Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Saudi King Abdullah ‘Treasures’ Dagger Gift From Hitler

Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah keeps, “treasures” and sometimes shows off a dagger given by Adolf Hitler himself to a visiting Saudi delegation in 1939.

This tidbit is contained in “The U.S.-Saudi Royal Rumble”, an article by Washington Institute expert Simon Henderson published on Sunday in Foreign Policy on the current tensions between the two countries.

“However, King Abdullah still treasures a dagger given as a gift from the Fuhrer himself, and occasionally shows it off to guests. Visiting U.S. officials are briefed in advance so they can display appropriate diplomatic sang-froid if Abdullah points out the memento,” Henderson writes.

The original report about Abdullah’s dagger comes from a 2004 book by Lebanese-American political science professor As’Ad AbhKhalil, “The Battle for Saudi Arabia.” Writing on the brief flirt between Nazi Germany and Saudi Arabia’s first monarch Ibn Saud, AbhKhalil cites a “private American source” who has visited the Saudi royal palace several times. He says that Abdullah “keeps in his displayed possessions a dagger given to him by Hitler.”

It’s not completely clear from the phrasing of the text whether the dagger was given to Abdullah himself – he was only 15 at the time – or to Ibn Saud; or, more likely, conveyed to Ibn Saudi during the well-documented (and possibly filmed) meeting on June 17, 1939 between Hitler and Ibn Saud’s emissary Khalid al-Hud al-Gargani that took place at the Nazi leader’s famous “Eagles Lair” retreat in Berchtesgaden in Bavaria.

Read more at Haaretz.com.

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.