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November 15, 2020 - Droog Magazine periodical for investigative journalism

The Hitler Forgery Industry

to Hitler Forgery Industry main page - to Droog Magazine

1978 | 'More 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 1970's the trade in Nazi militaria intensified, and thus the activities of forgers and shady dealers and auctioneers. The German forger Konrad Kujau flooded the market with fake Hitlers: oil paintings, watercolors, drawings and sketches and even poetry.

Content

Charles Hamilton and the Hitlers (March 1978)
Hitler auction banned in France (December 1978)

Charles Hamilton and the Hitlers

March 23, 1978, New York - Charles Hamilton Galleries, an auction house run by the American handwriting expert Charles Hamilton, sold an alleged Hitler watercolor for $4,500 (about £2,350).

"The Charles Hamilton Galleries said the 8in by 12in picture, signed "A. Hitler, München 1912"", in the left corner, brought the highest bid among more than 200 lots sold at the Waldorf Astoria hotel. The buyer was a private collector who did not want to be identified.

Mr. Peter Jahn, an Austrian art expert recognized as an authority on Hitler's paintings, said the still life was the only Hitler flower painting he had ever seen. It was formerly owned by a senior legal official in Munich. - UPI."
(The Times, London, 25-03-1978).

Again, this is quite startling information. If the year mentioned in The Times, "1912", is correct, then apparently neither Charles Hamilton nor "art expert" Peter Jahn knew that it branded the watercolor as a forgery - for Hitler emigrated to Munich in May 1913!

Black and white reproductions of the auctioned work, in The Times (left) and in Price (right).

But maybe the "1912" in The Times article is a typo. For in the book Adolf Hitler als Maler und Zeichner (a.k.a. as Price or Werkkatalog), compiled by Jahn and August Priesack, this work is depicted too, as # 302, with as description "Signed and dated "A. Hitler, München 1913"". Unfortunately, neither on the photo published in The Times, nor on the one in Price the year can be seen.

Now, "art expert" Peter Jahn was a professional swindler, already before the Second World War involved in the trade of fake Hitlers. As he stated in 1978 that he never had seen a Hitler flower still life before, then the 1978 still life must have boosted the production of similar works, as in Price a great number of still lifes are depicted.

And how about Charles Hamilton? He was an autograph expert, for handwritten autographs. He was definitely not an art expert, ignorant of the fact that painted signatures are very easy to forge.

Drs. P.L. Zevenbergen, Chief Constable (retired) of the The Hague Police, handwriting expert, formerly working for the 'Judicial Laboratory Rijswijk' (the forerunner of the Netherlands Forensic Institute) and involved in the investigation of the falsified Hitler diaries in 1983, stated that a signature on a watercolor is not suitable for identification purposes, for several reasons, remarked about signatures on painted works:

"A signature on a painting or watercolor is made with the tools of a painter. Therefore such signatures cannot be defined as handwritten signatures and cannot be used for identification purposes. With a painter's tool (normally a brush) one cannot write characters, merely imitate writing. The movements made when one writes, are absent when one paints. A signature on a painting is not written, but painted. Therefore the methods and technics of comparing handwriiten texts cannot be used.

Next to that are painting movements controled by the eyes; writing is controled by the brain. It goes too far to explain here the differences in physiological origins of both motor processes. But basically, its means that when a movement is eye controled, the writing speed is 'out', making such a movement relatively easy to reproduce.

To conclude this: as far as I know, the authenticity of a painting (or a similar object) has never been established for 100% on basis of a signature."

Source: Van den Born & Droog. On signatures on watercolors. Droog Magazine, Eenrum, 28-01-2019.
http://www.droog-mag.nl/hitler/2019/on-signatures.pdf

Hitler flower painting sold for $4,500. The Times, London, 25-03-1978.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/archive/article/1978-03-25/16/8.html?region=global#start%3D1785-01-01%26end%3D1985-12-31%26terms%3Dauction%20hitler%20%26back%3D/tto/archive/find/auction+hitler+/w:1785-01-01%7E1985-12-31/1%26prev%3D/tto/archive/frame/goto/auction+hitler+/w:1785-01-01%7E1985-12-31/9%26next%3D/tto/archive/frame/goto/auction+hitler+/w:1785-01-01%7E1985-12-31/11

Hitler auction banned

PARIS, Thursday (AAP-Reuter). — Paris police banned yesterday an auctionof personal belongings of Adolph Hitler planned for December 5, under a 1976 decree which forbids the sale or display of Nazi memorabilia.

Among the objects which the unnamed collector hoped to sell were a plaque showing Hitler haranguing a crowd — framed with swastikas and medals vaunting Nazi Germany's conquests — his hand drawn family tree, and analbum about the composer Richard Wagner, given to him as a present in 1933.

[Droog Magazine: Nothing is known about the authenticity of this material.]

In brief. Hitler auction banned. The Canberra Times, Canberra (Australia), 24-11-1978.