Hitler's globe turns up in Oakland rumpus room

[Story]

Hitler's fish knife: the trade in Nazi memorabilia

The BBC's Claire Bolderson has been looking into the trade. (Audio file here)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/news/2010/01/100126_nazi_memorabilia_sl.shtml

 

[Edward]

And technically Twitch he was very amateurish in his painting.

When I did my degree in art history I had a lecturer who used Hitler's paintings as the perfect example of personality setting financial worth and historical value rather than excellence in the formal and/or conceptual aspects of a work.

People want them because they have that man's scratchy signature on them!

I've seen a lot worse by many celebrated artists, but I do agree that Hitler's notoriety is what gives value to his paintings rather than the art itself. Not unlike many others, I imagine - I mean, there's little (outside of the Pharmacy installation, which I did genuinely like) to recommend Damien hirst in my personal opinion, but the stuff he does sells for huge sums. Maybe, come to think of it, any artist once sufficiently famous commands high sums on the basis of name recognition alone? I recall back in 1999 going to see a retrospective of Monet's work at the Royal College of Art, on Picadilly. They had paintings from all stages of his career. I'm a fan of his landscapes myself, but one of those paintings, dating from the time when his cataracts were appallingly bad, pre-surgery, was hideous. Awful thing, not something I imagine anyone would much care for to have on display at home. An important work in one sense as it documents a certain period in the artist's career, but clearly valuable for his name alone rather than because it is (inasfar as we can be objective about this) "good" art....

I can understand a museum or someone with a genuine historical interest picking up one of Hitler's works.... I suppose my concern would be that there are those who would seek out such things out of fandom for the man himself and what he did..... The Arbeit Macht Frei sign from the gates of Auschwitz was stolen to order in December 09 for a collector in, if memory srves, Scandanavia, who was a produ fan of Hitler and what was done there. While the artworld and auction houses can't be expected to question the motivations of their buyers, it still seems a tiny touch distasteful to me for them to be potentially profiting from that sort of 'fandom'.

but yes.... if only he'd stayed an unremarkable artist rather than a viciously effective dictator.....

fftopic: I would suggest that another, perhaps more, significant turning point was the incredibly lenient sentence imposed on him for armed insurrection following the failed Munich Beer Hall Putsch in the early 20s.... Am I alon in thinking had he served a dozen years or so (would that be more in line with what he'd get now?), and been prevented from publishing his prison writings (interesting questions re censorship there..... I'm not covinced that more than a handful of those who bought Mein Kampf actually read it, as opposed to buying it to be seen to own a copy..... I've got one somewhere and it really is unremarkable other than for its insight into the mind of one of the chief villains of the twentieth century), would he have been in a position to seize power by 1933?

 

[Marc Chevalier]

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[thecardigankid]

jeez,
100000$ for a globe that Hitler had in one of his houses? :rage: As I am from Germany, 27 years of age, more on the left-wing side of things and had to 'deal' with Neo-Nazis and other kinds of fascists on more than one occasion, I just can't understand why anyone would pay that lot of money for such a s***bag's possesion...[huh]
Just my two cents, but why don't those people spend their money on useful things? Don't get me wrong on this, I understand a certain sense of nostalgia, but this is going wrong...:eusa_doh:

cheers, soulquentin

Because it was there! The one man who changed the face of the world (and he did change the face of the world) in just six years touched it. This thing witnessed history! If only it could talk!

 

[Chas]

Still waiting for Hitler's last tin of moustache wax and Eva Braun's bidet to come up for auction.

 

[Edward]

Or his mouth organ and her lipstick?

 

[BinkieBaumont]

"The Haltemprice Bunker"

"I saw a pair of Twin Beds that had "Swastikas" carved on the headboards back in the 1980's, and thought them an oddity I'm sure they would be worth a lot to a collector of Nazi items"

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