A Huber watch that may have belonged to infamous Nazi German leader Adolf Hitler has recently been sold for a lump sum of $1.1 million at an auction by an anonymous bidder.
Emblazoned with a swastika, a Nazi eagle, and the initials AH, the watch was supposedly given to Hitler as a birthday present in 1933, the same year he became Germany’s chancellor, Sky News notes, citing the item’s description in the auction catalogue.
During the final days of World War II, the timepiece was seized as "spoils of war" by Allied soldiers at Hitler’s mountain retreat of Berghof in Bavaria, and then ended up being "resold and handed down through the generations," as the media outlet put it.
Other items that were being sold at the auction reportedly included Wehrmacht toilet paper, cutlery, and champagne glasses that belonged to "senior Nazi figures," as well as a number of items that were owned by Eva Braun, Hitler’s partner.
Prior to the auction, 34 Jewish leaders signed a letter to the Alexander Historical Auctions, the Maryland-based auction house that held the sale, asking it not to sell the wristwatch, the media outlet points out.
"Whilst it is obvious that the lessons of history need to be learned - and legitimate Nazi artefacts do belong in museums or places of higher learning - the items that you are selling clearly do not," said Rabbi Menachem Margolin, chair of the European Jewish Association. "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."
He also argued that the auction both provides succor to "those who idealise what the Nazi party stood for" and gives buyers an opportunity to "titillate a guest or loved one with an item belonging to a genocidal murderer and his supporters."
The auction house, however, told media that most of their collectors either keep the items in private collections or donate them to Holocaust museums.
"Whether good or bad history, it must be preserved," Alexander Historical Auctions’ senior vice president Mindy Greenstein claimed.