ war but closer to my lifetime than my childhood is to millennials’ yet even then it wasn’t personally connected to me. That’s why statues and artifacts like this must be preserved so conversations can start and connections can be made. The Left sees a statue of Robert E Lee or Fr Junipero Serra and must destroy (yet banning books is bad?) whereas people on the conservative side will talk about the history, the good and bad. They want to learn from it. The Left wields it like a weapon for power and control.

It’s why the black community is still such a mess. The Left trains them from birth to think of themselves as second class, victims, unable to achieve and think for themselves, they are constantly reminded not to step out of line and that’s reinforced by the community culture and it reflects the plantation. They are conditioned to be dependent. It’s dehumanizing and borne of the same corrupt thinking that powered the Democrat slave trade and Jim Crowe.

You cannot grow if you cannot let go.

Doesn’t mean you forget, it means you move on to bigger and better things.

MAGA/America First welcomes everyone. Trump broke new ground with minorities and threatened the status quo. He dared challenge the orthodoxy that you vote Democrat “or you ain’t black” and yet Covid Joe is in the White House with his prop as number two. The red, white and blue is all inclusive. That’s the promise of America and the American dream. We don’t need fifteen flags and redundant holidays. We find common ground and don’t need to tear at each other to achieve.

Trump understood and spoke often about winning and he wanted everyone to benefit from his policies from low unemployment to the opportunity zones to demanding a fair deal for Americans in international trade and drug costs, an immigration policy that protected and benefited America, to the criminal reform and efforts to make peace around the world through engagement with North Korea and the Abraham accords in the Middle East and many other things. A man of the People, Trump was an existential threat to the gravy train of the political class and their corporate and media allies. He was the exact opposite of a fascist demonstrated in no better way than how Covid response was run by the states and coordination supported by the feds.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.