The puppet stands 51 centimetres tall, carved out of wood and hand-painted, its uniform tattered and torn. But for all it has endured over more than 80 years -- buried in a backyard in Belgium at the outset of World War II; dug up after the war and taken on a nine-day cross-Atlantic journey; stored and almost forgotten in an attic in Oakland, California -- it remains, with its black toothbrush moustache and right arm raised in a Nazi salute, immediately and chillingly recognisable.