In the overall scheme of things, it’s not particularly important what happened to Hitler’s portrait of Frederick the Great. I know he gave it to his pilot, but what happened to it after that? Was it destroyed?
I have no idea, but I’ve wondered the same thing. I know a lot of people also wonder what happened the original score of Wagner’s “Rienzi.”
No idea what happened to Hitler’s Frederick the Great portrait. We will probably never know. One reason - Frederick the Great portraits seem to have been “sine qua non” for the offices of Nazi dignitaries, a fact that means that a large number of copies of a number of original 18th century portraits were probably produced. I doubt whether Hitler, Goebbels, Goering, Himmler etc. worried too much about the provenance of particular portraits - it was not in their nature.
Regarding the original score of “Rienzi” - again, who knows ? “Rienzi” was an opera based on (as I recall) a romantic novel (very) loosely based on the story of a Roman demagogue from the period of the “Babylonian Captivity” of the medieval Papacy at Avignon. It was a huge hit, performed in two parts, in two evenings, and propelled Wagner to “stardom”. Unfortunately, it also identified Wagner with Romantic Revolutionary tendencies, which resulted in him having to flee just about any authorities in Germany and Austria when the 1848 European Revolution broke out. If he abandoned the “original score” of “Rienzi” in the process, one could hardly blame him. Mind you, there is the point that early versions of theatrical performances of any sort are dynamic texts at least up to the first performances. Was there a single “original” score of “Rienzi” ? Doubt it. There was probably an element of making and adapting the text and score as they went along. In such circumstances, the original score probably looked like a heap of waste paper, and may have been treated accordingly. Yours from the place where the Fat Lady Sings, JR.