Hitler's Anti-Semitic Letter Unveiled in N.Y.

A letter written by Adolph Hitler thought to contain the earliest written evidence of his anti-Semitic views has been put on public display in New York.

The letter, written to German army spy Herr Gemlich, is dated September 16, 1919, when a 30-year-old Hitler was serving in the German army. The document carries great importance as it illustrates just how far Hitler’s anti-Semitism can be traced. The letter precedes the publication of “Mein Kampf” by six years and the Holocaust by more than two decades.

Hitler expresses in the document his belief that Judaism is a race rather than a religion of whose people are only concerned with “the pursuit of money and power,” in addition to calling for “the irrevocable removal of the Jews” from society.

The document was owned originally by U.S. Army soldier William F. Ziegler who is said to have discovered the letter in a Nazi archive near Nuremberg, Germany at the close of World War II.

The letter passed through several hands before being purchased by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which acquired the document about three weeks ago for $150,000. Hitler’s letter will be displayed beginning in July at the center’s Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles.