By, Jennifer Lipman
1 min read
ByJennifer Lipman, Jennifer Lipman
A California auction house is hoping to fetch more than £60,000 from the sale of two paintings said to feature Adolf Hitler's parents.
The oil paintings, both from the 1930s, are being sold by a San Diego auction house.
They feature Alois and Klara Hitler at Berghof, Hitler's holiday home in the Bavarian mountains.
The paintings have not been seen since the Holocaust. Auctioneer Craig Gottlieb said he acquired them from the descendants of a French war veteran, who took them from the house after the war.
Photographs of the paintings are held in the US Library of Congress and Mr Gottlieb said he was certain the ones for sale were the originals.
"They match the actual portraits, down to every last brush stroke," he said.
He said the paintings were an "important piece of history" and could offer clues about Hitler's ethnic background.
Bids will be accepted from September 1. The sale of the paintings comes less than a fortnight after a collector paid more than £150,000 for the diaries of infamous Nazi "scientist" Josef Mengele. Holocaust survivors criticised the sale as being of poor taste.