5 ‘Hitler’ paintings auctioned off in Nuremberg
NUREMBERG (AFP) — Five paintings attributed to Adolf Hitler were scheduled for auction over the weekend in the German city of Nuremberg, sparking anger that the Nazi memorabilia market is alive and well.
Nuremberg Mayor Ulrich Maly has condemned the upcoming sale as being “in bad taste,” speaking to Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper. Among the items that would go under the hammer are a mountain lake view with a starting price of 45,000 euros and a wicker armchair with a swastika symbol presumed to have belonged to the late Nazi dictator.
The Weidler auction house is holding the “special sale” in Nuremberg, the city in which Nazi war criminals were tried in 1945.
The auction made headlines days before its start after several artworks were withdrawn on Thursday on suspicion that they were fakes and prosecutors stepped in.
Sales of alleged artworks by Hitler – who for a time tried to make a living as an artist in his native Austria – regularly spark outrage that collectors are willing to pay high prices for art linked to the country’s Nazi past.
“There’s a long tradition of this trade in devotional objects linked to Nazism,” Stephan Klingen of the Central Institute for Art History in Munich told Agence France-Presse.
“Every time there’s a media buzz about it... and the prices they’re bringing in have been rising constantly. Personally, that’s something that quite annoys me,” Klingen added.
In Germany, public displays of Nazi symbols are illegal but exceptions can be made, for instance, in educational or historic contexts.
To comply with the law, the auction house pixelated the swastikas on the wicker chair and a blue-and-white Meissen porcelain vase in catalogue photos, and has covered them up on-site.
None of the paintings, however, include any of the totalitarian party’s insignias.