Lot 319

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Description:

OSWALD POHL
(1892 - 1951) Head of the Economic Office of the SS and ultimate overseer of the concentration camp system. It was Pohl who turned his victims' dental gold, eyeglasses, hair, etc. into cash for the SS, using the infamous "Max Heiliger" Swiss accounts. Captured and executed in 1951. Very important partly-printed D.S. "Oswald", 12pp. legal folio, Nuremberg, October, 1948, in German. The document is titled: "Final Statement of the Accused Oswald Pohl Stated Before the Military Tribunal...". At the top of the first page, Pohl writes in blue ink: "M[eine]. L[ieben]. Willy von Fritzken[?] Ritter von [?] in thankfulness. Nuremberg Justice Prison June 46 - October 48" Beneath, Pohl pens two paragraphs from a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke, a 1924 work: "What our spirit of confusion reclaims Will eventually benefit the living Even if it is sometimes just our thoughts They dissolve in that great blood...". The unrepentant Pohl makes several amazing claims in his statement: "...I studied the essays that Henry Ford had published in the newspaper The Dearborn Independent in the years 1924/26 and as a book entitled 'The International Jew'... It is this attitude that great practical American who was not an anti-Semite, had then impressed upon me and strengthened my belief that racial and the Jewish problem were not only gray theories. On the basis of this knowledge, and given the increasingly obvious phenomena in Germany, I became convinced that the influence of Judaism was disproportionate to its population and therefore, that containment is necessary. I considered such by legislative methods possible and also sufficient... I have therefore never been involved in acts of violence against Jews, nor endorsed this or knowingly promoted them. On the legislative measures of any kind I was also not involved... I am not conscious of having committed a crime...". Pohl was captured by British troops on May 27, 1946 and sentenced to death on Nov. 3, 1947 by an American military tribunal for crimes against humanity, war crimes, mass murders and crimes committed in the concentration camps. Pohl was not executed right away, repeatedly appealing his death sentence, but was finally executed on June 8, 1951. SOLD WITH: a copy of a diagram extensively tracing Pohl's ancestry back several generations, not race-related. Important for research. Two pieces.

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February 10, 2015 10:00 AM EST
Chesapeake City, MD, US

Alexander Historical Auctions LLC

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