GUEST: I brought a letter that my father wrote my mother during the war.
APPRAISER: So Mother is "Darling."
GUEST: Mother is "Darling."
APPRAISER: And where did he write this from?
GUEST: He wrote it at the Eagle's Nest, Hitler's home, in Berchtesgaden, Germany.
APPRAISER: His home in the Alps?
GUEST: In the Alps.
APPRAISER: And we actually have "Der F¸hrer," which was his term, "The Leader." We have the German eagle with the swastika. And there's a big controversy over the collecting of Nazi memorabilia.
GUEST: I can imagine.
APPRAISER: I love this because it's anti-Nazi memorabilia. Did he ever talk much about being up there?
GUEST: He didn't talk about the war very much at all, to tell you the truth.
APPRAISER: Who did he serve with?
GUEST: The 101st Airborne, 502nd. He was stationed in England before the Normandy invasion.
APPRAISER: So he dropped on Normandy?
GUEST: Yes, he did.
APPRAISER: What's cool is 70 years ago yesterday, he's coming out of a plane, not knowing if it would work. There was just as good a chance it wouldn't work.
GUEST: Yes.
APPRAISER: Later, he's sitting at Hitler's retreat in the Alps, writing on his stationery to his sweetheart, "Darling." And he says, "A few years ago, "I was reading of how 'Der F¸hrer' was going to rule the world, "and now I'm here in his house, using his writing paper and thinking of what a jerk he was." (chuckles) That pretty much sums it up.
GUEST: It sounds like my father.
APPRAISER: That regiment had been through hell since D-Day. They jumped, they fought, they were stuck in the Battle of the Bulge. Those guys were amazing. We were so fortunate that they were there. I like at the top of the letter, he makes the notation, "Here's something to put in your scrapbook." Since it's a family piece, we'd be looking for an insurance value.
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: This is a piece that, if it were my family, I would insure it between $500 and $600.
GUEST: Okay, that's great.
