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Le tableau qui représenterait la rencontre entre les deux grands bourreaux du XXe siècle.Dans les colonnes du Daily Mail, le journaliste Fay Schlesinger rapporte qu'un tableau représentant une possible rencontre à Vienne en 1909 de Hitler et de Lenine va être mis en vente.
Your move Mr Hitler: Sketch said to show Nazi leader playing chess with Lenin is up for sale
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A drawing of Adolf Hitler playing chess against Vladimir Lenin 100 years ago is today expected to fetch up to £40,000 at auction.
For decades historians have argued over the likelihood that two of the world's most notorious dictators pitted their wits against one another over an innocuous chessboard.
But forensic evidence has suggested that signatures on the back of the pencil sketch are those of the Nazi leader and the Russian revolutionary.
Meeting of minds: The sketch of Lenin and Hitler playing chess is said to have been signed by the dictators
The etching, which made headlines last year when it was revealed, is said to have been created by Hitler's Jewish art teacher, Emma Lowenstramm. It is titled 'A chess game: Lenin with Hitler - Vienna 1909'.
The two men are thought to have lived minutes from one another in the Austrian capital in the early 1900s. The teacher's house was renowned as a meeting place for political free thinkers at the time.
But experts have disputed the sketch's authenticity because Hitler, on the left controlling the white pieces, looks too old for a 20-year-old man.
They have also argued Lenin was bald, while the picture shows him to have black hair.
The drawing, which measures 20in by 15in, is one of several versions, but the only one thought to have been signed by the dictators.
A wooden chessboard, found alongside the picture and believed to be the one used by the men could also sell for up to £40,000 at auction in Shropshire today.
Richard Westwood-Brookes, from Mullocks Auctioneers, said: 'Some historians will always debate its authenticity but the evidence it is genuine is compelling. Forensic tests showed an 80 per cent propensity that the signatures are genuine.'
The drawing was passed from Miss Lowenstramm's family to their housekeeper when they fled Vienna before the Second World War.
It was handed down to the housekeeper's great grandson Felix Ednhofer, who spent a lifetime compiling a dossier of evidence which will accompany it at auction. Mr Ednhofer died in the 1990s and his son is selling the sketch.
