Hitler's Watch Sold For $1.1M At MD Auction, Critics Condemn Sale

CHESAPEAKE CITY, MD — A gold watch given to Nazi leader Adolph Hitler was sold for $1.1 million Thursday at a Maryland auction house. Jewish leaders condemned the sale as an "abhorrence" and urged in vain that it not take place.

Alexander Historical Auctions in Chesapeake City sold the timepiece, given to the rising dictator in 1933. The auction house's catalog called it a "World War II relic of historic proportions, a gold Andreas Huber reversible wristwatch, given to Adolf Hitler himself most likely on April 20, 1933." The gift for Hitler's 44th birthday marked him being named an honorary citizen of Bavaria.

In a letter co-signed by 34 Jewish leaders on Wednesday, Rabbi Menachem Margolin, chairman of the European Jewish Association, asked the business to cancel the auction, saying the “little to no intrinsic historical value to the vast bulk of the lots on display.”

“This auction, whether unwittingly or not, is doing two things: one, giving succour to those who idealise what the Nazi party stood for. Two: Offering buyers the chance to titillate a guest or loved one with an item belonging to a genocidal murderer and his supporters,” Margolin wrote.

The auction house estimated the watch might sell for $2 million to $4 million.

Historians said a French soldier seized the watch on May 4, 1945, when his unit was the first Allied force to arrive at Hitler's retreat at Berchtesgaden in the Alps of southern Germany.

The Brussels-based European Jewish Association asked Alexander Historical Auctions to forego its sale of Nazi objects. Other items listed included a candy bowl belonging to Hitler, and trinkets belonging to his partner, Eva Braun, including a dress and dog collar for her terrier.

Also on sale were Wehrmacht toilet paper and the cutlery and champagne glasses of senior Nazi figures.

A copy of Hitler's manifesto, "Mein Kampf," was also sold at auction for $13,000.

Margolin said that while legitimate Nazi artifacts belong in museums or places of higher learning, the items sold at auction clearly do not.

"Millions died to preserve the values of freedom that we take for granted today, including almost half a million Americans," the letter said. "Our continent is littered with memorial mass graves and the sites of death camps."

The sale of Nazi relics to the highest bidder on the open market is an indictment of society, Margolin said, "one in which the memory, suffering and pain of others is overridden for financial gain."