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Nazi surrender order issued by Hitler’s successor expected to fetch nearly $40K at auction
Rob Crilly, The Telegraph | April 28, 2015 | Last Updated: Apr 28 8:54 AM
AP Photo/str,File The May 18, 1944 file photo shows then German Chancellor Adolf Hitler, left, shaking hands with German Interior Minister and head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, somewhere in Germany. From left to right; Hitler, Minister Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, Admiral Karl Doenitz, Himmler and Field Marshal General Erhard Milch.
A surrender order issued by Adolf Hitler’s successor in the final days of the Second World War is being auctioned this week for up to $36,000.
The typed dispatch was sent by Admiral Karl Doenitz at 10:40 p.m. on May 8 informing his commanders that the war was over and that all hostilities were to cease.
“Effective immediately, no maritime vehicle or aeroplane shall be sunk or destroyed, no military equipment may be damaged in any way,” he wrote, warning that failure to comply would bring punitive action from the Allies.
While the Nazis burned and destroyed their paper records, one copy of the historic order survived in the pocket of Field Marshall Robert Ritter von Greim, head of the Luftwaffe. It is owned by a private collector and will be auctioned at Bonhams in New York on Wednesday.
Doenitz had been head of the German navy and was Hitler’s choice to lead the Nazis after the dictator committed suicide on April 30. Although he promised to fight on, the veteran seaman knew he controlled only a few square miles close to the Danish border. Instead, he tried to ensure his forces surrendered to the British and Americans rather than the Russians in the East.
The recovered telex — strips of ticker tape pasted on to a piece of card — was sent to a Munich airbase, code-named Robinson 5. Tom Lamb, an expert in military history at Bonhams, said very few examples of telexed orders had survived.
“Doenitz was very well aware that the game was up,” he said. “There was no way either that he could retain control or that the German nation could get back into this war.”
The orders were received by Von Greim, who took over the Luftwaffe after Hitler accused Hermann Goering of treason. Von Greim was arrested in Austria on May 8, with the telex in his pocket. He was to be handed to the Soviets but committed suicide by swallowing a cyanide pill.
The telex is among hundreds of Second World War lots on sale at Bonhams.
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/w...essor-expected-to-fetch-nearly-40k-at-auction
Rob Crilly, The Telegraph | April 28, 2015 | Last Updated: Apr 28 8:54 AM
AP Photo/str,File The May 18, 1944 file photo shows then German Chancellor Adolf Hitler, left, shaking hands with German Interior Minister and head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, somewhere in Germany. From left to right; Hitler, Minister Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, Admiral Karl Doenitz, Himmler and Field Marshal General Erhard Milch.
A surrender order issued by Adolf Hitler’s successor in the final days of the Second World War is being auctioned this week for up to $36,000.
The typed dispatch was sent by Admiral Karl Doenitz at 10:40 p.m. on May 8 informing his commanders that the war was over and that all hostilities were to cease.
“Effective immediately, no maritime vehicle or aeroplane shall be sunk or destroyed, no military equipment may be damaged in any way,” he wrote, warning that failure to comply would bring punitive action from the Allies.
While the Nazis burned and destroyed their paper records, one copy of the historic order survived in the pocket of Field Marshall Robert Ritter von Greim, head of the Luftwaffe. It is owned by a private collector and will be auctioned at Bonhams in New York on Wednesday.
Doenitz had been head of the German navy and was Hitler’s choice to lead the Nazis after the dictator committed suicide on April 30. Although he promised to fight on, the veteran seaman knew he controlled only a few square miles close to the Danish border. Instead, he tried to ensure his forces surrendered to the British and Americans rather than the Russians in the East.
The recovered telex — strips of ticker tape pasted on to a piece of card — was sent to a Munich airbase, code-named Robinson 5. Tom Lamb, an expert in military history at Bonhams, said very few examples of telexed orders had survived.
“Doenitz was very well aware that the game was up,” he said. “There was no way either that he could retain control or that the German nation could get back into this war.”
The orders were received by Von Greim, who took over the Luftwaffe after Hitler accused Hermann Goering of treason. Von Greim was arrested in Austria on May 8, with the telex in his pocket. He was to be handed to the Soviets but committed suicide by swallowing a cyanide pill.
The telex is among hundreds of Second World War lots on sale at Bonhams.
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/w...essor-expected-to-fetch-nearly-40k-at-auction