The ultimate Nazi souvenir is brown, blind and not for the squeamish. For anyone with a passion for fascism and a zeal for zoology, this season's must-have accessory is the Anophtalmus hitleri or eyeless Hitler beetle.
Neo-Nazis are snapping them up at €1,000 a time and zoologists warn that the beetle, discovered in 1933 and named after the dictator, is facing extinction because so many have been removed from the wild.
"There has been a rush for them. Collectors are scouring the caves," said Dr Martin Baehr, entomologist at Munich's State Zoological Museum to the DPA news agency. "Almost all of our specimens at the museum have been stolen." The beetle, found in only four caves in Slovenia, was given its name by Zagreb scientist Oscar Scheibel.
In the four years he spent checking that the beetle he had found was a new variety, another Hitler beetle - the Volkswagen one - had emerged into the light.
The Führer was said to be flattered by the beetle dedication but no one is sure why. Its plain brown colour perhaps? Its predatory nature? Since then the beetle has been stuck with the dubious honour of its species name, adapted to Latin form, a cruel fate considering that no German parent in the last six decades has called their child Adolf.
The naming tradition continues to this day: last year a beetle that feeds on slime-mould was named Agathidium bushi in honour of President Bush.
Lonely neo-Nazis have sought company in the animal kingdom for years now. There's a website devoted to cats who look like Hitler, and last year a German man was given a 13-month suspended jail sentence for training his dog Adolf to sit up, give a stiff-armed salute and bark "Sieg Heil!" - strictly banned in Germany.