Alexander Autographs A bottle of wine from Adolf Hitler’s personal wine cellar at his mountain retreat, the Berghof.It was supposed to be a straightforward news story: an auction house was finding that items believed to have belonged to Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun were in high demand, even in a recession. But a coincidence along the way led to a mystery.
It all began when the auctioneer, Alexander Autographs, in Stamford, Conn., announced the sale of possessions from the respected collector John K. Lattimer. Building on connections made during his time working at the Nuremburg war tribunals, Dr. Lattimer had collected a vast trove of memorabilia before his death in 2007, including a matchbox with Hitler’s initials, a powder compact with Eva Braun’s initials and a 1934 bottle of Bordeaux believed to from Hitler’s wine cellar at his mountain residence, the Berghof.
In a catalog of auctioned items, the bottle’s label stated that the wine was from St.-Émilion in France, and it featured
the village’s church. But there was a problem: On the label, St.-Émilion was presented as a flat village with a Stalinist-style structure towering over the church. Having been married there just last
October, I did not recall any structure that looked like that. That night, my husband and I pored through our wedding photos, but we found nothing of that scale near the church.
Alexander Autographs said it had proof that the bottle was authentic: Mohawk Arms, an established auctioneer in Bouckville, N.Y, had vetted the bottle when it was sold to Dr. Lattimer in 1975, and it had the 1975 letter and invoice. Alexander Autographs also had the catalog from the 1975 auction, stating: “In 1945, a team of U.S. Army demolition experts were dispatched to the Berghof to completely destroy the Hitler summer residence. One of the G.I.’s placed one of the bottles from the cellar in his jacket before the entire building was completely destroyed.”
Evan Lattimer, Dr. Lattimer’s daughter, said that the bottle — half empty from years of poor storage — looked authentic to her and even came in a box that appeared official, with German lettering.
But why didn’t the bottle list a specific chateau? Why did it have a German label with a strange interpretation of the village where I got married? Was this just a bottle of table wine?
On May 14, the bottle sold for $900. While the buyer would not give his name, Matt Brennan, research and cataloging specialist of Alexander Autographs, described him as the owner of a high-end Manhattan wine store and a collector.
He said the new owner did not plan to drink the wine or even display it. He wanted to keep it in his office and show it to some friends. He told Mr. Brennan that the bottle reminded him of the phrase “in vino veritas” — in wine there is truth — and that he was “fascinated by the idea that Hitler, in the midst of planning such awful atrocities, would stop to enjoy a glass of wine.”
But that answer raised more questions than it revealed truths. Another purchaser of Hitler-related memorabilia at the auction e-mailed to say he had not bid on the wine bottle because Hitler was not known for drinking.
Donald and Petie Kladstrup, co-authors of “Wine and War: The French, the Nazis, and the Battle for France’s Greatest Treasure,” had some answers. The couple had interviewed soldiers and families who were in the wine trade during the war and had seen many of the bottles owned by Hitler and other high-ranking officials. They said Hitler occasionally drank wine, though he preferred beer.
But they, too, had concerns about the bottle. They had interviewed Bernard de Nonancourt, a French soldier who first opened the wine cellars at the Berghof and discovered that Hitler had a formidable wine collection.
Many of Hitler’s high-ranking officials had connections to the wine industry and made sure that their cellars were filled. That means it is questionable that Hitler would have a bottle of wine without the name of a specific chateau. They also pointed out that there was no need for soldiers to “smuggle” any items out of the Berghof because at the time many soldiers were openly walking out with memorabilia.
“The whole question of provenance is really, really up in the air,” Mr. Kladstrup said. “It sets off alarm bells left and right.”
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