Rare Photographs Show Hitler Relaxed While He Waged A World War

Rare Photographs Show Hitler Relaxed While He Waged A World War

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Hitler, 1936: Relaxing with a cup of tea and sharing a joke with a crowd of admiring women - these are the rarely seen intimate portraits of Adolf Hitler at the height of his power.

The snapshots of the dictator were taken between 1936 and 1945 as the Nazi party strengthened its grip on Germany and then waged war against its European neighbours, reports The Daily Mail, London.

The German leader eats a meal with Gertrud Deetz - the wife of Gauleiter Albert Forster, at the Berghof, Hitler’s estate in Upper Bavaria in the late 1930s. Gertrude did not hear about her husband’s death in 1949 until 1954

Hitler (hands on hips) admires his new car, which was presented by the manufacturer Ferdinand Porsche. The Fuhrer did not like to drive himself and had a chauffeur

In one series of pictures from 1939, Hitler is shown admiring his 50th birthday present - a specially designed convertible VW, which was given to him by Ferdinand Porsche.

He received the glossy black automobile at his Eagle’s Nest home in the Alps. The mountain-based chalet was built as a retreat for Hitler and a place for him to entertain visiting dignitaries.

In another set Hitler is seen laughing at a Christmas party in 1941. By this point over 43,000 British civilians had been killed in German bombing raids.

The photographs were taken by Hugo Jaeger, who had privileged access to the Fuhrer during those tumultuous years. Jaeger was one of the early adopters of colour photography and created clear, evocative images.

Unlike the Nazi leader’s main photographer Heinrich Hoffmann, Jaeger took pictures both of both private events and huge propaganda spectacles.

Hitler is surrounded by an enthralled group of Austrian schoolgirls in 1939. Hitler was born in Braunau am Inn in Austria-Hungary in 1889

Left: Hitler at a party reception at the Fuhrerbau Right: Adolf Hitler, wearing an Arbeitsfront cap, aboard the KDF Ship Robert Ley on its maiden voyage with Inge Ley (Robert Ley’s wife) in 1939. German workers were offered free cruises through the ’Strength through Joy’ scheme

Following the Allied victory in 1945 Mr Jaeger packed his transparencies into 12 glass jars and buried them on the outskirts of Munich.

He finally retrieved them in 1955 and restored the 2,000 photos in a bank vault. In 1965 he sold them to LIFE magazine, who have since only published a fraction of the extensive collection.

It is unclear what happened to Mr Jaeger after this time although Life magazine have a black and white photo of him in their archives dated 1970.

Left: Hitler shakes hands with his official photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann at the Reichs Chancellory in Berlin shortly after midnight on April 20, 1939. Right: Sharing a moment with an unidentified woman

 

Watercolours painted by struggling young artist Adolf Hitler


A recently discovered collection of Adolf Hitler paintings worth £150,000 will go under the hammer later this month. The selection of watercolours were all painted around 1908 when Hitler was simply known as a jobbing artist trying to earn a living. Scenes depict views across vast areas of farmland with a distant church spire on the road, village scenes and rows of factories.



Courtyard: Adolf Hitler was a struggling young artist when he painted this scene




Aspiring: But Hitler was turned down by an art academy in Vienna run by Jews - could this have fuelled his hatred of them?




Scenes depict views across vast areas of farmland with a distant church spire on the road, village scenes and rows of factories




The paintings, signed by Hitler, were found within a large estate in the north of Austria


’There’s been a lot of research done into the rejections and some have labelled it as a turning point in history.

’If he’d been given a place in the academy the most we’d ever heard of Adolf Hitler would have been that he was a routine artist painting some nice landscapes.
’Researchers believe because he was rejected, it could have turned his mind into deep resentment and eventually into monster he became. They believe the academy was largely run by Jewish people at the time.’