The sabre is possibly of Eastern European type and most likely dates to the first half of the 10th century. According to tradition,
Otto III recovered the weapon when he opened Charlemagne's grave in AD 1000. 19th-century antiquarian scholarship was prepared to accept the weapon's Carolingian age, but the modern estimate, while compatible with its association with Otto III, rules out any direct connection with Charlemagne. When
French troops approached Aachen in
1794 the Imperial regalia located there were taken to the
Capuchin abbey at
Paderborn, then to
Hildesheim in 1798 and finally to
Vienna in 1801. The sabre was stored in the Treasury of the
Hofburg Palace in Vienna. On the orders of
Adolf Hitler, the imperial relics were brought to
Nuremberg in 1938, where they were displayed in the
Katharinenkloster. During the
Second World War they were stored in the
Historischer Kunstbunker to protect them from aerial bombardment. The Imperial regalia were found there by American soldiers in 1945 and returned to the Hofburg in 1946. == See also ==