Police recover Hitler vase gift

A vase given to Adolf Hitler has been turned over to US investigators rounding up a collection of Nazi artefacts stolen from a Utah storage unit.

The vase was one of five items stolen in a burglary at the unit in 2005. Three other items were confiscated this week from an antiques dealer, who had been approached by a man who wanted to sell them.

The items were apparently taken from Hitler’s “Eagle’s Nest” mountain home in the Bavarian Alps by an American soldier during the Second World War. The soldier’s son found the collection after his father died and put everything in storage.

The vase was recovered on Thursday, a few hours after sheriff’s detectives unveiled other pieces. A bronze bust of Hitler is still missing.

The green ceramic vase is ringed with a band of swastikas and German accolades to Hitler, including “for the chancellor”. The vase also has the date 1933, the year the Nazis were elected and Hitler’s reign began.

It was turned in by a man who said he had received it from somebody else, now dead. Detectives plan to interview the man to see if he knew anything about the 2005 burglary, Salt Lake County sheriff’s Lt Paul Jaroscak said.

Sheriff’s Detective Scott Van Wagoner said he received a call yesterday about the missing bronze bust and hoped to have it recovered soon. A former prison inmate with white supremacist ties supplied a possible location.

The collection also includes a scroll, an ornate parchment and an hand-bound history of Henry the Lion, the 12th-century duke of Bavaria and Saxony. All are addressed to Hitler and were apparently gifts given to him when he came to power.

A German history professor at the University of Utah doubts the documents have much financial value.

“Priceless is a big exaggeration. ... He probably didn’t even see most of these,” Ronald Smelser said. “They probably piled up in a room.”

Smelser said some of the documents probably bestowed honorary citizenship on Hitler, a common practice in German towns at the time.

“There must have been hundreds of those. Germans tried to curry favour,” he said.

It is unclear whether the soldier’s son will get the items back. He refused to comment and asked not to be named.

Van Wagoner said he had contacted the FBI to learn how to verify that the items were brought to the US through the proper military channels. If the family can prove that the artefacts were not smuggled in, they will be returned.

The sheriff’s office would also like to find the person who stole the items from the storage unit two years ago.

Smelser said it was important to keep the pieces away from white supremacists who admired Hitler.

“They’re almost sacred objects to them,” he said.