Dönitz Baton

[Gordon Williamson]

I posted these photos on the GD Forum in response to a request from a member there who wanted to see them so thought it would be useful to post them here too.

These are photos of the actual award Baton presented to Dönitz by Hitler when he was promoted Grand Admiral. Weight is 900 gr. The shaft is solid silver covered in dark blue velvet with real gold anchors etc. The finials either side are also gold, with the "silver" embellishments actually Platinum. The U-Boat emblem is gold with a Platinum U-Boat.
Got to be the finest of all the Field Marshal/Admiral batons.

The artisan who made it, Helmut Scheuermann,had been serving in a Flak unit at the Front and was released from military service to return to the H J Wilm jeweller firm specially to make this piece.
You can imaging the surprise of his CO, who probably had no idea of this guy's special skills, when the telegramme arrived from the Führerhauptquartier ordering Scheuermann to report back to Berlin!

It was stolen from Dönitz by British troops some days after the end of the war when the Dönitz "regime" was taken into custody, and found its way into a British Regimental Museum where it still resides. I believe his special variant of the U-Boat Badge with Diamonds was stolen at the same time and its diamond studded swastika broken off. As a personal gift from the Head of State, the Baton was Dönitz' private property and so can be considered to have been looted. Needless to say despite recent attempts to have it returned to its rightful owners (Dönitz bequeathed it to the Deutsche Marinebund for display in the German Naval War Memorial at Laboe near the U-Boat Memorial), the British museum seems intent on holding on to the stolen property.











Gordon

[ 16 June 2001: Message edited by: Gordon Williamson ]

[Sebastian Bianchi]

Thanks for posting this Gordon, beatiful shots.

Seba

[Rich G]

Gordon

<strong>Superb!</strong>

Rich

[W. C. Stump]

Gordon:

What a nice set of photographs. I just made it to the computer after a most sleepless night and this woke me up fast. Maybe someday The Grand Admiral's wish that the baton go to the German Naval Memorial will come true. At least it is being held hostage by a museum and not by the public. It should be displayed in a museum facility.

W. C. Stump

[C.C.Reilly]

I find it curious, that this baton differs from most by having a swastika on the bottom end, rather than the more typical iron cross, as with the army and airforce fieldmarshals. Typically, the branch of service was identified by the insignia on the top, eagle with wings down for army, and flying eagle for airforce. The swastika seems to make the baton more political than military.

[Allan P.]

Gordon,
Which museum has it as a matter of interest?
Allan

[Gordon Williamson]

I don't think too much can be read into the Swastika. After all, major significant pure Military decorations like the German Cross have the swastika as their main feature whilst purely political Nazi trinkets like the "Blood Order" have the swastika relegated to the reverse.
The Wehrmachtadler finial was in fact considered for the Donitz Baton, as was an Iron Cross motif. I presume Hitler had the final say so, doubt if Donitz had any say in the matter at all.

The stolen Baton is in the Museum of the Shropshire Light Infantry.

Gordon

[W. C. Stump]

Gordon:

Is his special U-Boat badge in the Shropshire Light Infantry Museum also? I think someone had a photograph of the badge, but I can't recall where I saw it.

Bill

[Gordon Williamson]

Bill,

There is a photo of the (broken)Donitz badge in Kleitmann's "Auszeichnungen des Deutschen Reiches", Page 127. The positioning of the stones around the wreath is clear to see. It is obviously a Schwerin type badge, same poorly defined eagles head and body typical of Schwerin. Klietmann must have had the badge through his hands at one point.


Gordon

[Simon O.]

Gordon has touched on an important area. Having spent 12 years in the British army i have seen some of the stuff that has been 'collected' by various regiments over the centuries. By far the majority of items are in the various officers and sergeants messes and are not likely to made available to the public. Most impressive of all to me was the officers mess collection at the home of the Royal Artillery at Woolwich, London. To step in to that mess is to step back in time a hundred years, some of the items there are quite literally priceless. I'm sure there are many more gems such as Dönitz's baton hiding away out there.
I believe the MOD has come under pressure in recent years from some quarters wanting various war trophies returned to their original countries.


regards

Simon

[eschena]

In regards to the return of war trophies - this has been a big issue over the past several years in many quarters, not the least of which art and archaeology. Heck, there is much in the British Museum which many nations (in particular Greece and Turkey) consider war loot and have been striving to get back.

One big example of battles over war trophies concerns the theft of the Amber Room panels from Tsarskoye Selo outside of Leningrad by the departing Germans after the 900 day siege was lifted. This so incensed the Soviets that when they overran Berlin in retribution they took Heinrich Schliemann's greatest find, the so-called "Priam's Gold" found at Troy in the 1890's. They were originally in a museum in East Berlin and the Soviet authorities back in Moscow decided to take them. Those artifacts were hidden away in Moscow for many decades and the whereabouts of it was only unveiled some 4 or 5 years ago. I believe they have since been returned to Germany but only after a protracted and bitter fight by Germany and Russia.

Considering the current spate of repatriation of art in museums around the world that was looted during the war back to their original owners (and this includes paintings taken by Americans, too), I would not be surprised if Großadmiral Dönitz' baton was returned sometime in the future. However, that return would probably be done very quietly in order to prevent protest since in many people's eyes it is not a matter of simply returning stolen property to its rightful owner but returning a symbol of the Third Reich to the last Führer.

Just a few remarks from a classicist

[DaveL]

Some questions of who stole what from whom first could be hard to resolve. I imagine the Turks might consider that they ought to have Schliemann's find back. People might feel that any sort of military gear should be considered as legitimate trophies even if they were "gifts".

[eschena]

Indeed the question of who really owns what is a major problem in such cases of claimed theft.

With the case of Priam's Gold, Turkey did try to make claim to the artifacts once it had been discovered that they were in Russia. However, and I am a little hazy on this, I believe the German gov't showed that they had legitimate title to the artifacts (agreements w/the Ottoman authorities, bills of sale, etc. - the Ottomans were more than happy to sell whatever artifacts they could, witness the current battle over the Elgin Marbles with Greece).

Perhaps the museum where Dönitz' baton resides may also make such claims that they were legitimately obtained. Since I am not even vaguely close to being learned in international law, I can't venture an opinion. I just thought I'd share some examples where custody battles over war booty can get ugly.

In any event, the scans provided to us are fantastic

[grnberet57]

I too had an episode with medals and awards trying to be returned from their captors. I knes some of the stuff at the West Point Museum were "stolen" out of the personnal residence of the recipient during the war. I attempted to get the family involved with retrieving the items, and Itook this up with West Point. They claimed that by U.S. law, anything taken by the U.S. Army during war, was NOT theft, but more or less spoils of war. Basically the museum told me to piss off. I took it to the family and they didn't want to press the issue so it was dropped. However, this made my view of personal items of a soldier much different. Before this episode I didn't really think of the poor bastard who got shot-up just to win some medal made of iron and silver. Then I started to think about the person behind each medal and that is hard for me to do being a soldier myself. But, I look at any type of war looting as theft, and really think that it's a tradegy of war that can't be overcome.

Kevin

[DaveL]

I'd say that in many cases it could be regarded not so much as tragedy as "rough justice", & left at that. If things were looted by Allied troops from an anti-Nazi German, that would be different. In a case like that, return or compensation would seem appropriate.