I guess the Soldiers’, Sailors’ and Airmen’s Families Association had gotten as much money out of exhibiting what they thought was Hermann Goering’s Grosser Mercedes as they were going to in 1952, and were ready to pass it on. But its provenance is misleading, as Goering’s beloved blue 540K Cabriolet was a two door, not this monster. They might have gotten more money if it was advertised as such. (Update: it appears this car was made for Goering in 1944)
Here’s Hermann in his 540K on his wedding day.
There’s pictures of what is alleged to be Goering’s 540K having been seized by the Allies. But that’s not the same car; this is a “Special Roadster”. Perhaps he had more than one; quite likely, actually.
Sure enough. Here’s a picture of him with it, perhaps taken when it was first presented to him, or maybe not. In 2014, eBay refused to take a listing for the car, calling it “too offensive”. The original owner, certainly. Too bad such a gorgeous car was sullied by his backside in it.
Hitler had several “Grosser” 770 parade cars at his disposal. Most look older, but this one looks like it may well be the one in the ad. One can see the sidemount bracket in the ad, although the wheel is missing. But I make no guarantees of its provenance except that it was undoubtedly used by a paranoid extremely high-ranking Nazi.
Sehr interessant! Will the real Goering mobile please stand up? Quite a fat ass on Goering, I might add. I note that the weight of the behemoth for sale is not mentioned. Any guesses? Over 6500 pounds between the size of the car and all of the armored plate? The convertible that Goering uses is a honey as is the other one with the two allies in it, the color photo. Good piece of history und vielen dank.
A macabre and conflicted business. What to do with such a car? Would you, could you, should you profit from it when its primary feature is the evil of humanity that owned it? It may not be a weapon, but that final picture makes it a symbol with no other true purpose, and the thousands of aggrieved and angry displaying such fealty to one man rather than their nation is disturbing eight decades later.
Definitely macabre by modern standards, but I suspect that in the immediate aftermath of WWII it was viewed more as a curiosity.
The Soldiers’, Sailors’ and Airmen’s Families Association (SSAFA) is a charity serving British veterans, and was given the car by the British government to use for just such a purpose. Evidently, they raised quite a bit of money for their cause by showing the car at various places over a few years – below is one such account.
I can’t find out who purchased it in 1952, but I suspect the SSAFA profited nicely from it (and I also assume that the sale was OK’d but the British government).
Mark Felton has done some informative videos on these cars.
I’m thinking that this might actually have been one of Goering’s cars. From what I can tell, Goering commissioned a bulletproof Mercedes in 1944 – so it would have been different from his well-known 540K.
Apparently this particular car was discovered by British troops in Schleswig-Holstein – the British government took possession of it and then the Ministry of Supply donated it to the Soldiers’, Sailors’ and Airmen’s Families Association in about 1949. The Association raised money by displaying the car at events, and charging people to see it. I presume that by 1952 everyone in Britain who wanted to look at a Nazi official’s Mercedes had already seen one, so the Association decided to auction it off.
But it looks to me like the pieces fit, and if this car was in fact commissioned by Goering in 1944, the timing would explain the lack of photos of him and the car.
That explains it well enough. Thanks.
That makes sense. Depending on when in 1944 Goering ordered the car, a bullet-proof car for the Nazi second-in-command would have seemed like a prudent purchase. . .
I first learned about the crimes of the Nazi’s as a schoolboy in the 1960’s; I read Shirer’s Rise and Fall of the third Reich at twelve, but then again I was a bookish kid. The Nazi’s horrified me then and still do, just looking at these photos. Books aside, my generation had our WWII – era Greatest Generation parents to teach us about the evils of Nazi Germany. It is too bad the last couple of generations have not had that opportunity to learn this lesson.
That they were still building these in 1944 says a thing or two about why Germany lost the war. I’ve been reading Ian Kershaw’s The End, and even though Goebbels gave his “Total War” speech in 1943, they really didn’t get to a total war footing until late in 1944…
I didn’t know that 5-speed manual gearboxes were offered in Mercedes-Benz and Maybach passenger cars during the 1930s.
Almost certainly shared with trucks, with an ultra-low first for parade work.
The buyers who would want a bulletproof car wouldn’t want a dramatically unique and controversial car that attracted bullets like a magnet. Hard sell.
Break it down for parts. Nothing wasted. Not ruined. Not a trophy anymore either.
Ther eis a YT video of an Asian government (I think) squashing with a bullzdozer a couple dozen expensive cars for tax crimes.
Any idea of where these cars are in 2021? I saw a mid-30s Mercedes auctioned back in the 1990s upclose. What beautiful cars!
After one of the Hitler Grossers made the rounds of the freak show circuses in the 1950’s-’60’s it was the main featured car of one of the first Kruse Auctions in 1971 where it sold for some unheard of dollar amount. Big deal at the time, since its disappeared into some museum or collection and no one much cares. As the period recesses into history and the people who lived through it pass on, it ‘s become another curious artifact of no particular interest.
Goering was a morphine addict and had a healthy appetite. After the Allies captured him, he was denied morphine, and put on a prison diet. He had thus slimmed down considerably by the time he was put on trial.
I wonder whether Goering was being presented with the 540K for the first time in that photo. I have a hard time believing that Daimler-Benz would present a brand-new car that dirty (look at the white walls) to a high-ranking government official. The car also looks quite dusty.
Bullet proof? hello its a soft top.
That’s what I thought. More of parade car perhaps. Mercedes most favored brand of the world’s dictators was mentioned during the 600 era.
Bullet proof from the sides, at least.
Goering was an ace fighter pilot in WW1. If he had been that fat, his plane would never have gotten off the ground, if he could have been wedged into the cockpit in the first place.
Looks like the roadster had been added to the allied motor pool in the color photo, given the designations on the front bumpers.
I would put this car right up there with the Bonnie and Clyde shootout car(s). Increasingly historically irrelevant and uninteresting, as the people who lived through the era are mostly gone now, and the rest of us don’t really have any context for them, outside of the history books, or perhaps it is for those who are afflicted with some sort of prurient interest. What to do with these sorts of cars?
I saw the Bonnie and Clyde car at a fair when it toured with the fair circuit years ago. My biggest takeaway was just how much law enforcement wanted them dead. As to the featured car,I say strip it for any parts that would be usable on another car and crush the rest it. There are far too many pigs that idolize this regime today. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of seeing one of their idols cars.
I saw a Bonnie and Clyde shootout car at the car show in the late ’60s (Real one? Fake? Who knows? There seem to be more than one of them…). There were about three kajillion bullet holes in it, which was one of my biggest impressions. Gives new meaning to the term “lead sled”.
I’d heavily customize it. Crazy hippie designs and lights in the interior and undercarriage. Crushed velvet seats. A new speaker system. Shag carpet. Basically make it look like something a “degenerate” would drive, as a lasting middle finger to the backwards uptight ghoul that used to own it. It’s still too pretty to crush.
Joe Stalin’s 1937 Packard Super 12 is on display in a museum in Roscoe, IL. Lots of pigs still idolize that regime today, too, but erasing physical history doesn’t erase people’s thoughts.
I’d just rebody it. Could be worth more once relieved of its historical association. And in Britain in 1952 there were several coachbuilders well up to the job. Certainly there’d be more potential buyers for a nice sedan or limousine that wasn’t armour-plated. The wheelbase looks too long to really suit a two-seater body.
A rare case where provenance could work against the car.
We have a souvenir book of Hitler’s Mercedes from when it made the rounds in the U.S. in the 40s and 50s. Along with lots of information and photos of the car on parade in the 30s, there’s a whole section devoted to cheesecake shots of Eva Braun and other alleged girlfriends donning bathing suits in the Alps. A fascinating culture artifact to be sure.
All this one needs is Jon Lovitz with a cigarette lighter smudge on his lip.
Only an oxymoron would drive an armored convertible.
I appreciate the work that went into building those cars, but I have no use for the kind of people they were built for. Not in my driveway.
Calls to mind the science fiction ‘B’ movie ‘They Saved Hitler’s Brain’. Maybe the could do a sequel, ‘They Saved Hitler’s Car’.
The factory records list the last 770K being built in 1943. There were a number of armored four-doors built on the 540K chassis, a series commissioned after the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in 1942.
Tangentially, after the shootout lost by Bonnie and Clyde, it was axiomatic that one could hardly go to a County Fair in the South or near Southwest without at least one “genuine Bonnie and Clyde Death Car” in attendance.
Some time in the 1960s, two different Bonnie and Clyde Death Cars wound up being shown at county fairs in neighboring Georgia counties simultaneously. The owner of one of them actually filed suit against the other (and possibly other folks as well) – the case went into the federal courts where the court established (somehow) that the claimant had the real Death Car.
Heh, that sounds so real that I can’t help but believe it. I don’t even want to know if it’s apocryphal.
I looked it up just to be sure… here’s an Atlanta newspaper article from 1969. Apparently the car was “proven” to be the real one by the engine number. I think it’s now on display at a Nevada casino.
Now the guy who lost this lawsuit may have lost… but I bet he and his buddies had fun shooting up a random ’34 Ford to make it look like a long-ago gangster’s car.
Take a second and Google Image Hermann Goering WWI and see how different he looked (when a fighter pilot).
Three different models. The big one is the 770K Cabriolet F. The wedding car is a 540K Cabriolet C and the other one photographed with Göring is his personal 500K Special Roadster.
That reminds me of my parents’ favorite classified ad from the long gone Vintage Car Store in Nyack NY which was selling a Grosser Mercedes circa 1970
“This car is armor plated and ready for the road in all respects”