This gift from Hitler is a poetry album of the highest bookbinding quality. The handcrafted book has a parchment binding with gold edge decoration, gilt edges at the top in the style of the great books of the Middle Ages. On the book cover the initials “E G” in raised gold leaf. On the 3rd page in gold print the large coat of arms of the family of Hermann Göring, on the 5th page a large hand-painted ex-libris “Edda Göring zu Eigen” with the fairy tale depiction “Goldmarie und Pechmarie”, partially decorated with gold leaf. Then on the 2nd page of the album with personal dedication in black ink “Mit den besten Glücks- und Segenswünschen - Adolf Hitler 2/ Juni 1944” (With best wishes for happiness and blessings - Adolf Hitler 2/ June 1944). Embossed name of master bookbinder Hans Zieher. The book was not filled out further. Dimensions 20.5 x 27.5 cm. The book is in very good condition. Complete with the old original slipcase (this somewhat scuffed).
Hans Zieher, student of the Hermann Göring Master School for Painting, was considered one of the most significant bookbinders of his time. When Hans Zieher was accepted as a student at the Master School, school director Werner Peiner had a bookbinding workshop established there, in which Hans Zieher also produced parchment folders in which birthday or congratulatory certificates were presented to Adolf Hitler or Hermann Göring, among others.

The poetry album comes from the estate of the deceased collector and friend Michael Xilas, Greece. He received the piece personally from Edda Göring in 1978. Enclosed is a photo from that time of Michael and Edda.

Edda Göring (born June 2, 1938 in Berlin; died December 21, 2018 in Munich) was the daughter of Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring and his second wife Emmy Göring. Among her godparents was Adolf Hitler. She was probably named after Benito Mussolini's daughter Edda. She spent the first years of her childhood at Carinhall, among other places, her father's stately country estate located near Berlin.

On May 21, 1945, she was interned with her parents in the U.S. camp Camp Ashcan in Mondorf, Luxembourg. During the Nuremberg Trials, she was allowed to visit her father in prison.
From 1949, Emmy Göring litigated for years to obtain valuables from her husband's estate. She declared many of them to be the inheritance of her daughter, who was by then ten years old.

After the war, Edda Göring was a regular guest at the Bayreuth home of Hitler's former patron Winifred Wagner. Her grandson Gottfried Wagner later recalled his grandmother's invitations, who at that time received political friends such as Edda Göring, Ilse Heß, the then NPD chairman Adolf von Thadden, Gerdy Troost, the widow of the Nazi architect and Hitler friend Paul Ludwig Troost, the British fascist leader Oswald Mosley, the related Nazi film director Karl Ritter, and the racist author and former Reich Culture Senator Hans Severus Ziegler. In 1986, she gave an interview to Swedish television in which she described Hermann Göring as a loving father but clearly distanced herself from his politics. At her request, the interview was not broadcast in Germany. Today it can be seen on the Internet. Edda Göring lived in the Munich district of Lehel until her death.

She died on December 21, 2018.

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A Poetry Album from Adolf Hitler to His Goddaughter Edda Göring – A Document from the Final Days of the Third Reich

Among the personal artifacts that have survived from the innermost circle of the Nazi leadership, this handcrafted poetry album (Poesiealbum) occupies a singular position. It is a unique, one-of-a-kind presentation piece of the highest bookbinding quality, given by Adolf Hitler to his goddaughter Edda Göring on her sixth birthday, June 2, 1944. The album merges the material opulence of National Socialist representational culture with the private sphere of the regime’s elite, making it an extraordinary testament to an era in which personal relationships and political power were inextricably intertwined.

The Object: A Masterpiece of Bookbinding

The album was handcrafted by master bookbinder Hans Zieher in Bonn. Zieher was a student at the Hermann-Göring-Meisterschule für Malerei (Hermann Göring Master School for Painting) in Kronenburg in the Eifel region, a Nazi-approved art academy established between 1936 and 1938 under director Werner Peiner with Hermann Göring as patron. The institution operated from 1938 to 1944. Peiner had a bookbindery workshop specifically established at the school for Zieher, where he produced parchment folders and presentation items intended as gifts for Hitler and Göring. Zieher was considered one of the most significant bookbinders of his era.

The album is designed in the style of medieval manuscripts. It features a parchment binding with gold trim decoration and gilded edges (Goldschnitt) on the top edge. The cover bears the initials “E G” in raised gold leaf. Inside, the third page displays the Göring family coat of arms in gold print, while the fifth page features a large, hand-painted ex libris inscribed “Edda Göring zu Eigen” (“Belonging to Edda Göring”) with a fairy tale illustration of “Goldmarie und Pechmarie” (characters from the Brothers Grimm tale “Frau Holle”), partly decorated with gold leaf. The gold-embossed signature of Hans Zieher appears on the inside front cover at the bottom edge. The album measures 20.5 × 27.5 cm and is accompanied by its original protective slipcase.

Hitler’s handwritten dedication in black ink on the second page of the album reads: “Mit den besten Glücks- und Segenswünschen – Adolf Hitler 2/ Juni 1944” (“With the best wishes for happiness and blessings – Adolf Hitler 2/ June 1944”). Beyond this inscription, the album was never filled in – it remained blank, a silent witness to a childhood that would soon be engulfed by the collapse of the regime.

The Goddaughter: Edda Göring

Edda Carin Wilhelmine Göring was born on June 2, 1938, the only child of Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring and actress Emmy Sonnemann. She was baptized on November 4, 1938, at Carinhall, her father’s grand country estate, with Adolf Hitler serving as her godfather. Edda was celebrated as a “Little Princess” of the Third Reich and received many extravagant gifts throughout her childhood. The poetry album documented here is a tangible artifact of this privileged yet historically overshadowed upbringing, and it attests to Hitler’s continued personal relationship with the Göring family even as the regime was hurtling toward its destruction.

Historical Context: June 1944

The timing of this gift is of profound historical significance. On June 2, 1944 – the date inscribed in Hitler’s dedication and Edda’s sixth birthday – the Second World War was entering its decisive final phase. Just four days later, on June 6, 1944, the Allied landings in Normandy commenced, marking the beginning of the end of Nazi dominion in Western Europe. While Hitler signed a tender poetry album for a six-year-old girl, Allied forces were preparing the largest amphibious assault in military history.

The Hermann-Göring-Meisterschule für Malerei in Kronenburg, where Zieher worked, ceased operations in that same year, 1944. Since 1938 it had functioned as a regime-sanctioned art academy producing monumental works and presentation items for the Nazi leadership. This poetry album thus stands among the final products of that institution.

Post-War History and Provenance

Following Germany’s defeat, Edda Göring was interned along with her parents by American forces at Camp Ashcan in Mondorf, Luxembourg, on May 21, 1945. Hermann Göring committed suicide by cyanide on October 15, 1946, at Nuremberg, hours before his scheduled execution. Edda and her mother Emmy subsequently engaged in years of legal battles over confiscated family property.

After the war, Edda Göring lived in Munich, working as a medical technician and law clerk. She never married and had no children. Until her death on December 21, 2018, in Munich at the age of 80, she defended her father’s memory.

The poetry album remained in Edda’s possession until 1978, when she personally gave it to Greek collector Michael Xilas. The piece comes from his estate, accompanied by a photograph showing Edda and Michael Xilas together.

Significance for Collectors

This poetry album is a unique artifact that unites multiple dimensions of historical significance: the personal handwritten dedication of Adolf Hitler, the direct connection to the family of the second most powerful man in the Third Reich, the masterful craftsmanship of one of the era’s foremost bookbinders, and its immediate proximity to one of the most decisive turning points of the Second World War. The empty album – never filled with poetry – stands as a silent symbol of a childhood abruptly ended by the regime’s collapse, and of a world that began to unravel irreversibly just days after it was presented.