A San Francisco entrepreneur recently purchased globe that once belonged to Adolf Hitler for $100,000, at an auction in the United States city.

"There's a lot of emotion tied to it," a spokesman for buyer Bob Pritikin told the local television station KGO. "It's one of those items respected as a part of history."

The globe was sold by John Barsamian, a 91-year-old American who had been a military officer in Germany at the end of World War II. He found it at the Eagle's Nest, Hitler's retreat and headquarters in the Alps at Berchtesgaden in far southern Germany near the Austrian border.

Barsamian, who was 28 at the time, said he received permission from his

superiors to take the globe home to California, where it and its shrapnel holes sat in the basement for more than 60 years.

The veteran said he plans to donate some of the sale price to charity and use the rest of it to pay bills.

Copyright Ha'aretz News 2007