Hitler Items Donated To Jewish Group To Keep Them Out Of 'Bad Hands'

Personal folding cylinder marked "AH" for Adolf Hitler, held at the Hermann Historica auction house (Picture: Matthias Balk/PA Images).

A businessman has purchased Adolf Hitler's top hat and other Nazi memorabilia from a German auction, to keep them out of the hands of neo-Nazis.

He has also agreed to donate them to a Jewish group.

Abdallah Chatila, a Lebanese Christian and Swiss resident, said he paid €600,000 (£510,000) for the items at the auction in Munich last week.

He said he intended to destroy them after reading of Jewish groups' objections to the sale.

"I wanted to make sure that these pieces wouldn't fall into bad hands, to the wrong side of the story, so I decided to buy them," he said.

Shortly before the auction, Mr Chatila decided it would be better to donate them to a Jewish organisation, and got in touch with the Keren Hayesod-United Israel Appeal group.

Mr Chatila said he will never even see the items, which include a silver-plated edition of Hitler's "Mein Kampf" and a typewriter used by the dictator's secretary.

The items will be sent directly to the Jewish organisation.

"I have no direct interest whatsoever, I just thought it was the right thing to do," he said.

Keren Hayesod's European director told France's Le Point magazine that while no final decision had been made on what to do with the items, they would likely be sent to Israel's Yad Vashem memorial, which has a selection of Nazi artefacts.

The European Jewish Association (EJA), which had led the campaign against the auction going ahead, applauded Mr Chatila for stepping in.

"Such a conscience, such an act of selfless generosity to do something that you feel strongly about is the equivalent of finding a precious diamond in an Everest of coal," EJA chairman, Rabbi Menachem Margolin, said to Mr Chatila, in a letter.

"You have set an example for the world to follow when it comes to this macabre and sickening trade in Nazi trinkets."