THE GRAND CROSS OF THE IRON CROSS 1939 - PART 1

1940 Hoffmann photograph of Hermann Göring's Großkreuz document

As most collectors and students of Third Reich awards know, Hermann Göring was the only recipient of the Grand Cross of the Iron Cross 1939. He was awarded the Großkreuz on 19.7.1940 and promoted from Generalfeldmarschall to Reichsmarschall as a reward for his leadership during the May and June 1940 campaigns. The Reichsgesetzblatt of 1.9.1939 specified a gold-plated outer rim with matt silver frosting to the frame beading but this idea was quickly dropped when Adolf Hitler saw the results. Although there are period postcards dating from 1940 with hand illustrations of Göring wearing a gold-rimmed Großkreuz, the GK as awarded was made of iron with traditional silver frames.

A Großkreuz attributed to C E Juncker of Berlin

It is widely accepted that the Großkreuz was supplied to the Ordenskanzlei des Führers by the Berlin firm of C E Juncker, an early maker of the new Ritterkreuz. Dietrich Maerz, author of The Knight’s Cross 1939, stated in 2008 that "it can said with absolute confidence that the actual awarded piece was made by Juncker and was marked only with the silver content "800". However, quite a fe [sic] examples exist with the LDO code stamping L/12 for Juncker. These examples were of the same quality as the 'regular' piece and were used as shop displays (there is the misconception in the collector world that there was a difference between shop examples and 'real' medals. That is not true in most of the cases, however).

"After the prohibition of private sales the majority of theses [sic] shop examples arrived at the Präsidialkanzlei and were stored there. Soem [sic] were supplied to Museums and some were sold to collectors during the Third Reich. The reminder [sic] ended up at Schloss Klessheim and form [sic] there via US-veterans into todays [sic] collections. Only C. E. Juncker was licensed to produce the official version of the Großkreuz."

Studio photo-portraits of Göring taken not long after he received the Großkreuz in 1940 show the award cross quite clearly. The jump ring dips into the frame but not as much as that of the Juncker GK. The difference is quite noticeable. The date 1939 is also visibly different to that of the Juncker cross. Note the sweep of the bottom of the 3 and 9 numerals. Compare these to the numerals on the Juncker cross. There are surviving examples of another kind of Großkreuz, sometimes attributed to Steinhauer & Lück and sometimes to Godet. The Godet thesis is more convincing because this Berlin firm was contracted to supply the early presentation sets of the Ritterkreuz in large red cases with lower grades of the Iron Cross, as presented by Hitler to the first Ritterkreuzträger of general officer rank in 1939 and 1940. It is logical that Godet would have been asked to supply the Großkreuz at the same time.

The cross on the right in the above photograph is an example of the type attributed to Godet by serious students of the subject. The cross on the left is a postwar collectors Großkreuz by the Viennese firm of Rudolf Souval. The "Godet" GK is clearly different to the Juncker RK. Compare the jump ring to that of the GK worn by Göring in the studio portrait. They are the same. Neither dips as deeply into the frame as the Juncker jump ring and neither has the distinctive 'trench' around the bottom of the jump ring, as observed on Juncker GK. A few examples exist, some of which have gilded frame rims. If we assume that the gilding is not a postwar enhancement, this detail further supports the Godet thesis. Twenty or so examples are prepared for approval, some of which have the gilding specified in the original Reichsgesetzblatt of 1.9.1939. The gilded crosses are rejected and consigned to a box in the Ordenskanzlei des Führers. Göring is awarded the Großkreuz on 19.7.1940 and given a cross from the OKF stock.

In this detail from a 1939 postcard depicting the Großkreuz, the form of the date conforms to that of the Godet GK, with the lower curves of the 3 and the 9 curling back on themselves. If we accept that the Großkreuz in the color studies of Hermann Göring in 1940 is not in fact a Juncker piece but a cross made by Godet, then where do the Juncker Großkreuze fit in? C E Juncker was one of the earliest of the Ritterkreuz makers. However, Godet did not make the Iron Cross. They sourced their Iron Crosses from C F Zimmermann, the Ritterkreuz included. It is therefore logical to assume that the cross awarded by Hitler to Göring originated in Zimmermann’s workshops. However, this does not mean that C E Juncker did not make the Großkreuz during World War Two. Examples of the Juncker GK exist with the firm’s LDO hallmark L/12 alongside the 800 silver content mark. 

In March 1941, the Präsidialkanzlei-Amt obliged all makers of the various grades of the Ritterkreuz to mark their retail copies with a code assigned to them by the Leistungsgemeinschaft der Deutscher Ordenshersteller or LDO, which could only issue such codes on the express authority of the PKA. In October 1941, the PKA went further and confiscated all retail copies of Germany's highest award for valor, although they allowed authorized manufacturers and museums to retain a few examples for display purposes. A few collectors with the necessary approval were able to obtain examples of these retail copies but this was strictly controlled.

Gordon Williamson, a noted and longtime authority on the Iron Cross in all its grades from its inception after the Prussian War of Liberation in 1813, had some interesting remarks to make on the subject of LDO-marked awards and badges in 2003:  "During the Third Reich period anyone who had lost their award could obtain a free replacement through the Präsidialkanzlei or buy one at their own expense via the LDO, these were in the terminology of the time referred to as Copies, Replicas or Restrikes (i.e.LDO-marked pieces). 

"How many recipients would wish to pay for an over the counter copy when they could obtain an official relacement free? LDO pieces were considered restrikes, copies or replicas, not proper awards. Original period manufacturers catalogues attest to this

. As far as dual marked crosses are concerned, as the LDO marks predate the Präsidialkanzlei marks, I can only assume that these were initially LDO-marked then had the PK number added when they were added to the PK official stocks, but that is conjecture." 

There being no reason to assume that the same did not apply to the Großkreuz, we can say that any crosses bearing Juncker's L/12 LDO code was stamped with that code between March and October 1941. Given the 800 and L/12 hallmarks are stamped on either side of the jump ring, it is unlikely that they were made before the PKA ruling because the crosses made beforehand just bore the 800 hallmark under the jump ring. So, if we follow the logic, C E Juncker produced high quality Großkreuze for a retail market in 1940 and 1941 that rapidly shrank to just one person, who was powerful enough to commandeer as many regulation crosses as he wished and rich enough to have deluxe copies made. 

In the photographs taken of Göring during his surrender to US forces in May 1945, the Großkreuz he was wearing does not even appear to have a jump ring. It seems to be fitted with some form of customized suspension system comprising a sold ribbon ring that is possibly attached to the cross by some form of hinge. It could even be a solid fitting. The date seems smaller and more compact in form that the dates on the Godet and Juncker GK, to say nothing of the Souval GK claimed, optimistically, by some to be a wartime piece. Is this one of Göring's white gold and onyx Großkreuze? Anyone familiar with Göring and his lifestyle would not be surprised to learn that the Reichsmarschall had several Großkreuze, kept in his various residences and headquarters with other doubles of some of his awards, just like anyone of his rank. Göring would quickly have acquired duplicates of the award piece from the Ordenskanzlei or from Godet.

In this photograph of Göring taken in Berchtesgaden during the war, he wears just his Combined 1st Class 1914 Iron Cross and 1939 Bar and his Grand Cross. Note the ribbon loop of large and solid appearance. The loop is clearly too wide to fit through the jump ring of a standard Großkreuz, unless the reverse is suitably narrow. And yet, we have the US Army photographs of Göring showing a similar suspension arrangement, albeit taken at an angle. If the Großkreuz in these photographs had some kind of hinged or articulated ribbon loop instead of the jump ring, could this be one of the special onyx-cored crosses Göring commissioned from Zeitner? Could the story that he was wearing a Großkreuz in onyx and white gold when he surrendered be true? Göring was quickly obliged to surrender his awards to the custody of Major Paul Kubala, who placed them in the unit safe, from which they subsequently disappeared. 

A cased Juncker Großkreuz

Göring might have acquired some Großkreuze by Juncker from the OKF or the PKA. He had the power to obtain whatever pleased him. However, in the absence of any photograph of Hermann Göring wearing a Großkreuz conforming absolutely to the distinctive form of the Juncker crosses, there is no proof that any of Juncker's GK ever made their way into the Reichsmarschall's possession. After all, he had at least a brace of matching white gold and onyx versions made by Herbert Zeitner. So why would Hermann Göring, addicted to opulence and luxury, have bothered obtaining run-of-the-mill Großkreuze in the years following the initial thrill of being awarded the Grand Cross of the Iron Cross? 

However, we shall look at onyx-cored Großkreuze in a later article, along with the recent sale for a reported $1 million of Hermann Göring's Großkreuz document and cassette by a prominent American dealer to a prominent Chinese collector, who was clearly unaware that the originals are in the keeping of the government of the German Bundesrepublik. 

Gordon Williamson wrote with greater circumspection in his book The Iron Cross of 1939: "It is believed that the only manufacturer officially authorized to produce the Grand Cross was the Berlin firm of C.E. Juncker. These authentic award pieces which have been examined simply have the "800" silver content mark to the reverse upper arm of the cross and to the ribbon suspension loop. Other pieces such as those supplied by the manufacturer for shop window or museum displays etc., also carry the LDO code L/12." 


However, Gordon Williamson also had this to say in 2002: "It is known that the Knights Cross dies were destroyed as were the dies for the Anti-Partisan War Badge -hence the hollow backed APB pieces thereafter made by AGMuK. Not ALL Juncker dies were destroyed however, the GK dies, the molds for the 20 Juli 1944 Wound Badge and much other tooling survived and was used after the war to remake pieces, hence I would never fully trust an L/12 GK."

In summary, therefore, it would appear that C E Juncker were not, as previously thought, the officlal suppliers to the Präsidialkanzlei des Führers of the 1939 Großkreuz. Judging by period photographic and documentary evidence, the Großkreuz awarded by Hitler to Göring on 15.7.1940 seems to have been the type attributed to Godet, which was very likely to have been made by C F Zimmermann. Moreover, in the light of Gordon Williamson's remarks in 2002, based on his decades of academic immersion in the study of the Iron Cross, it would appear that collectors should not assume that a Großkreuz bearing the Juncker LDO hallmark or made on the same dies predates May 1945. 

To be continued…

THE MUNICH PACT DESKSET PART #1

AUTHOR'S NOTE TO THOSE OF YOU TRYING TO FIND WAYS TO GET THIS BLOG PULLED: THE IMAGES USED IN THIS ARTICLE AND ELSEWHERE IN THIS BLOG ARE EITHER IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN OR REPRODUCED IN ACCORDANCE WITH 'FAIR USE' PROVISIONS WRITTEN INTO INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT LEGISLATION.

On 7.12.2011, a brass writing set described as the one seen on the desk in photographs of the signing of the Munich Pact was reported to have been sold for $423,000 by the Connecticut auction house Alexander Historical Auctions. The catalog blurb stated, without any paragraph breaks:


ADOLF HITLER'S CEREMONIAL DESK SET - USED IN THE SIGNING OF THE MUNICH PACT

An offering of great historic importance, the solid cast brass desk set owned and used by Nazi Chancellor Adolf Hitler in the signing of the Munich Pact in which the Sudetenland was ceded by France and England to Germany. The Munich Pact would have consequences far beyond just the annexation, effects felt to this day. This massive ceremonial presentation measures 24" wide, 14 3/4" deep and 1 3/4" tall, with two columned ink wells rising 2" above the base of the desk set. The ink wells are filled with solid glass, each bearing an opening which at one time either held a smaller ink cup, or was itself filled with ink. Between the two wells appears in high relief Hitler's initials "A H" beneath and flanking a large eagle facing to its left (symbolizing the Nazi Party vs. the military) which in turn clutches in its talons a wreath encircling a swastika. A raised rectangle beneath all supports a large, impressive brass blotter with a knurled knob, similar in design to the colonnaded ink wells. The underside of the set is lined in fine finished mahogany. In all, the desk set gives one the impression of an architectural model, thus in our opinion the set was designed by Hitler, who prided himself on his architectural acumen. Photographic research shows that this desk set was undoubtedly used at the signing of the Munich Pact on September 30, 1938. Multiple images from that historic event show Hitler, Mussolini, British Prime Minister Nevilel Chamberlain and French Prime Minister Edouard Daladier with this relic during the signing, and in one image Hitler's initials on the piece are discernable. The desk set is also visible in 1940 Life Magazine images of Hitler's office (http://thirdreichcolorpictures.blogspot.com/2010/02/fuhrerbau.html). This historic desk set was discovered at Hitler's private office in Munich (the "Fuhrer-Bau") by Lt. John L. McConn, Jr. in the Spring of 1945. McConn was in command of a detachment of soldiers ordered to occupy and guard the building, and McConn himself slept only a few doors from Hitler's office, where the Munich Pact had been signed seven years earlier. In exploring the building, McConn's men found a trove of Hitler's personal effects in the basement of the building, stored there to prevent damage from the incessant bombing by Allied forces. Among the items uncovered were mother of pearl and gold inlaid presentation lugers, an enormous gold and ruby ring, and most importantly, a huge collection of Hitler's purchased and stolen art intended for display in the never-construced Fuhrermuseum. The Allied Military Government was notified of the discovery just as water had begun to flood the basement, threatening the priceless works, and Amy brass ordered the art packed and removed. As did every other G.I., McConn wanted to return home with a good war souvenir, and asked a corporal what items of any interest might remain in the basement. The corporal mention a"desk set with interesting ink wells" in the corner of the basement. McConn claimed it, crated it himself, and sent it home to his father in Texas with as much postage as he could fit on the box. In 1946 McConn returned home a hero, having been awarded the Silver Star for single-handedly taking a German machine gun nest and several prisoners in the process. Surprised that the desk set had actually arrived in the States, he kept it in his possession for 66 years. In the interim, he married, obtained his law degree, raised five children and served his community well. At times, the desk set was given to his children to bring to school for "show and tell", as its significance was not yet known. Thirty years ago, while watching newsreel footage, McConn saw his "war souvenir" being used at the signing of the Munich Pact and realised what it was he had found in the damp, dark basement of Hitler's offices. In addition to the clear photographic evidence placing this relic in Hitler's office at the signing of the pact (and it undoubtedly was used in signing other important agreements as well), included in the lot are the following items of provenance: an older photo (copy) of the blotter with original paper (now lost) which appears to hold reverse impressions of Hitler's signature; McConn's letter to his parents written on Hitler's official Munich correspondence card, May 6, 1945, with envelope postmarked May 9, self-censored, stating that he and his company had returned to Munich and expressing his joy that the war had ended; a 3pp. 4to. letter [undated] on the letterhead of the "Reichsschatzmeister" ("Head Treasurer") of the NSDAP Franz Schwarz in Munich describing an event in which Russian prisoners recognized their SS captors and beat them to death with iron pipes; an Adolf Hitler monogrammed table napkin recovered from the Fuhrer-Bau; a 2007 letter of authenticity from internationally respected militaria dealer Stephen D. Wolfe of Wolfe-Hardin describing the desk set: "...It is 100% original, and, unquestionably, the pieces [sic] used in the 1938 Munich Pact signing. They are certainly among the most important artifacts...and the provenance is wonderful! Although I can vouch for the authenticity of the pieces shown me, I cannot accurately price your items, as they are unique..."; and McConn's own 2007 notarized letter of provenance. This important relic has been displayed in locations around the world, and has never before been offered at auction. It has not been recently cleaned, and the brass has developed a fine patina, with only a few very trivial scattered spots. A museum-grade relic of great historic importance. 

In photographs by Heinrich Hoffmann of the signing of the Munich Pact on 30.9.1938 by Hitler, Chamberlain, Mussolini and Daladier, we see a bronze writing set on the desk in the Führer’s office. There is a large Nazi eagle surmounting the initials A H above the shallow pen well. The twin inkwells evoke the Honor Temples erected on the city’s Königsplatz in 1935 as mausoleums for the remains of the sixteen martyrs of the 1923 Munich Putsch.

Bidding for the writing set failed to reach the reserve of half a million dollars and the firm announced that a deal had been reached with the highest bidder, described as a “private US west coast collector”. The auction house also stated that the writing set may have been designed by Hitler himself, although there is no evidence to support such an opinion. Looking at the above photographs, the inkwell housing seems closer to the outer edge of the base in the 1938 photograph and not in line with the outer edge of the pen well, unlike the writing set sold by Alexander Historical Auctions. 

This 1940 color photograph of Hitler's office showing the writing set on the Führer's desk seems to confirm that this is not an optical illusion. The proportions of the writing set photographed before the Second World War and the writing set sold by Alexander Historical Auctions do seem to be different. Another photograph from a slightly different angle seems to confirm this to be the case.

In the prewar photographs, the inkwell housings seem closer to the edge of the base, which seems a bit thicker than that of the writing set sold by Alexander Historical Auctions. The outer edges of the bases of the inkwell housings do not seem to align with the outer edges of the pen well, as on the piece recently sold. The upper edges of the eagle's wings so not seem to be in line with the upper edges of the inkwell housings. There seems to be less of a gap between the bottom of the wreath and the upper edge of the pen well. These differences may explain the surprising lack of interest from serious collectors of Hitler memorabilia when the desk set was first offered by decorated former US Army officer John L. McConn and, indeed, the continuing lack of interest that resulted in the desk set being sold off for less than its reserve price after it failed to reach the reserve.

The US flag hanging from Hitler's former office in the Führerbau in June 1945

Mr McConn has stated that he recovered the writing set when quartered in the Führerbau in Munich in the summer of 1945 and sent it home to his father in Houston, Texas: "In the summer of 1945 after the war in Europe had ended, I was quartered, with other American soldiers in Hitler’s headquarters in Munich for a short time. We called the building the “Feuerbau”.  It was located on the Konigsplatz in Munich. After another soldier in my outfit had shown some of us some personal effects of Hitler’s which he had found in one of the cellars in this building, I asked him if he had seen anything else there. He replied that he had seen a large bronze desk set. I should add that Hitler’s office was on what I recall as the second floor of the building. When we arrived at the building, Hitler’s office had been stripped of furnishings. The building was burned in an upper floor, evidently the result of bombing , and I believe that Hitler’s effects had been removed from his office and taken to one of the cellars of the building. After my discussion with the soldier mentioned above, I went down in the cellar to the place therein which he had said he found the other effects of Hitler’s. At that place I located a large bronze desk set with raised initials on it of “A” and “H”. It also had on it in raised form an eagle and a swastika. It was obviously Hitler’s desk set from his office upstairs. I boxed up the desk set and mailed it to my father in the States." The auction catalog blurb stated, amongst other assertions, that "Amy [sic] brass ordered the art packed and removed. As did every other G.I., McConn wanted to return home with a good war souvenir, and asked a corporal what items of any interest might remain in the basement. The corporal mention [sic] a"desk set with interesting ink wells" in the corner of the basement." 

The facts are rather different. The Führerbau was taken over in the summer of 1945 by the Allies' Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Programme and turned into the Munich Collecting Point or MCP under the command of US Navy Lieutenant Craig Hugh Smyth. Smyth, seen second from the left in the above photo on the steps of the former Führerbau with British and French colleagues, was a noted art historian and was tasked with assembling a team of European art experts and conservationists to process recovered artworks stolen by the Nazis, beginning with Hitler's own collection. The MCP contained conservation and storage facilities, as well as photographic studios for cataloguing purposes and remained in operation until 1951. The building was taken over by the Amerika Haus cultural organisation for a time during the 1950s but is now used by the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, which traces its roots back to Smyth's operation. 

The Munich Collecting Point in the late 1940s

John McConn has also stated that he and his detachment were sent to the Führerbau to protect artwork and other treasures stored there and that he was allowed to have the writing set as a keepsake when his assignment ended in August 1945. He crated it up and mailed it to his father in Houston, Texas and only realised how important it might be when he reportedly saw a History Channel program over thirty years ago about the Munich Pact: “I could see it pretty clearly, and I thought, ‘Good Lord, that’s the one I have.’ So I put it in a bank vault, and I thought, well somewhere down the line I’ll sell it.” The History Channel was launched in 1995. 

Craig Gottlieb presents the "Munich Desk Set" to the Press

Mr McConn first offered the writing set for sale by auction on the Internet in 2008 but there were no takers. The website promoting the desk set was registered jointly by Mr McConn's Houston legal firm and the West Coast-based Magnet Media Group. In January 2011, Mr McConn appointed the California-based militaria dealer Craig Gottlieb to sell the writing set on his behalf. In the following shots of Mussolini signing the pact, the upper edges of the eagle's wings do not seem to be quite in line with the bases of the miniature Honor Temples housing the inkwells, as they are in the shot of Craig Gottlieb holding the McConn desk set up for the Associated Press photographer.

Speaking to reporters in February 2011, Mr McConn recalled more details of his time in Munich in 1945. He and his unit were quartered for three weeks in Eva Braun's house, which was connected through an underground tunnel to the Führerbau. One day, he and and others were looking for souvenirs in the Führerbau when a corporal came up from the basement. Asked by Lt McConn if there was anything in the basement, the corporal described the writing set. Lt McConn "grabbed it, made a wooden box for it and shipped it off" to his father in Houston. Eva Braun lived on the Wasserburgerstrasse, since renamed Delpstrasse, in a house purchased for her by Hitler. Eva Braun's house still exists and is some four kilometers as the crow flies from the Führerbau, on the other side of the river Isar. Hitler's relationship with Eva Braun was an open secret and there was no need for either Herr Hitler nor Fraulein Braun to travel down a long tunnel for their romantic trysts. Nor were American GIs with Jeeps at their disposal likely to bother picking their way along such a tunnel, not that it ever existed. In any case, Hitler's flat on the Prinzregentenstrasse was just a few hundred meters from the Wasserburgerstrasse on the same side of the river, a couple of minutes' drive by car. 

Julius Schaub

On 23.4.1945, Hitler had ordered his personal assistant Julius Schaub, the SS General seen assisting the signatories in the photographs of the signing of the Munich Pact, to destroy all of his personal papers and effects in Berlin, Munich and Berchtesgaden. Schaub did as ordered, as confirmed by Hitler's Munich housekeeper, Frau Winter, and even supervised the blowing up of Hitler's personal railway train. Would Schaub have overlooked the bronze deskset in the Führerbau? Would Schaub have overlooked the great coat McConn claims to have seen bearing Hitler's name inside, or the effects belonging to Hitler in the possession of the US Army corporal whom McConn describes as coming up from the basement of the Führerbau? 


More to the point, would Lt Craig Hugh Smyth or any of his staff have allowed such an artefact to be appropriated by Lt McConn? For one thing, bronze was a restricted material in 1945. Craig Hugh Smyth died in 2006 so can no longer tell us if he authorized a young army lieutenant to take as a memento a sixty-pound bronze artefact bearing Hitler's initials from the basement of the Munich Collecting Point at any time during the summer of 1945. And despite the evident care with which John McConn conserved paperwork relating to his wartime service, as the eBook on the website jointly registered to Burke McConn & Associates and Magnet Media Group, shows, he does not seem to have the written authorization he must have obtained in order legally to appropriate and send home the desk set. Nor does he appear to have any other paperwork from the period mentioning the desk set. 

To be continued...

THE MUNICH PACT DESK SET PART #2

AUTHOR'S NOTE TO THOSE OF YOU TRYING TO FIND WAYS TO GET THIS BLOG PULLED: THE IMAGES USED IN THIS ARTICLE AND ELSEWHERE IN THIS BLOG ARE EITHER IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN OR REPRODUCED IN ACCORDANCE WITH 'FAIR USE' PROVISIONS WRITTEN INTO INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT LEGISLATION.

In this shot of Hitler's office in the Führerbau published in the 1942 issue of Die Bauten der NSDAP, the large bronze desk set has been replaced by a more modest set in red marble, matching the desk lamp. The rocking ink blotter is smaller than the one seen in the 1938 and 1940 photographs. Where was the large bronze desk set? In the basement, where it would allegedly be found in the summer of 1945? 

Copyright © Associated Press (Fair Use)

On 6.2.2011, The San Diego Union Tribune broke the news that local militaria dealer Craig Gottlieb had been appointed to broker the sale of Mr McConn's Munich Pact Desk Set. Other newspapers, television channels and news agencies, including Associated Press, around the world followed the story. Mr Gottlieb told members on the Wehrmacht-Awards Forum website: "I really do hope (for the McConns and for world posterity) that this piece ends up in a major museum. Ideally, a wealthy benefactor/collector should buy it and donate it. The tax write-off would be enormous, the benefit to history would be great. I'm setting appointments with West Point and with the WWII Museum in New Orleans for March." 

On 14.2.2011, The Daily Mail newspaper in Britain ran an article about the desk set, from which this extract is taken: "Memorabilia dealer Craig Gottlieb of Solana Beach acquired the inkwell from a Houston man, who claims he took it as a souvenir while serving in Munich in the final days of World War II. Former U.S. Army lieutenant Jack McConn had been stationed in Munich during the occupation of Germany and lived with his unit in the house of Hitler’s lover Eva Braun for several weeks. While resident in the building, Mr McConn and his fellow soldiers discovered an underground tunnel leading to Hitler’s office, also known as the Fuehrerbau. The lieutenant found the swastika-emblazoned inkwell and then sent it to his family in Texas. Years later, he was watching a documentary on the History Channel and was stunned to see the desk set being used to sign the Munich Pact.

"I got a pretty clear look at it and immediately thought, 'Good Lord, that’s the one I’ve got'”,’ he told the Daily Mirror. Collector Mr Gottlieb, who is offering the set for sale, added: "It’s basically the surface upon which the fate of the world was decided." Antiques dealer Stephen Wolfe of Wolfe-Hardin Finest Quality Military Antiques in Long Beach, who plans to bid for the desk set, said he has no doubts about its authenticity: "It's absolutely 100 per cent authentic," he told the North County Times, "I know the piece intimately." Mr Wolfe added he had checked Mr McConn's military records and the Houston soldier was indeed stationed in Munich at the time the desk set was taken from Germany."

As soon as anyone familiar with Munich worked out just how long such a tunnel would have been, had it existed in the first place, Mr Gottlieb started saying that the media had "got the story wrong". All references to tunnels between the Führerbau on the Königsplatz and Fraulein Braun's house at Wesserburgerstrasse 12 disappeared quite rapidly from any website over which Mr Gottlieb exercised any control. However, the tunnel story would continue to haunt the alleged Munich Pact Desk Set. In the meantime, Mr Gottlieb's tendency to become embroiled in controversy over some of the pieces on his sales lists returned to haunt him, doubtless making it hard to focus on selling the Munich Pact Desk Set despite the extensive media coverage and all of the alleged interest in this remarkable artefact. On 7.11.2011, Mr Gottlieb announced that he had returned the desk set to the McConns, stating that they had compensated him for his expenses and that the desk set would be consigned to Alexander Historical Auctions. Mr Gottlieb then stated that he and the McConns had been unable "to  reach an accord about the reserve price that they wanted to put on the piece" and that the desk set had been consigned to "Alexander Autographs" of Stamford, Connecticut. By this stage, Mr Gottlieb had been in possession of this piece for the best part of a year without apparently agreeing on a sale price with the owner. West Coast dealer Steve Wolfe had authenticated the piece in 2007 and expressed the intention to bid on it when it came up for auction in 2008, yet it remained unsold. The lack of success was attributed to the economic downturn, which seems strange, given there seems to be no lack of buyers for very expensive Third Reich personality memorabilia. 

AHA President Basil Panagopulos  on the right (Image Public Domain)

On 15.11.2011, Mr Basil A Panagopulos, President of Alexandra Historical Auctions of Stamford, Connecticut announced on his Autograph Magazine Live! web log that the Munich Pact Desk Set had been consigned to his auction house. Mr Panagopulos wrote: "The other day, the following walked into our office. Thought this might make an interesting diversion from signed photos of Snookie  and "The Situation". Basil Panagopulos, known as Bill, then thanked one John Reznikoff for putting the desk set's owner in touch with Alexandra Historical Auctions. How the noted celebrity hair collector and autograph consultant of nearby Westport, Connecticut is linked with the McConn family of Houston, Texas remains to be clarified. More questions about the tunnel anecdote as recounted in various leading newspapers and other media provoked a testy response from Basil Panagopulos on the Wehrmacht-Awards Forum website: "After a little research, it turns out our 88 year old veteran confused "Eva Braun's house" (miles distant, as I recall) with the Braune-haus [sic], which indeed has a tunnel to the Fuhrer-Bau. If you were a 20 year old GI from Texas who didn't know "Germany" from "Germination", with rumors abounding, you'd make the same mistake at the time as he did. As for "room decor", your proposition is, frankly, fantastic. We have purchased images from the Bundesarchiv (copyrighted) that CLEARLY show this desk set used in the signing, as do the LIFE images. I'm simply not going to react to any more such nonsensical allegations. Last word: if you go to Youtube and watch the videos there, you'll see the same desk set. This was no 'prop', it's 100% "right". Simply put: if you don't like it, don't bid on it. Case closed." 

In other words, the media had not exactly "got the story wrong", as Craig Gottlieb had previously asserted. The story recounted to them by Jack McConn was accurately reported but, according to Basil Panagopulos, the octogenarian veteran was "confused" and, in any case, as a twenty year old GI from Texas, "didn't know Germany from 'Germination'". John L McConn was a high school graduate from a good family. His brother was mayor of Houston at one point. The McConn family were from Tulsa, Oklahoma and had moved to Houston in 1939. After the war, John McConn attended university and earned a law degree and was head of the Houston Bar Association. Moreover, John McConn was commissioned from the ranks in December 1944 and was serving as a 1st Lieutenant and platoon commander with Company G, 179th Infantry when the regiment entered Munich at the end of April 1945 after participating in the liberation of the Dachau camp. He was also a Silver Star winner. So Mr McConn was hardly the uneducated Texas hayseed to whom Basil Panagopulos seemed to be referring with a breathtaking lack of respect for the client whose consignment he had not only failed to push beyond the low reserve figure but had then sold for less to one of his regular customers after the auction. Even assuming that the desk set might be the one photographed and filmed in 1938, the two self-styled, media-savvy specialists in whom Mr McConn had apparently placed his faith had failed their client dismally. The only conclusion to be drawn is that Messrs Gottlieb and Panagopulos are professionally incompetent or that serious potential buyers had already considered the desk set and felt unable to make offers for it for the reasons explored in this article and suggested by Mr Panagopulos as quoted: namely that if they did not like the look of the desk set, they should not bid on it. And as the record shows, those "with the coin", as Mr Gottlieb put it, did not bid on the desk set in 2008, in 2010 and in 2011. 

McConn states that he was ordered to guard the Führerbau with his men to guard artworks and other valuables. McConn is also reported as saying he was sent to the Führerbau with a detachment to guard artworks and remained there until the end of August, at which point he sent the desk set home to his father in Houston, Texas. On 6.5.1945, McConn sent a note to his family on a card bearing Hitler's monogram, indicating that he was indeed in the Führerbau at the end of or just before the end of the war. Interestingly, he spelt Hitler's forename in the German rather than the American style. Even more interestingly, McConn was able to acquire normal writing paper and US Airmail stamps in Germany a couple of days before the surrender. This letter home would be far more convincing were it a V-Mail communication, US postage stamps being a low priority item until months after the end of the war. But then, V-Mail would be harder to forge than something like this. 

Various media articles about the desk set in 2008 report that McConn sent the desk set home to his father in August 1945. In more recent versions of the story, McConn describes arriving at the Führerbau at the end of the war and meeting a corporal ascending from the basement with a number of Hitler's personal effects. The corporal told McConn about the desk set and McConn appropriated it and sent it home to his father in Houston. Yet there is no mention of the desk set in the note McConn sent his father and mother on Hitler's stationery on 6.5.1945. All of this is quite possible. However, Hitler's Adjutant Julius Schaub had visited Munich a few days before to remove and destroy any of Hitler's personal belongings and effects he could find and he is known to have fulfilled his late Führer's orders quite thoroughly. One thing is clear: the desk set first offered for sale by John L McConn in 2008, complete with a 2007 authentication from Steve Wolfe, does not seem to be quite the same as the desk set photographed on Hitler's desk in the Führerbau in 1938.

Offered by Alexandra Historical Auctions early in December 2011, the "Munich Pact Desk Set" became a Three Time Loser as bidding failed to reach the low reserve of $500,000. On 8.12.2011, the omnipresent Craig Gottlieb told members of the Wehrmacht-Awards Forum website that the bidding for the desk set had stopped at $380,000. And then WAF member Elmer Chen, the Hong Kong collector who reportedly paid Steve Wolfe $1 million for the unique Hermann Göring Großkreuz formal document, announced that the new owner was a West Coast collector. Confirming this, Alexandra Historical Auctions then announced that the highest bidder had secured the desk set for $423,000. Basil Panagopulos told journalists: "For all intents and purposes the desk set was sold to a longtime customer and devoted autograph collector". One is prompted to wonder what Mr Panagopulos meant by "for all intents and purposes". One is also prompted to wonder why the McConn family did not recover the desk set and entrust it to agents or auctioneers with a better track record than Messrs Gottlieb and Panagopulos. Again, the McConn family are not exactly desert scrub rednecks sharing a single set of dentures in a trailer park in the middle of nowhere, which in itself raises the question of why they did not simply contact serious auction houses in the first place. John McConn has been described as having wished to auction the desk set himself, hence the promotional website set up on 19.3.2008. However, this website was not quite the down home affair some observers assumed it to be. It is a slick production and the record shows that it was set up jointly by Mr McConn's legal firm and Magnet Media Group, a movie production company with offices in Los Angeles, Cologne and London. MMG CEO Jeanette Buerling has not responded to questions about her company's involvement with Burke McConn and the Munich Pact Desk Set. 

Once again, Craig Gottlieb popped up again on the Wehrmacht-Awards Forum website, of which he is said by former moderators to be one of the hidden owners, this time telling readers that he had initially offered John McConn $250,000 for the desk set. Yet on 10.11.2011, Mr Gottlieb had claimed that he had been unable to sell the desk set because Mr McConn insisted upon placing too high a price on on it: "...they've been told so many things about its value early on, that I think their expectations were too high (think millions). But, I think if Bill [Panagopulos] can get them to agree to a low starting bid, with no reserve, it will give those with the coin to compete for it, something realistic to shoot for". Mr Panagopulos certainly persuaded the McConns to agree to a low starting bid as well as a reserve well under the "millions" cited by Mr Gottlieb but having failed to stimulate the bidding, then sold the desk set for even less than the low reserve to a "longtime" and "devoted" customer. 

Some pundits have floated the theory that while the desk set introduced to the marketplace in 2008 visibly seems to differ to the one in the 1938 and 1940 photographs, it could be a period piece, a copy made by one of the various German arts and crafts guilds of the time as a gift for the Führer, perhaps for the study of his Munich flat in the Prinzregentenstrasse so that he could have a personal desk set like the one in his official Munich office. This is quite possible, of course, but again, it seems odd that this desk set bears no signature or maker's mark of any kind, nor even the foundry marks one normally expects to find on objects of this kind, especially as it would, hypothetically speaking, have been intended as a gift for the Führer and as an exercise in commercial promotion for the makers. Meanwhile, Basil Panagopulos continues to rant and rave in emails and on internet forums about the W C Stump blog, hurling accusations of racism and anti-Semitism and threatening those he suspects of being behind the pseudonym with legal action or smearing campaigns while Craig Gottlieb finds himself embroiled in yet another controversy involving questionable Nazi VIP memorabilia, in this case a school copybook purporting to have belonged to Heinrich Himmler. 

For the time being, nothing more has been heard of the desk set produced by John McConn just in time for the 70th anniversary of the Munich Pact. It is said to be somewhere in California and some pundits are running a betting book on whether it will reappear in one of the European auction houses in due course or whether it will be quietly smelted and turned into another Nazi VIP relic for the collectors who buy such memorabilia without, it seems, doing any basic research beforehand. On the other hand, such artefacts, real or fake, offer a way of moving five, six and seven-figure sums around in a form that is hard or even impossible to tax, because taxing collectibles - a fervent desire of taxmen and governments throughout the civilised world - is a serious vote-loser. Collectibles also offer a useful means of laundering money one might not be able to explain to the taxman, which might  explain, on the other hand, some of the astonishing and unjustified prices we have being seeing in recent years in spite of the worldwide economic crisis. 

To be continued…