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Bizarre tale of 'Hitler's pistol'
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Bizarre tale of Hitler's pistol
By JEREMY KELLY
07sep02
A MAN's attempt to pass off a pistol as Adolf Hitler's suicide weapon in the hope of selling it for more than $1 million had the elements of a riveting spy novel, a jury heard yesterday.
Michael John O'Hara - who has claimed to be Hitler's son - is on trial in the County Court for fraudulently creating evidence to support his claim that he had the pistol that killed the Fuehrer.
But prosecutor Peter F. McDermott told a jury that Mr O'Hara had created a huge number of false documents in a "phalanx of fantasy" so he could sell the pistol on the international market for more than $1 million.
Mr McDermott said Mr O'Hara had stolen from the German archives, hired German and Russian translators, a bodyguard, and overprinted official Russian documents with invisible ink to persuade would-be buyers of the pistol's authenticity.
"This was the stuff of Cold War fiction that would have made for riveting reading in the hands of authors like Le Carre and Ludlum," Mr McDermott said.
He said Mr O'Hara had bought two pistols - a Walther PPK 7.65mm and a Walther Model 8 - from two Melbourne gun dealers in the mid-1990s.
He said historians' most popular account was that Hitler had shot himself with a PPK 7.65mm before his underground bunker was overrun by Soviet forces in April 1945.
Mr O'Hara claimed that after the war the pistols were bought for $1 million from the cash-strapped KGB by an Austrian named Otto who had smuggled them to Israel and then to Melbourne, the court heard.
Mr McDermott said Mr O'Hara, a licensed gun collector, then went about hiring stamp makers, engravers and photographers and buying items such as old Russian typewriters and 1930s ink as part of the plot.
Mr McDermott told the jury that Mr O'Hara had stolen a document from the Bundesarchiv in Koblenz during a visit to Germany and replaced it with a forged letter by SS chief Heinrich Himmler from 1935 that supported his claims.
Mr McDermott said that in 1998 and 1999 Mr O'Hara tried to sell the pistol to buyers in Australia and the US.
In a meeting at a Melbourne solicitor's office where he displayed the pistol, Mr O'Hara had arrived with a bodyguard and said he was Hitler's son, the court heard.
Mr McDermott told the jury that Mr O'Hara had told an American gun dealer he was a former British intelligence operative.
Mr O'Hara, who has pleaded not guilty to 27 counts of making, using or copying false documents and one count of taking firearms out of the state without informing police, is arguing that the pistols are genuine but were never for sale.
His counsel, Richard Backwell, told the jury: "He genuinely believes he has unlocked one of the last secrets of the final hours of the Second World War."
Mr Backwell said that his client had devoted much of his life to exposing anti-Jewish elements in society and the fake attempts to sell the pistols were a way of identifying neo-Nazis.
Mr Backwell said the reason Mr O'Hara was researching and creating so many documents was because Mr O'Hara was writing what he hoped would be the definitive work on the Third Reich, and hoped it would be turned into a movie.
He said the documents were props and they had to look real.
The trial, before Judge Michael Kelly, continues.
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,5048842%5E661,00.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
By JEREMY KELLY
07sep02
A MAN's attempt to pass off a pistol as Adolf Hitler's suicide weapon in the hope of selling it for more than $1 million had the elements of a riveting spy novel, a jury heard yesterday.
Michael John O'Hara - who has claimed to be Hitler's son - is on trial in the County Court for fraudulently creating evidence to support his claim that he had the pistol that killed the Fuehrer.
But prosecutor Peter F. McDermott told a jury that Mr O'Hara had created a huge number of false documents in a "phalanx of fantasy" so he could sell the pistol on the international market for more than $1 million.
Mr McDermott said Mr O'Hara had stolen from the German archives, hired German and Russian translators, a bodyguard, and overprinted official Russian documents with invisible ink to persuade would-be buyers of the pistol's authenticity.
"This was the stuff of Cold War fiction that would have made for riveting reading in the hands of authors like Le Carre and Ludlum," Mr McDermott said.
He said Mr O'Hara had bought two pistols - a Walther PPK 7.65mm and a Walther Model 8 - from two Melbourne gun dealers in the mid-1990s.
He said historians' most popular account was that Hitler had shot himself with a PPK 7.65mm before his underground bunker was overrun by Soviet forces in April 1945.
Mr O'Hara claimed that after the war the pistols were bought for $1 million from the cash-strapped KGB by an Austrian named Otto who had smuggled them to Israel and then to Melbourne, the court heard.
Mr McDermott said Mr O'Hara, a licensed gun collector, then went about hiring stamp makers, engravers and photographers and buying items such as old Russian typewriters and 1930s ink as part of the plot.
Mr McDermott told the jury that Mr O'Hara had stolen a document from the Bundesarchiv in Koblenz during a visit to Germany and replaced it with a forged letter by SS chief Heinrich Himmler from 1935 that supported his claims.
Mr McDermott said that in 1998 and 1999 Mr O'Hara tried to sell the pistol to buyers in Australia and the US.
In a meeting at a Melbourne solicitor's office where he displayed the pistol, Mr O'Hara had arrived with a bodyguard and said he was Hitler's son, the court heard.
Mr McDermott told the jury that Mr O'Hara had told an American gun dealer he was a former British intelligence operative.
Mr O'Hara, who has pleaded not guilty to 27 counts of making, using or copying false documents and one count of taking firearms out of the state without informing police, is arguing that the pistols are genuine but were never for sale.
His counsel, Richard Backwell, told the jury: "He genuinely believes he has unlocked one of the last secrets of the final hours of the Second World War."
Mr Backwell said that his client had devoted much of his life to exposing anti-Jewish elements in society and the fake attempts to sell the pistols were a way of identifying neo-Nazis.
Mr Backwell said the reason Mr O'Hara was researching and creating so many documents was because Mr O'Hara was writing what he hoped would be the definitive work on the Third Reich, and hoped it would be turned into a movie.
He said the documents were props and they had to look real.
The trial, before Judge Michael Kelly, continues.
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,5048842%5E661,00.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Comments
If I'm wrong please correct me, I won't be offended.
The sound of a 12 gauge pump clears a house fatser than Rosie O eats a Big Mac !
If I'm wrong please correct me, I won't be offended.
The sound of a 12 gauge pump clears a house fatser than Rosie O eats a Big Mac !
If I'm wrong please correct me, I won't be offended.
The sound of a 12 gauge pump clears a house fatser than Rosie O eats a Big Mac !
Edited by - Rembrandt on 09/07/2002 08:12:37
and he seemed like such a nice fellow!
Mark T. Christian
Worry is the interest humans pay on the debt of miscalculation.
Tell her you made a mistake....it really belonged to Alvin York, he used it to "cut 5 target centers and win Lem's beef critter".....on second thought, that rifle got struck by lightning while Alvin was riding his mule home in a rain storm....maybe it's best not to mention anything about your "Crocket" gun to the Mrs.....
Edited by - Rembrandt on 09/07/2002 09:05:23
How much would ya bet he had someone suggest this idea to him when he was buying the weapon & was just trying to make a profit on something for which he paid some outlandish price himself?
Dr.Evil