The armband looked almost new. The red was solid, the white circle clean, and the black swastika inside still striking.

A Nazi soldier wore this armband in World War II. Beneath it in the display case is a grungy armband, with a light blue Star of David. One word in black letters marks the star: “Ghetto.” A Nazi did not wear that.

These emblems of the Third Reich are among about a thousand World War II items Chuck Nelson of Lexington has amassed during the past seven years. The burly third-generation wheat farmer has created a portable, traveling exhibit showcasing the collection.

“This is a hands-on exhibit, and it’s made to be that way,” he said. “Anybody can set this thing up.”

Nelson stores the collection in a trailer so he can take it local schools and VFW halls. There’s copies of the Honolulu Star Bulletin from Dec. 7, 1941, giving early reports of the Pearl Harbor attack. Knives from the Hitler Youth corps, a Luftwaffe ceremonial sword, dog tags of all sorts, military and civilian armbands.

“I have a lot of original letters from German solders on the front,” Nelson said. “I had them translated.”

A full U.S. high-altitude bomber outfit covers a mannequin. He said that once gave quite a jolt to his wife, Lisa Nelson.

And “99.9 percent” of the miscellany is authentic, he said. Only a scabbard and one patch are replicas. But Nelson is no lover of Nazism or Hitler or white supremacy.

“As I tell the kids, the first thing I say is, in human history there have been some natural disasters — volcanoes and everything,” he said. “And some human-related ones that change the whole world. And this guy (Hitler) was at the right place at the wrong time, the wrong place at the right time, and a lot of things he did are still in effect now and changed history.”

The swastika is an example — it was a religious symbol for thousands of years. But Hitler made it the Nazi symbol, a stain that mars the symbol to this day.

Nelson’s father, Ira Norman Nelson, was a member of the first Seabees — United States Navy Construction Battalion — who served in the South Pacific during World War II. But Chuck Nelson did not develop a deep interest in the war until he was in the Army. He was good at math and science, so he became an artillery expert stationed in Germany from November 1972 to November 1974.

He stayed in barracks from World War II, he said, and was at the Eagle’s Nest, the headquarters the Reich built for Hitler’s 50th birthday atop a summit in the Bavarian Alps. And he met Lisa, a who showed him Munich and later became his wife.

A visit about seven years ago to her family near Cold Mountain, N.C., kick-started Nelson’s collection bug. They checked out an antique store where memorabilia and collectibles from the Second World War filled a back room.

The store owner was a Baptist minister, Nelson said, who sold the items to fund a mission in Czechoslovakia. Nelson bought a postcard displaying an image of Hitler. A Nazi ink stamp and a Czechoslovakian stamp are on the card. Nelson said it was dated “3 10 38.”

He found nothing of significance for March 10, 1938. So Nelson, graduate of Oregon State University, contacted a history professor there. He pointed out in the European system the date was Oct. 3, 1938 — two days after the Nazi coup that led to the occupation of Czechoslovakia.

Hooked on wanting to know more, Nelson bought items on eBay or got them from aging World War II vets who wanted to pass their memories into caring hands and perpetuity. Nelson said he continues to acquire items.

“This is just part of my life,” he said, like playing the saxophone, which he has since his youth, and his interest in classic cars.

Lisa Nelson taught history. The daughter of an Army chaplain, she graduated from Frankfurt American High School in 1973 and attended university in Munich. She said her husband takes great pleasure in the collection, and she encourages him.

Chuck Nelson’s collection is not just about the biggest, bloodiest war in history, she said, but about understanding what the war means. She said remembering the war goes to the old adage: Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.

History has cycles and patterns we should pay attention to, she said, because if we do, we might be able to change the world for the better.

Contact Phil Wright at pwright@eastoregonian.com or 541-966-0833.

This story originally appeared in East Oregonian.