A World War II Luftwaffe flag with a Nazi swastika will be auctioned in Queensland this weekend, but the Anti-Defamation Commission has labelled it a “disgrace” and an “emblem of pure inhumanity”.
The Gold Coast auction house selling the flag has hit back, saying it is a “major historical antiquity” and they are “not flying the flag, so to speak” of Nazi values by selling the piece.
Danielle Elizabeth Antique & Estate Auctioneers managing director Dustin Sweeny said the seller was an Italian diplomat who was stationed in the Netherlands in the 1980s.
The vendor, who now lives in Queensland, claims to have had the 1945 Luftwaffe compound flag in his possession for about 40 years and is selling it because he is downsizing his home.
Mr Sweeny said the flag was believed to have flown at the Luftwaffe compound in Groningen until the Dutch city was taken by an estimated 6000 Canadian troops in April 1945.
The occupation of Groningen came a matter of weeks before Germany surrendered to Allied forces on the European battlefront.
Anti-Defamation Commission chairman Dr Dvir Abramovich, who leads a national campaign to ban the sale of Nazi memorabilia, described the flag as a “disgrace” and a “travesty”.
“What does this say about us that in Australia in 2021 there are auction houses offering items from a regime responsible for the deaths of six million Jews and millions of others?” he said.
“No one should be marketing, commercialising and profiting from the horrific instruments of the Holocaust.
Read the article by Toby Crockford in the Brisbane Times.