Hitler the cartoonist

A Norwegian museum director says he has discovered cartoons which he believes were drawn by Adolf Hitler during World War Two.

There was no independent confirmation that the drawings were the work of the Nazi leader, who tried to make a living as an artist before going into politics.

William Hakvaag, director of a war museum in northern Norway, said on Thursday he had found the drawings hidden in a painting signed "A.Hitler" that he bought at a German auction for about US$300 ($NZ380).

He found three coloured cartoons of dwarfs from the 1937 Walt Disney film "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", signed A.H., and an unsigned sketch of "Pinocchio", a character in another Disney film, he said.

He said he had done tests on the paintings and suggested they dated from 1940.

In 1983, German news magazine Stern published what it said were extracts from Hitler's diaries. They were later exposed to be forgeries.

Hakvaag told Reuters: "I am 100 percent sure that these are drawings by Hitler...If one wanted to make a forgery, one would never hide it in the back of a picture, where it might never be discovered."

The initials on the sketches, and the signature on the painting, matched other copies of Hitler's handwriting, he said.

"Hitler had a copy of Snow White. He thought this was one of the best movies ever made," Hakvaag said about the animated classic, an adaptation of a German fairy tale.

- Reuters