Antisemitic document bought for '000s

[CPB]

http://ow.ly/5cf6i

Source: @ww2resource on Twitter (highly recommended)

[bsmith56]

Here is a video about it that I just saw.

http://news.yahoo.com/video/miamicbs...ublic-25499860

The way the document was originally found seems a but fishy to me...

[J. Wraith]

Type written letter from a private California dealer for 150k?, I am thrilled about the possibility of authenticity of this garbage. Not buying that at all and the only idiots that would would be a museum where they can say Hitler wrote that like it was not written by Martin Luther and a boatload of European's for centuries prior to Hitler's rise to power. So what?. That's a joke and a waste of money.

JMHO

[CPB]

I wonder who the dealer is?

[crfraser]

Here's a link to the CNN story with a photo of the signature.

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/0...val/?hpt=hp_c2

And one from the Beeb

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13692755

I wonder who authenticated it? Sounds like the museum did its due diligence and as a result missed the letter when offered the first time. So why is everyone so sure this is a fake? Presumably the Weisenthal Centre is not staffed by complete idiots and they are somehwat concerned about creditbiltiy. If this is a fake they will look awfully silly. According to the BBC the letter has long been known to scholars.

Based on first impressions I would assume its real.

Colin

[max history]

Here's a link to the CNN story with a photo of the signature.

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/0...val/?hpt=hp_c2

And one from the Beeb

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13692755

I wonder who authenticated it? Sounds like the museum did its due diligence and as a result missed the letter when offered the first time. So why is everyone so sure this is a fake? Presumably the Weisenthal Centre is not staffed by complete idiots and they are somehwat concerned about creditbiltiy. If this is a fake they will look awfully silly. According to the BBC the letter has long been known to scholars.

Based on first impressions I would assume its real.

Colin

I'm with you, Colin. Apparently Hitler picked up his anti-Semitic views during his homeless period in Vienna. He is known to have been outspoken about the Jews in the trenches of WW1 and particularly at the time of the armistice when he was in hospital, and immediately after the war. So, it comes as no surprise to find such a letter attributed to him. From the images, the signature appears correct. Staff at the Wiesenthal Centre are not idiots and I'm certain they would have done their homework. To write it off as a complete forgery, without proper examination, is definitely not the way to go about this.
Max.

[Br. James]

The document sounds interesting and historic as to its early date, but nothing in it is news. I believe Hitler absorbed the roots to his antisemitic phobia during his earliest childhood, which is where most of those sorts of ideas are heard from family members and accepted as truth, without any reasoning behind them, and are then expanded into a sort of 'logical position' over the course of adolescent and adult life. Antisemitism is nothing new to Central European people; it goes back for hundreds and hundreds of years and is a field of study all its own. That Hitler would have come into contact with it during his small-town upbringing should be taken for granted; that he heard it expressed during his pre-war life in Austria and during his military career is obvious; indeed, his time in prison for treason following the Beer Hall Putsch provided the necessary time for him to think about developing a world view and for his already-present ideas to coalesce around an antisemitic base. The only thing unique about Hitler's antisemitism was his ability to phrase it into a pseudo-believable political position and to gather others around him who could expand upon a public experience of antisemitism, people like Streicher and Hess and Goebbels.

There is another article attached to the first one which, IMO, is of much more significance than any statement of Hitler's antisemitism: it is a report written in 1948 by one of Rudolf Hess' adjutants which describes events prior to Hess' flight to Scotland in 1941 and of Hitler's actual reaction to word of Hess' arrest there. Here we have something closing in on actual eye-witness reporting of these events from inside the halls of Nazi power. Very interesting indeed!

Br. James

[max history]

The document sounds interesting and historic as to its early date, but nothing in it is news. I believe Hitler absorbed the roots to his antisemitic phobia during his earliest childhood, which is where most of those sorts of ideas are heard from family members and accepted as truth, without any reasoning behind them, and are then expanded into a sort of 'logical position' over the course of adolescent and adult life. Antisemitism is nothing new to Central European people; it goes back for hundreds and hundreds of years and is a field of study all its own. That Hitler would have come into contact with it during his small-town upbringing should be taken for granted; that he heard it expressed during his pre-war life in Austria and during his military career is obvious; indeed, his time in prison for treason following the Beer Hall Putsch provided the necessary time for him to think about developing a world view and for his already-present ideas to coalesce around an antisemitic base. The only thing unique about Hitler's antisemitism was his ability to phrase it into a pseudo-believable political position and to gather others around him who could expand upon a public experience of antisemitism, people like Streicher and Hess and Goebbels.

There is another article attached to the first one which, IMO, is of much more significance than any statement of Hitler's antisemitism: it is a report written in 1948 by one of Rudolf Hess' adjutants which describes events prior to Hess' flight to Scotland in 1941 and of Hitler's actual reaction to word of Hess' arrest there. Here we have something closing in on actual eye-witness reporting of these events from inside the halls of Nazi power. Very interesting indeed!

Br. James

Sorry, but you are mistaken. Hitler describes in his own words (Mein Kampf) his first thoughts of anti-Semitism in Vienna:
It is difficult today, if not impossible, to say when the word, "Jew," first occasioned special thoughts in me. In my father's house, I cannot recall ever having heard the word, at least while he lived. I believe the old gentleman would have regarded special emphasis on this term as culturally backward. He had succeeded over the course of his life in becoming more or less cosmopolitan, an outlook that survived alongside a quite rough and ready nationalistic sentiment and which even coloured my own.
In school, too, I found no cause which would have led me to change this received image. In high school I did learn to know a Jewish boy, whom we all treated cautiously, only because various experiences had taught us to doubt his reliability. But we didn't care all that much one way or the other [about Jews].
Not until I was fourteen or fifteen did I bump into the word, "Jew," more frequently, mostly in the context of political discussions. I felt slightly averse [to this practice] and could not fend off a feeling of unpleasantness which always came over me when religious squabbles were unloaded in front of me.
But at that time I did not see the question as something special.
Linz possessed very few Jews. In the course of centuries their exteriors had become Europeanized and human-looking. Indeed, I even took them for Germans. The nonsense of this conception was not clear to me because I saw just a single distinctive characteristic, the alien religion. Since they had been persecuted because of it, as I believed, my aversion toward prejudicial remarks about them became almost detestation.
I did not yet so much as suspect the existence of a systematic opposition to Jews.
Then I came to Vienna.
He then describes how he began to look upon Jewry and its connection to business in a negative light, culminating in outright hatred.
Regards,
Max.

[andrewb]

I wonder who authenticated it?

Colin

Charles Hamilton in 1988.

All the info you need is in this link.

Regards,
AB.



http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news...-1226071829629

[Br. James]

Thank you for your note, Max. I am very much aware of how Hitler described his journey toward a 'logical position of antisemitism' in "Mein Kampf," but I do not choose to believe him, either in this matter or many others. You will note that I began my last piece with "I believe Hitler absorbed the roots to his antisemitic phobia during his earliest childhood..." and I trust that you will allow me the right to continue to believe as I choose. Each of us is raised in a whirlwind of petty phobias and discriminations which don't become obvious to us until much later in life, if ever, and I believe Hitler to have been part of that heritage within his own family experience.

Respectfully,

Br. James

[max history]

Thank you for your note, Max. I am very much aware of how Hitler described his journey toward a 'logical position of antisemitism' in "Mein Kampf," but I do not choose to believe him, either in this matter or many others. You will note that I began my last piece with "I believe Hitler absorbed the roots to his antisemitic phobia during his earliest childhood..." and I trust that you will allow me the right to continue to believe as I choose. Each of us is raised in a whirlwind of petty phobias and discriminations which don't become obvious to us until much later in life, if ever, and I believe Hitler to have been part of that heritage within his own family experience.

Respectfully,

Br. James

I appear to have touched a nerve. You may of course choose to believe what you wish, but I am of the opinion that you are mistaken on this occasion. I cannot see any reason why Hitler would have "lied" or misled his readers about his first stirring of anti-Semitism when it was a subject of which he was inordinately proud. Hitler's version is the only direct evidence we have. All other versions are just supposition.
Sincerely,
Max.

[J. Wraith]

I appear to have touched a nerve. You may of course choose to believe what you wish, but I am of the opinion that you are mistaken on this occasion. I cannot see any reason why Hitler would have "lied" or misled his readers about his first stirring of anti-Semitism when it was a subject of which he was inordinately proud. Hitler's version is the only direct evidence we have. All other versions are just supposition.
Sincerely,
Max.

Hitler may very well have been an anti-semite in his youth and could have simply utilized his Mein Kampf story as one that simply worked for him and it would not be the first time that has been done. It could have simply been when he himself took a conscious recollection of his view.

The letter itself means nothing in my mind and they are playing it like it is Hitler's first thoughts on killing Jews, and that is not what it is in my opinion. I think they paid 150k for an autograph and some anti semetic writing that is no different than writings in Mein Kampf or by any of the other European writers for centuries prior. Hitler was a product of anti-semitism and not some new found prophet on the subject.

[crfraser]

Thanks to AB for this interesting link . I have to question whether the price reflects anything like fair market value....I suppose it does meet that test technically given this changed hands between a willing seller and willing buyer.

Some dealer pricing is getting completely ridiculous - I just saw a listing for a run of the mill Claus von Stauffenberg for 25,000 Euro ($35,000 US)....obviously aimed at the nouveau riche client who will pay anything for a certain signature and doesn't want to wait and search himself.

Colin

[max history]

Br. James,
Another source which opposes your views.

"Hitler's Vienna -
A dictator's apprencticeship"
by Brigitte Hamann


The Viennese eyewitnesses remembered unanimously that Hitler's dealings with Jews had been quite natural. For example, Jakob Wasserberg from Galicia, who ran a small brandy store at 20 Webgasse, close to Stumpergasse, related that the young man had frequently had breakfast with him: "Mr. Wasserberg, a tea and a Laberl." (A Laberl is a cookie.)
It is worthy of note that among all the stories of his sufferings in Vienna, Hitler never mentioned a bad experience with a Jew. let us briefly recapitulate young Hitler's encounters with Jews in Linz and Vienna: Even when he was Reich chancellor, Hitler expressed his gratitude to his Jewish family doctor in Linz, Dr. Eduard Bloch, who attended to his mother until she died. In his American exile Dr. Bloch clearly stressed that young Hitler had certainly not been an anti-Semite in Linz: "He had not yet begun to hate the Jews." The theory that Hitler's anti-Semitism goes back to a Jewish professor who had flunked him at the academy exam is as untenable as the sensational story about Hitler's getting infected with syphilis by a Jewish prostitute in Leopoldstadt. When in 1908 anti-Semitic smear campaigns at the Vienna Opera were raging against former director Gustav Mahler, Hitler continued to admire Mahler as a Wagner interpreter. Accompanied by Kubizek, nineteen-year-old Hitler witnessed the family life and culture of an educated Jewish middle-class family during music making in the house of the Jahodas ; he was deeply impressed and did not utter the slightest anti-Semitic remark.
Furthermore, he had every reason to be grateful to Jewish benefactors. When he was homeless in 1909 -and probably earlier and later as well-he profited from Jewish social institutions in many ways, from public Warmestuben to soup kitchens and Jewish citizens' donations to the homeless shelter in Meidling and the men's hostel in Brigittenau.
In the men's hostel, Hitler had mainly Jewish friends, which made Hanisch very angry. His best friend, the religious Jew Neumann, a trained copper polisher, gave him a coat when he had nothing to wear and lent him money. Hitler disappeared with him from the men's hostel for a week. Hanisch's comment: "Neumann was a goodhearted man who liked Hitler very much and whom Hitler of course highly esteemed." Hitler also discussed issues concerning anti-Semitism and Zionism with Neumann -by no means contemptuously as he did with the Social Democratic colleagues in the men's hostel, but jokingly, in a friendly way. He even went so far as to defend Heine, who was under anti-Semitic attack, to quote Lessing's "Parable of the Ring," and to acknowledge the achievements of Jewish composers, such as Mendelssohn and Offenbach.
Siegfried Löffner from Moravia, a Jewish colleague at the men's hostel, even dragged Hitler's archenemy, Hanisch, to the police to report him for defrauding Hitler. The Jewish locksmith Simon Robinson from Galicia, who received a small invalid's pension, helped Hitler out financially.
Karl Honisch mentions an additional Jewish acquaintance in the men's hostel in 1913, Rudolf Redlich from Moravia. It would be erroneous to assume that a particularly large percentage of men at the hostel had been Jewish. According to statistics, 8 to 10 percent were Jewish-which corresponded to the median Jewish population in Vienna. From Hitler's later remark on his Vienna years we may conclude that Hanisch was not the only anti-Semite there: "Many workers with whom he had associated, he said, had been decidedly anti-Semitic."
Hitler sold his paintings almost exclusively to Jewish dealers: Morgenstern, landsberger, and Altenberg. Hanisch writes: "The Christian dealers. ..didn't pay any better than the Jews. Besides, they only bought more material when they had disposed of the first shipment, while the Jewish dealers continued to buy whether they had sold anything or not."
When the NSDAP archive searched for early Hitler paintings in 1938, they still found unsold pieces both in Morgenstern's and Altenberg's stores, after more than twenty-five years. Hanisch writes: "Hitler often said that it was only with the Jews that one could do business, because only they were willing to take chances." Frame manufacturer Jakob Altenberg from Galicia could not remember any anti-Semitic statements by Hitler. Hitler had close personal contact with Samuel Morgenstern, who procured private customers for the young man, for example, Jewish lawyer Dr. Josef Feingold, who in turn sponsored Hitler.
Young Hitler's exceptional contacts with Jews may also be an indication that he considered the Jews to be "something better." As Kubizek reports, in the Opera's standing room he had the opportunity to observe the Jews' particularly great cultural interest. Hitler was familiar with the different figures for Christian and Jewish students at the universities, as well as the popular jokes about the "intelligent," "intellectual" Jews who easily got the better of the "nice" Christians.
In the men's hostel he expressed his approval of Jewish tradition, which had managed to preserve the purity of the "Jewish race" for thousands of years. It should be remembered that in the work of list and Lanz von Liebenfels it is not the alien race that is dangerous and ruinous, but only the mixing of races, which decreases the value of the Aryan "noble people" and therefore should be avoided at all cost. As late as 1930 Hitler talked extensively about the Jews' ability to preserve their race by way of religion and strict rules, among them, the prohibition of marriages with non-Jews. Hitler directly continued list's theories when he told Wagner: Through Moses the Jewish people received a rule for life and living one's life that was elevated to a religion which was entirely tailored toward the essence of one's race, and simply and clearly, without dogmas and dubious rules of faith, soberly and absolutely realistically contains what served the future and self-preservation of the children of Israel. Everything is geared toward the well being of one's own people, nothing toward consideration of others. After further explanations, Hitler arrived at the conclusion that we. ..no doubt have to recognize with admiration this incredible strength of the Jews' preservation of their race.

Sincerely,
Max.

[max history]

I also agree that the price realised is far in excess of its true value and I believe that the letter has been promoted as Hitler's FIRST anti-Semitic declarations in order to ramp up the price. Having said that, I am a firm believer in value being set at what the buyer and seller agree upon.
Max.