Lt. Francis Lewis visited the Obersalzberg twice during 1945 — the first time soon after the war ended, and again later that winter. By the time he arrived, the most prized and sought after souvenirs had long gone. But he did manage to remove a door handle from Hermann Göring’s house, a strip of carpet from the Great Hall of the Berghof, and a door handle “from Adolf Hitler’s bedroom”.
Lt. Lewis sent them to his mother in Ohio where they remained in the family until 2014.
The handle from Göring’s house is actually visible in period photos of the speisezimmer (dining room) door.
Interestingly, a matching example of the carpet surfaced some years back, again via another member of the 735th Railway Operating Bn. who was there with Lt. Lewis at the same day.
As for the handle from “Adolf Hitler’s bedroom”, this looks like the type used in the tunnels below the Berghof.
“I remember my father telling me when he visited Goring’s home, his swimming pool was full of filthy water. He said during his second visit there some weeks later, the pool had been drained. Someone said to him ‘you won’t believe what they found in there!’ He was told ‘they’ (whoever ‘they’ were) found a cache of vintage and collectible military swords wrapped in a water tight container that had been weighted down and hidden at the deep end of the pool. Although Goring had been arrested by this point, he’d obviously assumed he would be treated with high regard and allowed to return to his home in Berchtesgaden, which didn’t happen. My father was told that in this collection of prized swords, at least one sword had belonged to Napoleon Bonaparte.”
The underside of the carpet, which measures about 2.5ft, appears to have a series of ink measuring/cutting lines, which were perhaps made during its fitting.
