Mustangs Over the Eagles Nest by Nicolas Trudgian. (B)

Obersalzberg, a spectacularly picturesque area of southern Germany in the Bavarian Alps, became a focal point for the Allies as World War II was drawing to its close. This mountain village had become a Nazi stronghold after the Third Reich had seized houses, farms, and some 600 acres, and built private residences for Martin Bormann and Hermann Goering, an SS barracks, and erected a 30kmn fence around the perimeter to deter intrusion. At its centre was the Berghoff, Adolf Hitlers private mountain retreat. Crowning Bormanns lavish building programme was the house he had built on a rocky spur almost 3000 feet above the Obersalzberg, some 6000 feet above sea level. Reached via a twisting road blasted out of the mountainside, the house was approached after entering a tunnel via a large brass two story elevator rising over 400 feet to the building. The Kehlsteinhaus was Martin Bormanns present for Hitter on the occasion of his 50th birthday in 1939. It was known by the Allies as the Eagles Nest. Believing the Obersalzberg to be where Hitler and his closest henchmen would make their final stand, in April 1945 Allied bombing raids reduced much of the area to ruins. The Eagles Nest, intended as a private retreat from which Hitler could gaze over a conquered Europe, being an isolated target, survived this onslaught, and endures to this day. Nicolas Trudgians painting shows P-51Ds of the 339th Fighter Group roaring over the rooftop of Hitlers now abandoned folly. With Germany and the Third Reich on the brink of defeat, this majestic aviation image conveys the poignant irony of the greatest lost cause in human history, with P-51 Mustangs providing a fitting symbol of victory over tyranny.

Published 2005 with an opening published price of £190, this superb collecters art print is signed by seven highly decorated USAAF pilots who flew combat in the European theatre during World War II. A very popular print with very few available anywhere, we were lucky to get the last few prints when Cranston Fine Arts purchased over the last stocks of the Nicolas Trudgian back catalogue.

Signed by Master Sergeant Dale Moon,
Lieutenant Colonel Lawrence Powell,
1st Lieutenant Ivan Hasek (deceased),
Captain John L Minech,
Major Robert W. Sternfels,
Captain Clinton DeWitt Burdick
and
Colonel Arthur C Fiedler.

Signed limited edition of 350 Commemorative Proof edition prints.

Paper size 35.5 inches x 27 inches (90cm x 69cm)