Patton's War Booty Given To National Archives

Like so many of his soldiers, World War II Gen. George S. Patton Jr. was something of a "souvenir hunter" who brought Nazi memorabilia home at war's end, said Greg Bradsher of the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

But in Patton's case, the souvenirs weren't just helmets, guns, or military insignia.

He brought back the original Nuremberg Laws, signed by Adolph Hitler on Sept. 15, 1935 - chilling documents that spell out the "Law for the Safeguard of German Blood of German Honor," that legalized persecution of the Jews and led directly to the Holocaust.

Patton, whose father's estate adjoined the Huntington Library, left two sets of the historic papers there on June 11, 1945.

When he was killed in a car accident in Europe in December that year, no one at the Huntington knew what he'd intended to do with the papers - and he hadn't officially "gifted" them to the collections.

But on Wednesday, 65 years later, the decision was finally made: the library permanently transferred the historic four-page typewritten document to the National Archives.

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