Lot 8672
GFM Wilhelm Keitel - an extensive group of documents including photos as well as two briefcases
Orders and Military Collectibles from 1919 onwards | A109r | Live auction | 1186 Lots
Description
Pre-war/Wartime: numerous family documents and photographs, including records dating back to 1849, a family tree booklet, family coat of arms, seal impressions, birth certificate and wedding announcement/photos of his daughter Apollonia (“Nona”), photo and death certificate of his son Hans-Georg (killed in action as a lieutenant in 1941), a large-format portrait photo (after a painting) personally signed “Keitel” in ink, a signed portrait postcard, four portrait postcards of Crown Prince Wilhelm (bearing typed greetings and signatures in violet copying pencil on the reverse, dated 1933–1936), four large-format portrait shots of Keitel plus several official photographs, “Agenda 1944” (a diary in a French printed format with handwritten entries—e.g., July 20, 1944: “At 7 o'clock, Kiene arrived with news of the assassination attempt on the Führer”), and much more. From the Nuremberg Trials: numerous letters handwritten by Keitel to his lawyer Otto Nelte between May 1945 and October 1946; numerous typewritten transcripts of Keitel's handwritten texts—ranging from the letter to the Wehrmacht following his capture in May 1945 and his biographical notes to his accounts of the war years—housed in a folder labeled “Nona – Memoirs by Dad”; a bound file titled “Defense Counsel's Plea: Dr. Dr. Otto Nelte for the Defendant: Field Marshal (Ret.) Wilhelm Keitel”; transcripts of statements by other defendants; and a handwritten transcript of the “Closing Statement by the Defendant Field Marshal (Ret.) Wilhelm Keitel” (eight A4 pages in ballpoint pen, dated August 31, 1946). Autograph farewell letter to a “John” (valet/orderly?), dated October 10, 1946; DIN A5 size, written in ink on both sides and signed “Yours, Wilhelm Keitel.” Also included are newspaper clippings and several later family documents, as well as two heavily used briefcases—one brown leather and one black leather. Highly interesting documentary material regarding the life of Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, who was executed on October 16, 1946.Condition: II Questions about the lot?