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Sold: Hitler's globe fetches £50,000 at auction - five times its estimate
Last updated at 01:20 14 Novembro 2007
A globe that once belonged to Adolf Hitler has sold at auction in San Francisco for £50,000 - more than five times its estimate.
An American soldier found the globe among the ruins of Hitler's "Eagle's Nest" in the Bavarian Alps in May 1945.
John Barsamian took it home and kept it for more than 60 years - along with all the military paperwork that allowed him to take the globe to the U.S.
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Sold: Ex-U.S. soldier John Barsamian shows off Hitler's globe
Greg Martin, proprietor of the auction house that handled the sale and had estimated the item at £10,000, said: "This is probably the most airtight documentation I've run across in some time.
"We have pictures of the guy there at the time, standing in the ruins holding the globe like a newborn baby.
Eagle's Nest: Hitler studies a map at his retreat in the Bavarian Alps
"The guy is a meticulous record keeper."
The 91-year-old was at the sale yesterday with his son Barry when San Francisco entrepreneur Bob Pritikin placed the winning bid.
He had found the globe in the ruins of Hitler's home in Berchtesgaden.
Other soldiers had already looted the inside of his private residence, even stripping the leather from furniture.
Nearly everything of value was gone - except for the Fuhrer's globe.
"Literally, the place is all bombed out and here this globe is sitting there on the desk," he said.
He boxed it up with a few other keepsakes, including a pistol and a dagger, and shipped them home to Oakland in California.
"Hardly anyone knew I had it," he added.