Himmler's School Booklet

[Obersalzberg]

I maintain that if the handwriting on the piece fails to closely match that of the 1916 diary - it should be destroyed or defaced to dispel all suspicions of it ever coming to market again.

Got it?

No...... Not at all.

[Thorsten B.]

Two posts until now - and not even one is worth to read.

Good start.

[PBR]

Two posts until now - and not even one is worth to read.

I would say 3.

[Thorsten B.]

Definitely.

[Hoss]

Gents
As we all know Himmler was 15yrs in 1916 until October of that year, also the name on the booklet is not a signature Himmler is merely writing down his name.
I think people are concentrating too much on the booklet cover. None of you experts agree a kid writes different in his mid or early teens? I personally feel one should look more to the inner pages on Mr Gottlibs' site, they are similarities with later HH styles and anyway didn't something like er The Great War and bouts of ill health interrupt his 'schooling'.

What's going on anyway. My dinner is burnt!...again!
Doesn't take this long on Pawn Stars

Eric

[Chris Boonzaier]

Shame on me if I am misreading your comment.

You are misreading it, but shame on you anyway..

I dont think you would be foolish enough to sell this now, but as I assume you wont be taking it the grave with you, at somestage this book will be in other hands.

[alexanderautogr]

Gents
As we all know Himmler was 15yrs in 1916 until October of that year, also the name on the booklet is not a signature Himmler is merely writing down his name.
I think people are concentrating too much on the booklet cover. None of you experts agree a kid writes different in his mid or early teens? I personally feel one should look more to the inner pages on Mr Gottlibs' site, they are similarities with later HH styles and anyway didn't something like er The Great War and bouts of ill health interrupt his 'schooling'.

What's going on anyway. My dinner is burnt!...again!
Doesn't take this long on Pawn Stars

Eric

As I said, we're not happy with the handwriting in the book at all, and the cover is...awful.

We have the example of the 1919 diary, which also doesn't compare well. We're just waiting for scans of the 1916 Himmler diary which we hope to get from an academic in the UK (he is at a conference this weekend, and there's no guarantee he'll agree).

Nevertheless, I'll be surprised if they match.

[Hoss]

I'm suprised your still here! The farce continues

Yea
No kidding
Hurry up Bill, life's too short for many old duffers on this forum..including yours truly
Well, ask the dude 'away' to look at the thing and compare to his diary, blimey.
Send me his email...I'll ask the slacker....where's the conference at..hundred miles due North of The South Pole huddling together with penguins?


Eric

[Hoss]

I'm suprised your still here! The farce continues

Sssshhhh! BC
Errr who you talking to....Trying to sleep here, and please stop snoring.
Dam it ... stop taking all the covers, its freezing.

Sleepy Hoss

[alexanderautogr]

OK - Court's back in session. We had to go directly to the Hoover Institute to obtain a copy of a single page of Himmler's 1915 diary...which arrived here today via surface mail!

When I opened the envelope, I was startled to see how much Himmler's handwriting changed in the space of five years.

Here's Himmler's diary from 1919, written three years after the "Gottlieb book":




Here's Himmler's diary from 1915, received today:




Here's a page from the "Gottlieb book":





Between 1915 and 1919 you can easily see Himmler's handwriting changed a great deal - slant went from right to left, loops got larger, and his script became much more careless. We also had to deal with "schoolwork" versus quick diary entries, and the "Gottlieb book" had only 18-20 words of text in total, the remainder being numerals which are VERY hard to distinguish between individuals. Yet there are many very distinct similarities between the 1915 diary and the 1916 homework text - particularly evident in the numbers 8 and 5, the word "February", capital "M", lower case "z", and several other uniquely-formed letters.

I do, obviously, maintain that the name "Himmler, Heinrich" and the class name penned on the cover of the book are not in Himmler's hand, and that still doesn't make a great deal of sense to me. The course title is in the same hand as the rest of the text within the book, and there's no rhyme or reason that this text would be purposely "forged". The razored-out pages remain a mystery, unless they had his name on them and were excised by a greedy dealer.

My conclusion? The 1915 diary and "Gottlieb book" contents are surprisingly close in many places, but there just isn't enough text in the "Gottlieb book" with similarly examples in authentic samples we have for us to say it's authentic. Also enervating is the fact that the Stargardt "schoolbook" is as sloppy as the diary, while Gottlieb's book has near perfect penmanship.

The cover is troubling, but no forger worth his salt would write Himmler's name in two different scripts, and the razored-out pages really hurt the piece's credibility. So, can I say it's "bad"? No, but neither would I offer it for sale based on what I know and what I see.

I'll have to eat crow and suggest it remain off the market until a perfectly documented example of similar homework from the same year or +- one year shows up, with exactly the same penmanship. Himmler's handwriting was just changing too quickly for a concrete call on this one.

There's just too many troubling aspects to this piece for it to come to market.

[Craig Gottlieb]

Well, all I can say is ... I'm glad I didn't shred it! Off the market it will stay, until we get more information, be it a month or a year in the finding.

[Arran]

Well, all I can say is ... I'm glad I didn't shred it!

Ya, no sh*t! But then, it wasn't really you that was considering shredding it...

[Craig Gottlieb]

Okay, correct. I restate ... I'm glad I didn't consent to letting it be shred

[alexanderautogr]

Ya, no sh*t! But then, it wasn't really you that was considering shredding it...

The wager was that if it was obviously "bad", into the shredder it would go so that everyone would shut the hell up. It isn't.

OK?

[Arran]

The wager was that if it was obviously "bad", into the shredder it would go so that everyone would shut the hell up. It isn't.

OK?

It did turn out OK, but if Craig hadn't resisted, isn't it possible that you might already have shredded the item?