Hitler's Secret Musical Collection - of Russian and Jewish Artists

He expelled Jewish and Russian musicians from concert halls during the Third Reich, claimed in Mein Kampf that there was no independent Jewish culture, and referred to Russians as sub-humans, yet at the same time Adolf Hitler listened to their music in secret.

A hundred gramophone records, which apparently belonged to the former Nazi leader, have been discovered in the attic of a house outside Moscow owned by a former Soviet intelligence officer.

The collection reveals that while Hitler was publicly heralding "racially pure" German music, his musical taste may have been more closely aligned to the artists he ostracized. While Hitler's passion for Richard Wagner is well documented, this collection contains works by Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov and Borodin which are scratched from frequent use. There is also a Tchaikovsky concerto performed by the Jewish violinist Bronislaw Huberman. While Hitler (who it was said needed his music to relax) would have been listening to his music, Huberman was in enforced exile.

There was also music by the Austrian Jewish pianist Arthur Schnabel within in the collection.

Most of the Nazi dictator's 100 gramophone disc collection contains fairly predictable recordings, dominated by Wagner, Beethoven and Bruckner.

Lew Besymenski, a former Soviet intelligence officer who helped to interrogate captured Nazi generals, found the record collection in Hitler's chancellery in Berlin in May 1945. The albums were packed in crates - most likely in preparation for an evacuation to his Alpine property on the Obersalzberg. All were marked with the label Führerhauptquartier - Führer's headquarters.

Mr Besymenski did not speak about the collection during his lifetime, because he was worried he might be accused of looting. When he died this summer, aged 86, the record collection was made available to Der Spiegel magazine.

In a document explaining how the collection came into his possession, Mr Besymenski wrote: "There were recordings performed by the best orchestras of Europe and Germany with the best soloists of the age. I was astonished that Russian musicians were among the collection."

Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf that there was no independent Jewish culture. "There was never a Jewish art and there is none today," he said. The "two queens of the arts, architecture and music, gained nothing from the Jews."

He also referred to Russians as Untermenschen, sub-humans, and dismissed any contribution they had made to the cultural world.

Mr Besymenski,found the crates of records after he was ordered to search the Reich chancellery shortly after Berlin fell to the allies.

He later became a historian and also claimed that he was at Hitler's autopsy, where he confirmed the long held belief that Hitler had just one testicle.

Mr Besymenski's daughter Alexandra said she was disgusted to find Russian compositions performed by Jewish musicians in Hitler's collection.

"This is a complete mockery," she said. "Millions of Slavs and Jews had to die because of the Nazis' racist ideology."