The biggest collection of Nazi artefacts in Argentina’s history, found by police – VIDEO

The biggest collection of Nazi artefacts in Argentina’s history was found by police in a hidden room in a house near the country’s capital.

The collection, which has approximately 75 objects, includes a bust relief of Adolf Hitler, magnifying glasses inside elegant boxes with swastikas, toys that would have been used to indoctrinate children, a large statue of the Nazi Eagle above a swastika, a Nazi hourglass, a box of harmonicas and even a macabre medical device used to measure head size.

All of these were found in a collector’s home in Beccar, a suburb north of Buenos Aires, and, according to authorities, they are probably originals that belonged to high-ranking Nazis in Germany during World War II.

“Our first investigations indicate that these are original pieces,” Argentine Security Minister Patricia Bullrich told The Associated Press, according to NBC News.

Some pieces were also accompanied by old photographs. “This is a way to commercialise them, showing that they were used by the horror, by the Fuhrer. There are photos of him with the objects.”

One of the most compelling pieces of evidence of the historical importance of the find, according to police, is a photo negative of Hitler holding a magnifying glass similar to those found in the boxes.

“We have turned to historians and they’ve told us it is the original magnifying glass” that Hitler was using, said Nestor Roncaglia, head of Argentina’s federal police. “We are reaching out to international experts to deepen” the investigation.

The collection was discovered when authorities found artworks of illicit origin in a gallery in north Buenos Aires. The investigation on the collector by agents with the international police force Interpol began with a judicial order raided the house on June 8.

A large bookshelf caught investigators’ attention and behind it, the police found a hidden passageway to a room filled with Nazi imagery.

Until now, authorities did not identify the collector who remains free but under investigation by a federal judge.

“There are no precedents for a find like this. Pieces are stolen or are imitations. But this is original and we have to get to the bottom of it,” said Roncaglia.

Police are now trying to determine how the artefacts entered Argentina, one of the main hypothesis released in this case is that they were brought to Argentina by a high-ranking Nazi or Nazis after World War II, when the South American country became a refuge for fleeing war criminals.

This is the case even with some of the best known, such as Josef Mengele, one of the leading members of Hitler’s Third Reich, who was put on trial for war crimes and fled to Argentina and lived in Buenos Aires for a decade. Holocaust mastermind Adolf Eichmann was also living in Buenos Aires. Holocaust mastermind Adolf Eichmann was also living in Buenos Aires.