One Evil Owner: Own Hitler's Personal Mercedes-Benz 770K

[Snorevette]

How about using them to promote a site like GTPlanet?

Also pretty disrespectful, considering GTPlanet also has nothing to do with holocaust memorials or history... I think?

EDIT: Just so it's clear this isn't referring to the article. The sale of the car doesn't promote GTPlanet, and it's perfectly fair to report on it.

 

[TexRex]

We unfortunately live in a world where there are people who are twisted enough to see the continued existence of those things as a symbol of his legacy.

Fortunately those individuals haven't shown themselves as being anything but the minority. It seems to me they even wear that minority as a badge of honor (or an armband); that they are the "enlightened few."

 

[Joey D]

How about using them to promote a site like GTPlanet?

I didn't write the article as an advertisement for GTP. I wrote the article, like I do every Wednesday, to give forum goers and social media followers an interesting story on a car they might not know about.

There are plenty of Administrators and even the site owner you can contact if you have a legitimate concern with the article. However, I'm not sure how one can have any concern with it. It's about a car, seized by the Allied powers, being sold to help with a charity for a Holocaust memorial, and is an important part of history that we all agree was a terrible time for the world. I didn't write anything glorifying Hitler in the article, and in fact, I pretty much called him evil throughout.

It should also be noted that my wife is Jewish and her grandparents were Holocaust survivors. My wife read the article and was fine with it, and I'm guessing my father-in-law took a look at it too since he teaches history. If actual Jewish people, who have close family that was affected by the Holocaust have no issues, then I'd be really curious to see what your issue with it is...and it can't just be "because it's Hitler".

 

[Cano]

Man, this thread turned to gold. Sad I didn't get to read the erased replies.

Also, the car is absolutely freaking awesome.

 

[Downhill Dino]

It's a beautiful car, would be a shame if it were destroyed. Great automotive art.

 

[eran0004]

I didn't write the article as an advertisement for GTP. I wrote the article, like I do every Wednesday, to give forum goers and social media followers an interesting story on a car they might not know about.

There are plenty of Administrators and even the site owner you can contact if you have a legitimate concern with the article. However, I'm not sure how one can have any concern with it. It's about a car, seized by the Allied powers, being sold to help with a charity for a Holocaust memorial, and is an important part of history that we all agree was a terrible time for the world. I didn't write anything glorifying Hitler in the article, and in fact, I pretty much called him evil throughout.

It should also be noted that my wife is Jewish and her grandparents were Holocaust survivors. My wife read the article and was fine with it, and I'm guessing my father-in-law took a look at it too since he teaches history. If actual Jewish people, who have close family that was affected by the Holocaust have no issues, then I'd be really curious to see what your issue with it is...and it can't just be "because it's Hitler".

I'm not having issues with it. It's @Snorevette. I just asked him if he thought it was okay to use nazi memorabilia to promote a website, since he seemed so upset about the idea of using it to promote a TV show. So you should really ask him, since I don't know his reasons.

 

[TexRex]

I just asked him if he thought it was okay to use nazi memorabilia to promote a website

Still, it has more recently and far longer been memorabilia from the Allied Forces' triumph over the Nazi regime than from the regime itself.

Moreover, whatever sort of memorabilia it's determined to be, is it really being used to promote GTP? It's featured in an artcle on GTP that was intended to inform readers of something they may be unfamiliar with.

If anything, the "memorabilia" is being used to promote the auction house responsible for its sale, and, again if anything, the article featured on GTP is promoting said auction house.

That said, I'm not so sure the auction itself, let alone the house responsible, should be promoted in the article on the site because of the piddly 10% being allocated to educational efforts. If it were indicated that the house take from the sale was a part--or the entirety--of that 10%, I might be less conflicted.

 

[Joey D]

That said, I'm not so sure the auction itself, let alone the house responsible, should be promoted in the article on the site because of the piddly 10% being allocated to educational efforts. If it were indicated that the house take from the sale was a part--or the entirety--of that 10%, I might be less conflicted.

The only reason I link the auction house ad to the article is so that we can use the pictures. If it wasn't for that, I probably wouldn't even mention where it's being sold.

 

[TexRex]

The only reason I link the auction house ad to the article is so that we can use the pictures. If it wasn't for that, I probably wouldn't even mention where it's being sold.

Yeah it's a stretch to call it promotional, and I stressed that with the italicized "if anything." I appreciate that requirements need to be met for permissions to be granted, and I'm glad that the "concession" (that's also subject to the aforementioned stretched logic) was made to be able to post the photos.

 

[Robin]

There seems to be a fixation on the fact that 'its Hitler's car' and that's what makes it evil. Technically the car is from a from a pool of state cars and not Hitler's car per say, also its not a one off because Mercedes produced a handful of them.

It should be seen more like a building or a piece of office furniture and a poignant reminder to an era or event rather than one man's possession and not condemned because of it.

 

[eran0004]

Moreover, whatever sort of memorabilia it's determined to be, is it really being used to promote GTP? It's featured in an artcle on GTP that was intended to inform readers of something they may be unfamiliar with.

If it's "promoting a TV show" to have it on TV, then arguably it's also "promoting a website" to have it here.

 

[Famine]

I like this idea that Hitler's literally the worst person ever, and nobody should have anything to do with buying this car because somehow the money is the bad bit. Incidentally, it's not like money is going back to the Nazis or even Mercedes - the Allies took this car, for nothing, from the evil dead man. More amusingly, it was donated to a Veterans of Foreign Wars branch in the USA which used it for its own parades.

One of the people we mention in the opening of this article is Papa Doc Duvalier. He owned a 600 Grosser and killed roughly one in every thousand people in his own population, along with other violent assaults and rapes, with a militarised, fascist, religious police force based on Voodoo to keep himself in power. The Tonton Macoute would burn its victims alive and hang their bodies from trees.

Other 600 Grosser owners include Idi Amin (killed 0.5% of the population of Uganda), Nicolae Ceaucescu (executed for Romanian genocide), all three generations of the Kim family in North Korea (not sure I need to add anything here, especially not about the three-generations punishment, forced labour camps, mass starvation and punishment rapes), Robert Mugabe, and the truly awful Enver Hoxha (killed around 2% of the population of Albania).

But for really, really evil people you'll want to look at Josef Stalin (again, mentioned in the opening paragraphs), whose forced famine in Ukraine - Holodomor - kill an estimated 4 million people by starvation and created a total population loss of 10 million through birth rate decline; a third of the entire population of the country at the time. The Rwandan genocide, perpetrated by an entire army, reduced the population in the country by more than a third in six years, with the summary execution of the ethnic Tutsi population by the Hutu Power movement (admittedly just the last and largest part of Hutu/Tutsi ethnic murders in Rwanda) at the rate of 10,000 a day, by methods that included burning alive and hacking to death with machetes. Oh and more weaponised rape. This followed the assassination of Juvenal Habyarimana, a anti-Tutsi totalitarian dictator.

And then there's Pol Pot. The Khmer Rouge's genocide in Cambodia directly wiped out a quarter of the population. Fun fact, he had a 600 Grosser too.

So did Saddam Hussein.

And Josep Tito. In fact his car sold last year for £2.5m.


Hitler might be a particularly popular bogeyman, but when it comes to evil dictators he's not an extraordinary one who requires distinction from the others. "It's Hitler's car" isn't really any different from "it's Pol Pot's car" or "it's Stalin's car", and nobody was having kittens over Tito's car either.



It's probably worth noting that two subsequent owners were a Vegas casino owner and a tobacco magnate... like gambling and cigarettes aren't evil and have never destroyed any lives...

 

[TexRex]

If it's "promoting a TV show" to have it on TV, then arguably it's also "promoting a website" to have it here.

Then I'd argue the mere use in content is not promotional until its use in content is promoted to those not actively viewing content, which I'm given to understand Top Gear--indeed nearly every television program ever produced--does.

So that begs the question: Is GTP promoted across the internet and other forms of media, and is the presence of this article featuring memorabilia--whatever that memorabilia represents--indicated in said promotion?

 

[eran0004]

Then I'd argue the mere use in content is not promotional until its use in content is promoted to those not actively viewing content, which I'm given to understand Top Gear--indeed nearly every television program ever produced--does.

So that begs the question: Is GTP promoted across the internet and other forms of media, and is the presence of this article featuring memorabilia--whatever that memorabilia represents--indicated in said promotion?

 

[TexRex]

View attachment 707612

So it is, then shouldn't you be complaining about that?

What does destroying it solve anyway?

I suppose it's a source of material, though breaking it down to its basest usable materials probably expends more energy than producing more materials.

I suppose it sends a message. Victims of atrocity around the world are told that the preservation of memorabilia from what caused them so much pain is an indication that their pain isn't as significant.

So say we decide to destroy things linked (that's what memorabilia is) to the doing of harm by one individual to another; where do we draw the line? This was Hitler's, so Hitler and above (in degree of harm done)?

 

[Tornado]

What even is the problem? After all, according to the German government at the time:

Holocaust: It was considered morally right

So this might as well be Mr. Rogers' car.

 

[TexRex]

So this might as well be Mr. Rogers' car.

That...makes me really uncomfortable.



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Something else to consider: Wasn't the Nazi regime responsible for the destruction of a considerable amount of property? I'd be concerned that destroying the car would in some way be condoning that act. Do we really want to do that, or merely stoop to that level?

I still choose to actively not view the car as Nazi memorabilia but memorabilia from good's triumph over evil.

Since my last posting here I've even presented the article to a couple of coworkers that I know to be Jewish, and they came to a comparable conclusion without me pointing them in that direction.

 

[TVR27]

Adolf Hitler is dead and the war is over destroying what was Adolf Hitlers car will not change anything.

 

[Carbon_6]

Having visited the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Germany (which is an incredible place to visit if only to appreciate the architecture), I found it admirable that their involvement in war was not simply swept aside and forgotten.

I've visited various places in the UK over the years with links to both world wars that have either rightly of wrongly illustrated their history in different ways to suit, so to be able to see that history from the other side of the fence, if you will, was refreshing.

What was on display obviously wasn't pro-Nazi in any way at all, but the visual/audible acknowledgement of their own history being interwoven with that of the German war machine, was to be commended.

Just because this particular 770K was Hitler's choice of wheels, doesn't automatically make it evil like its owner. If anything, it should serve as not only an example of period engineering, but a reminder to learn from the mistakes of the past, to not let the atrocity's of the time be repeated ever again.

 

[eran0004]

So it is, then shouldn't you be complaining about that?

Why should I complain about it?

What does destroying it solve anyway?

When did I say destroying it would solve something?

I suppose it sends a message. Victims of atrocity around the world are told that the preservation of memorabilia from what caused them so much pain is an indication that their pain isn't as significant.

I don't see how it would be such a message.

So say we decide to destroy things linked (that's what memorabilia is) to the doing of harm by one individual to another; where do we draw the line? This was Hitler's, so Hitler and above (in degree of harm done)?

If you want to work out a grand theory regarding that, be my guest. All I know is that I would gladly see this particular car suffer an unfortunate accident.

 

[TexRex]

All I know is that I would gladly see this particular car suffer an unfortunate accident.

Okay.

 

[Marqus]

The only reason this is news worthy is because this car belong to Hitler. If that fact really didn't matter, no one would bat an eye that an old Mercedes is being sold. Tito's cars sold for 2.5m, that's not because it was a particularly good car, but because it was specifically owned by someone well-known. The owner of the car and their history is very much tied to the value of the property.

I'm not saying I would want the car destroyed, but neither would I want to flaunt the fact that I owned Adolf Hitler's Mercedes unless I was going for the shock value. Better to have it in a museum, I say.

 

[Famine]

Better to have it in a museum, I say.

That's where it was for 20 years

After the car got to the USA, and through several owners, it was donated to a veteran's charity. The charity used it for its own parades. For all the fuss there's been in this thread, actual US servicemen drove around in Hitler's own staff car during memorial parades!

But, for whatever reasons, the charity couldn't or wouldn't maintain it, and it fell into disrepair. Two classic car collectors found it, restored it, and sold it to the owner of the Imperial Palace casino on the Las Vegas Strip. The resort had a classic car museum on site, but after the owner died* the collection was sold off and the hotel ended up becoming The Linq resort.

The car didn't go on its own though. It was sold as part of a 21-car collection of classic Mercedes-Benz. It was then sold again to a businessman in Russia - and Russians would have marginally more reason to hate Hitler than the rest of us, given the death toll in WW2 from fighting the Nazis and the systematic eradication of Slavs which puts even the Holocaust to shame - who put it on display in a museum in Moscow.

*I believe the Nevada Gaming Commission once fined him a few million dollars for holding Nazi-themed parties at the hotel, with the Mercedes as the centrepiece...

 

[TexRex]

no one would bat an eye that an old Mercedes is being sold.

No? The sale price of an "old Mercedes" that changed hands at auction was covered significantly in media. The price? $29.6 million. Well it was an old car, so of course that price is justified, right? It couldn't possibly have been that much more than other old cars? Well, it set a new record. That sale price was actually more than 1.8 times that of the previous $16.39 million record.

Sure, this "old Mercedes" isn't that "old Mercedes," but this "old Mercedes" is significant enough that it's inspired not only countless kit cars--some not particularly good but not so awful as to make you gag, and others that would--but was also considerable inspiration to the '60s and '70s neoclassical car movement that saw the creation of marks such as Zimmer and Excalibur, plus major manufacturers cashing in with chrome-laden, waterfall-grilled models.

Yeah, it's just an "old Mercedes" without the Hitler connection.

Why wouldn't it even be featured here without that connection? A previous "Wednesday Want" noted the sale of an '80s Buick once owned by...somebody I'm sure.

I'm a guy who loves old cars in general, but this is a particularly stunning example. Maybe not Voll & Ruhrbeck 1937 Horch 853 Sport Cabriolet stunning, but still stunning.

 

[Imari]

I'm a guy who loves old cars in general, but this is a particularly stunning example. Maybe not Voll & Ruhrbeck 1937 Horch 853 Sport Cabriolet stunning, but still stunning.

Wow. That's an awesome car I didn't know existed.

 

[Joey D]

That's where it was for 20 years

After the car got to the USA, and through several owners, it was donated to a veteran's charity. The charity used it for its own parades. For all the fuss there's been in this thread, actual US servicemen drove around in Hitler's own staff car during memorial parades!

But, for whatever reasons, the charity couldn't or wouldn't maintain it, and it fell into disrepair. Two classic car collectors found it, restored it, and sold it to the owner of the Imperial Palace casino on the Las Vegas Strip. The resort had a classic car museum on site, but after the owner died* the collection was sold off and the hotel ended up becoming The Linq resort.

The car didn't go on its own though. It was sold as part of a 21-car collection of classic Mercedes-Benz. It was then sold again to a businessman in Russia - and Russians would have marginally more reason to hate Hitler than the rest of us, given the death toll in WW2 from fighting the Nazis and the systematic eradication of Slavs which puts even the Holocaust to shame - who put it on display in a museum in Moscow.

*I believe the Nevada Gaming Commission once fined him a few million dollars for holding Nazi-themed parties at the hotel, with the Mercedes as the centrepiece...

They probably couldn't afford to maintain it. The Veterans of Foreign Wars is basically a "club" where old dudes get together, drink cheap beer, and talk about the good old days. They also have fish fries every Friday night (at least in Michigan).

 

[TexRex]

Wow. That's an awesome car I didn't know existed.

A personal favorite.

 

[DaveTheStalker]

So, the car is going on the block at Barrett-Jackson tonight? Coverage starts at 3pm ET, on Velocity, Dish Network channel 246.

 

[DaveTheStalker]

WTF, no Hitler car at Barrett-Jackson!

 

[Roo]

WTF, no Hitler car at Barrett-Jackson!

It was auctioned at Scottsdale in Arizona on Wednesday evening:

It made it to $7m USD and it didn’t sell. I’m not sure what the reserve was.