July 10, 2020 - Droog Magazine periodical for investigative journalism

The Hitler Forgery Industry

to Hitler Forgery Industry main page - to Droog Magazine

1961  | New Hitlers |  Certificates of Authenticity

The strange business of selling fakes, forgeries and other concoctions attributed to Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) and other Nazi criminals.

Introduction

In the 1960's producing Hitlers become more and more interesting for forgers. They were greatly helped by the fact that almost nobody knew that Hitler had produced only a limited number of Viennese and Munich city views, merely drawings colored in with watercolor paint.

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'New Hitlers - forger arrested in West-Germany

1961 - An art collector from Aachen stumbled upon this advertisement:

"Original paintings by Adolf Hitler, signatures, sketches and watercolors from a private collection  for sale." ["Originalgemälde von Adolf Hitler, Handzeichnungen, Skizzen und Aquarelle aus Privatbesitz zu verkaufen."]

It was an add inserted by Otto Müller, age 59, a worker from Rhonard (Olpe, Sauerland) who called himself Kunstmaler (art painter). The art collector visited Müller, looked at the work, left and informed the police.

The Olpe police seized the works. They were four oils painting, baptized by the chief-constabe of Olpe as 'Berg-Panorama mit See', 'Blühender Flieder', 'Königssee' and 'Rote Tulpe (Mountain view with lake', 'Blooming elder' (or 'Blooming lilac')', 'Könings lake' and 'Red tulips').

The work 'blühender Flieder' had betrayed Müller, as the paint was still wet. 

Müller, in his defense: "I've painted the works over, as to improve the light proportions."

The German newspaper Zeit reported on this case. It is interesting to read that Zeit reported in the article on this case too: "It is a fact that Hitler bought most of his works back and had them destroyed. At the most fifty works escaped this rare outburst of self criticism."  

This 'fact' is a concoction launched by the Austrian swindler and former nazi journalist Hans Müllern, a.k.a. Dr. Johannes von Müllern-Schönhausen, in his 1959 book Die Lösung des Rätsel's Adolf Hitler (The solution of the Adolf Hitler enigma). 



Echte Hitler-Gemälde? Zeit, Hamburg, 19-05-1961
https://web.archive.org/web/20160318095935/http://www.zeit.de/1961/21/echte-hitler-gemaelde/.
Jaap van den Born and Bart FM Droog. Dr. Johannes von Müllern-Schönhausen. Droog Magazine, 2016-2020.
https://www.bartfmdroog.com/droog/dd/mullern-schonhausen.html.
Jaap van den Born. Hans Müllern alias Dr. Johannes von Müllern-Schönhausen. Poet, Nazi journalist, song writer and swindler. 2020 [unpublished].  

 


© Compilation Bart FM Droog, 2020.

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