This Creepy Painting May Have Predicted Hitler's Evil
History regards Adolf Hitler as one of the most evil men in history. The German dictator, who once led the far-right Nazi Party, is the man considered responsible for the extreme wave of anti-Semitism in Germany just after World War I and the popularity of the idea of a master race. His bigoted attitude was violent and subjected Jewish people to mass persecution across Europe and ultimately the genocide of millions of Jews in what is known as the Holocaust (via History). There's no list of the world's most brutal leaders that ever excludes Hitler nor the atrocities that came from seeds he planted (via The Economic Times). But prior to becoming Germany's worst chancellor, a painting may have potentially told the story of what was to come in Hitler's terror.
Hitler was born on April 20, 1889, in Austria, but he would end up in Germany to avoid having to commit to military duty, per Holocaust Memorial Museum. He was also influenced heavily by German politics, and while in Germany, he would slowly rise in the ranks and ultimately reach the highest leadership role. All of this might have been predicted in a painting that German artist Franz von Stuck illustrated the same year Hitler was born.
The evil within ... art?
In 1889, Franz von Stuck completed a painting that he titled "The Wild Hunt," which is sometimes referred to as "The Wild Chase." In the artwork, a mustachioed man with the likeness of Adolf Hitler is seen atop a horse in the center of the work, and in the background is a catastrophe. According to Vintage News, the man in the piece was von Stuck's depiction of the Germanic God, Wotan.
But in the 1930s, people started to see the similarity between von Stuck's Wotan and the up-and-coming politician named Adolf Hitler. The revelation led to a lot of speculation, and many saw the painting as a tell-tale sign of what was to come when Hitler's reign of terror changed the history of Germany. His leadership might have come with a swift change that strengthened the country's economic progress, but it also came with the brutal Nazis, concentration camps, and rampant anti-Semitism (via History Hit). A lot of researchers indicate that the darkness in "The Wild Hunt" foresaw the Third Reich. And coincidently, the art was created the same year Hitler (pictured above) entered the world. Was it was an eerie prediction or a random coincidence? We might never know.