Auctioneer defends inclusion of Nazi memorabilia in Irish sale

Nazi memorabilia including a statue of Adolf Hitler are among items going for auction later this week in Co Wicklow.

The statue of Hitler in uniform (€100-€150) a plaque of Hitler €100-€150) and a cast-iron novelty money box in the form of him saluting (€80-€120) will be auctioned by Mullen’s at Laurel Park in Bray on Saturday.

Hitler Youth and League of German Girls uniforms, Nazi badges, a Nazi party rally armband and a bust of Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini are also among the 413 items which constitute one of the biggest auctions of historical memorabilia in recent years.

Auctioneer Stuart Purcell said the Nazi memorabilia came from two Irish collectors who are now deceased.

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“I have a lot of experience of handling this stuff, I have weeded out all the fakes at this stage,” Mr Purcell said.

“It’s historical memorabilia. It was in a good percentage of the world. Even the postmen in Nazi Germany were wearing swastikas, firemen were wearing helmets with eagles and swastikas. German society in the 1930s functioned as a paramilitary society.”

Mr Purcell said the presence of a fireman’s helmet with Nazi party symbols showed how the party’s ideology had permeated all aspects of German society in the 1930s.

“From the age of 13 every boy had to be in the Hitler Youth. That was the law. Some people believe all this stuff belongs in a museum, but I don’t know any collection of Nazi memorabilia in Ireland or of anything related to the rise of fascism in Europe.”

It is illegal in some European countries including Germany, Austria and France to sell Nazi memorabilia. There is no ban on such sales in the UK or Ireland, but major auction houses, including Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Bonhams refuse to sell items related to Nazi Germany.

Art dealer and gallery owner Oliver Sears said any sale of Nazi memorabilia is “absolutely appalling”.

Mr Sears’s mother Monika Sears (86) is a Holocaust survivor and Mr Sears is the founder of Holocaust Awareness Ireland.

Such material, he said, is “without any taste or any moral compass. There is no understanding of history, there is nothing of the hurt it causes people of my generation. There is no understanding of how these symbols are recycled and used by a growing far-right element. The idea that these are collectors’ items is beyond me.”

Mr Sears suggested that the auction house should donate the material free of charge to a museum to ascertain whether the items are of historical value or not.

Other items in the sale include the cutlery used by Irish revolutionary Michael Collins at his last meal, which he ate at the Eldon Hotel in Skibbereen on the evening of August 22nd, 1922, before he ran into the ambush at Beal na Bláth.

Mounted on the leaves of a silk-shaped shamrock and accompanied by a letter of provenance, it was given to his love, Kitty Kiernan, following Collins’s death. The cutlery’s estimated sale price is €1,500-€2,000.

A number of other lots, from photographs and portraits of Collins to a limited-edition centenary medal (46/50) at €300-€500 are also for sale.

Other lots include an Israeli Uzi submachine gun (€500-€700) and a Russian AK-47 (€800-€1,200), both of which have been decommissioned, as well as a 300-year-old pair of leg irons (€150-€200). An album of 41 signed photographs of the 31 astronauts involved in the Apollo programme, including moonwalkers Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Alan Shepard, is guiding €1,000-€1,500.

The “collectors’ cabinet” auction takes place at the Laurel Park salesrooms in Woodbrook, Bray, on Saturday, March 11th, beginning at 10am. See mullenslaurelpark.com for more information.