(One Of) Adolf's Cars Found

According to the German tabloid Express, Düsseldorf antique car dealer Michael Fröhlich has found Hitler’s car, a blue Mercedes 770K. Fröhlich started searching after a request by a Russian oligarch. He tracked the car to Austria, to where it had been sold for 2000 Reichsmark after the war. From there, the car went to the car museum of the Imperial Palace in Las Vegas. It was sent back to Germany into the collection of a loaded owner of a brewery in Munich. It finally ended up with a collector in Bielefeld. The collector had 5 more of the Nazi cars, one of them formerly Joachim von Ribbentrop’s daily driver.

According to the Express, Fröhlich did due diligence. The paperwork, even the license place 1A 148461 did check out. The oligarch bought the complete Nazi fleet for several million Euro. Hitler’s car will go to Moscow. Fröhlich is supposed to find buyers for the five others, says the Express.

The German English writing newssite The Local contacted Fröhlich. He corroborated the story, except for the part that the deal is already done. The Local says that Fröhlich “is now negotiating with potential buyers. The cars are all still here and no money has changed hands.”

Let’s just hope this is not the automotive version of the infamous Hitler diaries.

Update: In the meantime, Daimler historian Josef Ernst said there was no “Hitler’s car.” Mercedes had built 88 units of the 770K, most of them delivered to the fleet of the Reich Chancellor. “Nobody can say today who drove when with what,” said Ernst. Fröhlich is likewise backpedaling: “Hitler, who didn’t have a driver’s license, sat in many cars, maybe also in this one.”