LOSTWITHIEL, England — Watercolors and sketches attributed to Adolf Hitler sold for twice their estimated price at an auction Tuesday — but the sale in a tranquil English town was interrupted by a noisy protest by two self-styled "comedy terrorists."
The works, reputed to have been created by Hitler as he served in the German military during World War I, sold for $220,000 after security staff removed the gate-crashers — one of whom dressed as the Nazi leader and shouted "Third Reich" after making a mock bid.
The protest exposed sensitivities over the sale of Hitler's artwork in Lostwithiel, a sleepy tourist town in Cornwall, a county in southwestern England.
Chris Walton, a spokesman for Jefferys Auctioneers, said the 21 watercolors and two sketches, most of them landscapes, sold individually for prices from $6,100 to $19,975. The highest price was for a painting titled "The Church of Preux-au-Bois."
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Auctioneer Ian Morris said most of the successful bidders did not want to reveal their identities or speak to journalists.
A gaggle of about 50 military buffs and curious neighbors gathered in the small Cornish town to bid for the works, depicting scenes of cottages, churches and pastoral hillsides.
Historians say Hitler, then a struggling artist, painted during breaks from the front while stationed in Belgium during World War I. The works were later found in a farmhouse in Flanders.
Though the anonymous owners had the paper tested to determine its age, confirmed the signature and matched landmarks in the paintings to sites where Hitler had served, it cannot be proven if the works are genuine, Walton said.
He said experts who authenticated them in the 1980s are now dead. In many European countries, including Germany, it is illegal to buy, own or sell Nazi memorabilia. A German auction house in 2001 withdrew a Hitler painting after protests.
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