Our history with the desk set

In the summer of 1945 after the war in Europe had ended, I was quartered, with other American soldiers in Hitler’s headquarters in Munich for a short time. We called the building the “Feuerbau”.  It was located on the Konigsplatz in Munich.

After another soldier in my outfit had shown some of us some personal effects of Hitler’s which he had found in one of the cellars in this building, I asked him if he had seen anything else there. He replied that he had seen a large bronze desk set.

I should add that Hitler’s office was on what I recall as the second floor of the building. When we arrived at the building, Hitler’s office had been stripped of furnishings. The building was burned in an upper floor, evidently the result of bombing , and I believe that Hitler’s effects had been removed from his office and taken to one of the cellars of the building.

After my discussion with the soldier mentioned above, I went down in the cellar to the place therein which he had said he found the other effects of Hitler’s . At that place I located a large bronze desk set with raised initials on it of “A” and “H”. It also had on it in raised form an eagle and a swastika. It was obviously Hitler’s desk set from his office upstairs. I boxed up the desk set and mailed it to my father in the States