A top hat worn by Adolf Hitler was purchased for €50,000 ($55,300) by a Lebanese-born Swiss businessman Abdallah Chatila at a controversial auction held on November 20 in the Bavarian city of Munich.
Chatila said he wanted to keep the items out of the hands of neo-Nazis.
"It is extremely important to me that items from this painful historical era do not land in the wrong hands," Chatila said in an email sent to DW. The 45-year old, who runs a multimillion-dollar diamond business in Geneva, said he would have purchased more items, but failed to win all of the bids at the auction held by auction house Hermann Historica.
Other Nazi-era memorabilia purchased at the auction by Chatila included Hermann Goering's copy of Mein Kampf, which sold for €130,000.
Read more: German police investigate extreme-right video showing 'protection' patrol on trains
Bound for Holocaust museum?
All of the items were donated to the Keren Hayesod association, an Israeli fundraising group, which will decide on what to do with them.
"I strongly hope that such delicate items will be exhibited in a Holocaust museum that will have a better use than any other entity," said Chatila.
Read more: Argentina's Holocaust museum unveils Nazi relics
According to a profile on the website Swiss Arab Entrepreneurs.ch, Chatila's family came to Switzerland in 1988. He joined the family jewelry business in 1995 and eventually made a fortune in the diamond trade
"In these days, where tendencies of nationalism and anti-Semitism are growing in Europe, I would like to set an example with the means I have," he told DW.
Gesture of 'generosity and solidarity'
The head of the European Jewish Association, Rabbi Menachem Margolin, said in a statement Sunday that he was "bowled over" by Chatila's gesture. "In a cynical world, a real act of kindness, of generosity and solidarity," he said in a statement.
-
'Never Again': Memorials of the Holocaust
Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site
A large sculpture stands in front of Dachau. Located just outside Munich, it was the first concentration camp opened by the Nazi regime. Just a few weeks after Adolf Hitler came to power, it was used by the paramilitary SS Schutzstaffel to imprison, torture and kill political opponents of the regime. Dachau also served as a prototype and model for the other Nazi camps that followed.
-
'Never Again': Memorials of the Holocaust
Wannsee House
The villa on Berlin's Wannsee lake was pivotal in the planning of the Holocaust. Fifteen members of the Nazi government and the SS Schutzstaffel met here on January 20, 1942 to devise what became known as the "Final Solution," the deportation and extermination of all Jews in German-occupied territory. In 1992, the villa where the Wannsee Conference was held was turned into a memorial and museum.
-
'Never Again': Memorials of the Holocaust
Holocaust Memorial in Berlin
Located next to the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin's Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe was inaugurated 60 years after the end of World War II on May 10, 2005, and opened to the public two days later. Architect Peter Eisenman created a field with 2,711 concrete slabs. An attached underground "Place of Information" holds the names of all known Jewish Holocaust victims.
-
'Never Again': Memorials of the Holocaust
Memorial to Persecuted Homosexuals
Not too far from the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, another concrete memorial honors the thousands of homosexuals persecuted by the Nazis between 1933 and 1945. The 4-meter high (13-foot) monument, which has a window showing alternately a film of two men or two women kissing, was inaugurated in Berlin's Tiergarten on May 27, 2008.
-
'Never Again': Memorials of the Holocaust
Documentation center on Nazi Party rally grounds
Nuremberg hosted the biggest Nazi party propaganda rallies from 1933 until the start of World War II. The annual Nazi Party congress, as well as rallies with as many as 200,000 participants, took place on the 11-square-kilometer (4.25-square-mile) area. Today, the unfinished Congress Hall building serves as a documentation center and a museum.
-
'Never Again': Memorials of the Holocaust
German Resistance Memorial Center
The Bendlerblock building in Berlin was the headquarters of a military resistance group. On July 20, 1944, a group of Wehrmacht officers around Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg carried out an assassination attempt on Hitler that ultimately failed. The leaders of the conspiracy were summarily shot the same night in the courtyard of the Bendlerblock. Today, it's the German Resistance Memorial Center.
-
'Never Again': Memorials of the Holocaust
Bergen-Belsen Memorial
The Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Lower Saxony was initially established as a prisoner of war camp before becoming a concentration camp. Prisoners too sick to work were brought here from other concentration camps, and many also died of disease. One of the 50,000 people killed here was Anne Frank, a Jewish girl who gained international fame after her diary was published posthumously.
-
'Never Again': Memorials of the Holocaust
Buchenwald Memorial
Located near the Thuringian town of Weimar, Buchenwald was one of the largest concentration camps in Germany. From 1937 to April 1945, the National Socialists deported about 270,000 people from all over Europe to the camp and murdered 64,000 of them before the camp was liberated by US soldiers in 1945. The site now serves as a memorial to the victims.
-
'Never Again': Memorials of the Holocaust
Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Victims
Opposite the Reichstag parliament building in Berlin, a park inaugurated in 2012 serves as a memorial to the 500,000 Sinti and Roma people killed by the Nazi regime. Around a memorial pool, the poem "Auschwitz" by Roma poet Santino Spinelli is written in English, Germany and Romani. "Gaunt face, dead eyes, cold lips, quiet, a broken heart, out of breath, without words, no tears," it reads.
-
'Never Again': Memorials of the Holocaust
'Stolpersteine' — stumbling blocks as memorials
In the 1990s, artist Gunter Demnig began the project to confront Germany's Nazi past. The brass-covered concrete cubes placed in front of the former homes of Nazi victims show their names, details about their deportation, and murder, if known. As of early 2022, some 100,000 "Stolpersteine" have been laid in over 25 countries across Europe. It's the world's largest decentralized Holocaust memorial.
-
'Never Again': Memorials of the Holocaust
Brown House in Munich
Right next to the "Führerbau," where Adolf Hitler had his office in Munich, was the headquarters of the Nazi Party, called the Brown House. A white cube now occupies the place where it once stood. In it, the "Documentation Center for the History of National Socialism" opened on April 30, 2015, 70 years after the defeat of the Nazi regime.
Author: Max Zander
After Wednesday's auction, Margolin said that selling Nazi-era memorabilia was immoral. "It's wrong to monetize these blood-stained objects, especially in Germany," he said.
Read more: International Holocaust Remembrance Day: Places of memory and mourning
The collapsible top hat was manufactured by J-A. Seidl in the early 1930s and was found in Hitler's private residence in Munich.
The Mein Kampf special edition is one of 100 limited editions set aside by the publisher in Munich for special purposes and includes a history of the Nazi Party.
Every day, DW's editors send out a selection of the day's hard news and quality feature journalism. You can sign up to receive it directly here.
