Auction of Hitler Notes Sparks Controversy

A recent auction of handwritten speech notes scrawled by none other than Adolf Hitler, Führer of Nazi Germany, aroused the ire of Jewish groups, which find the commercial activity reprehensible since the Nazi regime was responsible for the deaths of more than six million Jews during the 12 years of the Third Reich. When the past goes under the hammer, it is likely to evoke emotion. Those who can afford to pay the price hold history in their hands. However, in the case of the Hitler speech notes, is there an ugly undercurrent of neo-Nazi fervor that may be stoked? The line between history and hate is blurred. Is there middle ground? The speech notes were all written before World War II and meant for addresses to Nazi audiences. They do, in fact, mention the “Jewish Problem” and preparations for going to war. Bernard Pacher, managing director of the Hermann Historica auction house in Munich, offered them for sale in October 2020, with an estimated price of $3,000 to $8,800. “These are handwritten notes from Adolf Hitler, where if you analyze what he wrote ... you can prove he was publicly speaking about going to war, about ‘resolving the Jewish problem,’” Pacher told an Associated Press reporter via telephone. “If we destroy these things and they do not go into a museum for experts to work on them, you will leave the interpretation of what was happening to the right-wing Nazi apologists, who will say Hitler never said that. The man was preparing the Germans th