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London (dpa) - A collection of watercolours attributed to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was sold for 118,000 pounds (224,000 dollars) at auction in Britain Tuesday.
Two protestors, one dressed as Hitler, stormed the sales rooms at Jefferys auctioneers in Lostwithiel, a small town in Cornwall in south-west Britain, but were removed by security guards.
The collection, which was discovered in 1986 in an attic suitcase in Belgium, near where Hitler served as a corporal in World War I, was sold for more than double its estimated worth of up to 50,000 pounds, the auction house said.
The sale attracted worldwide interest, with collectors of Nazi memorabilia from eastern Europe and the US prominent among the bidders, the auction house said.
Many of the 21 paintings - mostly of landscapes - were signed A Hitler, and others AH.
The most expensive lot, a watercolour of the Church of Preux-Au-Bois, was sold for 10,500 pounds.
"The sale went very well, the prices exceeded our expectations," said a spokesman for Jefferys, adding that the protests would not stop future auctions of similar materials.
One of the buyers, who was from Estonia, said he was working for an eastern European businessman.
Without revealing what he bought, he said: "I had a budget to bid for anything that has Hitler's signature. I think they are probably being bought for business - the paintings are not very good and it's not nice to have a 'Hitler' on your living room wall."
Copyright 2006 dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH
