Art dealer convicted of forging forger's forgeries

Guardian ^ | 9/10/10 | Kate Connolly

[LibWhacker]

German claiming to be great niece of Konrad Kujau, who forged the Hitler Diaries, put his signature on fakes of his masterpiece copies

He is known as the man behind what was arguably the most masterly forgery of the 20th century, the Hitler diaries. Now almost three decades after investigators rumbled Konrad Kujau's multimillion pound ruse, a woman falsely claiming to be his great niece has been convicted of forging Kujau forgeries and selling them to unwitting collectors.

The bizarre tale, details of which unfolded in a Dresden courtroom during a two-year long trial, centred on 300 paintings obtained by Petra Kujau. She put his signature on them and sold them on as paintings by Konrad Kujau, claiming they were works the elderly Stuttgart forger had made in his latter years. In yet another twist his works were copied from famous masterpieces.

[calex59]

The fact is, even if this story isn’t true, that Hitler had a lot of foreign currency forged. A huge amount of British pounds, for example, were found in a lake inside a plane that had crashed before the war was over. Forgery is possible and very likely going on at a national level at this minute.