Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Oregon Man Finds Nazi Paperwork Signed By Hitler And Himmler

Heinrich Himmler, center, shaking Adolf Hitler’s hand in April 1939.

A man says he found documents from Nazi Germany containing the signatures of Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, Joaquim von Ribbentrop and other prominent Nazis in a van he bought at an auction, the Register-Guard reported. The man, from Eugene, Oregon, bought the 1985 blue Ford Econoline at an auction in mid-September, and discovered the paperwork about a week later.

“I’m still in awe that I have Hitler’s ­autograph,” Ron Post, 59, said.

“I wanted to make it into a prospecting rig,” Post added. “I like to prospect for gold.”

The documents have not been determined to be authentic by experts. Gary Piattoni, an appraiser for the PBS show “Antique Roadshow,” told the Register-Guard that many World War II soldiers brought home pilfered documents from their service. A professor of early modern German history at the University of Oregon who examined the documents said that they may have been part of one person’s Nazi signature collection.

The trove, which contains mostly administrative materials, has a Christmas card apparently signed by Hitler. They date to between the late 1920s and 1944.

Contact Ari Feldman at [email protected] or on Twitter @aefeldman.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.