A young Hitler playing chess with a young Lenin etching: Fraud?

[bassrique]

Did they actually hang out? Were they friends? I'm skeptical.

Pictured: Hitler playing chess with Lenin
A picture of a young Adolf Hitler apparently playing chess against Vladimir Lenin 100 years ago has come to light.

An extraordinary etching of a young Adolf Hilter playing chess against Vladimir Lenin has come to light. The art work is by Hilter's Jewish art teacher Emma Lowenstramm who witnessed the game

The image is said to have been created in Vienna by Hitler's art teacher, Emma Lowenstramm, and is signed on the reverse by the two dictators.

Hitler was a jobbing artist in the city in 1909 and Lenin was in exile and the house where they allegedly played the game belonged to a prominent Jewish family.

In the run-up to the Second World War the Jewish family fled and gave many of their possessions, including the etching and chess set, to their housekeeper.

Now their housekeeper's great-great grandson is selling the image and the chess set at auction. Both items have a pre-sale estimate of £40,000.

The unnamed vendor is confident the items are genuine after his father spent a lifetime attempting to prove their authenticity.

He compiled a 300-page forensic document that included tests on the paper, the signatures and research on those involved.

Experts, however, have questioned its authenticity especially the identification of Lenin who they say might have been confused with one of his associates.

When the etching was made, Hitler was 20 and Lenin was twice his age and the house was where politicos went to discuss things.

The etching is thought to be one of five and shows Hitler - playing with the white pieces - sitting by a window, with Lenin opposite him in half shadow.

It is titled "A Chess Game: Lenin with Hitler - Vienna 1909".

It raises tantalising questions about what the two men who helped shape the world in the 20th century might have spoken of.

Lenin was already a highly influential Russian figure who in 1907 went into exile once more after the revolution was crushed by Tsarist authorities.

Richard Westwood-Brookes, who is selling the items, said: "This just sounds too good to be true, but the vendor's father spent a lifetime proving it.

"He compiled a 300 page document and spent a great deal of money engaging experts to examine the etching.

"The signatures in pencil on the reverse are said to have an 80 per cent chance of being genuine, and there is proof that Emma Lowenstramm did exist.

"The circumstantial evidence is very good on top of the paper having been tested.

"Hitler was a painter in 1909 and his Jewish teacher Emma Lowenstramm was the person who made the etching.

"There is some suggestion that when he came to power Hitler protected her and she died from natural causes in 1941.

"At the time, Vienna was a hotbed of political intrigue and the house where this game took place belonged to a prominent Jewish family.

"Lenin at the time was moving around Europe in exile and writing "Materialism and Empirio-criticism".

"His movements are hazy and it is known that he did play chess and later he certainly wore wigs as a disguise.

"It is also known that Lenin was a German agent and the house was where people went to exchange political views.

"The chess set is clearly the same chess set as that in the etching. It is a box chess set that folds out and the pieces are identifiable - particularly the kings and bishops.

"To my knowledge there are five etchings of this image, but this has the signatures of both men and the artist.

"The provenance is that it has come through the family of the housekeeper who was given it when the Jewish family fled in the late 1930s.

"The family is based in Hanover and it is the great great grandson of the housekeeper who is selling it.

"On all sorts of levels it is an extremely valuable artefact. Even as just an allegorical picture it shows the men playing chess possibly for the world."

Historian Helen Rappaport, who has just written a book called "Conspirator: Lenin in Exile", said the etching was probably a "glorious piece of fantasy".

She said: "In 1909 Lenin was in France and there is no evidence that he was in Vienna.

"In October he went to Liege in Belgium and in November he went to Brussels. He would have visited Vienna before and after that year.

"He liked the place and went there because he travelled around Europe on trains, but he wouldn't have been there long enough to meet a young Hitler.

"He was also as bald as a bat by 1894 with just hair on the sides of his head.

"And when in exile he was not known as Lenin and instead used a number of aliases.

"The person believed to be Lenin in the etching may well have been one of his revolutionary or Bolshevik associates who was misidentified.

"It may even have been an Austrian socialist with whom he associated in the Second International.

"The Germans did fund the Bolsheviks and gave them millions of marks for the revolutionary effort, but Lenin was not a German sympathiser.

"Although this is totally spurious it is wonderful to bring these two great megalomaniacs together.

"It makes sense retrospectively and the history of art is full of retrospective meetings between people."

The items are to be sold at Mullock's auction house in Ludlow, Shropshire, on October 1.

[DerHoggz]

Meh.

Interesting, don't know what to think.

[T-Bird]

Hi.

While possible, I'd say it's a fair attempt to make a buck.

I also predict a pretty short life for this thread, but I've known to be wrong before .

Regards
Sam

[bassrique]

Originally Posted by DerHoggz

Meh.

Interesting, don't know what to think.

It can't be both "meh" and "interesting", can it?

[KPAX]

Skeptical? Ya think?
How about dogs playing cards?
Skeptical about that too?

Originally Posted by bassrique

Did they actually hang out? Were they friends? I'm skeptical.

Pictured: Hitler playing chess with Lenin
A picture of a young Adolf Hitler apparently playing chess against Vladimir Lenin 100 years ago has come to light.

[Darkstrike]

Originally Posted by bassrique

It can't be both "meh" and "interesting", can it?

Meh =/= interesting, last time I checked.....



On topic, I do think its very interesting, hmmm......

[MatticusMania]

[KPAX]

No, I think that's Edgar Allen Poe that Hitler is playing there.

[DerHoggz]

Originally Posted by bassrique

It can't be both "meh" and "interesting", can it?

Meh was in response to whether I think its real or not.
I think I'm leaning towards fake now though.

[fdeck]

Fake. But the best thing to do about "discovered" artworks is to wait a few years. A new print could have been made on old paper. Wasn't Hitler a complete unknown in 1909? Who would have bothered to record the event for posterity, especially by such a laborious process? It doesn't make sense.

[KPAX]

Fake? LOL!
How can you take it seriously enough to call it a fake?

Originally Posted by fdeck

Fake. But the best thing to do about "discovered" artworks is to wait a few years. A new print could have been made on old paper. Wasn't Hitler a complete unknown in 1909? Who would have bothered to record the event for posterity, especially by such a laborious process? It doesn't make sense.

[bassrique]

Originally Posted by fdeck

Fake. But the best thing to do about "discovered" artworks is to wait a few years. A new print could have been made on old paper. Wasn't Hitler a complete unknown in 1909? Who would have bothered to record the event for posterity, especially by such a laborious process? It doesn't make sense.

Most human subjects of art aren't famous. Hitler was an artsy-fartsy cat living in an artsy neighborhood of one of the most artsy cities in Europe. Lenin was another artist of sorts, and if he was in Vienna at the time, it would not be an outlandish thought for the two to be acquainted.

[bassrique]

Originally Posted by KPAX

Fake? LOL!
How can you take it seriously enough to call it a fake?

There may be a several experts in the field that think it may be real. What reason do you have to dismiss it? Back in 1909, they were just two smart alpha-male bohemian dudes possibly living in the same city.

I'm still skeptical, but that's because I'm skeptical of everything. I still don't throw out propositions lightly.

[Dr. Cheese]

Originally Posted by bassrique

There may be a several experts in the field that think it may be real. What reason do you have to dismiss it? Back in 1909, they were just two smart alpha-male bohemian dudes possibly living in the same city.

I'm still skeptical, but that's because I'm skeptical of everything. I still don't throw out propositions lightly.

Hitler wasn't smart. He had charisma and certitude, but he wasn't smart. I think the thing is fake. The two would have hated each other politically, and it is just way too convenient for those of certain political persuasions.

[bassrique]

Originally Posted by Dr. Cheese

Hitler wasn't smart. He had charisma and certitude, but he wasn't smart. I think the thing is fake. The two would have hated each other politically, and it is just way too convenient for those of certain political persuasions.

Communism/socialism/fascism are close cousins in the statist/collectivist family. And Hitler was politically smart, but his hubris prevented him from stepping aside in military matters. If there are blessings from "God", that's a biggie right there.

Once again, if Lenin and Hitler were two creative minds living in the same city, it's not so far-fetched that they would have hung out. Remember that there was no TV or internet in those days. Folks would actually pass time by meeting each other in person. Cities were smaller then.

[polydeathsphere]

Obviously Hitler hated his Jewish art teacher for capturing him playing Lenin, obviously loosing the match to Lenin by a landslide. Thus, Hitler hated ALL Jews and then tried to get back at the entire USSR for his embarrassing and mind-altering defeat in the game of chess. Done.

[middlebit]

Why is Hitler depicted like a 40-year old man, then? He looked nothing like that, even during the 1st world war.

[Dr. Cheese]

Originally Posted by bassrique

Communism/socialism/fascism are close cousins in the statist/collectivist family...

That is dead wrong. Communism and fascism are politically opposite. The followeres of the two systems hated each other. Fascism was based on extreme nationalism. Communism sees the the state as a bourgeois invention. Fascism was strongly supported by corporate interests and the propertied classes. Communism destroyed private property and dispossessed the rich. Nazism, in particular, was an explicitly racist philosophy, while communism was anti-colonial and non-racial in its conception. Of course, what ideologies say they believe and what governments do can be very different. Heck, our own country talked about freedom but allowed slavery and legal discrimination for close to two humdred years.

Neither was democratic, but many systems are not democratic. As a person who teaches a lot of world history abnd western civ, the notion and fascism and communism are related is one the most common misconceptions in America. It is simply wrong.

[KPAX]

To me those are distinctions without a difference.
They were both totalitarian/collectivist ideologies and systems that idolized the state, denied individual rights and murdered millions upon millions.
Whatever crackpot ideology either one used to justify their crimes isn't particularly interesting to me.

Originally Posted by Dr. Cheese

That is dead wrong. Communism and fascism are politically opposite. The followeres of the two systems hated each other. Fascism was based on extreme nationalism. Communism sees the the state as a bourgeois invention. Fascism was strongly supported by corporate interests and the propertied classes. Communism destroyed private property and dispossessed the rich. Nazism, in particular, was an explicitly racist philosophy, while communism was anti-colonial and non-racial in its conception. Of course, what ideologies say they believe and what governments do can be very different. Heck, our own country talked about freedom but allowed slavery and legal discrimination for close to two humdred years.

Neither was democratic, but many systems are not democratic. As a person who teaches a lot of world history abnd western civ, the notion and fascism and communism are related is one the most common misconceptions in America. It is simply wrong.

[Dr. Cheese]

Originally Posted by KPAX

To me those are distinctions without a difference.
They were both totalitarian/collectivist ideologies and systems that idolized the state, denied individual rights and murdered millions upon millions.
Whatever crackpot ideology either one used to justify their crimes isn't particularly interesting to me.

They were a big enough difference that many Europeans tolerated Hitler because of his anti-communism despite his obvious evil and racism. In fact, it was hoped that he would save the West the trouble of confronting the Soviets. 20 million Russians and 7 million Germans died as a result of a struggle that was largely generated out of those ideological differences, which by the way, are very profound.

To say you don't care about their ideological differences makes as much sense as saying that you don't care about the difference malaria or HIV since both will make you sick and can kill you.

If you are in college, I hope you don't ever say that on a test because any teacher, conservative or liberal should flunk you if you do.