 From Director of Archives & Collections, Amy Moorman: The description of an artifact in our Collection caught my eye recently. It read, “Duck Sail Cloth Piece from Hitler’s Yacht “Ostwind” with Certificate.” I wanted to know more. Sure enough, the item was a small square of cloth identified as “an authentic relic from the Number One Mainsail of Adolf Hitler’s Yacht s.y. “Ostwind”.” But what was even more intriguing were the other materials accompanying the piece of sail cloth, including a Certificate of Authenticity (Guaranteed, 1972) as well as a pamphlet advertising the Historical Attraction “Ostwind Museum” located in Jacksonville, Florida. The Certificate of Authenticity is signed by Horace and Jody Glass, founders of the Ostwind Museum. Further research yields a fascinating story about how “Hitler’s yacht” found it’s way to Florida, and its ultimate fate. The boat was apparently seized by the US Navy after the War and used as a training vessel until sold as surplus in the 1950s. Eventually the boat sank in the Intracoastal Waterway, rescued by the Glass family who purchased it in the 1960s. Horace Glass attempted to restore the boat for decades, even, as the evidence in our collection suggests, creating a museum aboard the vessel in 1972 (none of the sources I found on this topic mentioned this museum, only the attempt at starting one in Plymouth, MA in the 1980s that was derailed over outcry in that community). In 1989, the boat was sold to a group of Holocaust survivors who intended to sink it off the coast of Miami and create a memorial to the victims of the MS St. Louis whose passengers had been denied entry to the US and a third of whom later were murdered in the Holocaust. Due to later hurricanes, the current location of the sunken ship is unknown. |