HitIer's globe turns up in Oakland rumpus room
OAKLAND: Former Oakland GI, 91, to auction war souvenir
Steve Rubenstein, Chronicle Staff Writer
Oct. 18, 2007
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Perhaps to atone for its past sins, the globe of Adolf HitIer has spent six decades peacefully tucked away in an Oakland rumpus room, doing its best not to give any more madmen any more big ideas.
It has led a quiet life. Now it is returning to the limelight.
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Its current owner, former U.S. Army Warrant Officer John Barsamian, is putting it up for auction. He's the owner because, as a 28-year-old soldier, he snatched it from a table while on a patrol inside HitIer's house at the mountaintop retreat near Berchtesgaden, Germany, in May 1945. The war had ended two days earlier and Barsamian figured the globe's previous owner, who had shot himself dead in a Berlin bunker, would not be needing it.
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"To the victors go the spoils," Barsamian said the other day, reflecting on the rules of war that allow a loser's prized possessions to end up in a winner's duffel bag. "I took it legally. I wasn't going to walk out of that room and just let HitIer's globe sit there. I'm not dumb."
Barsamian returned home to the Oakland hills, worked for decades as a securities investigator, raised a family and plopped HitIer's globe on a table in the basement, next to an upright piano. He tried not to brag about having it. A lot of World War II veterans don't talk much about its details, many of which are best left unsaid.
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"I had other things to worry about," Barsamian said. "Wife and kids. All these years, HitIer's globe has been a reminder of my struggle as a young soldier to stay alive."
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His son Barry recalled staring at the globe from time to time while practicing the piano, and gazing at it while doing his middle school geography homework. It wasn't particularly useful for that, he said, because the words on it were in German and the globe itself has holes in it caused by the bombs that fell on HitIer's hideaway during the final days of the war.
Besides the holes, the globe has a few lines drawn on it, in blue, green and red ink. Some are on the Atlantic Ocean. Maybe they showed the route for a possible German invasion of the United States. Nobody knows who drew them, or why. Because of what Barsamian and millions of other veterans did, the lines on a madman's globe remain the subject of speculation.
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"Maybe he used the globe to ponder world takeover," Barsamian said. "He was a crazy man. He happened to be a crazy man with a lot of power."
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The other afternoon, Barsamian thought it over for some time. He sat in his living room which, like the globe, seemed to belong to another day. All around him were antique rugs, antique snow globes, antique porcelain cats, an antique phonograph and three antique clocks that used to work and now declare the time forever to be 3:04, 6:49 and 12:25. Well into his 10th decade, Barsamian knows about time without having to look at a clock.
"I'm 91," he said, with a smile. "I'm ready to let go of things."
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Among the things he's letting go of is the globe. It goes on the auction block in San Francisco on Nov. 12, 2007 at the Greg Martin auction house on Third Street.
Nobody knows how much it's worth until the hammer falls. About all that's known is that the next owner will pay more for it than Barsamian or the previous owner did.
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Note: Bob Pritikin, an entrepreneur from San Francisco, bought the globe for $100,000, five times the original estimated price of $20,000.
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