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Massive Inscribed Historic Hitler Presentation to Goring Sterling Silver Platter with Gem Decoration

Currency:USD Category:Firearms & Military Start Price:27,500.00 USD Estimated At:55,000.00 - 85,000.00 USD
Massive Inscribed Historic Hitler Presentation to Goring Sterling Silver Platter with Gem Decoration
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Massive Inscribed Historic Hitler Presentation to Goring Sterling Silver Platter with Gem Decoration

Measuring two feet across, the center of this platter is dominated by a scene of the Conversion of Saint Hubertus. Like most European nobility, Hubertus, son of the Duke of Aquitane, was an avid hunter, a hobby which turned to an obsession following the loss of his wife during childbirth, with some accounts stating that he had descended not only to poaching but to just killing animals for practice. Legend has it that one Sunday, taking advantage of everyone being at Church, he proceeded into the woods only to be confronted by a massive stag with a brilliant crucifix positioned between its antlers and a voice from the heavens commanding him to either go to Lambert, Bishop of Masstricht, for instruction or prepare himself for the fires of hell. Hubertus, armed with a crossbow, is seen on this platter looking across a small brook to see the mighty stag, with one key variation; in accordance with National Socialist tradition, Hubertus is staring in awe not at a crucifix, but at a "sunwheel" pattern swastika, effectively hybridizing symbols of the German Hunters Association and the Luftwaffe, both organizations headed by Hermann Goering. The level of detail in the scene is very high, with the individually engraved leaves framing a wide cross section of German small game, including a perched eagle on the left tree framing the stag (a near copy of the resting eagle seen on the Luftwaffe "Retired Aviator" badge), and a small shield leaning against the tree on the right, bearing the symbol of a mailed right arm holding a ring aloft, Goering's personal crest. Around the rim is a two line inscription, divided by a pair of swastikas, "Die Treue ist das Mark der Ehre" (Honor is the Mark of Loyalty) and "Reichsjaegerhof Romintern" (Reichs Hunting Lodge Romintern), with the second line broken by a "HG" monogram with oak leaf accents. Built in 1936, Romintern was Goering's chief hunting lodge built as a more rustic copy of his "Carinhall" estate. Finally, completing the rim is a 1 1/8 inch wide border decorated with a series of 94 individually engraved raised three dimensional oak leaves with acorns spread in clusters among 28 round and oval emeralds and 44 similarly carved and shaped pieces of amber. On the back of the platter is the mark "ZEITLER/BERLIN" of Professor Herbert Zeitner, top gold and silversmith of the Third Reich along the bottom of the rim with the "925" purity mark and "HZ" hallmark, the German Worker's Front hammer icon over "ENTWURF-NS-HAGO/HANDARBEIT" handwork on the bottom of the bowl, and the inscription "Meine alten Parteigenossen/Hermann Goring/dem Schirmherren des Deutschen Tierschutzgesetzes/in Anerkennung zugeeignet/Weihnachten 1940/Adolph Hitler" (My old Party Comrade/Hermann Goering/the Guardian of the German Animal Protection Law/in Dedicated Recognition/Christmas 1940/Adolph Hitler) over the replicated signature of Hitler. In his role as the Prussian Minister of the Interior, Goring spearheaded a number of animal protection acts including the first European ban of vivisection, as well as the Reichstierschutzgesetz (Reich Animal Protection Act), which gave a then-unprecedented level of protection from abuse to German wildlife, going so far as to threaten would-be violators with being thrown into a concentration camp. While Hitler, reportedly a vegetarian, and Goering, a prolific killer of wild game, had their own reasons for supporting these laws, Hitler still saw them as some of Goering's finest work in the legal field. At the time this platter would have been presented, Christmas Eve of 1940, Nazi Germany was nearing the peak of it's power and prestige, with France and Belgium beneath Hitler's thumb, Eastern Europe claimed by the Wehrmacht, Axis troops marching across Mediterranean Africa, Japan making early strides against the Americans in the Pacific and Goring's Luftwaffe set to deliver the heart of Great Britain and the promised "lebensraum" of Russia right into the Nazi's hands. It was also the beginning of the end; Operation Barbarossa's early successes in the face of Stalin's "scorched earth" retreat would soon give way to a horrible, multi-year meat grinder of brutal combat, with the Luftwaffe not able to keep the Ostfront supplied or suppress the Royal Air Force, bringing the Battle of Britain to a close and ending Operation Sea-lion before it could begin, while the Americans, less intimidated and more outraged by Hitler's chiefly symbolic declaration of war, promptly went from merely providing material to the Allies to procecuting a two-front war in their own right. As the situation continued to degenerate, Romintern, the lodge this platter was made to adorn, became Goering's refuge from the reality of the war, with the Luftwaffe suffering painful losses while failing to keep the Soviets out of Eastern Europe and the Royal Air Force and United States Army Air Forces from gutting the German industrial heartland by night and day. In the closing days of the Reich, just before Goering made the nearly fatal mistake of pre-emptively declaring himself Hitler's direct successor, a large number of artifacts and treasures from Carinhall and Romintern were stashed in Goering's childhood home, the castle Burg Veldenstein. By the time the U.S. Army was able to secure the area, the locals had already helped themselves to the stockpile, causing most of these treasures to disappear for decades after the War. Goering himself surrendered to the Western Allies, and was the second highest ranked Nazi, and the highest ranked member of Hitler's stalwarts and old fighters to face the Nuremburg Trials. As a final act of defiance, mere hours before his scheduled execution by hanging, Goering committed suicide via cyanide pill on October 15, 1946.

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Excellent. The silver shows a fine aged patina overall, with a few slightly lighter areas. The lines of the engraving show a particularly dark color across most of the platter, giving attractive depth and contrast to the design. All of the decoration is expertly performed, showing a level of skill and precision of a true master silversmith. Taken purely as an art item, the platter is a showcase of the silversmith and jeweler's art. Within the context of its time, it is an artifact of one of history's greatest turning points, when the rolling wave of Nazi Germany, seemingly unstoppable, was on the verge of breaking.