Hairbrush with a metal swastika

Floreloid brand natural bristle hairbrush with a small metal swastika nailed to the wooden handle. This style was marketed as a military hair brush with a sterling silver decorative crest mounted on the handle. The product was popular in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century. This brush may have belonged to Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Chief of the Security Police known as the Gestapo in Nazi Germany. He was the most senior member of the SS captured alive after the defeat of Germany in May 1945. He was directly involved with the implementation of the Final Solution and operation of the concentration camp system. Kaltenbrunner was found guilty of war crimes by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, sentenced to death, and hanged October 16, 1946. The brush was given to the West German ambassador to the United States, Heinz L. Krekeler, at some point after the war by Major Robert Matteson, the US counterintelligence officer who captured Kaltenbrunner on May 12, 1945.