Sipping Beer Ahead of WWII Atrocities: Rare Photos of Adolf Hitler and His Henchmen Auctioned

At the end of the Second World War in Germany, a British soldier seized an album with nearly 200 snaps, some of which were taken by one of Adolf Hitler’s personal guards. The photos have now allowed history lovers to get a sneak peek behind the façade of the dictator’s life.

Photos providing a glimpse into the daily life of the Nazi leader and his close circle are going on sale at Oxfordshire auctioneers Jones and Jacob. The starting price for the pictures is $2,850. The unique documents are said to have been taken by one of the personal guards from a unit known as the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler.

The collection of 170 photos in an album that was taken by an unnamed British soldier during World War II shows the Third Reich dictator’s elite SS guards relaxing, as well as Adolf Hitler himself, his henchmen Heinrich Himmler, Hermann Goering, and Rudolf Hess, in the late 1930s. The SS guard took the pictures between 1937 and 1939 during the lead up to the war.

As The Mirror reports, one of the snaps pictures five men wearing SS uniforms sipping beer during what looks like a break amid their mission to ensure the safety of the Nazi leader at a rally. The snap is captioned “Nuremberg beer tastes good ”.

Others show the Fuhrer himself walking out of his ominous Berghof residence in Bavaria or strolling up a mountain near an Alpine retreat.

However, there are also photos of him at Nazi rallies, marching into Vienna after the annexation of Austria, known as the “Anschluss”, in 1938. The collection includes, for example, a picture from the Nuremberg rally in 1937, exactly two years before the war, which served as a propaganda showpiece for the Nazi regime.