Very interesting. Woud like to see one of hitlers games. What do you think he was rated?
Hitler, Lenin, And Chess
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I wonder who won.
Apr 26, 2013
0
#5
"The image is said to have been created in Vienna by Hitler's art teacher, Emma Lowenstramm, and is signed on the reverse by the two dictators.
Hitler was a jobbing artist in the city in 1909 and Lenin was in exile and the house where they allegedly played the game belonged to a prominent Jewish family.
In the run-up to the Second World War the Jewish family fled and gave many of their possessions, including the etching and chess set, to their housekeeper.
Now their housekeeper's great-great grandson is selling the image and the chess set at auction. Both items have a pre-sale estimate of £40,000.
The unnamed vendor is confident the items are genuine after his father spent a lifetime attempting to prove their authenticity."
SOURCE: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/6130672/Pictured-Hitler-playing-chess-with-Lenin.html
This is a swell anecdote but the I don't find the confidence of an "unnamed vendor" very convincing. KuzmickiMarek and Franken_Berry are both wrong however: the meeting was theoretically possible, but determining this was obviously too much trouble. I also thought this story was bogus on first reading and still do - although the painting itself is for real - but I went to the trouble(sic) of looking up the above article - and articles on Hitler & Lenin to ascertain their likely whereabouts and activities in 1909
Everyone is right that it is possible it is fake. However, one must remember that the signatures on the back match the signitures of the two dictators. The time frame does also make it possible for the game to have taken place, seeing as how Lenin died in 1924, and Hitler in 1945, and they were both in the same area in the supposed time frame this was made. But in the end we simply can't be sure. As with everything.
The point is: It IS possible!
~ Luke
Already looked at here: http://www.chess.com/blog/AWARDCHESS/did-lenin-and-hitler-face-off-at-a-chess-board and yeah, almost certainly a fake.
"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."
Conflagration_Planet wrote:
I wonder who won.
Most likely Hitler, because in the picture he is up a bishop and a pawn.
The other guy is not Lenin, as explained in other threads and newspapers. And there is another obvious proof for that, which the smart scientists apparently didn't think of. Lenin was a right-hander, which can be seen on many photographs, where he writes something. The guy on the picture though is making a move with his left hand and placing the captured pieces on the left side of the board. He obviously is a left-hander and therefore not Lenin.
Maybe he was playing with his left hand to give Hitler a handicap?
Most pundits judged Lenin to be about 2300 FIDE, and Hitler was just a coffeehouse player who played good openings but was terrible at the endgame. At any rate, he was just putsching the pieces.
Pictures of Hitler from WW1 show a completely different moustasche than the one in the drawing.
Jan 2, 2014
0
#11
This picture cannot be authentic.
Just consider their age: Hitler was 19 years younger. On the picture he looks like he looked in his 40's (late 30's at best) and Lenin was already dead at that time.
The game took place allegedly in 1909. Lenin was already bald at that time and Hitler was 20 years young, thin (no double chin), different hairstyle, without moustache.
I see the words "2 dictators" thrown out quite a bit in this thread. AFAIK, both were very popular as they rose to power and were highly supported by their people as nationalist leaders, so I'm not sure if they can be labeled as dictators (though Stalin and latter days Hitler can probably be labeled as dictators).
Ubik42 wrote:
Hitler was just a coffeehouse player who played good openings but was terrible at the endgame.
One could say the same thing about the way he fought wars.
Jan 2, 2014
0
#14
ljschess wrote:
So I decided to share this because I found it somewhat eerie and kind of interesting. When someone thinks of Adolf Hitler they think of a crazy madman responsible for millions and millions of deaths in WW2. And when we think of Lenin, we think of a Marxist communist leader from the early 20th century. But few people think of the two playing chess.
As most of you know Hitler dreamed of becoming an artist and wanted to go to an elite art school in Vienna when he was in his late teens and early twenties (though he was quickly rejected by the school for not being able to properly depict the human form). His art instructor Emma Lownstramm (who just so happened to be Jewish), witnessed a game played between the two in the 1920s and she sketched it into what is the picture below:
About 16-17 years after this game, Hitler would take the offensive and begin a rutheless attack against Poland, starting the 2nd World War.
Kind of random, I know, I just thought it was cool. :)
~ Luke
No one knows for sure if they really did meet.
Jan 2, 2014
0
#15
KuzmickiMarek wrote:
It's not possible. It's fake.
No it realy is true. I already knew about this.
Which just goes to prove "any" topic you land on in Wikipedia can lead you to Hitler in six clicks or less.
Two people being in the same city at the same time does not a famous chess match make. First of all, Lenin would have been Lenin (kind of a big deal) and Hitler would have been a nobody failure art student. What would bring them together? Furthermore why would Lenin devote the time to play a nobody 20 something year old failure art student in chess. That is akin to me failing out of a university in Chicago while Obama happened to be living in Chicago and randomly stumbling upon each other at some Jewish guys house and playing chess. 20 year later I would coincidentally rise to power and start a massive war trying to defeat the country whose leader I had played and eradicate the people who hosted that encounter. Yeah it is theoretically possible but so is spontaneous combustion in humans...
Somebody just wanted to make a quick buck off of Hitler or Lenin fans so they concocted a silly tale taking advantage of the simple coincidence that they both happened to be in a particular city during a particular time...
I personally am highly skeptical of this story being true. It's just too good of a story, like so many other "too good" stories on the internet which have later been proven false.
I mean, you have two future world leaders who just happen to be going to the same art school, and just happen to be playing chess on the day that the art teacher decided to sketch them. Then, she just happened to ask the two of them to autograph the back of the picture? Why? Nobody asks for autographs of unknown nobodys, of which Hitler was at the time. And then years later one of the two chess players leads his army against the other's country (though Lenin was dead by that time)?
And why would Lenin spend time in an art school? He was already a political leader, though in exile in 1907-1917. It's doubtful he'd enroll in an art school, unless he just wanted to learn how to paint. And picking the exact same one Hitler was in at the same time is just too great a coincidence.
Not only that, but the guy in the picture doesn't particularly look like Lenin. Lenin was bald by 1909, and while someone suggested he may have worn a wig, in no official pictures of him does it ever show him with hair so it's unlikely he ever wore a wig.
Now, someone's wanting to sell the picture and chess set for $40,000.
It would be a great story if it were true, but I think someone's just trying to make a buck. It could be possible that this actually was a picture sketched by Hitler's art teacher of him and someone else playing chess, but I don't think the Lenin story is true.
So I decided to share this because I found it somewhat eerie and kind of interesting. When someone thinks of Adolf Hitler they think of a crazy madman responsible for millions and millions of deaths in WW2. And when we think of Lenin, we think of a Marxist communist leader from the early 20th century. But few people think of the two playing chess.
As most of you know Hitler dreamed of becoming an artist and wanted to go to an elite art school in Vienna when he was in his late teens and early twenties (though he was quickly rejected by the school for not being able to properly depict the human form). His art instructor Emma Lownstramm (who just so happened to be Jewish), witnessed a game played between the two in the 1920s and she sketched it into what is the picture below:
About 16-17 years after this game, Hitler would take the offensive and begin a rutheless attack against Poland, starting the 2nd World War.
Kind of random, I know, I just thought it was cool. :)
~ Luke