| PROMINENT THIRD REICH LEADERS |
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| Lot |
Photo |
Description |
Lot 1035 |
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Martin Bormann (1900-1945?), Deputy and confidant of Hitler, Nazi Party Secretary, chief of the Party Chancellery; disappeared after Hitler's suicide.
Typed Letter Signed, 22 Mar 1937, as Party reichsleiter and Chief of Hess' staff to landscape architect Alwin Seifert; also a 1939 cover from the Nazi Party Chancellery prior to Borman's appointment.
Estimate 600 - 800
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Lot 1036 |
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Josef "Sepp" Dietrich (1892-1966), Waffen-SS General and one of Hitler's closest and most brutal followers, commander of Hiler's bodyguard; leader in the assasinations on "the Night of the Long Knives"; notorious for mistreatment of POWs.
Autograph Letter Signed, 2 May 1943, to old friend, General Ritter von Epp, governor of Bavaria, includes mailing envelope in Dietrich's hand.
Estimate 600 - 800
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Lot 1037 |
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Hermann Göring (1893-1946), World War I ace pilot and winner of the Pour le Mérite (the "Blue Max"), second in command of the Third Reich and creator and commander of the Luftwaffe.
Two pages including a fieldpost card written by Göring to his brother Karl in 1915; an Iron Cross 2nd grade (Göring was awarded the Grand Cross); two picture postcards featuring heroic portraits of Göring; and a cover addressed to him.
Estimate 1,500 - 2,000
At the Nuremburg Trials Goering was sentenced to be hanged, but two hours before his scheduled execution he committed suicide.
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Lot 1038 |
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Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945), Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda (1933-1945); ardent follower of Hitler and virulent anti-semite.
Two pages including a signed carte de visite, a mailed copy of one of his speeches from 1942, and a 1930 postcard referring to an upcoming Goebbels speech.
Estimate 500 - 750
Goebbels was with Hitler in Berlin until the end, becoming the last Chancellor of the Third Reich after Hitler's suicide. The following day, however, Goebbels and his wife took their own lives and those of their six children.
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Lot 1039 |
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Rudolf Hess (1894-1987), One of Hitler's earliest political associates, acting as Hitler's deputy in the Nazi Party; tried and sent to prison in 1924 for commanding an SA battalion during the Beer-Hall Putsch . In 1941, on the eve of war with the Soviet Union, he flew solo to Scotland in an attempt to negotiate peace, but was arrested; the last of the Nazi war criminals held in Spandau Prison.
Typed Letter Signed, 26 Mar 1938, as Deputy Fuhrer, offering congratulations to a Party member on the birth of a son; also a 1973 cover addressed by Hess from Spandau (with prison corner card) to his wife and four covers addressed to Hess in the mid-1930s.
Estimate 400 - 600
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Lot 1040 |
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Reinhard Heydrich (1904-1942), Chief of the Reich Security Office including the Gestapo (secret police). Kripo (criminal investigation) and SD (SS security division), Reichsprotektor of Bohemia & Moravia; assassinated by Czech resistance fighters.
Typed Letter Signed, 23 March 1940, to Fritz Todt, congratulating him on his appointment as Minister of Armaments and Munitions; also a Maximum card of the stamp issued on the occasion of the first anniversary of his death.
Estimate 750 - 1,000
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Lot 1041 |
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Heinrich Himmler (1900-1945), Commander of the SS and Gestapo and creator and officer-in-charge of the Nazi concentration camps and the death squads.
Document Signed, 31 January 1939, as Reichsführer-SS, a promotion order for an SS officer, small paperclip stain at upper right; also two allied propaganda forgeries featuring Himmler designs, Michel 28II (NH, short perf) and 32 (disturbed gum, small stain).
Estimate 1,000 - 1,500
Near the end of the war Himmler offered to surrender "Germany" in return for not being prosecuted as a Nazi leader. In 1945, after his capture by the British, he committed suicide.
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Lot 1042 |
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Ernst Kaltenbrunner (1903-1946), Successor to Heydrich as Chief of Reich Security; favorite of Hitler's, he sanctioned all the inhumanities of the Nazi regime, murdering Jews, POWs, enemies and rivals indiscriminately; said to be the only man that even Himmler feared; sentenced to death and hanged at Nuremberg for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Typed Letter Signed, 4 Jan 1940, as head of the Austrian SS, offering greetings to one Rudolf Amsler, includes mailing envelope.
Estimate 400 - 500
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Lot 1043 |
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Robert Ley (1890-1945), Head of the German Labor Front and supervisor of slave labor recruitment; hanged himself while awaiting sentencing at Nuremberg, leaving the note "We have forsaken God, therefore we have been forsaken by God."
Autograph Letter Signed, 30 Sep 1945, while a prisoner at Nuremberg and three weeks prior to being convicted of war crimes, Ley writes on a P.O.W. card to a friend, Hugo Simon in Waldbröl, giving him "full power of authority to act in my name" and asking him to find and take care of his (Ley's) children; also an unused Allied propaganda postal card showing Ley in an unflattering light and featuring a forged 3pf Hitler stamp imprint.
Estimate 750 - 1,000
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Lot 1044 |
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Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893-1946), German Foreign Minister; instrumental in arranging the Rome-Berlin Axis Pact of 1936 and the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis of 1940, sentenced to death at Nuremberg and hanged.
Typed Letter Signed, 29 March 1938, to Austria's newly-appointed Minister of the Interior, Artur Seyss-Inquart (see lot 1069); also a spectacular Italian propaganda postal card featuring the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis powers crushing the Allies.
Estimate 500 - 750
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Lot 1045 |
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Erwin Rommel, Autograph Letter, not signed, 13 Oct 1943, 6 x 4 card (both sides) with his Generalfeldmarschall imprint, to his wife, Lu, in part "Was at Duce's [Mussolini's] yesterday. He is fresh, cheerful and has great plans". That very day Italy declared war on Germany; also a souvenir sheetlet recording the campaigns of the Africa Corps with appropriate stamps and cancels and a Rommel handstamped signature, numbered 1296 of 2000 issued.
Estimate 750 - 1,000
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Lot 1046 |
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Alfred Rosenberg, Early and influential member of the Nazi Party and chief ideologist for the Reich; authored its racial theory, persecution of the Jews, Lebensraum (the need for "space" for the German people, space that would be gained by conquering, then exterminating the Slavic peoples to the east), and the abolition of the Treaty of Versailles, among others; Reichsminister for the Occupied Eastern Territories; sentenced to death at Nuremberg and executed by hanging as a war criminal.
Typed Letter Signed, 13 Jul 1933, 2 pages, on Nazi Party letterhead, Rosenberg writes to Hitler, defending himself against charges that he was an advocate of the Russian National Socialist Organization (ROND), in part:
"I declare to you, my Fuhrer, that I have had nothing…to do with either the founding or the promotion of…ROND…This very day I came to you with an invitation…from ROND, so that I could show you my opposition to it. It is possible that the [Nazi] movement, with its SS, SA and SA music bands might have officially participated in an organization that may, in part, have been founded by honorable people, but…like all refugee emigré organizations, is probably honeycombed with Russian and French spies…"
Very Good condition with some edge tears and tone spots, plus punch holes in blank left margins. Still a fascinating letter illustrating the continuing ambivalence toward Russian collaborators; also a 1937 cover addressed to Rosenberg and two pieces of aint-Semitic postal propaganda, including a colorful postcard.
Estimate 750 - 1,000
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Lot 1047 |
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Miscellaneous Third Reich Officials, Albert Bormann, Hitler's adjutant and chief of his private Chancellery, brother of Martin Bormann, TLS, 17 Feb 1933, on Hitler Chancellory letterhead; Franz Xaver Schwarz, Nazi Party national treasurer and overseer of the Braunes House [Brown House], Nazi Party Headquarters, TLS, 24 Mar 1938, on Nazi Treasurer letterhead; Albert Speer, Hitler's chief architect, built the Olympic Stadium and the new Reich Chancellery, among others; succeeded Fritz Todt as Minister of Armaments and War Production), signature on stamp featuring the Reich Chancellery [his favorite design] and on the card to which it is affixed.
Estimate 300 - 400
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