Churchill and Hitler items sold at Ludlow auction
Documents signed by Winston Churchill have sold for almost £1,000 more than expected, but Hitler's artwork did not go so well at a Shropshire auction.
An array of historical documents and military memorabilia, including items relating to some of the 20th Century's most famous – and infamous – figures, went under the hammer at Ludlow Racecourse yesterday.
The auction, held by Shropshire firm Mullock's, included secret documents signed by Winston Churchill considering the building of a channel tunnel as long ago as 1914, when Churchill was First Lord of the Admiralty.
But also up for sale were paintings ascribed to Adolf Hitler and even a post card signed by Nazi leader to his friend, SS guard Ullrich Ellenbeck.
The Churchill plans, which included reference to the inclusion of a drawbridge or means of flooding the channel tunnel in case of a war with France, were up with a guide price of £1,500 to £1,700 but yesterday far exceeded that, going for a whopping £2,400.
But a clutch of four paintings ascribed to Hitler, though going for more than that, were expected to make much more and didn't. Each of the paintings, two still life works and two rustic street scenes of Dürnstein in Hitler's native Austria, were up for £5,000 to £7,000, but sold for betwen £2,800 and £3,600.
A fifth painting up for the same price, showing the grave of Geli Raubel, Hitler's half-niece that he was famously romantically infatuated with, did not sell at all, most likely as it was not signed so impossible to tell if it had been painted by Hitler or not.
A set of two signed post cards, one from Hitler and one from Nazi minister for propaganda Joseph Goebbels, sold better, however, fetching £3,000, at least £500 more than the guide price.
The postcard from Hitler shows the dictator with his German Shepherd Blondi and was presented to Ellenbeck because of their mutual love of dogs, signing it with the name 'Wolf' - a moniker he only used for close friends and associates.
The Goebbels card shows the senior Nazi with his daughter Hedwig, one of his six children that he and wife Magda would end up poisoning before committing suicide themselves as the Nazi's were defeated.
