Hitler's head

September 2003

The well-known Dutch pipe collector Henk van der Hoef from Zeist received this wooden pipe bowl as a gift from a German collector in 1941. The pipe bowl shows the head of Adolf Hitler as we know him with characteristic lock on the forehead and the typical small mustache. On the underside, on the neck of the portrayed person a swastika is carved. Striking is the beautiful light grain-free wood that has been carved in a nearly realistic way. Yet this pipe bowl appears to me as a bizarre gift to a Dutchman during German occupation, but Van der Hoef has included the pipe in his collection and even cherished it until his death. As a maker of riding clothes of the then Prince of the Netherlands, such a portrait pipe was completely inappropriate, even as part of a collection. Probably for that reason, when the war was over, the inscription "ES WAR EINMAL" was carved on the stem of the pipe to indicate that Hitler's fairy tale had ended. The portrait of the successful leader downgraded to that of a loser. By the way, pipes with the portrait of Hitler are also made by others, although they remain a rarity. They mainly occur as an inappropriate joke and they probably never got a place in literature for that reason.

Amsterdam Pipe Museum APM 17.131

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