Book from Hitler's Library?

[tempelhof]

interesting.

it certainly could be the other way around!

[drmessimer]

Tempelhof: I share your enjoyment of this sort of exchange, because it's a learning experience for me every time. bigmacglen 1966 (can't we use first names) has a book from Xavier Schwarz's personal library; a library that numbered 146.000 books! Where did those people get all those books? Regarding the "feud" between Karl and Brigadier Dunford-Slater, given the Germanic tone of the name Karl, maybe the Brigadier was telling him that there were no hard feelings for Karl's unit cleaning his clock--or the reverse. Some research into which German units the Brigadier's commandos faced might turn up Karl.
OK; Lets talk about how the book I bought ended up for sale in a carboard box in a bombed-out section of Steglitz, Berlin. The source I found said that the Russians packed up the lot in the Reich Chancellerey library and shipped them to Moscow in 1945. American troops looted the Berchtesgarten library, and the 3,000 books found in a mine ended up in the US Library of Congress. 1.) Maybe the Russians didn't get all the books and a few, mine among them, fell through the cracks and ended up 12 years later being sold in Steglitz. 2.) Maybe one of the US soldiers at Berchtesgarten ended up in the occupation troops in Berlin and his pilfered copy made its way to Steglitz 12 years later. 3.) And maybe some of the books that the US Library of Congress dumped on the market made their way to Europe and one of them, mine, wound up in the carboard box. As Tempelhof (does anyone have a first name?) correctly said, "they can end up literally anywhere and do." Your thoughts, ideas, and suggestions, please. Dwight

[BOB COLEMAN]

Many years ago, I encountered a book with this sticker that was part of the booty of an ex American soldier. He told me that he had gotten the book out of Hitler's apartment in Munich I also recall reading an article in a magazine about the Munich flat which had a picture of this book plate in it. I can not recall anymore as these events happened in the early 1960's. Your bookplate in my opinion is authentic.

[sargetom]

Interesting to hear about Berlin in the late 1950s; I was stationed there with the US Army in the late 70s and was then stationed near Frankfurt from 2004 to 2005. There was a very large flea market we went to several times on saturdays located in Frankfurt along the river. Much stuff and occassionally items from the Nazi Era would be sold; I bought some items but prices were probaly not much different from what they would be in the US. Also interesting enought I occassionally went to Antique Shops and was told by one dealer that if I was interested in war related items that you often have to ask to see them as they are generally not prominently displayed and it is illegal to display any item that contains a swastika.

Sargetom

[operaman]

As the saying goes ''hindsight is always 20/20

[drmessimer]

BoB: Thanks for that piece of information. I wish your veteran friend from the early 60's was still around, but I will do some research on Hitler's Munich apartment. As I said in an earlier post, I have sent an email to the Library of Congress asking for a photo or scanned example of the bookplate from their collection. In the meantime, maybe I can locate an example somewhere else, and your clue might help me do that. I woner if the book I have might have come from Munich or Berchtesgarten and was brought to Berlin by an American soldier, such as your friend. I suppose anything is possible.

Sargetom: What unit were you in in Berlin? I was originally in Tank Company, 6th Infantry, but in late 1958 the unit became F Company, 40th Armor. We were barracked on Huttenweg on the edge of the Grunewald in Zehlendorf. I guess what we had in Berlin were actually flea markets. The sellers gathered in the area of Breitscheid Platz and set out their wares in carboard and wooden boxes. In the winter they gathered around a 50-gallon drum with a hot fire in it. The offerings ran from household goods to all sorts of jewelry, medals, pins, and badges. I bought a lot of WWI stuff because that has always been my main interest, but I picked up several TR pieces too. The wall wasn't up then and the area around Bahnhofzoo, the Zoo, and Kufürstendamm was still pretty much ruins. A lot of the sellers were from the East Sector and their prices were by far the best because the West Mark was worth a lot more where they came from.

Yes Operaman, hindsight is always 20/20, but who would have thought that something I could buy for a pack of cigarettes or a few Pfennigs would in my lifetime be worth several hundred dollars? A while back I sold my cousin's Hitler Youth cap for something close to $300. Another opportunity was probaly missed when the Wall came down. There were sellers around the Brandenburg Gate selling DDR and Soviet uniform pieces and equipment for next to nothing. In Potsdamm it was possible to trade loaves of bread to Russian soldiers for what ever piece of uniform or equipment they were willing to give up. My son came home from a trip to Potsdamm with the uniform shirt and wings from a Russian pilot who literally gave him the shirt off his back for 40 West marks. There was a political cartoon that showed a Russian tank crew at a flea market with their tank and a sign on it offering it for sale. The tank had been there for several days and the prices on the for sale sign were crossed out as the price fell daily. The last price was something like 20 DM and there were no takers. Unfortunately, it didn't take long for the prices to go up and the junk to start flooding the market. But the early birds did score big time. Dwight

[Wagriff]

I,too, would have to give this book the nod for authenticity. I remember quite awhile ago seeing a small grouping of books with this bookplate in them that had come from Hitler's Yacht. I was quite tempted to purchase them myself, as they went for a quite modest sum, but I wasn't a fluent reader of German at the time, and so I passed. I always did rather suspect that Hitler rarely read most of the books he had in his various libraries and locations, due to his ,for the most part, lack of leisure time but he certainly had a keen mind and was well known to like reading on a variety of subjects-especially things such as German History etc and would absolutely have had a copy of most all and any books of his interest available wherever he happened to be going just in case. There are many publicity photos in existence still of him relaxing in an overstuffed chair and casually reading a book. Valuewise, I would not put a huge amount on it, as, has been said, the number of books in Hitler's personal libraries alone numbered into the thousands and I don't think that many were destroyed or disposed of. It is, nonetheless, a tantalizing bit of History, for sure. Did "Der Fuhrer" actually Read this particular volume? We may never know!

[sargetom]

I was in the 3rd Battalion 6th Infantry and we were stationed in Zelendorf in McNair Barracks which was orifinally the Telefunk Radio Manufacturing plant built prior to WWII. Yes the 40th Armor was the designation of the tank platoon then. I visited when I was back in 2004-05 and my old barrackes were in the process of being converted into luxury condos which is probaly a good use for these old historic buildindg. As you stated hindsight is easier than forsight; I can remember recieving the militaria catalog from Globaql Military in the 1960s and you could buy an authentic WWII German tunic with patches etc for around $30.00 US.

[Wagriff]

Ah! Good old Globe Militaria....You're lucky that you didn't buy the tunics...80% of their stuff was...."questionable"...lol

[drmessimer]

For those of you who are following this thread, I have learned much more about the books that Hitler received and the libraries in which they were kept. As I wrote earlier, he had libraries in the Reich Chancellery, in the NSDAP headquarters in Munich, and in the Berghof at Berchtesgaden, totaling an estimated 16,000 volumes. In addition he had a sizable library in his Munich apartment, and in 1945 there was a library in the bunker. The account of the Russians scooping up all the books and sending them to Moscow that I mentioned earlier is only partly true. They did send thousands of books from the Reich Chancellery to Moscow, but hundreds were left behind in the Chancellery, and were still there when the Americans arrived.
I also learned that the bookplates were printed in the thousands and were kept in the office of Otto Meissner, Leiter der Präsidialkanzlei des Führers (1934-45) who saw that they were pasted into all the books that were given to Hitler. According to the experts featured by Timothy W. Ryback in his book, Hitler’s Private Library (2008), the bookplates were identical and there were no variations from the basic pattern. His personal bookplates were also placed in books that he gave to other people--called presentation books. In addition to the private bookplate, Hitler signed the presentation books or had them stamped “Nachlass Adolf Hitler.” Below are photos of presentation books showing the bookplate, which I must say appear s to be identical to mine.





I also found current examples of counterfeit bookplates, one version of which would be hard to recognize as a counterfeit, but the other two are obvious because they are printed in completely different colors than the original. The counterfeits are running $89 to $149 each.

Based on what I learned today, I am reasonably sure that my book did come from Hitler’s library, and I’m pretty sure that it came from the Reich Chancellery, which makes it an interesting piece, but not particularly valuable. Now all I am waiting for is to hear from the Library of Congress. In the meantime, maybe we can pool our resources and help Jerry (Bond) find out who Karl was and what the beef was between him and Brigadier Durnford-Slater. Dwight