First displayed in 1938 and adopted in 1939, the officials of the Foreign Ministry received one of two daggers, as the diplomats and administrators of captured territory were considered to be distinct from each other. 14 5/8 inches overall, with a 10 inch blade, darkened nickel hilt fittings with left-facing guard eagle, simulated yellow mother of pearl grips, and a darkened nickel sheath. A silver portapee with matching solid acorn is tied to the grip. This blade is attributed by the consignor to Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Nazi war criminal. Among other "distinctions", Seyss-Inquart, a lawyer in private life, was Chancellor of Austria for a grand total of 2 days, sending the invitational telegram that was the legal pretense for Hitler to initiate the Anschluss and then signing the papers for the hand-over of power, and overseeing the transfer of Southern Poland's Jewish population into the ghettos and suppression of local resistance movements. In 1940 he was appointed Reichskommissar of the Occupied Netherlands, where he was responsible for the Nazification of public life, press-ganging undesirables into forced labor, and deporting the Jewish population to camps such as Buchenwald, Auschwitz and Mauthausen. With the exception of the last 20 days of the war, which he spent as Foreign Minister of the post-Hitler government of Admiral Doenitz, he held his position in the Netherlands until the end of the War. Brought to justice at Nuremburg, he was sentenced to death for crimes against humanity and war crimes, and was the last man hanged on 16 October 1946.

Extremely fine, with fine grip, a few minor handling marks overall and a small amount of spotting on the blade. There also is some flaking of the plating on the tip of scabbard.