Gettysburg Curator: Blood-stained piece of Hitler’s couch preserves history

Erik Dorr believes some items, no matter how grisly, do more good in public view than forgotten in someone’s closet.

That’s why a piece of the sofa on which Adolf Hitler allegedly committed suicide is now on display at his Museum of History in Gettysburg. It doesn’t look like much — just a 3-by-6 inch piece of frayed fabric — but Dorr hopes someone can help him find out more about a tiny, dark stain on its corner.

This stain, historians believe, is Hitler’s blood.

Dorr bought the relic in February at Alexander Historical Auctions, a Maryland-based company, at a cost of $16,000, according to auction records. Although some people might disagree with his decision to publicly display the relic, he said, he believes it could help visitors understand the horrors of World War II.

My policy here is we don’t censor history,” he said.

While similar samples allegedly containing Hitler’s blood exist in Russian archives, authorities there have strictly limited researchers’ access to their collections, Dorr said. He purchased the artifact with the hopes that someone with the appropriate resources would step forward and try to isolate a DNA sample from the piece. This sample could then be compared to other samples known to contain the dictator’s DNA.

Until such a person comes forward, however, the relic is available for public viewing in his free museum, Dorr said.

Sometimes with stuff like that, you don’t want it to get in the wrong hands, so I wanted to keep it in the museum system,” he said.

The piece of the couch was taken by United States Army Colonel Roswell P. Rosengren, who served during most of World War II as public information officer for General Dwight D. Eisenhower, said Bill Panagopulos, president of Alexander Historical Auctions. A few days after Hitler committed suicide by a pistol shot to the head, Rosengren and a few fellow American officers were let into the dictator’s air raid bunker by the Soviet forces, which controlled that portion of Berlin, Panagopulos said. Rosengren used the opportunity to take a section of the couch, along with a few other items from the bunker.
Both Panagopulos and Dorr are confident the artifact is from Hitler’s couch. The auction house provided records of all the previous owners of the piece and a notarized letter from Rosengren’s son. The patterns on the fabric also match photos of the “suicide sofa” featured in “LIFE” magazine after Hitler’s death, and several independent consultants studied the artifact to confirm its authenticity, Dorr said.

The auction house also ran tests that confirmed the presence of blood — either human or animal — on the stained portion of the fabric. Although finding definitive proof that the blood belonged to Hitler would be extremely difficult, Panagopulos said, anyone who could do so could help debunk rumors that Hitler did not die in the bunker.

“Personally I’m utterly convinced that Hitler blew his brains out on this sofa,” he said.

Although Alexander Historical Auctions deals with all kinds of historical items, ranging from war memorabilia to famous signatures, the Hitler blood relic is not the first controversial Third Reich item the auction has sold, Panagopulos said.

In 2011, it auctioned off the diaries of Josef Mengele, who gained the reputation of “Angel of Death” for his medical experiments at the Auschwitz extermination camp. This sale drew criticism from the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants, which accused the auction house of exploiting the item for profit.

Despite the controversial nature of such items, Panagopulos said, the people who purchase them do so for good reason.

“It’s all history, good or bad, and as such it should be preserved,” he said, noting the buyers of these kinds of items are just normal people with an interest in protecting the past.

For Dorr, the Hitler relic is just one of many items in his Baltimore-Street museum, which features artifacts from both world wars, the American Civil War, American presidencies and pop culture.

Still, he recognizes the value of gruesome and unusual displays in his collection, which also includes alleged blood relics from Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth and John F. Kennedy.

Their emotional impact, he said, can help visitors better comprehend the darker sides of the past.

“We shouldn’t put stuff away just because it may be difficult to look at,” he said.