Description:

NAZI SYMPATHIZERS ARE ARRESTED WHEN THEIR SECRET "TESTAMENT" IS DISCOVERED IN A CHURCH
Fascinating pair of documents related to the arrest of 21 ex-Nazi Party leaders and SS officers who had hidden a damning document implicating them in a church dome seven years earlier! The first document is a typed carbon, 6pp. legal folio, [Griefenburg, Austria, ca. mid-July, 1945]. The document is headed: "Report on the arrest of SS and other arrestible categories" and appears to have been prepared by a German-speaking soldier attached to British forces who were maintaining a "POW cage" at Griefenburg, Austria. The unnamed soldier relates events from May 10 to about mid-July, describing his search of the countryside for SS soldiers and officers whom he arrests and names in his report, and he also describes information provided by civilians. He notes that on July 2, 1945 he was made aware of "a strange custom...to put [written] ideals and works, that they wanted to succeed, into the church..." He also learns that the cross and supporting structure of the local church had been repaired three weeks after the Anschluss. On his own initiative, the officer has scaffolding erected about the church and the dome opened. He provides a drawing and shows that a "tube with document" had been hidden within the dome beneath the cross. He provides a translation of the document, and the original document discovered is present as well! The document, 4pp. sm. folio, Griefenburg, Apr. 29, 1938 reads in small part: "...Note of Remembrance...This note shall tell a later generation of the hard fights, degenerations and insults which their forefathers had to contend with...their connection with the fate of Germany...It shall be a token to them in hard times to stand up always and demand the Gretaer German Unity...a clique...succeeded in keeping under foot teh great majority of the German Austrian people...worker masses took to arms in 1934, to throw off those hated bands..The terror became bigger and bigger...many thousands went into prisons and camps, where they were treated as common criminals...13 of our comrades have been hanged like common criminals...masses from East Tirol marched into Griefenburg...and quelled the rebellion...110 men were sent into the prisons...People and workers who had German sympathies were thrown out of their jobs...while Jews and Jesuits thought themselves kings of the state, until at long last...the liberator of all German peole...ADOLF HITLER, liberated Austria...HEIL HITLER!" The document is signed by 15 local NSDAP and other administrative leaders. A few old tape remnants at margins. Following his identification of those signing this document, the soldier notes that he arrested 21 SS officers and Nazi sympathizers, their names listed further in his report. A really amazing piece of history! Also included are 14 bank notes, most Austrian, and a color print of the church where the document was discovered.

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April 17, 2018 10:00 AM EDT
Elkton, MD, US

Alexander Historical Auctions LLC

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