According to the Daily Mail,
Dominic Hughes, from McTear's Auctioneers in Glasgow, said “The
bottle was consigned to us by a Hungarian man whose father had procured it
during World War II. The owner's father was taken as a prisoner of war and when
he returned home he was given this bottle by a German soldier. It has been in
his family ever since.” The wine is 12 per cent Schwarzer Tafelwein - black table wine - thought to have been made
in Germany. Despite the wax seal atop the bottle, experts say the wine would
now be undrinkable. “The wine was possibly produced in Germany and would not have
been amazing when it was bottled, but now it would be completely undrinkable.”says
Hughes. “Two years after it was made Hitler was dead and the war was
all but over. The bottle is a 1.5-litre magnum which is very rare.” Autographed 'Mein Kampf' Fetches High PriceA two-volume copy of a Hitler's memoirs, signed by the infamous dictator himself, has been sold for $64,850 via an online auctionHitler's Mein Kampf was one of the highest selling books of 2013, finding popularity via eBooks, where customers could purchase the infamous dictator's memoirs anonymously. Now, on Thursday, a two-volume set of Mein Kampf, signed by the infamous leader of the Third Reich himself, has been sold for $64,850 in an online auction. Experts reveal that the price is double than what it was expected to go for. Originally published between 1925 and 1926, eleven people bid on the pair, with the winning bid including a buyer’s premium. Nate Sanders of Nate D. Sanders Auctions in Los Angeles estimated they would sell for anything from $20,000 to $25,000. Also in the auction was a jacket owned by Albert Speer, which sold for $10,068. Sanders expected to catch flack for the auctions, saying “It is a piece of history. It is a very rare item.” Mein Kampf, Hitler’s two volume autobiography/anti-Semitic manifesto, was dictated to Rudolf Hess while Hitler was incarcerated, to help raise the funding for his criminal defense. Following
the unification of most of the German states into a single empire in
1871, no period in succeeding history commenced with greater apparent glory nor
pursued (and attained) greater infamy that than during which Germany fell under
control of the National Socialist (or “Nazi”) Party.
Consequent to the fall of Imperial Germany and the subsequent faltering of Weimar Germany, it could be said
that Nazi Germany arose on 30 January 1933, the day that Adolf Hitler
legally became Germany’s chancellor after being appointed to this position by
its revered President, Paul von Hindenburg. After turning the aged
leader into a figurehead and disposing of the non-Nazis with whom he was to
share power, Hitler quickly moved to end the economic poverty and mass unemployment
(not to mention the sense of national shame and resentment) and under which
Germany suffered in the years following the Treaty of Versailles, that ended
the First World War. This was accomplished by the suppression of labor unions
and the concomitant promotion of the massive military spending needed to
fulfill Hitler’s expansionist ambitions. German prosperity soon returned,
giving the regime enormous popularity and allowing Hitler's rule to flourish without
significant challenge -- while The Nazi Gestapo
embarked upon the destruction of any liberal, Socialist and Communist
opposition and enacted laws in persecution of the Jewish people. The Nazi
Party took control of the courts, local government, and all civic organizations
except the Protestant and Catholic churches. All expressions of public opinion
were controlled by Hitler's propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels,
who made effective use of film, mass rallies, and Hitler's skillful oratory.
The
Nazi state idolized Hitler as its Führer
("Leader"), centralizing all power in his hands. Nazi propaganda centered
on Hitler and was quite effective in creating the myth that Hitler was a
God-like figure under whose rule Germany’s total restoration and rightful place
as the ruler among nations would be attained.
During
the 1930s, Nazi Germany under Hitler pursued a foreign policy of making
outwardly reasonable territorial demands, coupled with the threat of war if
they were not met. When foreign opponents responded by appeasing the Nazis,
Hitler accepted the gains offered, then proceeded on to his next goal. This
aggressive – yet essentially peaceful – strategy worked, as Germany allowing
Germany to take back the Saar in 1935, remilitarize the Rhineland in 1936, form an alliance with Benito Mussolini's
Italy
in 1936, send massive military aid to Francisco Franco
in the Spanish Civil War that ran from 1936 to 1939,
annex Austria
in the Anschluss
of 1938, take over Czechoslovakia after the British and French appeasement of
the Munich Agreement of 1938, and form a peace pact
with the Soviet Union in 1939. War came after Hitler’s forces invaded Poland in September of 1939, an act of
aggression that prompted Britain and France to declare war, signaling the start
of the Second World War.
In the
early part of this conflict, Nazi Germany conquered or controlled most of
Europe and North Africa in furtherance of it’s intent to establish a
"New Order" of complete Nazi German hegemony
throughout Europe and beyond. In the course of this, the Nazis persecuted and
killed millions of Jews, Gypsies
and others in the industrialized exercise in mass murder that’s come to be
known as the Holocaust. Despite its Axis alliance
with other nations, mainly Italy and Japan,
by 8 May 1945
Nazi Germany had been defeated by the Allied Powers, and was occupied by the Soviet Union, the United
States, Britain and France, bringing its intended 1,000-year reign to an abrupt
end.
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