History Buff

This is a free country. You can say anything you want. Keep in mind that wearing SS-uniforms or swastika flags is illegal and so is the "Hitler salutation" (right arm up, yelling "Heil...!"). Both of which bring you straight to jail in Germany. Most artifacts or memorabilia are "Made in China" nowadays but you'll find a surprisingly wide variety at flea markets... By the way if you want to talk about the fascist times in Germany to Germans don't be surprised if they want to talk about just excatly the same in the US!!! Reichstagsbrand and consequences anyone?

You are unlikely to find WWII memorabilia in Germany. Germany today contains few traces of the Nazi era. I have seen a handful of items for sale in flea markets in Bulgaria and the former Yugoslavian states, but this was several years ago.

I always troll the flea markets when in NL/Fra/Belg/UK but as Andrea says, 95% of the stuff for sale are reproductions (and some of them are very good and hard to detect). Most of the legitimate collectables are in the hands of (not surprisingly) collectors, who wouldn't sell anything from their hoard, or commercial dealers with high prices -and some of their stuff is counterfeit as well.

Most of the stuff in the former Yugoslavia was probably legitimate, mainly because there probably isn't much interest in Partisan memorabilia outside of the region. Some of the Nazi stuff I saw in Bulgaria were obvious reproductions, but some were rusty and scratched enough to make one wonder...

The company my wife works for has offices in The Netherlands and also its production facility. Also an office in Wuppertal Germany. The first time she was sent over for business (of course I always tag along. Such a chore but I was only doing my husbandly duty.:) ) The first trip over she was told if her German colleagues brought up the subject of WWII it was o.k. to discuss but she should not bring it up first. We have always abided by that advice. That said we were the guests of a couple in a little village not far from Mainz. She a German and he an American. Her father was in the battle of Stalingrad and captured. He was not released until 1949 or '50. She still had his letters and photos from his days as a p.o.w.. She allowed me to read some of them and look at the photos. I don't read much German but was able to pick out the essence in some of the letters. They were very interesting as were the photos. She was very close to her father, the youngest of three. (Cont'd)

Continued....
She told me this was the first time she had looked through that box of letters and photos since her father's death in the 90's. I could tell from talking with her that their relationship was a very close one. To her, he was a father and not a soldier. He fought bravely for his country and to her he was a hero. That is as it should be.
I did not ask to read her father's letters but her husband knew I was into WWII history and he told her of my interest. She made the offer to me to read those letters. After making sure that she was o.k. with me reading those I told her it would be an honor for me. She graciously said that she would be happy for me to go through that box of memories and she looked at them again herself. I think she enjoyed that and maybe got some closure by doing so for the first time in years.