Jules Crittenden

Hidden Gem

Reportedly one of the world’s best WWII collections has been salted away in a private museum in Natick, Mass., for the past decade. Now slightly less private. Viewing by appointment only. Includes a purported sawed-off bit of the couch Hitler did himself and the Mrs. in on, a draft of the Munich agreement, a Sherman tank and other good stuff. Boston Globe, Veil Lifts on Trove of WWII Treasures:

… an evocative and jaw-dropping collection of more than 6,000 wartime artifacts Rendell has gathered over four decades.

For eight years, the Museum of World War II has been a preserve open only to a circle of Rendell acquaintances, historians, and military veterans or enthusiasts.

Within its walls, the museum houses a section of the sofa that Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide on, silicon likenesses of the period’s major figures outfitted in their actual uniforms, a Sherman tank, and a trove of historically significant letters and documents, including the complete plans for the invasion of Normandy and a draft of the 1938 Munich Agreement, with Hitler’s handwritten changes.

No less an authority than Phil Reed, a former curator at Britain’s Imperial War Museum, has said it “simply has no equal.’’

Rendell has a new book out, World War II: Saving the Reality, A Collector’s Vault. Here’s the museum’s website, where you can apply to visit. Reportedly 18-plus only, so I won’t be going for a few years. I can’t go and leave the 13-year-old World War II scholar behind. Not fair.

Here’s the museum store. No key chains, commemorative spoons or “WWII Monopoly” games. Nothing cheap at all, in fact.

Here’s a little more on what you’ll find in the museum and the book. Plus a little more on Rendell:

■ The first message from Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941: “AIRRAID ON PEARL HARBOR X THIS IS NO DRILL.’’

■ The pagelong original order, carried by a radar specialist on the mission to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. It appears unremarkable except for the munitions order, “Bombs: Special.’’

■ Hitler’s sketch of the eagle monument in Nuremburg, with an authenticating note by Albert Speer, his architect.

■ Letters from Eisenhower and Erwin Rommel, the opposing commanders, to their wives on the same day after the Normandy landings.

■ A mannequin of Hitler in his original brownshirt uniform. The museum has a vast collection of wartime propaganda from several nations. There is also an extensive display of uniforms and weaponry, ranging from the enormous tank, which had to be situated before the museum walls could be built, to tiny lethal gadgets carried by spies.

Rendell calls them as he sees them, and he doesn’t tolerate the political correctness of hindsight.

When a television crew once prepared to interview a Pacific veteran who had spoken at the museum, the vet was asked to move away from a propaganda poster because the producer feared viewers might be offended by its message, “Jap, You’re Next.’’

“I said: ‘[Expletive] you. That’s not what this place is about; you’re in the wrong place,’’’ Rendell recalled.

The crew shot the interview in front of the poster. The story aired, and “there were no picket lines and the world didn’t end,’’ Rendell said.

Other Rendell tomes. A lot of how-to on collecting and some history:

History Comes to Life: Collecting Historical Letters and Documents

Forging History: The Detection of Fake Letters & Documents

The Western Pursuit Of The American Dream: Selections From The Collection Of Kenneth W. Rendell

Autographs and Manuscripts: A Collector’s Manual

With Weapons and Wits. Propaganda and Psychological Warfare in World War II. Selections from the Collection of Kenneth W. Rendell

Topics: history, military