Thanks.
There seems to be a lot of strong circumstantial evidence leaning towards authenticity. Though I'd rather believe Adolf Hitler never touched a chess piece in his life and that the rumors of him having been an amateur chess player were nothing more than that, it looks like that probably isn't so.
Hitler and Lenin playing chess?
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I dont have a problem with Hitler playing chess. Its when he invaded Poland the problems started. Perhaps if he had taken his chess more seriously he may have had little mental stamina left for his despotic excursions? Then again.....if had done his homework on strategy like any good chess player would, perhaps he wouldnt have invaded Russia and then where would be?
Looking at that drawing, it almost looks like the artist captured the moment when something sparked in Hitler. Just twenty years old, deep in thought, and passively imagining being in command of an army whose only purpose is to defeat everything else on a board which, ironically, isn't white.
Everything first began with a thought.
Sep 3, 2009
0
#5
Hitler doesn't look like a 20 year old in that picture. He's well dressed and has his hair combed. Hitler didn't have much money when he was 20. I think he would have been thinner, and his appearence would have been a little messy. I'm not sure, but I think he has a short moustache in the picture. I remember a photo of Hitler when he was a soldier in the first world war, and he had a long moustache, and he was thin.
...and then the pig says: "I won him at the fair".
Grobe? theGrobe? very funny
I thought the same thing, Malko. If he's in his twenties, he looks a lot heavier here than in photos taken during that same period, or in photos even ten years later. Lenin almost looks younger! I saw the same photo, with a full mustache instead of the toothbrustache.
I don't doubt that that drawing was drawn by Hitler's art teacher, I just question the date it was drawn.
This just looks like a step up from dogs playing poker.
lol..
It is patently absurd and bogus. Neither person pictured even remotely resembles whom they are purported to be.
V.I. Lenin was present in Paris at the Fifth Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) at the beginning of 1909. In April of 1909, Lenin was still in Paris, correcting the proofs of Materialism and Empiriocriticism, his polemic against Alexander Bogdanov, whose faction was defeated at the June 1909 conference that took place also in Paris. During the period 1908-1911, V.I. Lenin was wholly engaged in the separation of the Bolshevik and Menshevik factions in the RSDLP and the organization of Bolshevik groups in Western Europe.
V.I. Lenin (l.) playing chess with A.Bogdanov (r.) whose political ally Maxim Gorky (in hat) looks on (Capri, 1908).
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Hold on, is this true or fake then? If it's true, I'd like to know how the game went. Does anybody know what openings they would have preferred?
Theoretically that event could take place in Vienna or Munhen, where Hitler and Lenin were in the same time before World War...
But actually I don't think that the possibility of that is big.
There were too many Chess players in those cities.
bugoobiga wrote:
Looking at that drawing, it almost looks like the artist captured the moment when something sparked in Hitler. Just twenty years old, deep in thought, and passively imagining being in command of an army whose only purpose is to defeat everything else on a board which, ironically, isn't white.
Everything first began with a thought.
Vladimir Lenin was a strong Chess player.
There were evidences on that account.
But first time I hear that Adolf Hitler played Chess.
Here is a game between Lenin and Maxim Gorky at Capri 1908:
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1387603
where is the game link/ what moves
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/6130672/Pictured-Hitler-playing-chess-with-Lenin.html
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.
"He compiled a 300 page document and spent a great deal of money engaging experts to examine the etching.
"The signatures in pencil on the reverse are said to have an 80 per cent chance of being genuine, and there is proof that Emma Lowenstramm did exist.
"The circumstantial evidence is very good on top of the paper having been tested.
"Hitler was a painter in 1909 and his Jewish teacher Emma Lowenstramm was the person who made the etching.
"There is some suggestion that when he came to power Hitler protected her and she died from natural causes in 1941.
"At the time, Vienna was a hotbed of political intrigue and the house where this game took place belonged to a prominent Jewish family.
"Lenin at the time was moving around Europe in exile and writing "Materialism and Empirio-criticism".
"His movements are hazy and it is known that he did play chess and later he certainly wore wigs as a disguise.
"It is also known that Lenin was a German agent and the house was where people went to exchange political views.
"The chess set is clearly the same chess set as that in the etching. It is a box chess set that folds out and the pieces are identifiable - particularly the kings and bishops.
"To my knowledge there are five etchings of this image, but this has the signatures of both men and the artist.
"The provenance is that it has come through the family of the housekeeper who was given it when the Jewish family fled in the late 1930s.
"The family is based in Hanover and it is the great great grandson of the housekeeper who is selling it.
"On all sorts of levels it is an extremely valuable artefact. Even as just an allegorical picture it shows the men playing chess possibly for the world."
Historian Helen Rappaport, who has just written a book called "Conspirator: Lenin in Exile", said the etching was probably a "glorious piece of fantasy".
She said: "In 1909 Lenin was in France and there is no evidence that he was in Vienna.
"In October he went to Liege in Belgium and in November he went to Brussels. He would have visited Vienna before and after that year.
"He liked the place and went there because he travelled around Europe on trains, but he wouldn't have been there long enough to meet a young Hitler.
"He was also as bald as a bat by 1894 with just hair on the sides of his head.
"And when in exile he was not known as Lenin and instead used a number of aliases.
"The person believed to be Lenin in the etching may well have been one of his revolutionary or Bolshevik associates who was misidentified.
"It may even have been an Austrian socialist with whom he associated in the Second International.
"The Germans did fund the Bolsheviks and gave them millions of marks for the revolutionary effort, but Lenin was not a German sympathiser.
"Although this is totally spurious it is wonderful to bring these two great megalomaniacs together.
"It makes sense retrospectively and the history of art is full of retrospective meetings between people."
The items are to be sold at Mullock's auction house in Ludlow, Shropshire, on October 1.