SUMMARY:This offering is a very rare promotion document for Hermann Fegelein, Hitler'd brother-in-law, who was being promoted to Brigadire General in the Waffen SS.

Adolf Hitler (1889 – 1945) was an Austrian-born politician who led the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei NSDAP),or the Nazi Party. He was Chancellor of Germany (1933–1945) and Führer und Reichskanzler of Germany (1934–1945).

Typed Document Signed, Adolf Hitler, one page, 8¼” x 11¾”, with integral leaf attached, Führer Headquarters, June 10, 1944. In German,This is an excellent association document in which Hitler promotes Hermann Fegelein, who married the sister of Hitler's mistress Eva Braun, to the dual, corresponding ranks of SS Gruppenführer and Waffen-SS Generalleutnant, the equivalent of a lieutenant general. The promotion was effective June 21, 1944.

This document is on Hitler’s engraved stationery of DER FÜHRER blind embossed with the Nazi eagle at the upper left. Hitler has signed in black fountain pen with the small, rather crabbed signature that was typical of his later handwriting. The document is slightly toned, shows general handling, and has a small stain at the bottom left and a tiny ink docket in the lower right corner. The document is dated a week after Fegelein married Margarethe "Gretl" Braun on June 3, 1944. Himmler presided at the ceremony. A two-day celebration followed at the Bavarian mountain retreats of Hitler and Martin Bormann on the Obersalzburg, above Berchtesgaden. Some historians contend that this promotion was a wedding present from Hitler to Fegelein and Braun.Overall it is in fine to very fine condition.

Fegelein's own autograph material is rare enough, but this is one of only three of Fegelein's personal service documents of which we are aware. We are currently offering a second one, signed by Heinrich Himmler, the Reichsführer-SS, conferring an earlier promotion in March 1940. The third, Hitler's award to Fegelein of the oak leaves to the Knight's Cross, is illustrated in Volume I of Charles Hamilton's classic work Leaders & Personalities of the Third Reich.FEGELEIN IS ONE OF 159 GERMAN SOLDIERS WHO WAS AWARDED THE KNIGHTS CROSS OF THE IRON CROSS WITH OAK LEAVES AND SWORDS.

The document is dated a week after Fegelein married Margarethe "Gretl" Braun on June 3, 1944. Himmler presided at the ceremony. A two-day celebration followed at the Bavarian mountain retreats of Hitler and Martin Bormann on the Obersalzburg, above Berchtesgaden.Some historians contend that this promotion was a wedding present from Hitler to Fegelein and Braun.

Fegelein, who was 37 at the time of this promotion, was a favorite of Himmler. Nicknamed BY OTHERS AS Himmler’s “golden boy,” he thus rapidly rose through the ranks after joining the SS in 1933. Hitler’s biographer Ian Kershaw labels him a “swashbuckling, womanizing, cynical opportunist,” and indeed Fegelein had several extramarital affairs after he married Gretl Braun. Still he had substance as well as style: He earned 21 decorations, including decorations for being twice wounded while commanding the 8th SS Cavalry Division on the Eastern Front in September 1943.

As the promotion document notes, Fegelein had won the Ritterkreuz, the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, which recognized extreme battlefield bravery or successful leadership. He received it in three successive degrees: the Knight's Cross on March 2, 1942; with oak leaves on December 22, 1942; and, the month after this promotion, with swords on July 30, 1944. Fegelein was one of only 159 soldiers who received Knight's Cross with both oak leaves and swords, the third of five degrees.

After Fegelein was wounded, Himmler brought him back to Berlin, where he made him his adjutant and the Waffen-SS representative on Hitler's staff. His opportunism perhaps led him to marry Gretl. He did, however, return to the field in command of the 8th SS Cavalry Division "Florian Geyer," for which he received swords to the Knight's Cross with oak leaves.

In January 1945, Fegelein served as a liaison officer between Himmler and Hitler at the Führer Headquarters. He was in Hitler's bunker at the Reich Chancellery in Berlin as Soviet troops closed in on the city in April 1945. On April 26, he left the bunker and returned home to Charlottenburg, on the outskirts of Berlin. Hitler noticed his absence the next day, and the SS discovered him that evening drunk at his apartment, in civilian clothes, with a woman and considerable money, his bags packed to leave. The SS hustled him back to the bunker, where he was stripped of his decorations and held. About the same time, Hitler learned that Himmler had secretly met with Count Folke Bernadotte, vice president of the Swedish Red Cross and a close relative of the King of Sweden, to discuss surrender to the American and British forces. Hitler, enraged, concluded that Fegelein was part of Himmler's intrigue.

Historical accounts vary as to whether Eva Braun tried to intervene with Hitler, since Gretl was then pregnant, and whether Fegelein was condemned at a hastily-arranged court martial or simply shot without a trial. What seems clear is that Fegelein was shot in the courtyard of the Reich Chancellery by an SS squadron on April 29, 1945. Hitler's last surviving bodyguard, Rochus Misch, told the German magazine Der Spiegel in 2007 that Hitler did not order Fegelein's execution himself but that the order instead came from a representative of the commander of Hitler's personal guard.

All items sold by the History Buff, Inc. come with documentation and a certified opinion as to authenticity.

Price:SOLD

Needless to say, this listing is not to be misconstrued as an endorsement or glorification of Adolph Hitler or his policies. Hitler was a major leader of an important country and, at one time, he was one of the most powerful men on earth. He is now part of history and there is no going back on that. Items presented by The History Buff, Inc. represent part of the historical record of man and are placed for sale without prejudice. Hitler represents that part of human nature which the founders of our country, like James Madison, called "the depravity of man." It was not by accident that our founding documents were designed in part to restrain that very 'depravity'. Jefferson was particularly prescient when he warned, "Man must be bound by the chains of law."