The watch, adorned with “AH,” a swastika, and the first Nazi Party eagle, is appraised at $1.6 million and could bring 10 times that, said the Maryland-based seller Alexander Historical Auctions.
The watch is one of several eye-popping items from World War II in Alexander’s upcoming auction. Another coveted watch included in the sale was a gift from Benito Mussolini to Adolf Hitler's top SS commando, Otto “Scarface” Skorzeny, who rescued the Italian dictator from imprisonment on an Italian mountaintop in 1943. The gold watch bears Mussolini's initial"M" and was taken from Skorzeny by an American interrogator.
Panagopulos said the watch was taken by the first French troops to enter the evacuated Berghof at the end of the European war in May 1945.