Hidden trove of suspected Nazi artifacts found in Argentina

[Hammock Parties]

Amazing. The Nazis really did flee to Argentina.



http://abcnews.go.com/International/...ntina-48145123

In a hidden room in a house near Argentina's capital, police believe they have found the biggest collection of Nazi artifacts in the country's history, including a bust relief of Adolf Hitler, magnifying glasses inside elegant boxes with swastikas and even a macabre medical device used to measure head size.

Some 75 objects were found in a collector's home in Beccar, a suburb north of Buenos Aires, and authorities say they suspect they are originals that belonged to high-ranking Nazis in Germany during World War II.

"Our first investigations indicate that these are original pieces," Argentine Security Minister Patricia Bullrich told The Associated Press on Monday, saying that some pieces were accompanied by old photographs. "This is a way to commercialize them, showing that they were used by the horror, by the Fuhrer. There are photos of him with the objects."

Among the disturbing items were toys that Bullrich said would have been used to indoctrinate children, a large statue of the Nazi Eagle above a swastika, a Nazi hourglass and a box of harmonicas.

Police say one of the most-compelling pieces of evidence of the historical importance of the find is a photo negative of Hitler holding a magnifying glass similar to those found in the boxes.

"We have turned to historians and they've told us it is the original magnifying glass" that Hitler was using, said Nestor Roncaglia, head of Argentina's federal police. "We are reaching out to international experts to deepen" the investigation.

The photograph was not released to the public, but was shown to The Associated Press on the condition that it not be published.

The investigation that culminated in the discovery of the collection began when authorities found artworks of illicit origin in a gallery in north Buenos Aires.

Agents with the international police force Interpol began following the collector and with a judicial order raided the house on June 8. A large bookshelf caught their attention and behind it agents found a hidden passageway to a room filled with Nazi imagery.

Authorities did not identify the collector who remains free but under investigation by a federal judge.

"There are no precedents for a find like this. Pieces are stolen or are imitations. But this is original and we have to get to the bottom of it," said Roncaglia.

Police are trying to determine how the artifacts entered Argentina.

The main hypothesis among investigators and member of Argentina's Jewish community is that they were brought to Argentina by a high-ranking Nazi or Nazis after World War II, when the South American country became a refuge for fleeing war criminals, including some of the best known.

As leading members of Hitler's Third Reich were put on trial for war crimes, Josef Mengele fled to Argentina and lived in Buenos Aires for a decade. He moved to Paraguay after Israeli Mossad agents captured Holocaust mastermind Adolf Eichmann, who was also living in Buenos Aires. Mengele later died in Brazil in 1979 while swimming in a beach in the town of Bertioga.

While police in Argentina did not name any high-ranking Nazis to whom the objects might have originally belonged, Bullrich noted there were medical devices.

"There are objects to measure heads that was the logic of the Aryan race," she said.

Ariel Cohen Sabban, president of the DAIA, a political umbrella for Argentina's Jewish institutes, called the find "unheard of" in Argentina.

"Finding 75 original pieces is historic and could offer irrefutable proof of the presence of top leaders who escaped from Nazi Germany," Cohen told the AP

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[JakeF]

Originally Posted by Hoover

This point of view just drives me nuts. The worst thing we can do is ignore or pretend that things in the past did not happen. Now I'm not for flying the stars and bars or having swastikas tiled in to my pool, so this new facination with erasing the sins of the past is not wise.

There is a huge difference between forgetting the past sins or memorializing them. You will have a bunch of nuts traveling to "mecca" to worship all the Nazi symbols from the past.

[Halfcan]

Originally Posted by ptlyon

Wonder if they tested it to see if it was Emilia Earhart

Possibly, Eva Braun's body. Eyewitness accounts state that Hitler was alone when he boarded the plane for Argentina.

One account of the body from an Eva site,

http://www.evabraun.dk/evabraun5.htm

The Soviet troops were led to the bodies of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun and took the bodies with them as they moved west with the Soviet's Third Army. Each night the remains were buried, often in the woods, and then dug up when it was time to move on.

Finally, Hitler and Braun were buried behind Smersh's East German headquarters in Magdeburg, and remained for 25 years under a yard later owned by a waste-disposal firm.

It was not until 1970 that the remains of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun were dug up from Magdeburg and destroyed.

The rest of Eva Braun's family survived the war. Her mother, Franziska, who lived in an old farmhouse in Ruhpolding, Bavaria, died at the age of ninety-six, in January 1976.


The Russian account of historic events is sketchy at best as well as the accounts by witnesses to the "suicide" of the love birds.

[Chief_For_Life58]

crazy find. I dont understand why interpol was allowed to just walk into this guys house and take this stuff though? Its his personal possessions now arent they? Why can they just walk in and take it?

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by gblowfish

What were the Nazis doing with harmonicas?

There's no reason you can't have some fun in the Stalingrad winter.

[Chief_For_Life58]

Yeah I dont know if I believe the story of Hitler escaping to south america or something. I feel like if youre Hitler you have too much pride to run with your tail between your legs. You go out in style and commit suicide. right?

[Halfcan]

Originally Posted by Chief_For_Life58

crazy find. I dont understand why interpol was allowed to just walk into this guys house and take this stuff though? Its his personal possessions now arent they? Why can they just walk in and take it?

Artifacts as unique and valuable as these were most likely stolen or given as a gift by a war criminal.

He is going to have to explain the chain of custody (which will be difficult) or will never get the stuff returned.

These are not items you can buy down at the swap and shop.

[ShiftyEyedWaterboy]

Originally Posted by ThaVirus

I'd say put it in museums.

Regardless of whether or not you believe in the ideology, it's still an interesting sliver of human history.

Yeah, my grandfather brought a ton of Nazi/Allied stuff back from WWII. I'll pass it down if I ever have kids, otherwise, I'll probably donate it to a museum one day.

[Chief_For_Life58]

Originally Posted by Halfcan

Artifacts as unique and valuable as these were most likely stolen or given as a gift by a war criminal.

He is going to have to explain the chain of custody (which will be difficult) or will never get the stuff returned.

These are not items you can buy down at the swap and shop.

Yeah but cant he just say a family member gifted them to him and thats that. Also I still don't see why they can just walk in and take it

[Chief_For_Life58]

Originally Posted by ShiftyEyedWaterboy

Yeah, my grandfather brought a ton of Nazi/Allied stuff back from WWII. I'll pass it down if I ever have kids, otherwise, I'll probably donate it to a museum one day.

Thats cool. Like what?

My coworkers dad was in the army regiment that liberate Dachau. He killed a nazi officer and took his luger. My coworker still has it.

[Hoopsdoc]

Originally Posted by JakeF

Destroy it all, don't keep and let it become some kind of display.

Bullshit. Use it to teach and learn.

[ShiftyEyedWaterboy]

Originally Posted by Chief_For_Life58

Thats cool. Like what?

My coworkers dad was in the army regiment that liberate Dachau. He killed a nazi officer and took his luger. My coworker still has it.

I have a Luftwaffe officer's dagger, a Fairbairn-Sykes dagger, a book autographed by Guderian, a picture autographed by Manteuffel, a silver coffee creamer from the Der Deutsche Hof (hotel in Nuremburg where the high command would stay during rallies), a brick from the Berghof, tons of medals, tons of Nazi stamps/postcards, a big wooden desk with the imperial eagle and SS insignia carved into it (gramps snagged it from some SS HQ), and a picture that looks like its signed by Hitler (probably a fake since my dad got it in the 70's).

I've posted some pics in the WWII thread in the Romper Room.

http://chiefsplanet.com/BB/showthrea...gs+WWII&page=7

I can snap some more of the other stuff if anyone is interested. The desk and Hitler auto are at my grandfather's place, though.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by Baby Lee

I'm assuming those mummies weren't Nazi.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by Halfcan

Artifacts as unique and valuable as these were most likely stolen or given as a gift by a war criminal.

He is going to have to explain the chain of custody (which will be difficult) or will never get the stuff returned.

These are not items you can buy down at the swap and shop.

The stuff itself is interesting, but the story of how it got there is going to be the most interesting part in my mind. That stuff was big enough that it wasn't just hand-carried. Someone shipped it, and it was someone who was in the inner circle.

Another article that I read said that it included some instruments to measure head size that dated from the 1930s. The Nazis were using these to build theories about genetic dominance. The fact that those instruments were included points toward a guy like Mengele.

I guess it's possible too that this was a hand-assembled collection from years after the war, but since some of these items appeared to belong to Hitler or his inner circle, I'd be more inclined to think that it's always existed as a collection.

I bet one of the chief Nazi goobers was bringing stuff over before the war ended so he could have a stash of stuff to sell in his old age. This is either a descendant's house or it's the person he was selling stuff to.

[ShiftyEyedWaterboy]

Here's the Guderian and Manteuffel auto's.



One of the postcards:

[Dayze]

Translation
"Germany - Come for the Beer, Stay for the Genocide"