Apparent Hitler Photo Album of WWI Surfaces

What appears to be Adolf Hitler’s personal photo album from World War I has surfaced in a collection sent home from Germany by a young World War II Army private in 1945.

Technical testing requested by United Press International and the opinions of two University of Chicago scholars tend to support the authenticity of the album, taken as a war trophy from Hitler’s Munich headquarters during the Allied advance at the end of World War II.

The former GI, who asked to be identified only as “Bill,” told UPI that he found the album and two second-edition copies of “Mein Kampf” in a small, sparsely furnished room Hitler used as a study.

“Nobody (else) had been interested” in the album, he said. He granted an interview on the condition that his last name not be made public to protect his privacy.

68 Yellowed Photos

The red leather-bound album contains 68 yellowed black-and-white photographs, some depicting war-decimated areas around Belgium and the northern border of France. There are several pictures of a young Cpl. Hitler posing with members of his regiment of the 16th Bavarian Reserve infantry.

Randy Donley, owner of the Seven Acres Antique Village & Museum in the tiny northern Illinois town of Union, acquired the collection last year and plans to display it during the Memorial Day weekend.

At UPI’s request, Samuel (Skip) Palenik III, of Chicago’s Walter C. McCrone Associates Inc., conducted microscopic tests on samples of a photograph, mat, album pages, binding fibers and leaf dividers. McCrone Associates is a respected forensic testing laboratory.

“There were no inconsistencies in the materials,” said Palenik, a senior research microscopist and forensic specialist. “Everything I found was available and in use during this time period.”

The pictures were inserted in the album some time after they were taken, as indicated by the swastika on the front cover. Hitler helped found the Nazi party, with the broken-cross swastika as its symbol, in 1920.

One picture shows Hitler standing among a group of eight men, some with their heads bandaged.

A spotted dog, identified as Hitler’s dog “Fuchsl” or “Foxy” by author John Toland in his book, “Adolf Hitler,” is in several pictures on the laps of various men and in one sitting next to Cpl. Hitler.

All the photographs have typed captions underneath, many bearing the words “Graben-RJR-16,” identifying the men posed in trenches and in front of rubble and burned-out buildings as members of Hitler’s infantry regiment.

In one picture, Hitler, sporting a large, bushy mustache instead of the familiar small upper-lip brush, stands in front of a burned-out building. The picture is captioned “Fournes,” German for what is now Veurne, Belgium.

Checked by Scholars

Two history scholars from the University of Chicago examined the pictures in Union at UPI’s request. They said the pictures appear at least to be authentic records of Hitler’s regiment during World War I.

The photos “provide some curious footnotes to aspects of daily life in a regiment such as Hitler’s,” said Jud Newborn, 33, a doctoral candidate investigating the German cultural base of Nazi genocide and death camps.

“They show slices of life,” Newborn said. “In Germany, the family album and the scrapbook album were important and accepted cultural means to establishing one’s identity, both personal and political,” he said.

John Boyer, professor of German and Austrian history, said he generally agreed with Newborn, whose area of study concentrates more on the Nazi era.

Also in the collection are letters, some on Hitler’s personal stationery, written by Bill to tell his wife about the souvenirs he was sending home. Donley bought the collection from the veteran on April 19, 1985.