Today from the annals of alleged historical events comes something of a mystery. Or, at the very least, a seemingly unverified and unverifiable story of a First World War encounter that could have changed world history.

Henry Tandey (August 1891 – December 1977) was an English soldier of the Great War, a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the Distinguished Conduct Medal and the Military Medal.

The story which has lately emerged is that Tandey once came face-to-face with a wounded and dispirited German soldier. Instead of shooting him, Tandey allowed him to pass, as was his chivalric custom.

The German soldier was Lance Corporal Adolf Hitler.

Or at least, that’s how the story goes.

The evidence that this event took place is not exactly flimsy, but it is circumspect. It’s based around a painting by Italian artist Fortunino Matania (shown in part above) that depicted Tandey at Ypres in 1914.

Here is the relevant paragraph from the History Channel story on the possibility that Hitler’s life was spared in combat:

Though sources do not exist to prove the exact whereabouts of Adolf Hitler on that day in 1918, an intriguing link emerged to suggest that he was in fact the soldier Tandey spared. A photograph that appeared in London newspapers of Tandey carrying a wounded soldier at Ypres in 1914 was later portrayed on canvas in a painting by the Italian artist Fortunino Matania glorifying the Allied war effort. As the story goes, when British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain traveled to Germany in 1938 to engage Hitler in a last-ditch effort to avoid another war in Europe, he was taken by the führer to his new country retreat in Bavaria. There, Hitler showed Chamberlain his copy of the Matania painting, commenting, “That’s the man who nearly shot me.”