Comments by "Sar Jim" (@sarjim4381) on "Eagle's Nest - Hitler's Mountaintop Headquarters Today" video.
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My late uncle was among the first of the US troops to occupy the Obersalzberg. They were part of a technical unit tasked with documenting Hitler's residences. Being a bunch of capitalists, they looked around at what they could take home with them that wouldn't technically be theft, but still give them something to sell back home. They decided on about 50 pounds of shattered marble pieces from the fireplace of the ruined great hall in the Berghof. They split it up between six guys and manage to get it back to the US in late 1945.
One of the soldiers was a lieutenant, Arthur Weatherhead, president of Weatherhead Company, maker of aircraft parts. I don't know which one of them had the idea, but I assume it was Weatherhead. The company made a casting that was a replica of the Berghof fireplace with a small piece of the marble insertion at the top. My dad was a machinist that was an expert witt castings before the war, and Weatherhead hired him to make the fireplace castings. It was some kind of copper color, very heavy metal. At the top was the phrase, "Flick your ashes on Hitler's hearth". There's was a piece of paper glued to the back with a summary of how the ashtrays came to be. The last time I saw this ashtray was when I was about ten years old, so that would have been 1956, but that phrase has stuck with me all these years.
I have no idea what happened to the ashtray. I had forgotten all about it before my dad passed away, but there were at least several hundred made. He moved around the west several times and I assume it was lost or discarded in one of those moves. To my knowledge, none were ever sold. They were given away to good customers and VIPs. My dad got his as a thanks from Weatherhead for making the castings. That temporary job turned intro permanent employment with Weatherhead. He was first a glassware washer in the lab. He went to college at night, got his engineering degree, and became an aeronautical engineer. He worker fro Weatherhead from 1945 until 1975. It was a great company, and they had employee picnics every ear where they rented Euclid Beach for the day, and all the kids had free run of the park, riding on as many rides as they could get in before barfing. There were tables laden with every kind of food you could imagine, and everyone got a steak, cooked by volunteer employees. He loved working for Weatherhead, but the aircraft industry recession of the mid 70's hit the company hard, and he was laid off, along with a thousand other employees, in 1976. My dad was an inveterate inventor, and he started a second career manufacturing a report binding machine of his own invention. He passed away in 2005. He was a great father and I miss him every day.
Sorry for the length of this but, as you might imagine, I was pretty excited to see the subject of this fine video. I wish I still had that ashtray. I remember it and the story so well from my youth. I wonder if there are any left? Seems like they'd have some collector value if there are.
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