text: Image copyright EPA Image caption The head weighs about 60kg and is in good condition after its years underground 
   
   A marble sculpture of Adolf Hitler's head has been unearthed by construction workers in the Polish city of Gdansk. 
   
   The bust, which is 50cm (20in) high, was found buried in a garden at the city's National Museum, Radio Poland reports. It bears the inscription "Thorak 1942", identifying it as the work of Josef Thorak, one of the Third Reich's official sculptors. 
   
   It's not yet clear how it came to be buried, but it likely happened in 1945 as the Soviet army approached the city, according to Lech Lopuski, a curator at the museum. "Had it been found right after the war, it would have definitely been destroyed," he tells the Dziennik Baltycki website. "Somebody made an effort to properly hide it, it was buried some 60cm underground." Mr Lopuski notes that the sculpture remained concealed in the garden despite repeated digging over the years to install a fountain and flower beds. 
   
   The museum says it currently has no plans to put the piece on display. "For the time being, it goes to a warehouse," says Wojciech Bonislawski, the museum's director. "It needs to be studied scientifically to find out who ordered it, where it stood and how it ended up in the museum." 
   
   Thorak's sculptures were often enormous, designed to adorn official buildings and public spaces. In May, two 33ft-long (10m) bronze horse statues, which had stood outside Hitler's chancellery in Berlin, were recovered by German police, having been missing since 1989. 
   
   Image copyright EPA Image caption Thorak became a favourite sculptor of Albert Speer - Hitler's chief architect 
   
   Next story: Quebec region hospital told to remove English signs 
   
   Use #NewsfromElsewhere to stay up-to-date with our reports via Twitter. ||||| Warsaw (AFP) - Polish construction workers have dug up a marble bust of Adolf Hitler by one of the Third Reich's official sculptors during work at a museum in the northern city of Gdansk, officials said Thursday. 
   
   Measuring 50 centimetres (20 inches) in height, the bust by sculptor Josef Thorak was buried in the ground and was hit by a shovel during work in the interior garden of the National Museum in Gdansk, according to Lech Lopuski, an official in the sculpture department. 
   
   "We can see it was hidden on purpose," he told AFP of the bust signed Thorak and dated 1942. 
   
   "It's an important sculpture because we didn't know it existed. Thorak was a gifted sculptor and we can see that he did a good job." 
   
   Gdansk, or Danzig in German, was a free city between the two world wars, with mostly German residents. The building where the bust was found was at the time home to the municipal museum. 
   
   "The bust was perhaps part of the (museum) director's office furnishings, but it's still too early to tell," Lopuski said. 
   
   "We still don't know whether it will go on display. It's a delicate issue." ||||| Haus der Deutschen Kunst, Munich Part 4 -- Sculpture The premier sculptors of the Third Reich (that is, those who were Hitler's favorites) were Arno Breker, Josef Thorak, and Fritz Klimsch. Thorak and Breker were multi-talented, working in stone and metal with themes varying from the heroic to nudes, while Klimsch did mainly nudes. (Note - copyrights to the works of Arno Breker and Josef Thorak are held by the Europäische Kultur Stiftung and Arno-Breker-Museum in Bonn; used here by permission. Books and videos on Arno Breker are available from the museum - contact Joe Bodenstein at MARCO-VG@gmx.de.) Thorak's works were often monumental, particularly those meant to grace the autobahns and the Nazi Party Rally Grounds in Nürnberg, so his studio had to be very large. The photo on the left shows Thorak working on an autobahn sculpture called "Monument to Work." The drawing on the right, from a 1938 issue of the Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung newspaper, shows the inside of Thorak's studio. The huge scale can be seen from the minute size of the actual man and horse in the center foreground. The monuments under work were meant for the Märzfeld military demonstration area in Nürnberg (the figure on the right is "Siegesgöttin" (Goddess of Victory). A model of this collection, which was never installed, is shown below. Thorak's "Fahnenträger" and "Lanzenträger" were also meant for the Märzfeld. Click here to see then-and-now views of Thorak's studio. On the left, a view taken on the opening day of the 1938 art exhibit; in the background is a model of Thorak's "Siegesgöttin." On the right, another view of Thorak at work on "Denkmal der Arbeit" (Monument to Work). On the left, a model of Thorak's "Denkmal der Arbeit" (Monument to Work), with an artist's conception of the work in place - this work was to be placed in the median at the southern entrance to the autobahn system, at the Austria border near Salzburg. See the pictures above of Thorak working on the full-size sculpture (which was never finished). Arno Breker's works were also widely used to decorate government buildings. These two statues flanked the entrance to the New Reichs Chancellory in Berlin. On the left is "Die Partei" (1939) and on the right is "Die Wehrmacht" (1939). (Center photo from Das Bauen im neuen Reich by Gerdy Troost, Bayreuth, 1938 ed. ) Honor Guard of the Leibstandarte-SS Adolf Hitler (Hitler's Body Guards) 
   
   in front of "Die Wehrmacht" in the Reichskanzlei Ehrenhof (Court of Honor) Military and government themes were favorites at all the exhibitions. On the left is "HJ-Trommler" (Hitler Jugend Drummer) by Anni Spetzler-Proßchwitz, 1938; on the right is "Hoheitsadler" (National Eagle) by Hanns Goebl, 1941. "LMG-Schütze" (Light Machinegun Gunner) by Bernd Hartmann-Wiedenbrück, 1941 "Aufst ü rmender Grenadier " (Assaulting Grenadier) by Bernd Hartmann-Wiedenbrück, 1943 "Nach dem Kampf" (After the Battle) by Hans Bühler, 1943 "In Memoriam" by Paul Bronisch, 1941 Some artists portrayed animals. On the left is Fritz Behn's "Adler" (Eagle), 1939; in the center is Emil Manz's "Tiger," 1938; on the right is Josef Thorak's "Pferd" (Horse), 1939. Two of Thorak's bronze horses graced the garden entrance to Hitler's Reichskanzlei in Berlin. Thorak's "Pferd" in the garden of the Reichskanzlei in Berlin. - "Fahnenträger" (Standard Bearer) by Josef Thorak, 1937 (another work meant for the Märzfeld in Nürnberg) "Drachentöter" (Dragon Slayer) by Franz Josef Mikorey - "Die Schauende" (The Looker) by Fritz Klimsch, 1937 (the model was Martha Nabel from Berlin). "Die Schauende" still exists, as decoration on the terrace overlooking Lake Chiemsee in southern Bavaria, behind the former Autobahn rest stop. Click here to view another similar work by Klimsch, that also still exists. - "Genius des Sieges" (Genius of Victory) by Adolf Wamper, 1940 "Deutsche Waffe" (German Weapon) by Hias Lautenbacher, 1941 Neptune Fountain in Munich, by Josef Wackerle, then and now. On the right is another fountain work by Wackerle, this one at the Ernst Sachs Bad in Schweinfurt. Bust of Hitler, by Ferdinand Liebermann, 1937 Bust of Field Marshall Rommel, by 
   
   Fritz Berberich, 1943 Return to Part 1 Return to the Third Reich in Ruins homepage
target: – It was just another day of typical garden work at a Polish museum when a worker's shovel clanked against something hard buried in the ground. The find: a 20-inch-high marble sculpture of the head of one Adolf Hitler, AFP reports. "Somebody made an effort to properly hide it, it was buried some [2 feet] underground," Lech Lopuski, a curator at Gdansk's National Museum, tells the Dziennik Baltycki website, via the BBC. Inscribed on the bust is "Thorak 1942," designating it as the work of Josef Thorak, who was known as one of the Fuhrer's favorite sculptors, per AFP. "It's an important sculpture because we didn't know it existed," Lopuski notes. "Thorak was a gifted sculptor, and we can see that he did a good job." Thorak's works were known to be monumental, designed for use in official buildings and public spaces, per the BBC. While museum officials still aren't sure how this Hitler head ended up in the garden—and remained hidden for 70 years, even when work was done to install a new fountain and flower beds, Lopuski says—there's been speculation it was buried in 1945, just before the Soviet army infiltrated Gdansk. Lopuski theorizes the sculpture may have been part of the furnishings for the office of the museum director at the time, per AFP. But just because the Hitler head was found on museum grounds doesn't mean it will be up for display anytime soon. "For the time being, it goes to a warehouse," the museum's director says, per the BBC. "It needs to be studied scientifically to find out who ordered it, where it stood, and how it ended up in the museum." Lopuski adds, per AFP: "It's a delicate issue." (Hitler's long-lost bronze horses were just found in May.)