The rare destiny of Hitler's paintings on the art market

NÚREMBERG, Germany. After the sale of the latest object of selection of works of art, furniture and postage stamps on a Saturday in February, Kathrin Weidler read a brief statement: she indicated that the Weidler auction house was clear of any moral responsibility for what it would present. then.

Kathrin Weidler, director of the family business, then launched the auction of
Village on a lake next to the mountains, a current and current watercolor work, at 45,000 euros (about 51,000 dollars). The painting seemed one more among the thousands of ordinary watercolors sold weekly on small outdoor markets all over Europe, with the exception of the bottom right signature: "A. Hitler".

According to experts, the commercial niche of Hitler's works has expanded over the last ten years, which has resulted in an increase in the value of the paintings, drawings and watercolors that the dictator had created there are more than 39, a century. However, it is likely that many, if not most, of these works are not really Hitler's creation. After allowing this type of auction not to be monitored for years, German prosecutors began to act.

A few days before the February auction, the prosecutor's office had inspected Weidler's auction house and confiscated 63 paintings: 26 were to be sold and 37 apparently for future auctions. Attorney Antje Gabriels-Gorsolke said that works of art had been seized as part of an investigation for falsification and fraud.

A few weeks earlier, the police had interrupted a sale at the Kloss auction house in Berlin, where three paintings allegedly by Hitler were part of the set of works offered.

Weidler sold the watercolor
Standesamt und Altes Rathaus Muenchen (Old Munich City Hall) ", with the signature A. HItler, in 2014 for $ 161,000.

Hitler made most of his paintings before the First World War, after being refused to study in an art school and before being recruited by the German army. Once in power, Hitler ordered to collect the works and risked destroying some of the worst qualities.

Beyond the moral issue of buying a mediocre art just because it was painted by a genocidal dictator, there is also the problem of whether Hitler actually created the works. They were made and certified as fake authentic paintings that no one knows what Hitler's true paintings look like. As they have no artistic value, few professional evaluators are willing to study them.

"Everything is part of a gray area," said Christian Fuhrmeister, art historian at the Central Institute of Art History in Germany, an organization of research funded by public funds. But they ask us more often than before, "he added.

Fuhrmeister noted that he and his colleagues could only compare the works with the few known Hitler paintings, which are in the archives of the Bavarian state, in order to identify obvious counterfeits .

According to Bart Droog, a Dutch journalist specializing in the false works attributed to German, the art of forgery of Hitler's paintings dates back to almost the first time he took a brush. When he came to power in 1933, there were already many counterfeits. Demand and supply have increased over the years. In 2014, a photo of the Munich municipality allegedly painted by the dictator was sold for $ 161,000 at the Weidler auction house. .

Standesamt und Altes Rathaus Muenchen (The former Munich City Hall) and documents that Weidler used to state that the watercolor was made by Hitler before the sale in 2014.

Gabriels-Gorsolke, prosecutor's office, said the prosecutors were looking to investigate the owners and sellers before the auction of the works to determine if a fraud had been committed. If false, the coins would be permanently confiscated; for now, they are at the police station, in the evidence warehouse.

Weidler sold, in addition to the 63 works attributed to Hitler confiscated in February, nearly a hundred more, a surprising number as it is likely that there is really very little with the dictator's signature, said Sven Felix Kellerhoff , historian and journalist of the newspaper Die Welt

One of the confiscated works is a bad in the watercolor of Geli Raubal, Hitler's niece, dated 1929; There are two versions of the same table that would have been made by the German dictator. And most likely, both are wrong.

The other existing version shows why, after decades of inaccuracy and scams, it is so difficult to differentiate true Hitler paintings from counterfeits.

Marc-Oliver Boger, fake expert of art and collector of fake works, said that the second version of the watercolor was painted by Konrad Kujau, a German forger convicted and became famous in the years 1980 when he had admitted to falsifying Hitler's diary. which have been published in Stern magazine.

But Kujau's watercolor has so deceived enough people for so long that she appeared in a 1983 catalog of Hitler's works, created by American Billy F. Price. Kujau, who died in 2000, had falsified the two newspapers and several works by Hitler, many of which were already in Price's catalog, according to Boger.

Price s is based on the judgment of August Priesack, art expert who was later discredited (Priesack also validated the diaries made by Kujau and Aldea in a lake near the mountains, this painting not having been sold during the February auction at Weidler).

This watercolor signed "Adolf Hitler" belongs to Marc-Oliver Boger, collector of counterfeit Konrad Kujau. Credit via Marc-Oliver Boger

Despite its unreliability, Price's book is still used by many people as a definitive catalog of Hitler's works.

Wiedler did not respond to requests for comment, although Kahtrin Wiedler said in an interview in 2016 that he did not believe that the buyers of the works were Nazi sympathizers; Many, he said, come from outside Germany. Tom Schimmeck, the producer of the show in which Wiedler was interviewed, said in an interview that it was likely that the interest in Hitler's art had nothing to do with a political change right in several countries or with an attempt to rethink the Hitler crimes.

"My impression is that it is acquired by people who have too much money and want something crazy from Europe," Schimmeck said.

Unlike buyers, who want privacy, Weidler and other auction houses must advertise their products in advance to attract bidders. This then leads to a strange relationship with the press: it serves to spread, but also attracts unwanted questions to the auction houses.

Police officers from Nuremberg and Berlin were alerted in February by Dutch journalist Droog, and one of his colleagues, Jaap van den Born. Investigative journalists are tasked with stopping sales of Hitler's fake works by checking auction catalogs and informing local authorities. They provide the police with detailed reports on the paintings and sometimes provide the German authorities with the central information they need to conduct their own investigations.

The report of Droog and Van den Né on Village, in a lake near the mountains, indicates: "Gentle forgery, Hitler did not paint mountainous or lacustrine landscapes".

None of the five exhibits at Weidler this Saturday in February were sold. But after the auction, a middle-aged man, dressed in a suit and hat, walked into the room and discreetly asked if the sale of Hitler's paintings was still standing.

The staff informed him that the auction was over, but that he could request an appointment to see the works privately on Monday.

A week later, Weidler confirmed that he had sold
Village on a lake next to the mountain for 30,000 euros in a private transaction.

(The New York Times)