Few personal possessions belonging to Adolf Hitler survive today, despite his worldwide fame during his lifetime and the enduring fascination with him eight decades after his death.
Many objects in circulation were official presents given to him by individuals or organizations. These were not truly personal items, and most were likely examined once and then stored away.
A small number of his uniforms still exist, but the total is negligible compared with what he would have owned. The only personal objects surviving in any quantity are the drawings and paintings he made as a young man, all of them before the Nazi period.
The disappearance of his clothing is partly explained by his own order that his uniforms and personal possessions be burned at his private house on the Obersalzberg in April 1945, while he was in his Berlin bunker.
Even so, Allied troops captured many Hitler-related items from three main locations. The first was the Alpine house, which was bombed and burned at the end of the war but yielded a huge amount of material from the extensive air raid shelters and tunnels beneath it.
The second was his apartment in Munich, captured intact by US forces. The third was the Führer bunker in Berlin, taken by the Red Army, along with his apartment in the nearby Reich Chancellery.
Of particular interest to collectors has been the whereabouts of Hitler's personal Nazi Party membership badge. In uniform, he always wore only three badges on the left side of his tunic, each chosen to convey something to the German public about his personality.
The first was his Iron Cross First Class, awarded in 1918 for gallantry and distinguished service as a regimental runner relaying messages to and from the front line, which was very dangerous work. He wore it to demonstrate that he had been a brave soldier in the Great War.
He did not wear any of the other three World War I medals he was awarded. He received the Iron Cross Second Class in 1914, but as Führer he never wore its ribbon, because that award was common for bravery and valuable services, with 5.2 million issued. Only 218,000 Iron Cross First Class awards were made, marking a man out as a special soldier.
The second badge was the Wound Badge in Black, awarded in 1918 after he was gassed in a British attack. He wore it to show that he had physically suffered for Germany.
The third was the Golden Party Badge, a high award of the NSDAP, worn to show his long service to Nazism and his belonging to the founding brotherhood of the party.
The basic NSDAP membership badge was simple and worn on the lapel. Produced by a number of officially sanctioned makers, it is very common today, since the party had up to 8.12 million members at its peak in 1945.
In October 1933, Hitler decreed that a special grade of the party badge be created as a reward for members who, as of November 9, 1933, the tenth anniversary of the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, held party membership numbers from 1 to 100,000 and had an unbroken membership.
The new badge was a basic party pin enclosed in a gold wreath, with the recipient's party number inscribed on the reverse. In total, 20,487 men and 1,795 women received this badge in 1933.
Hitler then extended the awarding of the Golden Party Badge to members who had shown outstanding service, presenting these every January 30, the date he became chancellor in 1933, and on November 9, both key dates in the Nazi calendar.
Recipients received not one but two badges in a presentation box. The large badge, measuring 30.5 millimeters, was for wear on uniforms, and the small version, at 24 millimeters, was for civilian dress. Post-1933 badges carried both the recipient's party number and Hitler's initials on the reverse, along with a small certificate proving the award.
How many badges were awarded at Hitler's discretion after 1933 does not appear to be known, and the records may have been lost in the war.
This raises the question of the whereabouts of Hitler's personal Golden Party Badge, or rather badges plural. Given the number of uniform tunics he owned, he likely had multiple sets of the Golden Party Badge, the Iron Cross First Class, and the Wound Badge.
If he did not, his valet would have had to remove the badges from one tunic and pin them to another every time he changed his jacket, which seems unlikely. All the Nazi and military leaders had multiple sets of their own medals and decorations pinned to multiple tunics.
When Hitler joined the forerunner of the Nazi Party, the German Workers' Party, or DAP, in 1919, he was given membership number 555. The membership of this tiny party was inflated by starting party numbers at 500.
According to some historians, Hitler's party number was also seven, because he was the seventh member of the DAP's executive committee. The card carrying the number seven appears to have been doctored, since its handwriting is absolutely identical to the card with membership number 555, and the number seven became conflated with his actual party number 555.
The DAP morphed in 1921 into the National Socialist German Workers' Party, the NSDAP. Hitler deliberately gave the impression that he had created the DAP out of a Munich beer hall drinking club, which was not true. In fact, he had joined in his role as an intelligence agent for the postwar German army, spying on the party.
Following his release from prison in 1924 after the failure of the Beer Hall Putsch, Hitler refounded the NSDAP in 1925, and his party number became, appropriately, number one, as shown on his party ID document.
English speakers may note that the way Germans write the number one looks more like a number seven in English. According to some experts, this has caused confusion over Hitler's real party number, particularly in America.
So the question is what number should be found on the reverse of a Hitler-owned Golden Party Badge: seven or one? In his book Mein Kampf, Hitler stated that his NSDAP membership number was seven, which is strange because it was officially one after 1925. Accordingly, when he was presented with a solid gold party badge, it had the number seven engraved on the reverse, despite his being party member number one.
At least four Golden Party Badges believed to have been owned by Hitler have been documented. According to historians, one absolutely genuine Hitler Golden Party Badge came out of his Munich apartment, along with a brown shirt of the type he wore at the annual November 9 commemoration of the Beer Hall Putsch and his actual Blood Order medal awarded in commemoration of the event. These items are in a private collection today, and the badge is known to be engraved with the number one on the reverse.
Three other badges have been documented. The first was sold for a hefty sum at auction in 2001 and was a smaller-size version marked with a number seven on the reverse.
According to the story attached to it, in the 1930s Hitler was surprised to note that Otto Meissner, head of the presidential chancery in charge of orders and decorations and also a state minister, was not wearing the Golden Party Badge. Hitler allegedly took the badge from his own tunic and pinned it to Meissner's coat.
This story does not ring true for several reasons. Hitler was never photographed wearing the smaller version of the Golden Party Badge. In civilian clothes he usually wore nothing in his buttonhole, or if he did, a silver Nazi eagle pin.
Secondly, far from giving Meissner his own badge, Meissner, who was never a party member despite his high chancellery position, was awarded the badge by Hitler in early 1937. At that time, according to a press report, Golden Party Badges were awarded to such important figures as General Baron von Fritsch of the army, Admiral Erich Raeder, head of the navy, and air force general Erhard Milch, among others.
The badge sold in 2001 was clearly marked with a seven on the reverse, but some online discussion doubts its authenticity for the reasons stated. However, confusion can be added even to this story, since Hitler certainly never owned a smaller copy of the Golden Party Badge.
A 1953 document listing items given to Anni Winter, Hitler's longtime housekeeper, by the Führer and subsequently seized by the Bavarian authorities after the war, contains items taken from Hitler's Munich apartment. Among them is a small and large pre-1937 Golden Party Badge set, both carrying the number seven on the reverse.
These items are genuine. Winter claimed she had been given them by Hitler, and the Bavarian authorities accused her of having stolen them from his Munich apartment in 1945. The point is that Bavarian officials would have been able to tell the difference between a German one and a German seven, so perhaps the number seven did indeed appear on some of Hitler's Golden Badges.
Then there is a badge that emerged not from US sources but from Russian sources. This is a large-size Golden Party Badge, as would be expected, and according to the story attached to it by the auctioneer in 2004, it was Hitler's personal badge, which he had removed from his own tunic and pinned to the dress of Magda Goebbels, wife of the Reich Minister for Propaganda, Dr. Joseph Goebbels, in the Führer bunker on April 27, 1945, just three days before Hitler's death.
The badge came with affidavits from the 1970s from two apparently impeccable sources: Hitler's former valet, SS Lieutenant Colonel Heinz Linge, who had helped Hitler get dressed and dealt with his uniforms daily, and Hitler's personal photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann. Both men attested in some detail to exactly what Hitler's Golden Party Badge looked like and what was inscribed upon it. However, both were already dead long before the badge appeared for auction.
It is in solid gold with a screwback attachment. The reverse carries a gold marking, a facsimile of Hitler's signature, and the number seven.
The problem with the badge auctioned in Germany is not the number on the reverse. It is the story of how it came to the West.
Magda Goebbels was certainly wearing a Golden Party Badge when she went to her death, when her husband shot her in the garden of the Reich Chancellery on May 1, 1945, before taking his own life. SS guards poured the remaining available petrol over the bodies and set them alight. Neither body was buried.
Both bodies were very badly damaged by fire, but in the case of Dr. Goebbels in particular, he was still recognizable to Soviet investigators. If Magda had been wearing Hitler's Golden Party Badge, it should show signs of fire damage.
The heat was sufficient to cause rounds to cook off in the magazines of the two pistols Goebbels had on his person when he was burned. As can be seen, these pistols, now in the possession of the Russian archives in Moscow, are heat damaged. It seems perfectly reasonable that a pure gold badge would have partially melted or deformed, and the enamel would have been blackened or cracked.
Soviet investigators recovered two Golden Party Badges from the corpses, meaning that Dr. Goebbels and his wife each died wearing one. Both badges are fire damaged.
The badge auctioned in 2004 is apparently not. Looking at Soviet records, they noted that the burned woman's corpse was identified as Magda Goebbels visually by Vice Admiral Erich Voss, Hitler's chief naval adjutant, who was captured by the Soviets. The identification was due to the corpse's height and the presence of a Golden Party Badge.
A cigarette case found near the body was engraved "Adolf Hitler 29.10.34," another gift to Magda from the old days, and she was known to have been using this case in the bunker. So it is known unequivocally that Magda was wearing a Golden Party Badge when she died.
Whether it was the one Hitler had pinned to her is another matter. It probably was, but it is very doubtful that the badge auctioned in 2004 is the same one found heavily fire damaged in 1945.
Hitler and Magda Goebbels had a very strong connection. He described her repeatedly as the ideal German mother, and she absolutely idolized him, becoming hysterical at their last meeting before he died.
There are three problems with the badge auctioned in 2004. Firstly, the number seven, a debate in the collecting community that has never been properly settled and probably never will be.
Secondly, the badge carries the facsimile signature of Hitler. Why would a badge presented to himself and worn by himself carry his own signature?
Thirdly, the gold oakleaf wreath is not properly centered. It is turned away to the right. Would a badge worn by the Führer have been so sloppily constructed? It might have been repaired after the war, which is one possible explanation.
And of course, the biggest problem is no visible fire damage, front or back. Perhaps Magda had left Hitler's badge in her room and gone to her death wearing her own Golden Party Badge.
Was this badge therefore taken from her bunker accommodation by the Soviets? They sealed the area and carefully searched it for artifacts tied to Hitler and his entourage, and some of this material was taken to Moscow, where it still remains today under government ownership. How, then, had it made it to the West to be auctioned? This badge sold for about $100,000 in 2004.
Yet another Hitler Golden Party Badge turned up in Moscow, apparently the real deal. This badge was among material on Hitler taken to Moscow in 1948 at the conclusion of Operation Myth, the SMERSH and NKVD investigation into Hitler's death ordered by Stalin, and in 1954 handed over to the KGB archive, where it was stored under lock and key for 51 years.
In 2003, a photograph of the badge was shown as the Russians prepared a display planned for 2005 on the 60th anniversary of Russian intelligence. The badge shown was a Golden Party Badge, and its provenance seemed perfect, but precisely where it came from was not revealed by the Russians.
As it was not fire damaged, the pit where two badly burned bodies were discovered close to the Führerbunker exit by the NKVD and later identified as the bodies of Hitler and Eva Braun can be ruled out. Many historians dispute those identifications.
It may have come from Hitler's bunker bedroom, where a wardrobe containing several of his uniforms and other clothing existed. Quite a bit of Hitler clothing was captured by the Soviets, and some is on display in Moscow today, fire damaged from when the Germans themselves set fire to parts of the bunker.
It may also have come from Magda Goebbels's room, if she did not wear the Hitler-presented badge to her death but her own badge, which was of course fire damaged.
The surviving uniform tunics also prove that Hitler wore Golden Party Badges of two types: one with a long pin that clips at the reverse, and one with a screw-type fastener. It has been suggested that screw fixings would not have been used by the Führer, and badges with this form of securing have been accused of being suspect, but the evidence is on the surviving uniforms.
One uniform has strengthened loops to hold decorations with a long vertical pin, while another has strengthened holes made by the tailor for badges with a screw back. These uniforms in Moscow are completely genuine, so that little mystery can be put to bed.
The badge the Russians said carried the number one on the reverse was, in this view, the real deal. In 2005, it and other Hitler items were placed on display, but a burglar broke in one night and stole nine items, including the Golden Party Badge, and they have never been seen again.
It was suspected that this was either an inside job on the part of Russian intelligence, who were unhappy about the provenance of the badge and feared embarrassment, or that the badge and other items were stolen to order by some super-rich collector. Either is possible.
Two things can be taken away from this examination. Firstly, there must be a number of other Golden Party Badges in private hands that once belonged to Hitler from his multiple uniforms, perhaps now held by descendants of GIs who liberated them from the Berchtesgaden area or from Hitler's Munich apartment, and they remain unidentified today. Some may be in private collections.
Secondly, the world of high-status Nazi collectibles is an absolute minefield.