Selling off the contents of Germany Embassy in 1945, nice surprise at 1 minute 30 seconds & see the Standards & what they say in the corners. British Pathe - LOT 597 I also like the auctioneer's comment, " As my Colonel used to say in the last war before going over the top, 'Let the carnage begin!' "
Fascinating stuff. Where are they now I wonder? More lots here: 1946 London at War ww2 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Trawling Google's Newspapers. A controversial sale, with some dodgy buyers: Capt. Gordon Canning of the British Union of Fascists paid £500 for the Hitler bust: The Deseret News. - Google News Archive Search "EMBASSY FURNISHINGS SOLD. LONDON, Tuesday. - Furnishings from the German Embassy in London brought £198,000 at the first day of the auction. Private buyers often outbid dealers. No less than £7,000 was paid for carpets" NLA Australian Newspapers - article display Auction Ribbentrop Carpets But Hang Onto His Hock . This one's interesting - buyer at the auction that saw Hitler as 'A Divine Instrument' beaten up in December that year: BIND, GAG, KIDNAP AND BEAT HITLER CULT HALL CUSTODIAN . SEE GRAVE HARM TO ALLIES IN CULT'S HITLER WORSHIP Hitler Divinity Belief Grows .
Looking for a catalogue - file at The NA seems to have it: German Embassy, Carlton House Terrace, Post-1945 - Your Archives1. WORK 12/417 1945 - 1949 Disposal of former German Embassy property 7/9 Carlton House Terrace. The above file contains lists of furniture, carpets, picture, silver, china, cooking utensils and wine (924 bottles). There is correspondence on the disposal of these items and a debate on whether some items could be re-used in other Foreign Office buildings. In the main, the furniture was considered "too Germanic". The silver was to be referred as a silversmith to see if the swastikas could be removed and crowns substituted. Pictures, books, etc., were offered to other institutions, notably the Imperial War Museum. Remaining items were to be auctioned and the file contains sale catalogues. The auction also prompted a letter from a member of parliament concerned that ex-Nazi property would end up in the wrong hands.
Adam, I see that at least one MP was thinking about the future when he commented about the possibility of the Nazi property ending up in the wrong hands. I think that the Government of the day needed as much ready cash as possible, so little thought on the matter. Regards Tom
I'd love to know where those 'London-fahne' are now. One has the sneaking suspicion; still in the same shrine somewhere that they've been placed in since 1946...
Associated article.... The contents of the German Embassy were sold off in a six-day sale, with a bust of Hitler going for £500 to the owner of Blackpool Pier, and Billy Butlin snapping up Ribbentrop's semi-circular dining-table for £1,000 for the committee at his Skegness holiday camp................ Sources From Blitz to boom - Telegraph another here dealing with Artwork Whose art is it anyway? - Telegraph Verrieres
I wonder if there is something of a veil... even finding out precisely the name of the Japanese Ambassador in the UK at the time seems somewhat tricky... PRIME MINISTER'S DECLARATION. (Hansard, 8 December 1941)
