The toilet in Greg Kohfeldt’s auto shop on West Second Street in Florence has traveled the world.

But its chief distinction is that it was once owned by Adolf Hitler, Kohfeldt says.

The toilet, which was installed in Kohfeldt’s Auto Repair by a previous owner in the 1950s, is believed to have come from Hitler’s favorite yacht, the Aviso Grille.

“He had three, but this was his flagship,” Kohfeldt said. “This was the yacht he was going to sail up the Thames with and take Windsor Castle.”

Obviously, that didn’t happen, he said.

The Aviso Grille was commissioned in December 1934, according to Revel Barker’s historical website about the famous boat. It had over 30 luxurious cabins and stretched 443 feet along the waterline. It also was also the largest yacht afloat at the time.

The British took possession of the boat after World War II and it sailed all over the world under different owners before being sold to Doan’s Ship Salvage in Fieldsboro during the early 1950s. There it was stripped down for scrap, and the toilet and a sink from the vessel ended up in Greg’s Automotive Repair, which Kohfeldt now owns.

When Hitler’s boat came to New Jersey in 1952, the previous owner of Greg’s Auto Repair was in the market for a new toilet. His close friend, who owned the salvage yard, had just the thing, Kohfeldt said.

“I think he got it for free or next to nothing,” Kohfeldt said. “For all I know he could have won it in a poker game.”

When Kohfeldt bought the store 19 years ago, he said, the added value of being the new owner of a Hitler bathroom set wasn’t a surprise.

"It was well known locally," said Kohfeldt, who has lived in the area his whole entire life.

Kohfeldt said some of his customers have portholes from the ship and the American Legion in town has a table from the yacht.

“There are a lot of different things from the yacht all over town,” he said.

Early last year the unique items caught the eye of a British television show.

The show paid for Kohfeldt to come and stay in London, along with his toilet and sink, while they filmed in January 2012, he said.

The TV show, “Four Rooms,” is a television program where four dealers make competitive offers to buy unique items from members of the public.

“They paid for my airfare, they paid to ship it over there and they put me up for a week,” he said. No one on the show wanted to buy the item and as far as Kohfeldt knows, his segment hasn’t aired on any episodes yet, he said.

“The toilet and sink were both shipped back,” he said. “The toilet made it home, the sink came back in about a thousand pieces.”

Aside from the negative connotation of Hitler’s name, no one wanted to buy the bathroom fixtures because there is no documentation that the two actually came off Hitler’s yacht, Kohfeldt said.

“There’s no way to verify it,” he said. “The sink actually had the exact production year and everything of the boat when it was made. The toilet ... the markings on it I can’t decipher. It’s a European toilet, it’s liters per flush.”

But there still seems to be some kind of allure about a toilet that Hitler may have used that brings people to the shop, he said.

“It just grows,” Kohfeldt said. “It seems like every year something brings it back up and more people stop in about it.”

Kohfeldt said on average he will get one or two people a month looking to catch a glimpse of the toilet but after an article or a TV broadcast, the number can jump up to six or 12 people per month.

The infamous toilet has brought people from Boston, Canada and even England, Kohfeldt said.

“It brings people from all over,” he said. “One young lady was pregnant. She wanted to take pictures on the toilet. Asked to come back and take pictures when she had her baby.”

Kohfeldt is in the process of installing a new bathroom and once it’s all done, he said he’s going to probably mount the Hitler toilet on a shelf in the bathroom so that people can still come and see it.

For now, remnants of the sink sit in a box off to the side of the garage while the toilet sits sandwiched between a toy bike and auto repair equipment.

Kohfeldt said he'd be willing to part with the toilet and broken sink if the price were right.

"If someone actually had an interest in what is left of the sink and the toilet I would probably sell it," he said. "But they'd have to have an interest ... if someone is just going to offer me $100, it'll sit here forever."

Contact Christina Izzo at cizzo@njtimes.com or (609) 989-5688.