Dönitz Baton
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 ]
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 ]
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