In the incalculable number of photos showing Adolf Hitler, one rarely sees his left wrist (his right wrist, by the way, only marginally more often). And the head of the NSDAP almost never wears a watch; on only very few pictures there is a shadow that could be interpreted as a bracelet. In fact, by 1921 at the latest he had been accustomed to always having an adjutant or a personal servant around whom he could ask the time.

However, Hitler’s watch habits become interesting thanks to an auction that has now taken place in the USA. The controversial antique dealer Alexander Auctions in Chesapeake City (US state of Maryland) sold a wristwatch for 1.1 million dollars on July 28, 2022. According to the text of the offer, it was “probably given to Adolf Hitler on April 20, 1933”, i.e. on his 44th birthday. It is “a relic from the Second World War of historical dimensions”. Bill Panagopulos, the owner of the auction house, told the London newspaper Daily Mail: “The watch was probably presented to Hitler in 1933, after he was made Chancellor.”

What is particularly interesting about this statement is the word “probably”, because it is even more likely that it is a forgery, more precisely: a falsification. This is how the Dutch journalist Bart F. M. Droog sees it, who has been exposing Hitler fakes for years and has always been right. He published a detailed analysis of the watch on offer in his English-language “Droog Magazine”. But even if this object was actually made in the early 1930s and given to Hitler as a gift, the dictator certainly never used it.

The object offered is a “Reverso”, i.e. a reversible clock. Because the thin glasses of wristwatches were still very sensitive at the time, you could simply turn the side with the dial and the glass cover over so that the back was visible.

According to Alexander Auctions, Munich watchmaker Andreas Huber assembled the piece from several parts: first, a Swiss-manufactured LeCoultre hand-wound movement, numbered ‘12755’ and manufactured in December 1932; second, a case of gold; third, a frame of some other gold; fourth, a black dial with the inscription “Huber”; fifthly, a strap made of lizard leather with a pin buckle made of another gold.

Even such a compilation is strange. The offer becomes completely mysterious, however, due to the engraving on the back of the case. There is an NSDAP “party eagle” (view and beak are turned to the right instead of to the left as seen with the imperial eagle) above a swastika painted with red, black and white paint in an engraved wreath, which is oversized for such an engraving from oak leaves.

Three groups of numbers are engraved around the wreath in an idiosyncratic script: “20.4.89 – 30.1.33 – 5.3.33”. They obviously stand for three dates: Hitler’s birthday (April 20, 1889), the day of his appointment as Reich Chancellor (January 30, 1933) and the day of the Reichstag election on March 5, 1933. The latter is surprising because this last nationwide vote with competing Parties in Germany until 1949 was anything but a holiday in National Socialist ideology.

Below the party symbol with the three dates are the letters “A” and “H”, also in an unusual typeface. Alexander Auctions speaks of “Art Deco initials”, but these two letters are not typical of typography from the 1920s.

Droog thinks the offered watch is a manipulation. “It is impossible to determine exactly when this multi-manufacturer watch was put together. Not even when the engravings were made on the back,” writes the Dutchman: “The lack of patina in the engravings is in any case a warning sign.”

On request, Jaeger-LeCoulture, as the company has been called since 1937, announced in 2017 that it had not listed a watchmaker “Huber” as the recipient of the movement: “In view of the different parts, the lack of a brand name and the impossibility of telling the history of this watch based on From archival records, we are unable to issue a certificate of authenticity for this watch.” In view of this, Droog stated before the auction: “It should be clear that without a certificate of authenticity, only complete fools ; ed.) will bid on this item.”

Another expert is not quite as decisive. “The watch can be contemporary,” says Harald Sandner, author of the “Hitler Itinerary,” a very useful four-volume index of all the dictator’s whereabouts. A fanatical supporter could well have intended it for him: “He was given a lot.”

However, Sandner is certain that the dictator did not use this object: “Hitler rarely wore wristwatches, if at all – and when he did, he never wore such a kitschy item.” Instead, he carried pocket watches with him, but he used them so well like never used. Rather, he usually asked his servant or someone else in his entourage. Sandner adds: “There is a film from around 1936/37 in which he takes a wristwatch from the left breast pocket of his civilian jacket and reads the time. But that was also a normal, round wristwatch.”

In short: It is highly unlikely that the object sold for 1.1 million dollars is a real devotional object. Rather, it is likely to be a product of the “Hitler counterfeiting industry”, as Bart F. M. Droog calls the questionable branch of auction houses in the USA, Germany and some other countries.

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