Berlin - Two water colours painted by Adolf Hitler when the Nazi leader was a young dropout in pre-first World War Vienna surfaced in Tehran yesterday after apparently lying for decades in the basement of an Iranian museum.
The two paintings, featuring picture postcard views of Viennese landmarks of the type that the Fuhrer hawked around the Austrian capital in his early 20s, were said to have been presented by Hitler to the Iranian ambassador in Germany during the second World War.
Mr Mohammad Reza Java heri, curator of the Tehran museum run by the Bonyad Mostazafan foundation, was quoted as saying the two paintings had been authenticated by "European experts".
He told the Iranian state news agency that his foundation intended to keep the works and would not sell them. At 22, Hitler was enraged when the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna rejected him. He lied about it.