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.