915604
Heinrich Himmler
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Heinrich Himmler, 1900-1945. Nazi Reichsführer-SS; Chief of the German Police; Minister of Interior, 1943-1945. Rare and important association book signed, in German, Always yours / H. Himmler.
This book has an outstanding association. Himmler has inscribed and signed it as a birthday gift to Ulrich Graf, the man who most likely saved Adolf Hitler’s life during the Beer Hall Putsch, Hitler’s attempted coup d’etat against the Bavarian government in 1923. Himmler himself had also participated in the putsch. The inscription reads:
SS-Brigadeführer
Ulrich Graf
with my heartiest congratulations on your birthday
Always yours
H. Himmler
6 July 1943
Graf (1878-1950), an amateur wrestler and butcher’s apprentice, was one of Hitler’s early supporters. He was a charter member of the German Workers’ Party, which later merged with the National Socialist Party to form the National Socialist German Workers Party, or Nazi Party. He was Hitler’s personal bodyguard from 1920 to 1923.
Graf was present in the Bürgerbraukeller during the putsch on November 8, 1923. Hitler chose the beer hall because Bavarian officials whom he intended to kidnap were scheduled to address a meeting there. The Nazis captured the officials, but the revolt did not succeed. When it began to unravel, Hitler, at the suggestion of General Erich Ludendorff, decided that the Nazis would march into the Munich city center and take it over. Late the next morning some 3,000 Nazis marched with Hitler, Ludendorff, and Hermann Göring toward the center of Munich. Himmler, a young member of the party, carried one of the flags.
The Nazis headed toward the War Ministry building but were blocked by about 100 armed police and soldiers who ignored Hitler’s demand to surrender. In the ensuing gun battle, which lasted about a minute, 16 Nazis and three police were killed. Graf jumped onto Hitler to shield him and took several bullets, likely saving Hitler’s life. Hitler, his shoulder dislocated in the action, crawled along the sidewalk to a waiting car, leaving his associates behind. The rest of the Nazis scattered or were arrested.
Hitler was later arrested, tried for treason, and sentenced to five years at Landsberg Prison. He served only six months, however, and during that time dictated to Rudolf Hess the book that became Mein Kampf.
Graf recovered from his wounds. He was later elected to the German Reichstag in 1936. The next year, he became an Oberführer in what by then had become Himmler’s SS. On April 20, 1943, less than three months before Himmler gave him this book, Graf became an SS Brigadeführer, or brigadier general. He survived World War II and died in March 1950.
The SS, or Schutzstaffel, was the Nazi Protective Squadron. Originally the party’s paramilitary unit, the SS was considered an elite unit whose members were selected for their racial and ideological backgrounds. Among its several branches were the Security Service, the Sicherheitsdienst or SD, which was the SS and later the Nazi party intelligence agency, and the Secret State Police, the Geheime Staatspolizei or Gestapo. The SD was charged with obtaining secret information about the actual and potential enemies of the Nazi leadership so that the Nazis could take appropriate action to destroy or neutralize opposition, and the Gestapo similarly targeted those thought not to be fully committed to the Nazi way of life or those who pursued “non-German” activities.
This book is entitled Vogt Bartold: Der große Züg nach dem Osten, or Vogt Bartold: The Long Train to the East, which we understand is a novel about eastern expansion in the Middle Ages. It was published in Leipzig, Germany, and is printed in old German script. In a way it parallels Nazi expansionism under the concept of Lebensraum and undoubtedly would have been the kind of book that Himmler himself would have enjoyed.
Himmler has signed this book with a magnificent 3¼” signature on the free endpaper. The inscription and signature are in excellent condition. Himmler’s signatures do not come any better than this. The ink from Himmler’s initial H has offset onto the inside of the front cover, providing, in a sense, a second autograph.
The book itself is in good to very good condition overall. The hardcover binding is separating in the back and is a little loose, the corners of the cover boards are worn, and there are notes of provenance inside the back cover. The original dust jacket accompanies the book, but it is in poor condition. Both the dust jacket and the book show some dampstaining, more on the dust jacket than on the book itself. The stains do not affect the endpaper bearing Himmler’s inscription and signature. The scans below accurately show the condition.
While we reject Nazism and all that it represented, we offer this book because it is an outstanding historical piece that belongs in the finest World War II collection.
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