Schneider - Focal Point Publications

Above: Herta Schneider (left) with Eva Braun

The Hitler signature on the painting

first posted Saturday, July 24, 2010; updated Friday, August 29, 2014

Double-value: Adolf Hitler painted it, Eva Braun owned it –

AS A penniless eighteen-year-old art student in Vienna in 1907 Adolf Hitler painted this watercolour of roses. After 1931 he gave the painting to Eva Braun, who gave the painting to her best friend Herta Schneider in 1940.

This unique and gifted work of art has been sold by its Bavarian owner, at at inclusive price of

30,000 pounds sterlingon September 1, 2014. It is a major investment, and will only grow in value.

Herta and Eva had known each since they were little girls at school together. In April 1945, in the final days of her short and tragic life, Eva wrote two sad letters to Herta, and by courier plane from Hitler’s bunker sent her the engagement ring. (Copies of these letters are included in this sale.)

Above: Herta Schneider reads Eva’s last letters (see below), with Hitler’s engagement ring

Right: the unique water color painting by Adolf Hitler, now offered for sale

Click on each image to see enlargements

On April 19, 1945 Eva writes to Herta Schneider with grim news from Hitler’s bunker

On April 22, 1945 Eva sends to Herta her engagement ring and a fond letter of farewell, as there now seems to be no hope.

Original letter of authentication signed by Herta Schneider: Garmisch, July 4, 1989: “I, Herta Schneider née Ostermayr, hereby confirm that the picture laid before me (water-color, in oval frame, size 27 x 23cm, depicting two red flowers and petals, si[g]ned A. Hitler 07), comes from the personal possession of Eva Braun. As Eva Braun’s best female friend I received the picture from her as a gift during a visit to her house in Wasserburg Street in Munich. She herself had received it personally from the Führer. Eva Braun presented this water-color painting to me in the summer of 1940.”

Diese Gegenstände stammen aus dem Besitz Herta Schneiders und kommen mit deren Echtheitsbestätigung (oben).David Irving writes: I visited the late Herta Schneider several times when writing my biography Hitler’s War (the first occasion was with Eva Braun’s biographer Nerin Gun), and again, years later in 1989, with my assistant Sally Cox (left) on behalf of an American television company. Herta was by then very frail, and it took a lot of coaxing to persuade her to talk on camera; Sally was a natural and lovely person, and did a great job there.

Herta sadly showed us the engagement ring that Eva had sent out of Berlin to her in the very last days of the war, and her wonderful albums of original photographs — I have since seen them on sale at a Munich auction house. She was a magnificent source of information on Adolf Hitler and his bride Eva, to the memory of both of which she was still devoted. This item has only now (summer 2010) come on to the market.

The asking price was 42,500 euros net inclusive of shipping and insurance. This unusual gift, painted by young Adolf Hitler and owned by Eva Braun, was sold for 30,000 pounds on September 1, 2014.