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September 20, 2020 - Droog Magazine periodical for investigative journalism

The Thies 'Hitlers'(2)

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Lot 648 on the US Thies auction; falsely attributed to Hitler, titled "Apollo the sun god touching the earth." Style, sort of depiction and signature do not even resemble any known authentic Hitler work.

2020 | 2019

Auctions | Press | Certificates of Authenticity

Introduction | special report 1 and 2

Hitlers fail to sell

In June 2020 Andres Thies, the German owner of the American auction house Thies Military Auctions, told us, after he had auctioned forty-seven alleged Hitler artworks earlier this year: "I still have about 300 works from the Mertschinsky collection (...) also I have a "Hitler" Watercolour from a private source in France which I think is original."

Left: original Eva Braun photo (1930). Public domain . Right: lot 664 – according to Andres Thies an Eva Braun portrait attributed to Hitler, even though a forger made this as a “self portrait” of Fraulein Braun.

This French "Hitler" and sixty-six Adolf Hitler attributed objects (oil paintings, watercolors, drawings, sketches, a violin and a top hat(!), and two works allegedly made by Eva Braun, all from the Mertschinsky collection, are to be auctioned at the US based Thies Auctions Online Summer auction 10 on Monday, September 21, 2020.

All objects have one thing in common: there's not a shred of evidence that the objects are what Thies tells they are. Almost all of the artworks don't even resemble any thought to be authentic Hitler artwork. For the violin and top hat: the only evidence linking these to Hitler are two obvious fake documents, made by Hitler forger Konrad Kujau or one of his copycats.

Lot 583 - the French "Hitler". Dated "1909" - a year in which Hitler made no watercolors at all.

Thies guarantees only he authenticity of the French "Hitler". This is specified in the auction terms: "“Legitimate claims against a purchased item's authenticity must be submitted no later than seven days after receipt of the item(s). Returns must be discussed with the auction house prior to being returned” needs some explanation."

Mr Thies told us in June that the only legitimate claims he accepts, are those backed by "scientific research and solid proof." As it is practically impossible to have an object forensically researched within seven days (most forensic research laboratories have waiting lists), this guarantee is as good as worthless.

Long term danger

Thies explicitly states that the authenticity of the Von Mertschinsky "Hitlers" is not guaranteed. But this will not prevent that buyers of these bogus Von Mertschinsky "Hitlers" will sell them in the future as authentic. Andreas Thies must be aware of this. Yet this doesn't stop him from flooding the market with hundreds of fake Hitlers, washing his hands in innocence.

See:

Report on the French "Hitler" (pdf, 0.6 MB)
Report on the Von Mertschinsky Hitlers at the September 2020 auction (pdf, 5 MB).

In this special report (pdf, 6 MB) all 47 alleged Hitlers auctioned in April 2020 are depicted and commented.