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UK auction house denies Hitler paintings are fake

German daily Die Welt on Monday questioned the authenticity of 13 Adolf Hitler paintings up for auction next month, but Mullock's auction house told The Local they can prove the paintings are from the Nazi dicator.

Published: 30 March 2009 15:37 CEST
UK auction house denies Hitler paintings are fake
The painting that Mullock's says is a Hitler self-portrait. Photo: Mullock's

According to the UK auction house, the paintings were found in 1945 by an army sergeant stationed in Essen and later sold to an unknown person. Now, 64 years later, Mullock’s expects to bring in thousands of dollars for the watercolours on April 23.

But the authenticity of the paintings, said to be finished around 1910, is doubtful, the paper said. In one alleged self-portrait of the dictator, there is an ‘X’ marking the face of the subject with the initials “A.H.”

“What kind of painter would put such a marking on his own picture?” Die Welt questioned.

But Richard Westwood-Brookes, historical documents expert for Mullock’s auctions, vouched for the authenticity of the watercolours.

”I have no reason to doubt these,” he told The Local on Monday. “I’ve got the certificates and the dockets,” he said, adding that they will be available for public view at the April auction and that he had quizzed his vendors on the paintings’ authenticity on a number of occasions.

Westwood-Brookes said the paintings were confirmed authentic by art historian Peter Jahn from Vienna. “Due to my thorough knowledge of Hitler paintings, I consider this one as an original,” the statement attached to one of the watercolours reads.

Die Welt alleged that there are differences between the Mullock’s paintings and confirmed originals in terms of subject, style and artistry. Two known originals of the Michaelerplatz, an area near the Vienna Hofburg, for example, highlight Hitler’s limited talent as a painter, with awkward perspective points and figures teetering clumsily through the scene, the paper said.

The newest set of paintings shows impressionist depictions of landscapes, along with more skilfully painted human figures of people, making it “very improbable” that the failed artist actually painted them, Die Welt reported.

One explanation may be that they are some of the Hitler “originals” painted by other artists trying to make a buck as he became one of the most prominent politicians in Germany toward the end of the 1920s and into the 1940s. Such paintings brought in up to 10,000 Reichsmarks, the paper said.

Mullock’s does not expect to make much on the sale of Hitler’s artwork, however. “I put very modest estimates on them,” Westwood-Brookes said. “I’ve got estimates of as low as 400 pounds up to 1,000 pounds.” Mullock’s historical expert added that he had been contacted by numerous experts who were “quite content” to bid on the paintings.

“One of the great things about some of the publicity I’ve generated on this is at least everybody has the opportunity to look at them, to make their own mind up,” he said.

Hitler’s lack of artistic talent is well-documented. He applied for the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in October of 1907 as an 18-year-old. From 80 applicants, 28 were taken and Hitler was not one of them. The school said his talent was “insufficient,” and he was “without a doubt unsuitable” for the art school.

Hitler banned the publication of his artwork in 1938.

Auctions of Nazi art and memorabilia are a sensitive issue, and critics have said that selling Hitler’s paintings – which have little artistic merit – may merely glorify the dictator.

But Mullock’s expert Westwood-Brookes responds to criticism highlighting the choice to auction off Hitler artwork by pointing to the historical merits of the works.

“My own standpoint on this is you cannot take a moral stand on history,” he said. “I make it absolutely, unequivocally clear that I am not a Nazi, that I am not involved in glorifying the Nazis and glorifying Hitler.”

The watercolour paintings set to be auctioned by Mullock’s provide a “psychological clue” into Hitler’s mindset, Westwood-Brookes said, calling it “quite incredible” that the future dictator would be interested in such pastoral, romantic subject matter.

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DISCOVER GERMANY

Eight amazing German museums to explore this spring

With thousands of years of history in Germany to explore, you’re never going to run out of museums to scratch the itch to learn about and fully experience the world of the past.

Published: 5 April 2024 10:46 CEST
Eight amazing German museums to explore this spring

Here are eight of our favourite museums across Germany’s 16 states for you to discover for yourself. 

Arche Nebra

Nebra, Saxony-Anhalt

One day, around 1600 BCE, local Bronze Age peoples buried one of their most precious objects – the Nebra Sky Disk, a copper, gold, and bronze disk that acted as a calendar to help them plant crops. This was a matter of life and death at the time. 

Over three thousand years later, in 1999, it was uncovered by black market treasure hunters, becoming Germany’s most significant archaeological find. 

While the Sky Disk itself is kept in the (really very good)  State Museum of Pre- and Early History in nearby Halle, the site of the discovery is marked by the Arche Nebra, a museum explaining prehistoric astronomy and the cultural practices of the people who made it. 

Kids will love the planetarium, explaining how the disk was used. 

Atomkeller Museum

Halgerloch, Baden-Württemberg

From the distant to the very recent past – in this case, the Nazi atomic weapons programme. Even as defeat loomed, Nazi scientists such as Werner Heisenberg were trying to develop a nuclear bomb. 

While this mainly took place in Berlin, an old beer cellar under the town of Halgerloch, south of Stuttgart, was commandeered as the site of a prototype fission reactor. 

A squad of American soldiers captured and dismantled the reactor as the war ended. Still, the site was later turned into a museum documenting German efforts to create a working reactor – one that they could use to develop a bomb.

It’s important to note that you don’t need to be a physicist to understand what they were trying to do here, as the explanatory materials describe the scientist’s efforts in a manner that is easy to understand. 

German National Museum

Nuremberg, Bavaria

Remember that scene at the end of ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’, where an unnamed government official wheels the Ark of the Covenant into an anonymous government warehouse? This could possibly be the German equivalent – albeit far better presented. 

The German National Museum was created in 1852 as a repository for the cultural history of the German nation – even before the country’s founding. In the intervening 170 years, it’s grown to swallow an entire city block of Nuremberg, covering 60,000 years of history and hundreds of thousands of objects. 

If it relates to the history of Germany since prehistoric times, you’re likely to find it here.

Highlights include several original paintings and etchings by Albrecht Dürer, the mysterious Bronze Age ‘Gold Hats’, one of Europe’s most significant collections of costuming and musical instruments, and a vast display of weapons, armour and firearms. 

European Hansemuseum

Lübeck, Schleswig-Holstein

In the late Middle Ages, the political and economic centre of the world was focused on the North Sea and the Baltic German coasts. 

This was the domain of the Hanseatic League, one of the most powerful trading alliances in human history. Centuries before the Dutch and British East India Companies, they made in-roads to far-flung corners.

The European Hansemuseum in the former Hanseatic city of Lübeck tells the story of the league’s rise and eventual fall, its day-to-day operations, and its enduring legacy.

This museum is fascinating for adults and kids. It uses original artefacts and high-tech interactive elements to tell tales of maritime adventure. Younger visitors will also be enchanted by the museum’s augmented reality phone app that asks them to help solve mysteries. 

Fugger & Welser Adventure Museum

Augsburg, Germany

The Hanseatic League was not the only economic power in the late Middle Ages. The Fugger and Welser families of Augsburg may have been the richest in the world until the 20th century.

From humble beginnings, both families grew to become incredibly powerful moneylenders, funding many of the wars of the 16th century and the conquest of the New World.

The Fugger & Welser Adventure Museum not only explains the rise of both patrician families but also the practices that led to their inconceivable wealth—including, sadly, the start of the Transatlantic slave trade. 

The museum also documents the short-lived Welser colony in Venezuela, which, if it had survived, could have resulted in a very different world history.

This museum has many high tech displays, making it a very exciting experience for moguls of any age.

Teutoburg Forest Museum

Kalkriese, Lower Saxony

Every German child learns this story at some point: One day at the end of summer 9 AD, three legions of the Roman army marched into the Teutoburg forest… and never came out. 

Soldiers sent after the vanished legions discovered that they had been slaughtered to a man.

Arminius, a German who had been raised as a Roman commander, had betrayed the three legions to local Germanic tribes, who ambushed them while marching through the forest. 

Today, the probable site of the battle – we can’t entirely be sure – is marked by a museum called the Varusschlacht Museum (Literally ‘Varus Battle Museum’, named after the loyal Roman commander). 

The highlights here are the finds – made all the more eerie by the knowledge that they were looted and discarded from the legionaries in the hours following the ambush. 

German Romanticism Museum

Frankfurt, Hesse

The Romantic era of art, music and literature is one of Germany’s greatest cultural gifts to the world, encompassing the work of poets such as Goethe and Schiller, composers like Beethoven and artists in the vein of Caspar David Friedrich.

Established in 2021 next to the house where Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born, the German Romanticism Museum is the world’s largest collection of objects related to the Romantic movement. 

In addition to artefacts from some of the greatest names in German romanticism, in 2024, you’ll find a major exhibition exploring Goethe’s controversial 1774 novel, ‘The Sorrows of Young Werther’, and another on the forest as depicted as dark and dramatic in the art of the period. 

Gutenberg Castle

Haßmersheim, Baden-Württemberg

Sometimes being a smaller castle is a good thing. The relatively small size and location of Guttenburg Castle, above the River Neckar near Heilbronn, protected it from war and damage over eight hundred years – it’s now the best preserved Staufer-era castle in the country.

While the castle is still occupied by the Barons of Gemmingen-Guttenberg, the castle now also contains a museum, that uses the remarkably well-preserved castle interiors to explore centuries of its history – and the individuals that passed through it.

After you’ve explored the museum—and the current exhibition that uses Lego to document life in the Middle Ages —it’s also possible to eat at the castle’s tavern and stay overnight!

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