Adolf Hitler, Disney fan-artist

Oric sez, "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.

Link

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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rcaldwello

artists need outlets people!!! fund art and whacko perspectives can remian just that!!!
support your local artists!
Bouncy Bouncy

Maybe Adolf and Walt weren’t really all that different?
raisedbywolves

I’m pretty damn sure this is fake, fake, fake. There are just *way* too many people out there who realize forgeries of anything to do with Hitler would be extremely valuable, for them *not* to crop up more or less regularly.

I’m betting the painting these sketches were stuck in was 100% fake to begin with. And the Disney aspect is just too disturbing and makes too much of a good story to be real.
Dustin Driver

Hey! This is great, but I want to comment about the end of the world and the link to the very latest post is giving me a 404 error.

And, um, these sketches are disturbing. So Hitler was really just a frustrated animator who took out his disappointment on a few million people?
airship

Snow White: 1937. Possible, but by then Hitler was very busy with politics. I doubt he was painting much by then.

Pinocchio: 1940. Totally and completely impossible. Poland was invaded in 1939 and Europe was embroiled in WWII.

I doubt Hitler ever picked up a brush after 1939, and probably much earlier. He was imprisoned after the Munich Beer Hall Putsch in 1923, where he wrote Mein Kampf, which was published in two volumes in 1925 and 1926. I rather imagine he had given up painting by the time he got involved in politics.
Smoakes

The fact that Mr Hakvaag says he is “100 per cent sure that these are drawings by Hitler” gives me pause. So far, the evidence seems to be:
1. They were found in the back of a painting signed A. Hitler (surely there have been other A. Hitlers in Germany?) and the signature “seems to match” other signatures of Hitler (but it doesn’t sound like this has been looked at by an expert)
2. Two of them are initialed A.H. and again the handwriting seems to match
3. Hitler was an artist
4. Hitler owned a copy of Snow White
5. Mr. Hakvaag offers as further evidence, “If one wanted to make a forgery, one would never hide it in the back of a picture, where it might never be discovered.”
(However, it seems possible that Anna Helding didn’t intend to make a forgery at all)

Considering how much Nazi memorabilia has turned out to be nothing of the sort, this evidence seems to be to be worth, say 80% certainty.
That Hakvaag says he’s 100% sure makes me think he’s bullshitting or at least wants to believe it so he can get the $$.

Then there’s the creepy angle: Why would anyone want to own a dwarf drawn by Hitler?!
Reverend T

Eric@29: Bloom County ftw :)
Santa’s Knee

He studied art, after all…
Anonymous

Do you know what else Hitler did? He wore pants. OH people who wear pants are just like Hitler!
ZzmeeY

Had rather he became an artist…
Brit

BTW, Hitler was an artist at one time.
http://www.fpp.co.uk/Hitler/artist/Price/WashingtonPost210402a.html
ZzmeeY

What TF? Am I invisible here? Where is my recent comment, you know? I’d refresh the f####g page every minute at last hour Where is he?
Clumpy

Can I be as skeptical about this as the selling of the “original” crucifixion nails on eBay?
maxblaster

Wht strng cncdnc. Cry pstd n nflmmtry rtcl frm 2004, nd thn, whn tw ppl clld hm t n th cmmnts, th cmmnts pg fr tht rtcl sddnly dspprd, nd yt th msldng rtcl stll pprs n th frnt pg.
pedmands

This is completely O/T, but the lack of activity on BoingBoing coupled with the fact that the discussion page for the Pentagon post has gone missing really weirds me out.
David Carroll

Why don’t we burn the pictures like the Soviets burned the (alleged) artist? Can’t we forget about these morons and start obsessing about Pol Pot for a change?
janis123

lt f ppl r nwr tht Hltr bgn hs crr s n rt stdnt. n fct, h ws hppy t prs rt s lflng crr, bt ws rjctd by th prmr rt schl f th dy nd h blmd hs rjctn n Jwsh mmbrs f th brd fr th rt schl whch h ws pplyng t. T’s qt fscntng. Chck t mr hr: http://www.mngdq.cm/srch.php?q=hltr+rt+schl
Bennessy

Well, that proves it, Disney is evil.
Takuan

what? you mean the interruption in service as per the “possibly down for maintenance” announcement two days ago?
obdan

see,..

..maybe he wasn’t so bad after all.
blabbinit

I wouldn’t have thought that Hitler would be your typical Hitler fan! Yikes! Scary!
Sparrow

This thread is was over before it started. See Rule #4 (Godwin’s Law).
romwell

#2: I thought the same =) What immediately jumped to my mind was this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBFQssLOn94 (Also, I frist ps0t’ed this link, but somehow the comment didn’t go through.. or I left it in some other thread)
buddy66

I’ve seen some examples of Hitler’s work. A would-be watercolorist of buildings and monuments. He couldn’t draw for shit. He wasn’t good enough to have drawn even these simple copies of what looks like Walt Kelly’s work (who toiled for Disney). Uncle Walt D. couldn’t draw for shit either.
MadCarlotta

Hrm, John Wayne Gacy liked to paint Disney characters too.
Anil

That’s the best anti-derivative-works argument ever! “You know who else liked to remix Disney’s works? ADOLF HITLER!”
ridestowe

come on, who doesn’t love the old disney?
ndlxs

Hitler and Disney? Too good to be true. HAS to be a forgery. Paging Malcolm Gladwell…
OM

…Interesting. I’d heard that Hitler thought the 7 Dwarves were Jewish characatures because they were obvious diamond merchants.
ndollak

I can’t speak for the authenticity of the “fan art,” but I have read that Hitler REALLY LIKED Disney’s “Snow White.” He was apparently a big fan of Disney’s animated movies. Of course, so were lots of other people. Later, when he saw that Hitler Youth members were sporting Mickey Mouse pins on their lapels alongside the nazi swastika, his attitude changed. He had Goebbels denounce Mickey as “un-German” and compare him to Jews. Strange, sick, angry man.
minimalniemand

I first thought this might be fake, but A.H. indeed was an unsuccesfull painter before becoming dictator.
Eric TF Bat

The verdict is in:

“It’s official Dukes of Hazzard stationery!”

(Spot the (obscure?) reference…)
noen

It’s been known for a long time that Hitler was a failed artist. Most people have probably seen his drawing of a bicycle leaning against a building. He was brutally abused by his father and it’s not that unusual for abuse victims to attempt to escape inwardly, fail and then become their abuser. It’s too bad really though I doubt if he had been able to succeed as an artist it would have changed things. Another hitler would have simply risen in his place.
romwell

Hah, what immediately comes to my mind is this skit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBFQssLOn94
elNico

I was wondering when this would appear on BB…it’s a match made in heaven.

Apparently Hitler was a big Micky Mouse fan. Minister of propaganda Joseph Goebbels gave him an entire collection of 12 films for Xmas in 1937…and he was thrilled (according to Goebbels).

Taken from (in German):
http://einestages.spiegel.de/static/authoralbumbackground/1445/zwoelf_micky_filme_fuer_den_fuehrer.html

There’s some interesting mentioning of a Nazi cartoonist division to further aid propaganda, which didn’t really go that well…too many distractions, I guess.
License Farm

There’s a creepy start to my day. Of course, it could be someone else, but this has the air of John Wayne Gacy’s clown paintings.

Weren’t Mickey Mouse and other Disney cartoons banned in the Third Reich? Of course, Hitler himself probably enjoyed plenty of things he denied the German people. This won’t help dispel those apocryphal “Walt Disney was secretly a Nazi” stories.
Philscbx

I’m sure if Norway has these on display, that they have been examined to be verified. Those who dispute this are sidetracking the topic.
These characters were some of the very few that were available compared today.
Myself seeing them in the early fifties left a huge mark when viewed in large theaters. Color TV did not exist.

It just goes to show just how influential the Disney’s art became.
It was pure entertainment showing the strife of the littlest of life.

It also proves that the art form entertained, and overwhelmed even the most brutal of creatures. Nothing more. Showing he actually sketched and painted these freehand shows his talent got sidetracked as well. Happens to the best of us.
ME

A few years ago there was a traveling exhibition called “The Last Expression: Art and Auschwitz”. It documented the art created by concentration camp inmates while they were interned. One particularly striking piece was a graphic novel :

Mickey au Camp de Gurs – PubliÃ©e sans l’authorisation de Walt Disney (Mickey Mouse in the Gurs Internment Camp – Published without Walt Disney’s Permission) and Le JournÃ©e d’un hÃ©bergÃ©: Camp de Gurs 1942 (A Day in the Life of a Resident: Gurs Internment Camp, 1942)

By Horst Rosenthal (Breslau 1915 – Auschwitz 1942?)

Here are a few links giving examples of the work:

http://www1.yadvashem.org/Odot/prog/image_into.asp?id=4646&lang=EN&type_id=7&addr=/IMAGE_TYPE/4646.JPG

http://www1.yadvashem.org/Odot/prog/image_into.asp?id=4647&lang=EN&type_id=7&addr=/IMAGE_TYPE/4647.JPG

http://www1.yadvashem.org/Odot/prog/image_into.asp?id=4648&lang=EN&type_id=7&addr=/IMAGE_TYPE/4648.JPG

Sorry I couldn’t find more. If you read French, the captions are funny.

Apropos of Boing Boing, worries about copyright were even a worry to those about to be shipped off to Auschwitz, as evidenced by the title.