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HITLER

Hitler memorabilia auction in Munich sparks protest

Adolf Hitler's top hat, Eva Braun's dresses and a silver-covered edition of "Mein Kampf" are among the items being put up for sale by a German auction house, prompting protests from Jewish leaders.

Published: 14 November 2019 13:22 CET
Hitler memorabilia auction in Munich sparks protest
A copy of Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' at the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich. Photo: DPA

Munich-based Hermann Historica will be selling 147 items from the Third
Reich on November 20th.

Rabbi Menachem Margolin, chairman of the European Jewish Association, has
written to the auction house asking for the items to be withdrawn from sale.

“We believe the sale of such memorabilia has little intrinsic historical value but instead will be bought by those who glorify and seek to justify the actions of the greatest evil to affect Europe.

“The trade therefore in such items should simply not take place,” Margolin wrote, adding that the auction itself was “not illegal, but it is wrong”.

READ ALSO: Outrage grows over sale of Hitler masks in Prague

Hermann Historica's director Bernhard Pacher was quoted by the Bild daily as saying: “Yes, Hitler sells but most of all to customers who are approaching it with serious historical interest.”

The items include the personal belongings of top Nazi leaders such as Hermann Göring and Joseph Göbbels, many of which were seized by US soldiers in the final days of World War II.

The dresses belonging to Braun, Hitler's long-term companion who was briefly his wife before their death, were found among 40 trunks seized by the US military in May 1945 in Salzburg in Austria.

Some of the more unusual lots include a copy of Hitler's rental contract in
Munich and a pair of sunglasses worn by a defendants at the Nazi war crimes trials in Nuremberg to avoid the glare of the floodlights.

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MUNICH

Four injured as WWII bomb explodes near Munich train station

Four people were injured, one of them seriously, when a World War II bomb exploded at a building site near Munich's main train station on Wednesday, emergency services said.

Published: 1 December 2021 16:41 CET
Smoke rises after the WWII bomb exploded on a building site in Munich.
Smoke rises after the WWII bomb exploded on a building site in Munich. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Privat

Construction workers had been drilling into the ground when the bomb exploded, a spokesman for the fire department said in a statement.

The blast was heard several kilometres away and scattered debris hundreds of metres, according to local media reports.

Images showed a plume of smoke rising directly next to the train tracks.

Bavaria interior minister Joachim Herrmann told Bild that the whole area was being searched.

Deutsche Bahn suspended its services on the affected lines in the afternoon.

Although trains started up again from 3pm, the rail operator said there would still be delays and cancellations to long-distance and local travel in the Munich area until evening. 

According to the fire service, the explosion happened near a bridge that must be passed by all trains travelling to or from the station.

The exact cause of the explosion is unclear, police said. So far, there are no indications of a criminal act.

WWII bombs are common in Germany

Some 75 years after the war, Germany remains littered with unexploded ordnance, often uncovered during construction work.

READ ALSO: What you need to know about WWII bomb disposals in Germany

However, most bombs are defused by experts before they explode.

Last year, seven World War II bombs were found on the future location of Tesla’s first European factory, just outside Berlin.

Sizeable bombs were also defused in Cologne and Dortmund last year.

In 2017, the discovery of a 1.4-tonne bomb in Frankfurt prompted the evacuation of 65,000 people — the largest such operation since the end of the war in Europe in 1945.

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