An early painting signed "A. Hitler"

Posted Sunday, October 13, 2002

Oil painting by Adolf Hitler

From: Herman Koningen

Monday, October 07, 2002 10:13 AM

In 1975 I started collecting oil paintings of landscapes and found this nice small painting. The size is 10x15 cms and it is painted on wood.

The signature says A. Hitler.

In September 1984 I visited Florence, Italy, and there was an exposition "gli acquarelli di Hitler" in Palazzo Vecchio. Till that time I did not realize my painting could be of "the" Adolf Hitler".

I contacted the publisher of the catalogue Fratelli Alinari. In 1985 they advised me to contact Dottore Sergio Salvi in Florence. He advised me to contact Professor Ulrich Hartmut in Kassel (Germany).

He wrote me it was difficult to see from a picture if the painting was original. He passed my letter on to Herman Weiss of the Institute für Zeitgeschichte in Münich. Mr Weiss informed me there were good grounds to believe the painting was an original. If you want I can translate the letter for you as it is in German. By the way all letters I mention in this mail I still have.

In 1986 I spend 4 days in Münich for my job and visited Mr. Weiss with my picture. He was very interested, thought it was original and asked me to show it to another expert. He made the contact for me with Mr. Claus Offerman.

This gentleman wanted to buy it from me (at that time as was not interested) or sell it for me. He also wanted a picture to use for a book he was writing.

Which I gave to him.

In 1989 I read in a dutch magazine about Mr. Kujau. I send him a letter and a picture of my painting. Got an answer telling me it was not a Kujau and if I would like to contact him further it was okay to do so.

End of my story. Still have the painting which I would like to sell now as I changed from landscapes to marine paintings.

Dutch auction houses are not fond of selling a painting of Mr Hitler.

Kind regards

Herman Koningen