Very rare giant folio 'Gauleiter edition' of Adolf Hitler's political manifesto 'Mein Kampf', 15.5 x 20.75 x 3 inches (39.7 x 52.7 x 7.6 cm.), handsomely printed in large German type by the Zentralverlag der NSDAP, Berlin. It bears the usual 1925-27 copyright date but was in actuality produced in only perhaps less than one hundred copies in the 1930s. This special edition was given as gifts to the 44 Gauleiters and 21 Reichsleiters in Germany, Austria, and its sphere of control. The volume is bound in white vellum over wood boards, with pages gilded at the top and bottom. The Reichsadler and lettering on the front cover and and spine are gilt-stamped, as are oak leaves along the spine together with Hitler’s name and 'Mein Kampf'. The book was originally held closed by two metal hasps secured by pins attached to the front cover, but these are now lost. This rare volume is in want of restoration. The vellum on both covers and the spine is torn, stained, and in some places lost. Nine leaves are disbound, and both covers and the vellum covering of the spine are pulling loose, now nearly detached. This damage is largely due to the fact that that the American intelligence officer who seized the volume carried it with him on his journeys through Germany for months before bringing it home. A skillful restorer could do much to bring this relic back to a very acceptable condition. This book was captured by American intelligence officer Warner Kurt Loeb (b. 1921) and it has remained in the hands of his family since the end of the war. Included with the book is Loeb's ca. 1980 manuscript letter of provenance describing how he obtained it. He writes, in small part: '...I was with...CIC - Military Government & Prosecutors & Judges at Nuremberg War Crimes Trials...to take care of 'civil affairs'...we were taking the Bavarian city - Furstenfeldbruck [a close western suburb of Munich] ...they put white flags on the roof of their houses...Who did this!! I asked. Gauleiter (Governor) Huebner was the answer...I took a squad of soldiers to arrest this man!! - I knocked at the door there he stood greeting me Heil Hitler clicking his heels saying 'I expected you!' I said let's go!! He said I have one request -- to say goodbye to my wife & children. I waited in the hall - living room...a few minutes later Booom - he shot himself through the mouth! He was right on the staircase - and easily could have shot me...I went upstairs in his little office where I found letters from Hitler and 'Mein Kamph' [sic] - that's when I took this book!...'. A bit of research reveals the notorious individual who apparently owned this volume. The Gauleiter edition of Mein Kampf was reserved for Gauleiters, Reichsleiters, and the very top of Hitler's administration. Excluded as the owner of this book is Paul Geisler, Gauleiter of Munich-Upper Bavaria from April 12, 1944 until the end of the war, when he committed suicide with his family - but not at Furstenfeldbrook, but instead at Berchtesgaden, 154 km. away. And of course, his name sounds nothing like the 'Huebner' mentioned in the letter of provenance. However, Reichsleiter FRANZ-JOSEF HUBER (1902-1975) lived in the Munich area, though we've been unable to pin down the exact location. It seems certain, owing to the similarity of the names ('Huebner' as mentioned in Loeb's provenance and 'Huber'), as well as the location and the lack of any other possible owner of this book anywhere within at least 100 miles, that Franz-Josef Huber owned this particular edition and that Loeb had confused a suicidal officer or another underling at Huber's residence for the gauleiter of the region. Franz-Josef Huber was one of the worst mass murderers of World War II and he would ultimately be protected by the OSS and CIA in the postwar years. He served as Chief of the Security Police (SiPo) and Gestapo in Vienna and was responsible for mass deportations of Jews from the area. A close friend of Heydrich and Muller, Huber had his underlings offices torture over 50,000 prisoners. Huber also attempted to set up Colonel General Werner von Fritsch as a homosexual. In the postwar years, the CIA's shielding of Huber was part of a larger U.S. program that recruited at least a thousand Nazi spies and concealed their past for decades, even in many cases from the Department of Justice. He was employed by the West German Federal Intelligence Service from 1955–64, and attempts by various survivor groups and the Austrian government to have him prosecuted were blocked by the US occupation and intelligence authorities. Huber had certainly fled Vienna much earlier, and with the Americans rapidly descending on Bavaria, his home there would have been a poor choice for refuge, though the exact location of his arrest in unknown to us. Also seized by Loeb and included here is a filled-in copy of the 'cigarette book' 'Adolf Hitler', presumably taken from the same residence, in battered condition.