On sale: Photo of Himmler moments after suicide
British Intelligence officer photographed Nazi second-in-command lying dead after biting on cyanide pill; his family to sell picture for about $5,000
A photograph of Nazi commander Heinrich Himmler lying dead after he committed suicide is to be auctioned next month, The Telegraph reported Thursday.
According to the British newspaper, the previously unseen picture, captured by Lance Corporal Guy Adderley of British Intelligence in May 1945, shows the Nazi second-in-command lying dead after biting a cyanide pill, still wearing his trademark round glasses.
Himmler, who had been arrested by Army officers, was due to be interrogated over his war crimes the following day, the report said.
Photo of Himmler after suicide (courtesy of The Telegraph website)
Adderley’s family will sell the photograph at the auctioneer Dreweatt’s sale of militaria in Bristol on March 29, with a pre-sale estimate of £2,000-£3,000 (nearly $5,000), The Telegraph reported.
Malcolm Claridge, the auctioneer and militaria expert, was quoted by the newspaper as saying, “This is a very important and historic collection. Himmler was Hitler’s Reichsführer, the second most powerful man in Nazi Germany.
“He oversaw the Gestapo and the concentration camps and is regarded as the architect of the Holocaust. Adderley’s collection takes us right to the heart of Himmler’s arrest and into the very room in the British safe house in Lüneburg where he bit into the cyanide capsule he had concealed in his mouth," he said.
“Guy Adderley was one of the team that arrested Himmler, and there are also two photographs showing British and Russian officers in the safe house with Adderley in the background.”
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