Apparently there may be a drawing of Adolf Hitler playing chess with Lenin! Really. Skepticism is still probably called for. But jeepers. If true, if ever there were a better moment when God should have lobbed a lightning bolt or a meteor earthward, I can’t think of it. From the Telegraph:
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.
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.