Hitler's paintings sell for double estimate

A watercolour by Hitler fetched £10,500 ($30,162) at auction yesterday in a sale of his work that raised more than £118,000, double its estimate.

The Church of Preux-Au-Bois' sold for £10,500, far exceeding its £3,500 estimated price at the sale at Jefferys Auctioneers in Lostwithiel.

Prior to the auction, critics had expressed disapproval over selling works by the most notorious dictator of modern times, but this did not dent interest from buyers around the world.

Carlo, from Estonia, said he was working for an Eastern European businessman, adding: "I had a budget to bid for anything that has Hitler's signature. I have something to take back.

"I think they are probably being bought for business - the paintings are not very good and it's not nice to have a 'Hitler' on your living room wall."

The works, which vary from postcard size watercolours to larger works, were found in Belgium in a suitcase in an attic, close to where Hitler served during the First World War, and were found to be stylistically similar to other work by the German leader.

Some of the works were signed A Hitler, while others bore the initials, AH, and they featured mainly landscapes with some with buildings.

Hitler, who was rejected by the Academy of Art in Vienna, sold some of his early drawings through a Jewish art dealer.

Steps were taken to prove the authenticity of the watercolours without success, according to the auctioneers, but the paper has been dated and the style of the works was found to be consistent with Hitler's other series of works.

It has been reported that the owner, who wishes to remain anonymous, contacted the auctioneer after reading about the sale of a single Hitler watercolour last year November.

The portrait of a German postman, painted in 1924, fetched £5,200.

The small-sized drawing from Hitler's sketch book was sold by a collector from Cornwall who had bought it from a friend of Otto Gunsche, Hitler's personal adjutant.

A spokesman for Jefferys said: "The sale itself went very well, the prices exceeded our expectations."

He brushed off an incident involving Aaron Barschak, the self-proclaimed comedy terrorist who gate-crashed Prince William's 21st birthday party in 2003.

Barschak, accompanied by a man dressed as the Nazi dictator, shouted across the auction house in Cornwall to say they were bidding "£6 million" for one work, claiming the painting was a "Mussolini".

They were swiftly escorted out of the auction house by security officers, as Barschak shouted: "See - they're throwing Jews out!"

The comedian first came to public attention when he scaled the walls of Windsor Castle and entered the royal party wearing a pink dress, a false beard and an Osama bin Laden-style turban, at Prince William's party.

He was dressed in a purple suit and a false beard for the protest, and spoke of the reason for his actions outside the auction house.

"We like to think of this as our Guernica", he said, referring to the first place to be targeted by Hitler's aerial bombing campaign.

He added: "Why is this auction being hidden away from publicity in a corner of Cornwall? We wanted to bring it to people's attention."

Barschak's wife, Tamara, described her husband as "an intellectual Jew" and added: "This is a comical protest. The sale here is offensive - it should never have been held. Adolf Hitler was a mass murderer and to make money from that is wrong," she said.

Jefferys said the protest would not stop them holding future auctions of a controversial nature.

A spokesman for Jefferys said: "The protest is not worth any comment. It was a schoolboy prank, and we are very pleased with the way it was handled by the security staff."

- INDEPENDENT