In the world of militaria collecting, items associated with Nazi Germany continue to command the highest prices, particularly those linked to the regime’s most powerful leaders. Uniforms of the Nazi elite hold a major allure for serious collectors, who will pay vast sums to own such artifacts. While many historically significant pieces reside in museum collections, one uniform stands above all others: the summer dress tunic of Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler, the second most powerful man in Nazi Germany and the head of the SS.
This tunic, the only authenticated Himmler uniform to survive the war, was discovered in an abandoned villa in May 1945 as US forces overran Bavaria. It would eventually sell at auction for an astounding $2.2 million, making it the most valuable SS relic ever sold.
Himmler maintained two palatial homes in Bavaria. South of Munich, on the picturesque Tegernsee lake, he had purchased a fine villa in the village of Gmund in 1934. The property was expensively redecorated, with a guard house and air raid shelter added.
Before the war, Himmler resided there with his wife and daughter, in close proximity to Munich, the spiritual heart of the Nazi Party. When Hitler was in Berlin, Himmler stayed in a house he owned there. However, when Hitler was at his mountain retreat, the Berghof at Obersalzberg, Himmler faced an inconvenience.
Martin Bormann, Hitler’s powerful secretary, connived to keep Himmler from owning a house alongside the other Nazi leaders on the mountain, namely himself, Hermann Göring, and Albert Speer. Himmler was forced to stay at plush Nazi guesthouses in Obersalzberg when visiting Hitler.
Himmler’s domestic affairs changed early in the war when he separated from his wife and set up a household with his mistress, Hedwig Potthast, in a fine villa at Schönau am Königssee, near Berchtesgaden. There she lived with Himmler’s two illegitimate children. The Reichsführer continued to visit Gmund throughout the war to see his daughter, Gudrun, but used his girlfriend’s house as his residence when visiting Hitler at the Berghof.
That property was remodeled to include a staff and guard wing and an air raid shelter.
At war’s end, Himmler was nowhere near Bavaria. He had left Berlin and moved north into Schleswig-Holstein to be near Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz’s government, which succeeded Hitler on April 30, 1945. Himmler remained in northern Germany until he was captured by British forces on May 21, 1945, dying by suicide on May 23 at a house in Lüneburg.
Meanwhile, both of his Bavarian properties had been captured by US troops. On May 4, 1945, a small eight-man patrol from the 1st Battalion, 141st Infantry Regiment, 36th Texas Infantry Division captured the villa at Gmund, along with the holiday homes of several other senior Nazi leaders nearby. Himmler’s wife, Margareta, and her daughter were not home.
They had fled several days earlier by car to northern Italy, still in German hands, abandoning the property.
The house was a treasure trove of Himmler-related items, and it was thoroughly looted for souvenirs. Many of these items have surfaced at auctions, particularly in the United States, in recent years. That same day, the US 7th Infantry Regiment of the 3rd Infantry Division captured Berchtesgaden and discovered Himmler’s second villa, also abandoned but stuffed full of uniforms and personal items.
A special armored limousine Himmler used to travel to Hitler’s Berghof was found in one of the garages and is now on permanent display in a German museum. This house, too, was thoroughly looted by US troops.
The unit most closely associated with the looting of Himmler’s Gmund home was the 22nd Infantry Regiment of the 4th Infantry Division, which arrived shortly after the initial patrol. One of its soldiers, First Sergeant Paul E. Davis of Company E, made off with a host of items, including what would become the most valuable SS relic ever found.
In June 1982, Davis wrote a receipt for the sale of these items to a famous collector. The receipt, written on Himmler’s personal headed notepaper, listed stationery, photographs, a sash of the Order of Saint Maurice and Saint Lazarus, and the grand prize: Himmler’s summer dress tunic.
A photograph from the period shows First Sergeant Davis wearing the tunic and the sash of Himmler’s Italian Order outside Himmler’s house at Gmund. In his left hand, he holds an item familiar to SS collectors: a pre-war parade helmet. This helmet, recorded as recovered from the Gmund house by Corporal Raymond W.
Dyckar of the same unit, was brought home to New York City. It now resides in the Museum of Jewish History in New York, donated by Dyckar’s son upon his father’s death.
The material found at the Gmund house appears to have been in long-term storage on Himmler’s order, as he was then living at the Schönau am Königssee house. This is reflected in the types of uniform items found: a pre-war parade helmet no longer used in World War II, and a summer tunic of a type not used by the Reichsführer after 1940. Notably, the decorations usually fastened to Himmler’s uniform were missing when Davis wore it shortly after finding it.
The tunic had been stripped of its metal badges, which had been transferred to Himmler’s daily-use field gray uniforms kept at his other residences, indicating this uniform had been placed in long-term storage.
The tunic itself is a remarkable piece of tailoring. Such lightweight versions of the black and field gray SS tunics were tailored for wear by officers between April and September. Introduced in 1937, they were discontinued in 1940 due to wartime economies.
This example was finely tailored in white doll skin wool, with a four-button front, open collar, French cuffs, scalloped and pleated breast pockets, scalloped flap slash hip pockets, and silver pebbled buttons. The Nazi Party armband is of red wool with black ribbed rayon borders, hand applied. The rare cuff title is of silver aluminum thread with black borders, also hand applied.
The Reichsführer rank badges, unique to Himmler, consist of collar tabs of black velvet backing with silver aluminum twist cord piping and hand-embroidered clusters of three oak leaves surrounded by an oak leaf wreath. The tunic has a single shoulder board of three interwoven twist silver aluminum cords. On the right sleeve is an honor chevron issued to all SS personnel who were members of the SS or the Nazi Party prior to January 1933.
The tunic is lined in cream-colored silk, and in the right breast pocket is a maker’s label, Steckbart, with the handwritten name “Reichsführer SS Himmler, 22nd of April, 1938.”
The white summer tunic contains stitched loops on the left breast to hold a ribbon bar and various decorations. Himmler’s medals were modest compared to the ironware carried by Nazis like Hermann Göring, due to Himmler’s very limited World War I service. He had not been awarded any high Nazi decorations except the Blood Order, the ribbon of which is permanently stitched to the tunic’s right pocket buttonhole.
This award indicates Himmler took part in the famous Beer Hall Putsch in 1923 in Munich.
Photographs of Himmler’s actual medals, captured at his home, show the SS Long Service Award, the NSDAP Long Service Crosses in silver and bronze, and four campaign medals: the 1938 Anschluss Medal, the Sudetenland Medal with the 1939 Prague Bar, the Memel Medal, and the West Wall Medal. On the left breast pocket are loops to hold the Golden Party Badge, his Reich Sports Badge in silver, and another award. Later, Göring awarded Himmler the combined pilots and observers badge in gold with diamonds, despite Himmler never having piloted a plane.
Himmler also received several exotic foreign orders. One item on Davis’s receipt was a boxed set of insignia for the grade of Grand Officer of the Order of St. Maurice and St.
Lazarus, awarded by the Italian government in the 1930s. It included a green sash, which Davis is seen wearing in the photograph. Himmler also received the Grand Cross of the White Rose of Finland and the Grand Cross of the Order of Prince Pribina, a Slovakian Order received in March 1943.
Davis brought these items back to the US in 1945 and was honorably discharged from the US Army on February 3, 1946, at Fort McPherson, Georgia. He kept all the items until June 1, 1982, when he sold the lot to collector Dr. Robert Lee.
They were later sold to Dave Delich, the foremost collector of Third Reich material in the US. The Himmler tunic became famous in collecting circles, appearing in several reference books and considered the crown jewel of Delich’s collection.
Following Delich’s death, his collection was auctioned by Hermann Historica in 2023 to 2024. When the buyer’s premium was added, the Himmler tunic sold for an astounding $2. 2 million, making it the most valuable SS relic in existence today.
Unlike the Himmler parade helmet, which now sits in a museum in New York where it can be seen by anyone as part of an educational exhibit, the tunic has disappeared into another private collection.
Quite a number of Himmler’s tunics were undoubtedly hanging in closets at both of his houses captured by the US Army. However, not one of Himmler’s field gray SS World War II uniforms has ever surfaced. According to research, some of the Reichsführer’s clothing was removed from the house at Königssee in April 1945 by one of his secretaries, Erika Lorenz, and later burned before US forces arrived.
Some material was crated up and trucked out, later destroyed or looted by US forces.
The rumor persists that several of Himmler’s uniforms were taken as souvenirs by GIs but have never surfaced. Whether myth or reality, a tunic or two may still be with veterans’ families, perhaps not realizing who it belonged to or its immense value. Somewhere, somebody may be sitting on a literal goldmine.