Thread: Nazi blades

Nazi items are heavily counterfeited. I would be wary of anything that is not easily traceable and that would be relatively easy to imprint / stencil / etch / whatever some kind of insignia onto.

Originally Posted by Razorfeld

Since provenance is everything, as antique dealers are wont to say, emphatically no! Since we, as humans, tend to humanize anything and everything we come in contact with (a hot car is a 'she'/we see human traits in our animals/I gave a new brush a woman's name) in order to feel more connected to it. Owning something with that connection would be one of betrayal to my ancestry and an insult to common decency. All that said, I own a number of German made razors, including a Max Dorner (good little shaver) that, as I read somewhere, had a number of razors out with the swazstica engraved on them. With out the symbols or provenance the objects are neutral in all respects, open to our interpretaion for our own reasons.

I can see your point. I personally laugh at and don't understand the need to humanize an animal much less an inanimate object. 50% of my ancestory is German but I feel no need to deny or defend what others have done. The U.S. has done some evil things but they are not me. Am I going to try to obliterate any remnant of the Roman Empire because of what they have done in the past to my relatives?

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

It is a matter of what significance a person places on such things. I had a friend in the early 1970s who was a pilot for Delta Airlines. This, if you're old enough to remember, was when being a pilot for a major airline was big bucks. My pilot friend was of Jewish ancestry, non observant, and collected German Lugers, amongst other firearms, but primarily Lugers. He had an extensive collection and once I was over his house looking at some of his Lugers and asked him if it didn't bother him that these ...... some of them ..... were nazi ? He said that it was better "we" had theirs, than they had ours.

I bought a WW2 Mauser S-42 with the Wehrmacht stamping of the eagle over the swastika on the frame. All matching including magazine and he gave me a deal. He had told me that the WW2 Lugers are better shooters because of the redesigned firing pin, and this one was collector quality. I didn't have it 24 hours and brought it back to him. He gave me the $ back no problem. I just couldn't get over the vibe that the thing had. Had it been used to murder people ? So that was my take.

If you are watching a Mitsubishi TV, or driving one of their cars, you are using something made by the company that also made planes that bombed Pearl Harbor, Wake Island ..... you get my drift. Adolf Hitler got Ferdinand Porsche to design a "people car." They called it a Volkswagen. Small world, but I still won't own anything with a swastika on it.

I wish I had read this before my feeble attempt at a reply.

What it all boils down to, in my mind, is while we want to look forward and hope for the best we need to remember the past and try not to repeat the mistakes. Unfortunately, looking at current world events too many are blinded by the present to see either backwards or forwards.

Ideology aside, the eagle looks like it was placed by someone with little talent for faking such things. Too bad some jackass ruined some nice Henckels razors by trying to capitalize on a rather dubious historical chapter.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

It is a matter of what significance a person places on such things. I had a friend in the early 1970s who was a pilot for Delta Airlines. This, if you're old enough to remember, was when being a pilot for a major airline was big bucks. My pilot friend was of Jewish ancestry, non observant, and collected German Lugers, amongst other firearms, but primarily Lugers. He had an extensive collection and once I was over his house looking at some of his Lugers and asked him if it didn't bother him that these ...... some of them ..... were nazi ? He said that it was better "we" had theirs, than they had ours.

I bought a WW2 Mauser S-42 with the Wehrmacht stamping of the eagle over the swastika on the frame. All matching including magazine and he gave me a deal. He had told me that the WW2 Lugers are better shooters because of the redesigned firing pin, and this one was collector quality. I didn't have it 24 hours and brought it back to him. He gave me the $ back no problem. I just couldn't get over the vibe that the thing had. Had it been used to murder people ? So that was my take.

If you are watching a Mitsubishi TV, or driving one of their cars, you are using something made by the company that also made planes that bombed Pearl Harbor, Wake Island ..... you get my drift. Adolf Hitler got Ferdinand Porsche to design a "people car." They called it a Volkswagen. Small world, but I still won't own anything with a swastika on it.

__________________________________________________ _______

Good perspective Jimmy.

As long as principled people express their beliefs, principles will endure.

Originally Posted by ScienceGuy

Nazi items are heavily counterfeited.

yeah they do look a bit sus like someone has added them or tried to take the symbols out, it would be interesting to date the blade and see if it fits the timeline the person is also selling a lot of other paraphernalia.

on the moral side of thing im of the view that if all such things were to be destroyed then there would be no reminders of the history ect

Originally Posted by entropy1049

Ideology aside, the eagle looks like it was placed by someone with little talent for faking such things. Too bad some jackass ruined some nice Henckels razors by trying to capitalize on a rather dubious historical chapter.

I quite agree, Mike - amazed someone did not spot the obvious fakery earlier.

The subsequent pics posted are even more cack-handedly put together - unless you got spotty nazi teenagers with nazi crossed-eyes and nazi pebble lensed glasses toting nazi-dremels making quasi-nazi straight razors in the war years.

Lets not forget that during times of extreme desperation like the war-torn years, ordinary respectable people have little or no option but to go along with their governments and that nigh on every german razor maker, the likes of Henckels, Herder, Robert Klaas, Emil Voos, Anton Wingen and many, many others were forced to make ceremonial knives, swords and daggers for the Nazi Party. No doubt some of them were honoured to do so, but the ordinary workers did not have much of a say-so - unless they had a penchant for getting lined up and shot, that is.

In fact, you might have a nazi period razor and not even know it - unless its that one that tries to gash you at the least provocation unless Wilhelm Richard Wagner's music is playing in the background...

I jest, of course...

Regards,
Neil

Originally Posted by Elrook

on the moral side of thing im of the view that if all such things were to be destroyed then there would be no reminders of the history ect

That is very true, and a valid reason not to destroy some things - one must never forget how low the human animal can stoop...

Regards,
Neil