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Adolf Hitler’s watch sells for nearly £1m in auction condemned by Jewish leaders | World News


A watch believed to be Adolf Hitler’s has sold for $1.1 million (£900,000) at an auction in the US.

The Huber watch, which features a swastika, a Nazi eagle and initials AH, was purchased by an unnamed auctioneer.

An open letter signed by 34 Jewish leaders urged Maryland-based auction house Alexander History not to sell wristwatches.

But the auction house told German media its aim is to preserve history.

The watch’s catalog description says it was given to the Nazi leader as a birthday present in 1933, the year he was made Chancellor of Germany.

It says that the watch was seized as ‘trophy’ when around 30 French soldiers stormed Hitler’s Berghof retreat in the Bavarian mountains.

It was then resold and handed down for generations.

Despite selling for over $1 million, the watch is expected to cost between $2 million and $4 million (£1.6 million – £3.3 million).

Other items sold at auction include Wehrmacht toilet paper, cutlery and champagne glasses belonging to high-ranking Nazi figures, and items owned by Hitler’s partner, Eva Braun, including a whole collar for her terrier.

Huber watches bear the swastika, Nazi eagle and initials AH.  Photo: Alexander Historical Auction
Picture:
Huber watches bear the swastika, Nazi eagle and initials AH. Photo: Alexander Historical Auction

34 Jewish leaders described the sale as “disgusting” in their open letter.

Rabbi Menachem Margolin, president of the Brussels-based European Jewish Association, said: “This auction, unintentionally or not, is doing two things: one, empowering rationalists. imagine what the Nazi party represented.

“Two: Give buyers the opportunity to lure a guest or loved one with an item belonging to a genocidal killer and his supporters.”

He added: “While it’s clear that there is a need to take history lessons – and legitimate Nazi artefacts that belong in museums or other places of higher learning – it is clear that the items you are resell no.

“That they are sold to the highest bidder, on the open market is an indictment to our society, an indictment in which the memories, suffering and pain of others are overwritten. for financial gain.”

However, in comments to the German press before the sale, Alexander Auctions History said most of their collectors keep the items in private collections or donate them to Holocaust museums around the world. world.

“If you destroy history, there’s no evidence that it happened,” said Mindy Greenstein, senior vice president at Alexander Auctions History.

“Whether history is good or bad, it must be preserved.”



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