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NewsTuesday, October 17, 2006 6:08 PM CDT
Hitler painting by German forger for sale
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BLOOMINGTON -- Konrad Kujau fooled the world in the early 1980s by forging diaries attributed to Adolf Hitler. A major German newspaper paid him roughly $100 per word to publish the phony diary entries.

After being discredited by historians and implicated as the mastermind behind the hoax, Kujuau spent several years in a German prison.

But the small-time peddler of Nazi paraphernalia continued his career as a forger behind bars, copying paintings by Claude Monet, Rembrandt van Rijn and Vincent Van Gogh.

Kujau even produced a number of paintings of Hitler. Those paintings have made it to Central Illinois and will be sold later this month during an Internet auction.

Also being auctioned will be a memorial ribbon dedicated to the crew of the German warship Graf Spree.

Wes Lane, owner of Midwest Exchange pawn shop, said that 49 paintings of Hitler, his family and other German officials should fetch several thousand dollars.

The paintings are signed by Kujau and David Irving, a historian who helped expose the Hitler diaries as fraudulent in the 1980s.

Brian Fisher, a Canadian businessman and amateur historian who bought the paintings from Kujau in 1989, said it was a memorable moment when he met the notorious forger.

“He was very interesting,” Fisher said of Kujau. “He tried to sell me Hitler’s passport. I said no thanks.”

Lane said the bidding, which will take place on www.gunbroker.com, likely will start at $2,500 when the auction takes place Nov. 3.

A rare German gun that likely belonged to Hitler sold for about $140,000 in an auction sponsored by Lane on the gunbroker site. It was that auction that led Fisher to contact Lane about the latest sale.

Lane said he’d prefer to use the more popular eBay auction site for the Kujau paintings, but the site does not allow pictures featuring the swastika.

In addition to the Kujau paintings, Lane is also selling a ribbon taken from the graves of 36 German sailors killed during one of the first naval battles of World War II.

The artifact, which also was provided by Fisher, will be sold in a separate auction. The ribbon was part of a memorial wreath to honor German sailors killed in the Battle of the River Plate.

The Graf Spree, which is credited with sinking at least nine merchant ships belonging to Allied forces, was crippled in a shootout with three British cruisers off the South American coast.

After the battle, the pocket battleship sought refuge in Montevideo, Uruguay, a neutral port. When repairs could not be made within the 72-hour period afforded in neutral harbors, the Germans scuttled Graf Spree on Dec. 17, 1939.

Capt. Hans Langsdorff later placed the ribbon on the graves of the dead sailors. Fisher said he bought the ribbon for $25 in the early 1980s from the widow of one of the dead sailors.

Bidding on the ribbon will likely start at $500, Lane said.

Take a look
Wes Lane, owner of Midwest Exchange, examined a print from a series of images of the life of Adolph Hitler that will be auctioned online sometime in November. The print he is holding celebrates the work of Dr. Wernher von Braun who developed the V2 rocket. (The Pantagraph/DAVID PROEBER)
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Reader comments on this story - 10 total

Note: All views and opinions expressed in reader comments are solely those of the individual submitting the comment, and not those of the Pantagraph or its staff.

Fall wrote on Dec 10, 2006 10:29 PM:

" forming llc "

Xerrop wrote on Dec 10, 2006 5:57 PM:

" child christmas gift "

Bert wrote on Oct 19, 2006 9:04 PM:

" Dear true history bluff, Let's not forget at a press conference held to withdraw his endorsement of the diaries, Irving proudly claimed that he was the first to call the diaries a forgery, to which a reporter replied that that he was also the last to call the diaries genuine. Many people initially thought the diaries were genuine until they were tested and shown to be made on modern paper using modern ink. I don't believe Mr Irving has ever claimed to have been part of that particular process. "

true history buff wrote on Oct 18, 2006 10:49 PM:

" jensen has it right and bert has it wrong- irving was the first person to expose the fraud against stern magazine at stern's public revelations over the phony dairies. hitler was a naughty boy, but he defined the last century.. there is more written about hitler with the exception of jesus christ that any other person in world history. it is interesting to note that bert fails to mention that two other people, hugh trevor roper,president of cambridge university in england, who thought that he had a patent on hitler, and herr jaekel the official achivest of the west german govenment were conned too. the "dairies were a reproduction of a previous forgery done by Mr. Max Dolmarus - had this fact not being discovered, kujua would have been believed and the forgeries would have changed history. maybe henry ford was right when he said "history is bunk". "

Jensen wrote on Oct 18, 2006 5:11 PM:

" Having read comments by "Bothered" and " Wonder" it reminds me of an old saying , that some people would complain even if the were being hung by a silk rope ! Must everything be politically correct ? "

Bothered wrote on Oct 18, 2006 2:26 PM:

" Am I the only one bothered that this person will probably make a lot of money selling a ribbon that was on a grave? Is this not a form of grave robbing? How would you feel if somebody stole the ornimentation off your parent's grave and made money selling it. "

wonderer wrote on Oct 18, 2006 8:18 AM:

" I have often wondered why the Pantagraph deems it necessary to print so many articles about nazis, christianity, and letters about illegal immigrants. What are they trying to say? "

Bert wrote on Oct 18, 2006 1:52 AM:

" "The paintings are signed by Kujau and David Irving, a historian who helped expose the Hitler diaries as fraudulent in the 1980s." David Irving did not help expose the Hitler Diaries as fraudulent. Notwithstanding what Irving may claim himself, a balanced account can be found at Wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Irving]. Irving initially claimed the Diaries were fraudulent, then changed his mind, then changed it back again. In his ruling on Irving's libel suit against Deborah Lipstadt in 2000, Judge Charles Gray stated "... Irving has for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence ..." [http://www.guardian.co.uk/irving/article/0,,181049,00.html] I doubt this is the normal methodology of genuine historians. "

FYI wrote on Oct 17, 2006 10:12 PM:

" Wes seems to be selling alot of stuff like this lately. Why is it that guns and NAZI stuff always seem to gravitate to each other; note the picture and the background. The Fuhrer would be proud. "

Careful, Wes wrote on Oct 17, 2006 6:21 PM:

" Be careful how you're grabbing that print in the photo attached above. "

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