Screaming man attacks Adolf Hitler painting with a screwdriver in Italy

An Adolf Hitler oil painting has been attacked by a man screaming ‘bastard’ with a screwdriver in Italy. The middle-aged man’s attempt at defacing the painting failed due to special covering designed to protect the surface against vandalism.

The 40-year-old was chased out of the exhibition by curators and escaped before he could be apprehended. The owner of the painting, a private German collector, decided not to pursue the matter after seeing the damage, which was described as being minimal. Hitler’s painting is part of an exhibition about madness on display in the town of Salò, on the shores of Lake Garda, Northern Italy.

The town was the capital of Benito Mussolini’s Fascist state in the last two years of the Second World War. Giordano Bruno Guerri, the museum director, said: ‘An exhibition of madness would not have been complete without an episode of madness taking place.’ Museum of Madness, from Goya to Bacon is curated by controversial art critic Vittorio Sgarbi, who defended the decision to display the dictator’s painting. He said: ‘The exhibition is all about madness and this painting is perfect – nothing is as crazy as war.’

Mr Sgarbi told The Telegraph: ‘It’s a piece of crap, it’s a painting by a desperate man. It could have been done by Kafka. It says a lot about (Hitler’s) psyche. You don’t see greatness, but misery. ‘It is not the work of a dictator but of a wretch. It reveals a profoundly melancholy soul.’ The painting, which depicts two men with a long corridor stretching behind them, is one of 200 paintings, photographs and sculptures at the exhibition, which finishes in November. Hitler wanted to be a professional artist as a young man but the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna refused to accept him but he always maintained an interest. In August 1939 he reportedly told the British ambassador in Berlin Nevile Henderson: ‘I am an artist and not a politician. Once the Polish question is settled, I want to end my life as an artist.’