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Hitler's Holy Relics

A True Story of Nazi Plunder and the Race to Recover the Crown Jewels of the Holy Roman Empire

About The Book

From Paris to Stalingrad,​ the Nazis systematically plundered all manner of art and antiquities, but the first and most valuable treasures they looted were the Crown Jewels of the Holy Roman Empire—now, bestselling author Sidney Kirkpatrick tells the riveting and never-before-told true story of how an American college professor turned Army sleuth recovered these cherished symbols of Hitler’s Thousand-Year Reich before they could become a rallying point in the creation of a Fourth and equally unholy Reich.

Anticipating the Allied invasion of Nazi Germany, Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler had ordered a top-secret bunker carved deep into the bedrock beneath Nürnberg castle. Inside the well-guarded chamber was a specially constructed vault that held the plundered treasures Hitler valued the most: the Spear of Destiny (reputed to have been used to pierce Christ’s side while he was on the cross) and the Crown Jewels of the Holy Roman Empire, ancient artifacts steeped in medieval mysticism and coveted by world rulers from Charlemagne to Napoleon. But as Allied bombers rained devastation upon Nürnberg and the U.S. Seventh Army prepared to invade the city Hitler called “the soul of the Nazi Party,” five of the most precious relics, all central to the coronation ceremony of a would-be Holy Roman Emperor, vanished from the vault. Who took them? And why? The mystery remained unsolved for months after the war’s end, until the Supreme Allied Commander, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, ordered Lieutenant Walter Horn, a German-born art historian on leave from U.C. Berkeley, to hunt down the missing treasures.

To accomplish his mission, Horn must revisit the now-rubble-strewn landscape of his youth and delve into the ancient legends and arcane mysticism surrounding the antiquities that Hitler had looted in his quest for world domination. Horn searches for clues in the burnt remains of Himmler’s private castle and follows the trail of neo-Nazi “Teutonic Knights” charged with protecting a vast hidden fortune in plundered gold and other treasure. Along the way, Horn has to confront his own demons: how members of his family and former academic colleagues subverted scholarly research to help legitimize Hitler’s theories of Aryan supremacy and the Master Race. What Horn discovers on his investigative odyssey is so explosive that his final report will remain secret for decades.

Drawing on unpublished interrogation and intelligence reports, as well as on diaries, letters, journals, and interviews in the United States and Germany, Kirkpatrick tells this riveting and disturbing story with cinematic detail and reveals—for the first time—how a failed Vienna art student, obsessed with the occult and dreams of his own grandeur, nearly succeeded in creating a Holy Reich rooted in a twisted reinvention of medieval and Church history.

About The Author

Photograph © Nick Kirkpatrick

Sidney Kirkpatrick is an award-winning filmmaker and international bestselling author. His critically acclaimed non-fiction books include A Cast of Killers, Turning the Tide, Lords of SipanEdgar Cayce: An American Prophet, and The Revenge of Thomas Eakins. His documentary film, My Father the President, about Theodore Roosevelt as seen through the eyes of his daughter, Ethel Roosevelt Derby, was a winner at the American Film Festival. HBO, the History Channel, the Discovery Channel, and A&E have all featured his work. Biographical profiles of Kirkpatrick have appeared in The New York TimesTimeThe New Yorker, and Playboy. He is a graduate of Hampshire College and New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. He lives in Stony Brook, New York.

Product Details

  • Publisher: Simon & Schuster (May 11, 2010)
  • Length: 336 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781416597803

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Raves and Reviews

“Tales of art stolen and then recovered or lost forever make for an intriguing drama of the Second World War. Hitler’s Holy Relics paints one such story . . . complete with a bold hero, a post-apocalyptic backdrop, a subplot out of Indiana Jones, a treasure worth dying for, and a classic locked-room mystery at its heart. . . . A crackling good story.”

--Noah Charney, Artinfo.com

“Tales of art stolen and then recovered or lost forever make for an intriguing drama of the Second World War. Hitler’s Holy Relics paints one such story . . . complete with a bold hero, a post-apocalyptic backdrop, a subplot out of Indiana Jones, a treasure worth dying for, and a classic locked-room mystery at its heart. . . . A crackling good story.”

--Noah Charney, Artinfo.com

“A vivid true-crime narrative about a post–World War II investigation meant to prevent Nazis still at large from using several venerable medieval artifacts to reconstitute the Reich. . . . Fast-moving and intriguing, in the vein of Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

--Kirkus Reviews

“A riveting narrative that is as exciting as a well-crafted novel. . . . Sidney Kirkpatrick paces his book about the case of the vanishing jewels with such skill that it grabs readers by the scruff of the neck and does not let go until the very last page.”
--Larry Cox, King Features Syndicate

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