I did not believe it! Some kind of fabrication about Lenin and Hitler playing around!

Hitler was nobody at that time...

From memoirs of Krupskaya, Lenin's wife, set down in 1933, speaking of 1908:

"Gorky invited Ilyich to Capri (where Bogdanov, Bazarov and others were living at the time) in order to come to a general agreement [on certain ideological disputes], but Ilyich did not want to go – he had a presentiment that no understanding was possible.

. . . 

Yielding to Gorky's urgent requests, however, Ilyich did go to Capri in May, but he spent only a couple of days there. The visit, of course, brought no conciliation with Bogdanov's philosophical views. Ilyich afterwards related how he had told Bogdanov and Bazarov – "I'm afraid we'll have to separate for two or three years," and how Maria Fyodorovna, Gorky's wife, had laughingly called him to order.

Gorky's place was filled with a crowd of noisy bustling people playing chess or boating. Ilyich did not have very much to say about this trip. He spoke mostly about the beautiful scenery, the sea, and the local wine, but was reticent about the talk on painful subjects that had taken place there."

 

Lenin during his visit to Capri where he was a guest of Maxim Gorky. 1908.

V. I. Lenin visited the island of Capri in the spring of 1908 upon the invitation of the writer A. M. Gorky. One of the photographs shows Lenin playing chess on the terrace in Gorky's home

 

Note: Lenin played with rebel Bogdanov, while Gorky sat and observed above them..

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin vs Maxim Gorky
Capri, Italy 1908  ·  Alekhine Defense: Four Pawns Attack. Main Line (B03)  ·  0-1 
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1387603

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AWARDCHESS Note:

I think they did. Thursday, September 3, 2009 12:57:00 PM CDT Anonymous said... Apparently it IS quite possible. I just researched and found a letter by Lenin dated September 20,1909 to M.P Tomsky in Lenin Collected Works 1977 Volume 3 pages 221-222 where he just got back to Paris from Vienna where he had met with Trotsky. In January 1910 over lenin's opposition the Central Committee decided to re-unify the opposing factions and make Trotsky's Vienna based Pravda a financially sponsored organ Thursday, September 3, 2009 2:51:00 PM CDT Anonymous said... I think Hitler used the "Berlin" against Lenin's "Scary Uncle". Thursday, September 3, 2009 3:09:00 PM CDT Anonymous said... That seems like a MASSIVE stretch and a find that is too good to be true. There have been a lot concocted artifacts from that period cropping up, like the Hitler Diaries.Think about how unlikely this is. The equivalent to finding an engraving of a young Obama playing chess with Ronald Reagan in 1979. a] Yes, Hitler might have attended a Lenin speech.b] Possibly Hitler shook hands with Lenin.c] More improbable would be finding a picture of Hitler and Lenin in a photo together.d] More improbable still would be a photo of Lenin and Hitler shaking hands in a photo, like Clinton-Kennedy.e] An "engraving" of a 20 year-old Hitler and Lenin together is nearly unimaginable.f] Finally, an engraving of them together ALONE as the subjects of an artwork. What planet does that happen on? You have a better shot at winning the lottery.g] Finally, they happen to be playing CHESS! A supremely intellectual game which Lenin canonized as the official mark of Russian superiority over the rest of the world. The ultimate struggle of Communism verses National Socialism played out over the chess board!H] And lastly, they both signed the engraving! How completely coincidental. How many of DaVinci's models were asked to sign the back of his work?If I were a betting man, I would wager my house that this work will eventually turn out to be something concocted after 1933. Thursday, September 3, 2009 3:39:00 PM CDT Laugher said... But if you fold the picture bringing both faces together it forms a familiar picture: the devil's ass. Friday, September 4, 2009 12:59:00 AM CDT Anonymous said... Of course it's fake. The probability of the two meeting is insignificant and the probability of someone painting two such (at that time) unimportant people is even lower.And it's not even a good fake, since Lenin should be bald. Removing this discrepancy by "Lenin wore a wig" makes this whole hoax even thiner than it was from the beginning. Friday, September 4, 2009 5:51:00 AM CDT Helen said... Re the comment here that Lenin wrote to Tomsky in September 1909 having just got back from Vienna' - not that's wrong. Lenin had just got back from an extended holiday at Bombom in , 30 miles east of Paris in Seine et Marne. apart from brief trips to Brussels and Liege that year he remained largely in Paris.Re the 'he wore a wig in exile' is a very weak argument by the seller. Lenin only wore a wig once that I know of - in the summer of 1917 when he shaved off his bear and wore a wig to get the hell out of Russia in a hurry.At best this is an intellectual joke, at worst a very obviously retrospective forgery. Lenin would never ever have signed his name to anything at this time! all best, Helen Rappaport, author of Conspirator: Lenin in Exile, just published in UK. Friday, September 4, 2009 10:35:00 AM CDT

Did Lenin and Hitler face off at a chess board?
04.09.2009 – A controversy is raging in the news media over a picture being put on sale by the British auction house Mullock’s. It depicts Hitler and Lenin playing chess, in 1909, when they are supposed to have met in Vienna. The etching, by Hitler's Jewish art teacher, has a preliminary price of £40,000. But is it genuine? The chess historian Edward Winter introduced us to the topic some years ago.

 

Did Lenin and Hitler face off at a chess board?

Russia Today, the Daily Telegraph and other broadsheets are reporting that the British auction house Mullock’s has put a controversial item up for bidding: an etching picturing Hitler and Lenin at a chess board. The owner of the picture is sure of its authenticity. Historians, however, are not. According to Mullock’s auctioning house, there are five copies of this etching. The one that has been placed on offer has the pencil signatures of Hitler and Lenin on the reverse. Experts are only 80% sure that the signatures are original.

The story according to RT is that back in 1909, Adolf Hitler was a jobbing artist in Vienna and Lenin was in exile. The house where they allegedly played the game belonged to a prominent Jewish family which departed from the Austro-Hungarian capital in the run-up to the Second World War and left a part of their property to the housekeeper. The etching and the chess set pictured on it were among the possessions left.

The etching was allegedly drawn from life by the future Führer’s art teacher, Emma Löwenstramm, and is dated 1909. Now the image and the chess set belong to the great-great grandson of the housekeeper, who wants to sell the items. The unnamed vendor asserts that his father devoted all his life to proving the authenticity of the image. The lot is accompanied by a 300-page research document with, it is claimed, proof that the paper and the signatures are original. The preliminary price of the two items is estimated at £40,000 (approximately $65,000).

Experts still doubt the authenticity of the engraving. Historians have no confirmed information that Lenin and Hitler ever met at all. Nor are they sure that Lenin happened to be in Vienna in 1909. Moreover, by that time, Lenin was already bald, whereas the engraving pictures somebody not lacking hair (Hitler would be on the left, by the window, with Lenin opposite him). The last argument, however, was challenged by the auctioneer, who has asserted that Lenin could have worn a wig for the sake of conspiracy.

The British historian Helen Rappaport, who wrote the book “Conspirator: Lenin in Exile”, believes that the engraving is the fruit of imagination. However, she assumes that the player opposite Hitler could be someone from the Bolsheviks, or one of Lenin’s acquaintances who had emigrated.

Mullock’s have set 1 October as the date for the auction.

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The above is not our first encounter with this controversial picture. In Unsolved Chess Mysteries from 14 February 2007 the chess historian Edward Winter discussed the authenticity of the same picture.

Hitler and Lenin (C.N. 4055)

Finally in the present selection, there is the alleged picture of Hitler playing chess against Lenin:

Click to enlarge

Raising this topic in Chess Notes, Edward Hamelrath (Germany) wrote:

‘This etching comes from the extreme right-wing (and now defunct) magazine Europa Vorn (spezial Nr. 1/4. Quartal 1991), in an article entitled “Ungeist aus der Flasche” by a “v. Freisaß”. The article is just a rambling diatribe on twentieth-century world politics and makes no reference to the picture itself. It is not even clear exactly what the title is – either “Lenin mit Hitler” or “‘Lenin mit Hitler’ beim Schachspiel in Wien 1909”. (The “Das Oberkommando ...” comment under the picture was simply plucked out of the text.) In any case, the Hitler figure corresponds more to his appearance in the mid-1920s than in 1909.’

Such a picture should, of course, be viewed with extreme circumspection, but what more can be discovered? All we can add at present is a reference to Hitler having possibly played chess with Lenin in Vienna in 1909 which appeared on page 188 of Persönlichkeiten und das Schachspiel by B. Rüegsegger (Huttwil, 2000):

‘Die jüdische Malerin Emma Löwenstamm (1879-1941) brachte in Wien Hitler und Lenin zusammen, um sie gemeinsam zu malen. Sie lud beide ins Atelier von Julius von Ludassy ein. Im Donau-Kurier Ingoldstadt vom 19. July 1984 erwähnt Bernd Kallina in seinem Artikel die damals angefertige Zeichnung, wo Lenin auf der Rückseite die Worte “Lenin mit Hitler” hingeschrieben haben soll.’

Weiter wird erwähnt, dass sich beide 1909 in Wien getroffen und zusammen Schach gespielt haben.’

Translation: ‘The Jewish painter Emma Löwenstamm (1879-1941) brought Hitler and Lenin to Vienna in order to paint them together. She invited both to the studio of Julius von Ludassy. In the Donau-Kurier Ingoldstadt dated 19 July 1984 Bernd Kallina mentions in his article the drawing that was made at the time, on which Lenin is supposed to have written the words “Lenin with Hitler” on the back. It is further mentioned that the two met in Vienna in 1909 and played chess together.’

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The original item (C.N. 4055) was published by Edward Winter on 17 December 2005.

ChessBase articles by Edward Winter

Current Chess Notes page  

Is anybody knew more about it?!