Eva Braun's Gold Ring & Other Rare Nazi Artefacts


Really Cool Accessories in Store

Really Cool Accesories in Store

Hey guys! And welcome to another show and tell video. Today I have some really exciting things to show you. Now, don't be disappointed, but there are no guns in this video. However, some of the coolest accessories you've ever seen, I'm going to bring them to you. Some of them are from the Don Andrews collection, but if you clicked on this video because of the Eva Braun ring, you want to keep watching. That one is not from Don Andrews. In fact, I've had that for quite a while and I've had a moral dilemma about selling it. So I finally made up my mind what I'm going to do, so stay tuned because you're going to find out what's going to happen to the Eva Braun ring. 

A State of Quandary

Okay, so the first thing I wanted to show you and again, this was from Don Andrews' house. He had it hanging in his man cave. It's very, very cool and it's also a quandary for me, if that's the right word. It just makes me wonder why is it that -- well, Nazis in the United States are certainly considered evil. It's an evil ideology that needed to be stamped out. And yet, these were made for Americans. 

Number 682 out of 1,000 and it is Hand-Signed

Number 682 out of 1,000 and it is Hand-Signed

This painting was done by Robert Taylor in 1986. He sounds like a movie star to me. There is a Robert Taylor I believe, or maybe that's Elizabeth Taylor, married to somebody else. But anyway, the artist, Robert Taylor commissioned 1000 of these to be made. These are Luftwaffe planes, the JG52. I'm not an expert on planes, and I don't have one to show you live in person. But this painting they made 1000 of them.

This particular painting is number 682 out of 1000. And we are going to be offering it; but what's really cool about this, the fact that there are eight Luftwaffe aces, and from what I can tell, these are hand signed by each of the Luftwaffe aces. The fact that they survived the war, they were still alive in '86 and they each signed these and they sold 1000 of these in the United States. I don't know if they were available in Germany, but certainly, if somebody from Germany wants to buy them they're certainly welcome to do that. But this print in limited edition is a known print. In fact, you can find them on eBay and things like that, but we had one from Don's collection. 

The Luftwaffe Aces

Now let's go over each of the Luftwaffe aces by name. Some of them I recognize the names and others I did not. First is Adolf Galland. And I'm going to try to show you pictures of each one. I have heard of him in fact, I was at a gun show and they had a drilling, that was a presentation to Adolf Galland. I didn't buy it at the time, it was many years ago, I didn't have the money. I wish I knew where it was.

It's probably out there if one of our viewers wants to let me know. Second is Dieter Hraback. And I don't have much information about him, but he was a Luftwaffe ace. And then Johannes Steinhoff. The fifth pilot is Guenther Rall, and I'll show you a magazine article that comes with this print. There's a couple magazine articles. Number six is Fritz Obleser. Number seven is Erich Hartmann. And finally, it sounds like Polish descent, which yes, there were some Poles that lived on the border of Germany and joined the German forces during World War II. This is Walter Krupinski. 

The Luftwaffe was the most Respected

The Luftwaffe was the most Respected

So a little bit of a quandary or mystery for me is why the Luftwaffe Aces were revered by the enemy, in fact. So in the United States, these sold 1000 and people pay good money and somebody will want to hang this up and can display it proudly. Certainly among all of the troops in Germany, the Luftwaffe was the most respected probably followed by the Navy. And of course, the least respected were the SS troops.

This respect for the Luftwaffe it probably dates back to World War I and if you know the German biplanes and they had aerial aces back then. United States, Canada, Britain all had their aces and probably none of you can name them. But everybody knew about the Red Baron, and there was a lot of respect for the Red Baron even after he was killed, but maybe that's not so much about the war as it is about the song and peanuts was rolling up the store.

7 Ace Signatures + the Artists'

7 Ace Signatures + the Artists

Okay, how embarrassing, I made a mistake. I know that hardly ever happens. There's only seven signatures -- actually, there's eight signatures, but one of them is Robert Taylor. If you look at the signatures, you can see my confusion. It's kind of hard to tell that that's Robert Taylor, but in fact, there's seven Luftwaffe pilots and all of them signed along with Robert Taylor, who is the movie star, I mean, the artist. 

Articles had details on the Aces

Articles had details on the Aces

Now with it came these articles, World War II articles, and all seven of them are mentioned in these articles. And there's a little bit about what they did -- I'll just go through it really quickly. And there's also pictures of them. And so whoever buys this will get these articles as well. This second article actually, there is one American, Robert Rankin American Ace along with this picture of Gunthern Rall. 

That's stolen! Is it?

Okay, now for some major controversy. I can only hope that this goes viral and except that my name is not out there with the word Nazi lover on my chest. But in fact, many people have commented over the years, the snarky comments are about why do you collect Nazi memorabilia and making judgments about that. I pretty much ignore those. But there's a lot of people who write in and particularly Germans who say, you mean stolen. So when I do a story about the vet and I say this heroic vet brought this back, or it's a war souvenir, they will write in say you mean stolen. That doesn't bother me a whole lot, because honestly, that's a bunch of crap. 

They had Permission Though

Throughout history, every army when they defeat the enemy, you turn in your weapons, you drop your sword, you drop your daggers you turn in your guns. No army, no conquering army is going to let the soldiers keep their weapons, they turn their weapons in and they surrender. And these GIs had permission from their commanding officers, and that's documented that they were allowed to take home souvenirs.

So the commanding officers gave permission for the troops to bring them home. We know that from documents and capture papers and all the stories of the vets will say that at the end of the war -- in fact, we talked to the vets who gathered up all the weapons, they then went into every town and village that was conquered, and they got on the loudspeaker. And they posted signs everywhere, I've seen the signs, you must turn in all your weapons. 

They were concerned about the Insurgency

Again, I've talked about this before, the Allies were concerned about an insurgency. There were a lot of rumors about SS men, hiding in the Alps, coming back and creating an insurgency such as what we found in Iraq, where the actual battle was quick and over quickly, with very few casualties. The real casualties came after the war was over. And the insurgents began to kill the enemy troops what they consider the invaders.

In Germany, they were afraid of the same thing. So of course, the allied armies gathered all the weapons; most times they were just piled up, gasoline poured on them and burn and what a shame is what I would say. Not so much for the beat-up relics, but certainly for some of the handguns and rifles that we have shown you over the years. 

Beautiful Pieces

These are works of art, just beautiful pieces that most of you would love to own. So I say, unabashedly, thank God for the troops that saved the weapons and brought them back. And even for the Germans. I have good friends, German collectors, who buy stuff from the Americans and bring them back to Germany. So they probably say thank God for the Allied troops who brought this stuff home. And I have no qualms about saying there's nothing illegal and these are not stolen. They were saved from being destroyed.

Pivoting to Eva Braun's Ring

Now, let's pivot. So yes, this is me pivoting. Now, I did get this about six months ago. This is reportedly Eva Braun's ring I'll show you evidence that that is true. When I got it, again, six months ago, we bought a collection of guns and the guy said I happen to have this and he sold me this. I got it and I immediately was torn about putting it on the website, and here's why. 

The GIs looted Everything

He bought it at an auction. These are the auction catalogs. You can see this was back in 1991. This is liberated items. And basically, the long and short of it is that the GI troops that brought this back, they went to Eva Brauns -- Here's her insignia logo looks like a butterfly, Eva Braun. They went into her apartment in Munich and they basically really cleaned it out. There's Adolf Hitler memorabilia there.

And then you can see the Eva Braun items, so the table napkins, linens. Then it gets even more sorted. The more I look through this, I see her dresses, there's her gloves, her coat, her hat, her hairbrush. And again, as I'm going through this, I can't get past the fact that the GIs just basically went into her apartment and looted everything. Here again, you see that EB, this is a mirror and a hairbrush. 

It is not a legit Souvenir!

It is not a legit Souvenir!

And I have to tell you, it bothers me a little bit that these were clearly looted. This is not a legitimate war souvenir, as in a weapon that's taken from a government or an army. These are personal property of Eva Braun, that was taken from her apartment.

This is actually the auction where this ring came from. And you can see a pocket watch and different jewellery. And actually, this ring in particular, is pictured right here. This is the ring, not a very good picture, but I'll actually show you the ring. So because this was all part of an auction, and he bought this from this auction, sold that to me with some guns, and ever since I really have felt like -- I am not comfortable selling stolen property. 

The actual Ring

The actual Ring

So this is the ring itself. And again, it's not that I revere Eva Braun a whole lot. I don't know what kind of person she was, other than she actually I should say, Eva Hitler. Because she did in the last few days of her life, she did marry Adolf Hitler, I'll pull this out. This case, I'm sure is after the fact. So they brought back all her jewellery. Again, probably just threw it in duffel bags. And I will put this ring on for you hold on a minute.

I decided to put my Black Glove on this is gold, and it is not marked on the inside. But you can see the floral arrangement on both sides. And just to get an idea of the size, I'll put this on my pinky. Yeah, you can see the size, I put it on my pinky, it does not fit over my knuckle. Maybe this was a gift from Adolf. 

She probably took numerous shopping Trips

But in fact, when I looked through that catalog, she had a lot of rings and a lot of jewellery. So I suspect she had time on her hands. I'm sure they spent time together but he was also gone for long periods of time. And he probably she probably took a lot of shopping trips throughout Germany, and had a pick of whatever she wanted. And this is the ring that belonged to Eva Braun. 

What am I going to do with it?

Now let's talk about what I'm going to do with it. So here's what I'd like to do. If you can show me that you're a descendant of the family, Eva Braun's family, and I'm looking for some kind of proof from ancestry.com or some other legitimate organization that can verify you're a direct descendant, I think it should go back to the family. And if I can't find that, I think at the very least we could offer it to a museum, a museum in Germany would be my first choice.

Although I can't imagine a museum in Germany that would want to put it on display, I could be wrong. Perhaps like the Holocaust Museum, maybe they might be interested, or an American Museum that has other artefacts from the war, with the stipulation that if the family ever stepped forward to claim the ring, I believe they should have the ability to get it back. 

Blow the Whistle!

Again, I don't condone GIs, any soldiers going into private homes and taking items that don't belong to them. Really what I did in thinking through this, I thought if our country was taken over, and they took guns from the government, I would expect that. If they went and got souvenirs from government buildings, I would expect that. But if they broke into private homes and took their belongings, I would cry foul. So that's how I came to my decision. 

You have Three months to come Forward

Now, one more caveat. If nobody steps forward in the next three months, so I'm going to let this video run and I hope we get 1,000,003 views, 2,000,003 views. If nobody steps forward in the next three months, then I will offer it for sale at the price at which I paid. But until then I hope somebody does step forward. And I would really like to reunite it with the family if we can. 

Take a Breath Guys

Alright, if you guys are furiously typing in your opinions and telling me I'm wrong, just take a minute and take a breath because I've got some more fun stuff to show you. 

Crypto Badges

Crypto Badges

First of all, have some real quickies there, here's some Crypto badges. Again, if you were a Detective or a Gestapo agent, you would carry a badge like this. Actually, it's a disk. And you can see this one, it has the German Eagle. Now this is government property, so I have no problem with bringing this back. Again, government property, not personal property; it has your number here and then the fact that these were state police, state criminal detectives.

This one is actually on the cover of my book that's coming out. But this one, you'll notice, the eagle has been removed. So if I turn it a little bit sideways, maybe you can see where the outline of the eagle was, was once there. So originally, it would look like that. The other side is fine but the eagle, has been removed and somewhat professionally. So it's not like just scratched off, it was cleaned off probably professionally.

The Eagle must be Removed

The Eagle must be Removed

One of the main reasons I'm bringing it to you is, again, here's a mystery that we need to solve. So at the end of the war, if you were trying to not be captured, especially by the Russians with this, you would just throw it in the river. However, it tells me that after the war, some of these guys were still engaged to keep the peace in occupied territory and I guess in order to save money and keep what you had, they kept the same badge.

The only stipulation was the Allied Military Police said, yeah, you can keep your job and help keep crowd control and hold down the looting, but the only thing is, we have to grind off that eagle. So I've not seen another one like this, I am going to offer this for sale. But to me, this was a state Criminal Police disc that was used during the war and then again, after the war. The eagle with the Swastika was removed. 

An NSKK Pennant

An NSKK Pennant

Just real quickly, this was in Don Andrews Collection. This is a pendant for the Motor Corp, or the NSKK. And this would be a pendant that would go on your aerial and you could put this on your car. Even in England, you can still own this, but you don't want to put this on your car and drive to any woke parties, it will not be well received. This one was never issued because it still has the RZM tag.

Here's the RZM tag right there. So this one is like-new condition, but it would be a party banner or pendant that you would put on your car when you're transporting a dignitary or on official motor corp business. If you search under our playlist, you'll see this NSKK; we have a gun that was NSKK, a Walther PP and we have guns that were issued to them. 

A SS Notebook

A SS Notebook

Okay, now I have another really cool thing and talk about sending things back to Germany. This is a SS notebook or a diary of some kind that I think should go back to Germany, because there's a lot of history in here that needs to be uncovered. If it stays in the United States, it probably should go to somebody who can kind of go through this, translate and figure out what important information might be in here. Obviously it's SS and it's some kind of a diary because what you have is dates and little notes. Now, there's not a lot, this is the year 1944. And he does have notes.

From what I can tell this was an adjutant or an aide to somebody important, I believe an SS officer. This is his name and a little bit about his unit and where he was stationed. There's no serial number in terms of the gun that he carried. So we know that's his name and he had little notes. And what happened was it looked like he was running errands for an officer. So an adjutant an aide to a general, and it would be little notes and that's why somebody who's German -- it's hard to read even if you're German, but to go through and figure out who he was working for and when he was picking up. It looks like he had little notes about pick up some eggs and milk on the way home from work today but not exactly. And there's some interesting notes that I want to highlight. 

Interesting Notes

Interesting Notes

So the first page after the picture of Heinrich Himmler you can see in English taken from a German prisoner of war, ad SS man at Marlboro, France -- I have to look that up. Sorry, I didn't do that in advance. December of ‘44. Now I'll go back in December of '44 his entries and so we know it was taken and probably SS man with a diary, they probably would be sent to an interrogator. And we have talked to vets who were interrogators. Usually, they were Americans who spoke fluent German. And they basically asked them about their units. How many men are in the unit?

What was the morale like? This one in particular, though, had like lists of things he was picking up for different, high-ranking Germans. Later on, for some random reason, right in the middle of July of 44 page is ripped out. So I would imagine he was using this to take notes. He ripped off a page and threw it away. But in the same handwriting, so this is the guy who took it from the German prisoner of war. He writes German campaign ribbons, it would seem that the guy he took this diary from had an Iron Cross, was in the Russian campaign and the French occupation. French occupation is verified that it was taken in France in December of '44. So I have a feeling there's a lot of history in here. 

Post July '44

Now, a lot of it actually happens after July of '44. If I page through, there's just interesting notes and people's names. This word comes up a lot, I'm going to show you here, it's here, it's here, and it’s here. Yeah, I believe there are names here, but it could be his name, his name is Mueller. So he's basically taking notes, people are telling him, go get this, go take care of that and we see a lot of notes. And maybe that's his name, I just don't know for sure. But I'm thinking somebody who historically -- Oh, I saw there's another name. Somebody who wants to go through this, here's is Otto and there's a last name Kossel. And there are some more lengthy writing. 

After the Notes

And then it ends with SS information about the ranks and the different shoulder boards and what the different colors meant. They had piping on some of it and would tell, what rank they were in maybe what unit. And then there's a map of Europe and a map of the world. And then at the end, there's another picture of Heinrich Himmler with some recruits. 

Government Property that was Seized

So interesting diary, this does not belong to me. This belongs to a local collector, and he brought it in, he wanted me to show it to some of you particularly in Germany. If somebody has interest, you could let us know maybe make an offer.

He doesn't have a price in mind. But if somebody wanted to buy it, I know that he would sell it. Here's a sketch of some kind. See, that's what the intelligence officers like to get their hands on, a sketch. Maybe they're a sketch of armory installations or artillery installations, along with a bunch of writing, which I'm sure somebody's combed through, diligently, probably the vet who brought this back. Not stolen, but government property that was seized at the end of the war. 

Fun Time

Fun Time

Okay, so we hit some pretty serious topics, some fun topics, and I'm going to end with having some fun. This is all out of Don Andrews’ collection. Now I have to say all of the Lugar's that I have seen from his collection, and there probably were 20, every one of them was police. Most of the other gun, the HSCs, more than half were police. The Sauer’s, more than half were police. Other guns, a heavy emphasis on police markings.

I'm going to show you more of those but clearly, Don Andrews had a particular interest in police items. Now these little figurines, this is like GI Joe back in the 40s. Every one of these is police in different uniforms. No idea of their value, but somebody out there is going to want them. They also were limited editions because they're numbered. This is number 16 out of 150. This is number 6 out of 150. Also 16, which tells me they made 150 of these, 150 of these. So these, these are clearly collector items and a lot more fun than a hummel. 

Are you interested?

So if you have interest in these, let us know we're going to look them up. Let's see what kind of gun he's carrying. Could be a P38. He's a traffic cop, you can see the stop sign. And this could be motor corp. Yeah, that would make sense because the motor corp did --  remember the NSKK they would have these that signified that they were traffic police but yeah, they were in charge of the Motor Corps and directing traffic and they went ahead if Hitler was coming through town or Himmler was coming through town just like they do for presidents and dignitaries.

They closed off all the roads, let them come through unfettered. And then this guy, he's part of the Motor Corp he would have this flag, flopping out the back of his motorcycle. These are just cute little toys or figurines, but clearly collector items. And again, the Nazi party may have sold these in order to make money for the party.

A Police Officer’s Visor

A Police Officer’s Visor

Here is a police officer's visor. We can look inside see the size, 60. And there was a note inside to Don Andrews, from a guy named Rex and Rex if you're out there, this is back in 1989 said he bought this cap from a vet about 12 years ago, so that gives you the timing.

The vet brought it back. So he is offering it to Don. He said I thought of you probably because Don liked the police stuff and said the price is $350. We did a video just about inflation. I'm not sure the value, but I would guess at least $1500 and maybe more. Let's see if it fits. You know what? Can't salute with his because that would -- no stolen honor here. But it's a neat little hat that we will be offering for sale. I don't see any signs of moth holes or anything like that. So it's in great shape. 

Miniature Dagger and then Some

Miniature Dagger and then Some

A couple other fun things, if you remember, we had some miniature daggers. We put it on gun broker. I said it would probably go to about $1,000. It went for a little bit more than that. This one however, this is heavy. It's made of metal.

And I guess this would be like a desk set sitting on somebody's desk and brought back. Again, our theme is souvenirs from the war. This however, this is for the house wife. You look at this, why somebody needs a swastika, this is to hold your iron. So you iron your clothes rest it on there. And that's to remind you that the German state is taking care of everything. 

Are these Christmas Ornaments?

And then some final things that I found interesting. So at first, I had no idea what this could be. So we see Derfuhrer and the Wehrmacht or the military. Some of these are dated and inside are the tiniest of photographs. And what in the world would be the purpose of making these little books because he has a whole collection. Derfuhrer in 1934. Again, just a little collector items, but pictures of the different rallies, here's 1933, they do have a '35 in here.

So maybe one from every year, there's 38. With the youth, here's Hitler with the youth, I don't see a date on it. But there he is with young people they'd like to show him with little babies and things like that. So I'm trying to figure out the purpose. Every one of them has a little hanger. So my best guess and somebody German out there may know, you hung them on your Christmas tree. Isn't that adorable? So those are nice collector items for somebody. 

Oddball Souvenirs


And then finally, this is not a big deal, but I just thought it was. It says Germany awake. But you know, they would carry the poles in a parade, I would imagine that this would have a pole in it and maybe at a convention or a dinner of some kind they would have these. And this broke off but obviously would go like this, gets glued on there and then a pole that's broken. And this would then be a rally flag or banner that you would put on your desk or some special occasion. So he had some oddball little souvenirs/accessories that came from the Don Andrews collection. 

Respectful Comments Only


I hope you enjoyed that show and tell from Don's collection with a little controversy thrown in. And as always, I want to hear your respectful comments. Let me know what you think. Snarky comments can stay away. But make sure you like and subscribe because I have some really cool stuff coming up. In fact, I've got a really fun video that I'm going to do later today.

Actually, you'll see it probably in the next couple of days. And the exciting announcement about the book. I've mentioned that again and again. People have said can I pre-order the book? The answer is yes. And we will do a separate video just on how you can order the book on SS PPs and PPKs, how you can tell whether or not your gun might be SS contract. Hey, thanks for watching!