Adolph Hitler's Disney Fan Art

[Gravy]

The director of a Norwegian museum claimed yesterday to have discovered cartoons drawn by Adolf Hitler during the Second World War.

William Hakvaag, the director of a war museum in northern Norway, said he found the drawings hidden in a painting signed "A. Hitler" that he bought at an auction in Germany.

He found coloured cartoons of the characters Bashful and Doc from the 1937 Disney film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which were signed A.H., and an unsigned sketch of Pinocchio as he appeared in the 1940 Disney film.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/23/whitler123.xml

They're pretty good, but is Doc wearing pants?

 

[CFLarsen]

No.

After Hitler got involved in politics, he had little or no time to paint or draw. There are no traces of any artistic output after he achieved power in 1933. When he did paint, especially during his time in Vienna, he mainly did watercolors, primarily of buildings. He avoided human figures.

I haven't come across any mention of Hitler engaging in drawing after 1933: Toland, Bullock, Kershaw, Fest, Rosenbaum, Shirer, Chuikov, Trevor-Roper, Günsche, Goebbels, Ribbentrop, even Hanfstaengl or Hitler himself in "Mein Kampf". There's nothing in "Hitler's Table Talk" either to indicate a continued interest in being an active artist. By that time, Hitler saw himself as a savior, leader, Führer - not a struggling artist, as he admittedly once did.

It would be odd for Hitler to, at the height of WWII, to engage in something as mundane as drawing Disney cartoons. He did like some Disney works, but it seems farfetched to claim that he made these drawings.

The style of the cartoons is way too advanced for Hitler anyway. Whoever drew this would have several years of training and experience. There is nothing in Hitler's works that even emulates this.

I would be extremely surprised if this turned out to be Hitler's work.

 

[kookbreaker]

I'm sure that the History Channel will soon have a two hour special: Hitler, the Tyrant, his Doodles and Slash Fanfic!

 

[zeusbheld]

just looking at the style of the drawing, they are most likely drawn by a cartoonist not by Hitler. the line quality doesn't look anything at all like the line quality in drawings by Hitler i have seen (although admittedly i've not seen any in person). line quality can be faked, just as signatures can be forged, but it ain't easy.

 

[dudalb]

There is a long history of forgeries claiming to be paintings and drawings by Hitler.
This looks like just another.
Robert Harris's "Selling Hitler",although primarily about the Hitler Diary fiasco of 1983, does have quite a bit about all the forged Hitler Paintings and Drawings out there.
But the ulitmate comment about Hitler as a painter goes to Mel Brooks:
"The Fuehrer,now there was a painter! He could do a Whole Apartment in One Afternoon, Two Coats!"

 

[Aardvark422]

This probably belongs on the CT side of things, but my father believes that Hitler was an artist to rival Michelangelo etc. but for political reasons everyone is told the story of Hitler-as-failed-artist. My dad claims to have seen a large book printed in Italy with reprintings of all of Hitler's great works.

 

[dudalb]

This probably belongs on the CT side of things, but my father believes that Hitler was an artist to rival Michelangelo etc. but for political reasons everyone is told the story of Hitler-as-failed-artist. My dad claims to have seen a large book printed in Italy with reprintings of all of Hitler's great works.

With all respect,your has horrid taste.
And if that is the book I am thinking of a lot of the Hitler paintings and drawings are fakes.
Hitler's style as an artist is easy to imitate. Another reason why he was a mediocre at best artist.
Hell have no fury like a frustrated artist,I guess,with Hitler,Nero,and John Wilkes Booth being prime examples.

 

[Aardvark422]

With all respect,your has horrid taste.
And if that is the book I am thinking of a lot of the Hitler paintings and drawings are fakes.
Hitler's style as an artist is easy to imitate. Another reason why he was a mediocre at best artist.
Hell have no fury like a frustrated artist,I guess,with Hitler,Nero,and John Wilkes Booth being prime examples.

If I remember correctly, and this was a few years ago when my dad told me this story, but the paintings in the Italian book were completely different in style than anything "proven" to be an actual Hitler work. This of course leads me to believe that it's just an obvious fake, but my father falls for any outrageous story. My $$ would be on it being just reprintings of famous painters with attribution to Hitler.

 

[boloboffin]

As creepy as the subject of Hitler is, the thought of him making slash fanfic is creepier still.

 

[zeusbheld]

As creepy as the subject of Hitler is, the thought of him making slash fanfic is creepier still.

yeah all i need now is to hear he dressed up like a clown.

yikes i regret thinking/posting that. even though it's not true, eeeeewww.

 

[boloboffin]

Hitler! Out of my MIIIIIIIIND!

 

[Pope130]

yeah all i need now is to hear he dressed up like a clown.

yikes i regret thinking/posting that. even though it's not true, eeeeewww.

"Hitler Clown" Great, now I have something worse in my minds eye than the Hitler in Lederhosen pictures.

Robert

 

[tkingdoll]

Aaand now I have a mental image of Snow White and a glass table. Great.

As for the drawings, they show considerable skill. They are clearly the Disney characters, but the artist has imparted his own charming style. They are very good. Whether or not Hitler was capable of drawing in that fashion, I don't know. But I like the drawings. Who the artist was should never be more important than whether you like the picture. Are these somehow better, or worse, if Hitler did them than some unknown?

 

[joobie]

Mr Hakvaag, who said he had performed tests on the paintings which suggested that they dated from 1940, said: "I am 100 per cent sure that these are drawings by Hitler. If one wanted to make a forgery, one would never hide it in the back of a picture, where it might never be discovered."

that's exactly where i would have "hidden" them.

 

[Ian Osborne]

that's exactly where i would have "hidden" them.

Precisely. If the picture they were hidden behind is worth reframing, they're pretty-much guaranteed to be found. In fact, if the picture was dreadful, they'd also be found, by someone intending to reuse the frame.

 

[Nogbad]

The paintings by Hitler I have seen were mediocre but moderately competent - very old fashioned even for the early 1900s. However, I would suggest that many school kids could sketch Disney cartoon characters as well as these are handled. A friend at school did a mean Scooby Doo. Copying a cartoon character is not hard - creating one is the tricky bit.

Consequently, is it possible that Hitler could have doodled a couple of sketches from films he liked in 1940 when everything was pretty much going his way on the war front? It is not like we are talking about the Mona Lisa here is it? They have no artistic value, just curiousity value. So I would say they could be genuine but then fakes are a lucrative business so that has to be an option.

 

[tkingdoll]

The paintings by Hitler I have seen were mediocre but moderately competent - very old fashioned even for the early 1900s. However, I would suggest that many school kids could sketch Disney cartoon characters as well as these are handled. A friend at school did a mean Scooby Doo. Copying a cartoon character is not hard - creating one is the tricky bit.

No, what's good about these is that they are not exact copies of the originals, they have an original style of their own yet are easily identifiable. That is very hard to do.

I have some skill with a pencil, in that I can copy anything very well. No different to a facsimile, really. But as I'm untrained and inexperienced, I couldn't impart my own style into a drawing of a well-known character. It would just look...off. Like a badly-rendered version.

 

[Nogbad]

No, what's good about these is that they are not exact copies of the originals, they have an original style of their own yet are easily identifiable. That is very hard to do.

I have some skill with a pencil, in that I can copy anything very well. No different to a facsimile, really. But as I'm untrained and inexperienced, I couldn't impart my own style into a drawing of a well-known character. It would just look...off. Like a badly-rendered version.

Possibly - I haven't seen what sources he could have used to base them on. Regarding time - there is not a huge amount of effort in something like that as far as I can tell so I doubt that would be factor if the inclination had taken him. My daughter is only 17 and she would knock something like that out in next no time and most of what she does his her own take on things - albeit in keeping with the times hers are more Japanese inclined.

That said they could be fakes - although why anybody would want them is not entirely clear to me.

Edit: I knew I had a scan of one of daughter's "while watching TV sketches" I think it was somebody on the programme she was watching.

 

[zeusbheld]

No, what's good about these is that they are not exact copies of the originals, they have an original style of their own yet are easily identifiable. That is very hard to do.

personally i think it would be much harder to copy line quality and gesture, especially if the actual drawings were not copies. to my eye it looks like good fan art, but something any decent cartoonist could have done. and the line quality looks NOTHING like the brush strokes i've seen in Hitler's paintings (never seen one in person though). that is usually telling, because line quality is intimately linked to how you move. forging that is the hardest thing in my opinion.

I have some skill with a pencil, in that I can copy anything very well. No different to a facsimile, really. But as I'm untrained and inexperienced, I couldn't impart my own style into a drawing of a well-known character. It would just look...off. Like a badly-rendered version.

i used to draw and paint. a lot. and worked for an animator after college, painted some backgrounds. was never very good at it, though. didn't have anything like a career.

bottom line: just looking at the jpegs of drawings, i seriously doubt their authenticity.

 

[Soapy Sam]

Alfred Hitler. Cousin and interior decorator.
Shot after invading Munich in 1942.