They are the images depicting Ayran beauty of the kind that made Adolf Hitler's eyes grow misty - a naked, beautiful woman in the prime of her life dappled by sunshine while flaunting her curves for the camera.

But an Austrian collector claims that the woman in the photos is none other than Eva Braun - longtime mistress and short-term wife of the Nazi Führer.

On one photo Eva - if it is she - is seen with her hands behind her head with nothing on but her birthday suit. In another she is also starkers and pictured with her bottom on view as she wades into an Alpine Lake.

'On the secluded beach at the Lake Wolfgang. August 1943', is written on the back of the picture that has got Third Reich historians more than a little excited.

On the back of the second photo are the words; 'A snapshot. A beautiful day on the Black Lake.' On the lakeshore can be seen a white shoe, almost the exact copy of a pair that Eva was once photographed carrying at the Koenigsee Lake near Hitler's Bavarian holiday home in Berchtesgaden, when she was pictured doing aerobics.

One of the pictures is captioned: 'The secluded beach at the Lake Wolfgang. August 1943'

The photo collector, identified only as 30-year-old Bernard S, told Germany's BILD newspaper: 'I studied all pictures of Eva Braun that I could find. You can clearly see that it is her.'

He bought the pictures from antiques dealer Stefan Kreuzmayr in Salzburg. He has run his self-described 'motley collection shop' in the Maxglan area of the city since 1992.

Kreuzmayr told BILD: 'A woman came into my shop came nine years ago. She had a whole box of pictures with her. From an estate. She had found the stuff in her attic and thought that, in two images, Eva Braun was pictured.'

Kreuzmayr bought the whole case and never saw the woman again. What he did not notice at the time was the faint writing spelling the name Eva Braun on the reverse of one photo.

'If I had I would probably not have sold the images on,' he said. Or certainly not at the price I was asking.'

The other photo has writing on the back saying: 'A snapshot. A beautiful day on the Black Lake'

He claims a renowned military historian, Guido Freiherr von Zobel Giebelstadt Darmstadt, identified the woman in the photos as Eva Braun. But he died in February this year.

Lawyer and magistrate Albert Reiterer knew him for many years, served under him as aide-de-camp in the army, and became the executor of his will.

He said: 'I find this absolutely credible. If someone could identify Eva Braun it would be him. He was second to none in these matters.'

In August 1943, when the pictures were taken, Eva was almost exclusively living at the Berghof summer home of her lover. One lake was 59km distance, one 72km.

The Russian city of Stalingrad had already fallen by then and Hitler was mostly living at hís military high command HQ in Rastenburg, East Prussia - the Wolf's Lair.

Heike Görtemaker, a biographer of Eva, doesn't believe Eva would have posed for the pictures at a time when Germany was in mourning for the destroyed Sixth Army at Stalingrad - the turning point of the war.

'It's very, very unlikely that she can pose alone like this in front of a photographer,' she said. 'I do not think it is her.'

Eva Braun was Adolf Hitler's long-time mistress and short-time wife. He married her shortly before they both committed suicide

Uwe Wasserthal, a publicly appointed and sworn expert for photographs of the 19th century, issued an opinion to BILD in which he stated; 'They are in very good condition, only the edges are slightly curved.'

He said the paper they are printed on was made commercially availabe by AGFA in 1949 - BUT that in 1942 it was already around and she, a former assistant to Hitler court photographer Heinrich Hoffmann, may have had access to it.

Wasserthal also said that the film used was 'almost exclusively' utilised for feature films, 'but there were exceptions; leaders of the Nazi party, war correspondents and some few photographers had access to the film material.'

Eva remained unknown to the German people during the 12 year lifespan of the Third Reich. Hitler wanted to maintain the myth of being 'married' to the German people.

But on April 30, 1945 in Hitler's squalid bunker beneath the Reich Chancellery, he married her to the accompaniment of Russian shells turning the capital of the Reich into brickdust.

Hours later both were dead through suicide and their remains burned in a shellhole in the chancellery garden. The ashes were later found by Russian agents of SMERSH, hidden in various locations throughout communist East Germany until April 4, 1970.