A rare, cracked photograph of Adolf Hitler at the dawn of the Nazi Party has emerged, capturing the then 34-year-old flanked by his beloved Alsatian, Prinz.
The photo, along with a trove of never-before-seen images, shows the German leader during intimate moments with admirers at rallies - and with his dog Prinz, given to him in 1921, sparking his affection for the breed.
Sat guarded by Prinz, the photograph was apparently taken in 1923, before his arrest in November that year for his Beer Hall Putsch - a failed power grab in Munich that resulted in the deaths of 16 Nazis and four police officers - and which saw him serve nine months of a five year jail sentence.
The remarkable frame is one of 1,270 images that Richard Schneider digitized from a trove of 41,000 glass negatives created by Hitler's personal photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann.
A rare, cracked photograph of a young Adolf Hitler at the dawn of the Nazi Party has emerged, capturing the then 34-year-old leader flanked by his beloved Alsatian. The photo, along with a trove of never-before-seen images, show the notorious German leader in intimate moments with admirers, at rallies and in private. He was known to have a great affinity for the German Shepherd breed, and the dog he is pictured with in 1923 is likely to have been Prinz, who we acquired two years prior
'The face, and the mustache, and those eyes,' he said. 'It was Adolf Hitler, sitting stiffly in an upholstered arm chair, his German shepherd at his side.'
In the picture, Hitler wore pinstriped trousers, a dark evening jacket and a small swastika lapel pin. His hair was combed back and he was sat besides a grand piano.
He was known to have a great affinity for the German Shepherd breed, and the dog he is pictured with is likely to have been Prinz, who we acquired two years prior. He owned several more German Shepherds, notably two named Blonda, and then finally Blondi, the dog he is most known for which he had killed with cyanide before his own death in 1945.
Reports from the bunker where Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide reveal that after Blondi was killed, Hitler's dog handler took her litter of pups and shot them too, as well as Braun's two dogs, in a bid to prevent any symbols of the Nazi regime falling into enemy hands.
Another ghostly images sees Hitler surrounded by members of the Third Reich, including his notorious minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels,
