Unseen pictures of Adolf Hitler relaxing and posing with crowds will go under the hammer at a Kent auction house.

The collection, believed to belong to the Nazi dictator’s mistress Eva Braun, was discovered in her bedroom in the Berlin bunker by the British wartime photographer Edward ‘Dixie’ Dean in 1945.

He sold the images to a private collector in the 1980s, and now 72 years on they will be sold at C&T Auctions at Kenardington near Ashford.

The collection of 73 images shows a jolly Hitler posing with children, and an image of him relaxing at his Berghof mountain retreat near Salzburg.

Another striking image is of him appearing to do a Charlie Chaplin style salute to the camera, a world away from the brutality and atrocities being committed under his rule.

They also show leading Nazis such as tubby Luftwaffe chief Hermann Goering climbing into a car, propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels being saluted by crowds, and SS chief Heinrich Himmler who oversaw the mass murder of millions during the Holocaust.

Mr Dean said the bedside cabinet of Eva Braun had to be prised open by a Russian soldier with his bayonet. Inside there was perfume, underwear and the album collection.

It is believed she was the photographer responsible for taking the images, as she doesn’t feature in any of them.

The collection also features newspaper cuttings which speculate that Braun had an affair with one of the Fuhrer’s personal bodyguard, as there are also images of him included.

C&T Auctions’ Tim Harper said the collection has a pre-sale estimate of £18,500 and will be put under the hammer on Wednesday, March 15.

Mr Harper said: “We can say with 100% certainty that this album was recovered from Hitler's bunker in Berlin in 1945.

“We know Braun owned it and that it belonged to her because of where it was found, in her bedroom.

“Eva Braun was the ‘first lady’ of the Third Reich and without question this was with her at the last stages of the war in the Fuhrer Bunker in Berlin in 1945.

“Photographs of Hitler were very carefully controlled to ensure they fitted in with the image the Nazis were trying to project of him.

“So it is rare to come across easy-going photographs of him that wouldn't have got through the censorship, especially during the height of the Second World War.”

He said collections of this nature scarcely appear on the open market, and expects that the likely buyer will be someone who wants a “powerful and visual statement from history”.

Mr Harper added: “There is a certain macabre aspect to it, given that it was owned and handled by evil people.

“But they were people who were right at the focus of history, a pivotal moment in time that culminated in the suicide of Adolf Hitler.”