TOWSON, Md. — A blue velvet baton emblazoned with gold Nazi eagles, black iron crosses, and bearing the name of German General Field Marshall Albert Kesselring sold for an unexpected $731,600 on Dec. 11 by Alex Cooper auctions. It had been consigned by a local woman whose family member had brought it home after World War II.

Carrying a presale estimate of $10,000-$15,000, the baton confounded both auction company experts and prospective buyers who examined the 19in cylindrical piece during the preview and debated its authenticity. Company president Joseph Cooper said the conservative estimate reflected the possibility the piece could be a reproduction.

“I was told if it’s authentic it’s worth a million dollars,” Cooper said.

Several bidders, including two on the phone from Europe, were convinced the decorative, ceremonial object had indeed been presented to the famed Luftwaffe general by Hitler himself. After opening at $10,000 the battle for the baton became a tug of war between a man standing in the back of the gallery and a bidder calling from Europe. The man in the room prevailed when the final bid of $620,000 was not countered. The audience erupted in applause. Adding the 18 percent buyer’s premium, the final price was $731,600.

The unnamed consignor had watched events unfold at home as she followed it in real time with online bidding. Cooper’s Jim Plumer said the local woman had come in two months earlier with a few ivory pieces she wanted to consign. As an afterthought she said she had a German baton she might as well bring in, too. Plumer decided to offer it with a gun collection they were selling.

When the woman delivered it she told Plumer her father-in-law had found it in July 1945 while he was in Berlin checking buildings for booby traps. He brought it home as a souvenir and stored it away.

“They are Jewish,” said Cooper’s Raab Christelf, “and they were embarrassed to have this Nazi thing in their house. They didn’t show it to too many people.” He added its sale is “reparation for what the Nazis did to the Jews.”

The baton is dated “19 Juli 1940” and contains wording that Christhilf loosely translated as “Freedom for all German People.” More importantly — and driving the baton’s value — was the name of Albert Kesselring.

The World War I veteran had begun his career as young enlisted man in an artillery regiment. He became an officer after attending a military academy and rose quickly through the ranks. By 1936 he was a major general. Three years earlier, at age 48, Kesselring learned to fly after he was given the responsibility of rebuilding Germany’s air force that would become the powerful Luftwaffe. After commanding the First Air Fleet which led to the fall of France in May 1940, Kesselring was promoted to Field Marshall in July. This matches the date on the baton. He eventually commanded all German forces in Italy.

By war’s end, Kesselring had earned the respect of friend and foe. His ever-present cheerfulness earned him the nickname of “Smiling Albert” and “Uncle Albert” by the Americans. After surrendering on May 9, 1945, he was permitted to keep his baton and even stay in a hotel in Berchtesgade in the Bavarian Alps.

Hopes of transitioning into civilian life in post-war Germany were halted when he was charged with war crimes for permitting the execution of more 300 Italian civilians in what became known as the Ardeatine cave massacre. Kesselring said he was following orders from Hitler.

His baton and medals were taken. He was sent to American POW camps and then turned over to the British. His trial did not occur until Feb. 17, 1947. He was found guilty for his connection to the cave massacre and sentenced to death by firing squad.

This would have been the end of Smiling Albert if he didn’t have so many friends all over Europe. “The death verdict against Kesselring unleashed a storm of protest in the United Kingdom,” states his lengthy bio in Wikipedia. “Former British Prime Minster Winston Churchill immediately branded it as too harsh and intervened in favor of Kesselring.”

Many of his former enemies came to his defense, resulting in his sentence changed to life in prison. He spent the next five years productively, writing a history of the war from his perspective for the U.S. Army’s Historical Division, and his memoirs. (Currently available from Amazon.)

Reacting to growing public opinion to release him, prison officials declared Kesselring had throat cancer and reassigned him to a hospital in October 1952. Soon discharged and a free man, Kesselring wrote a second book, traveled, and testified at military trials. He lived another eight years, dying in 1960 in West Germany at age 74.

Today Field Marshall Albert Kesselring can be found on You Tube. There’s wartime footage of him with his soldiers and riding in a jeep-like vehicle. He smiles to the camera and waves his baton. Not the one that just sold, which was commemorative, but the standard baton he carried in the field. Its whereabouts are unknown.