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HITLER'S WRISTWATCH: A NAZI LEGACY HIDDEN IN GERMAN MUSEUMS
01/30/2013 06:35 PM
By Steffen Winter
Getty Images
Adolf Hitler and his Nazi henchmen amassed huge amounts of valuable
art, jewelry and other collectibles prior to and during World War II.
It is a poisonous legacy which German museums and governments have
failed to properly address. The moral disaster continues to the
present day.
For decades, item number 471/96 has only seen the light of day in
exceptional cases. On those rare occasions, fingers encased in clean,
white cotton gloves carefully lift the platinum watch out of its
velvet-lined case. Diamonds encircle the round face, refracting the
ambient light into a glittering cascade.
The watch, made in the southwestern German city of Pforzheim by
Eszeha, was kept in a plain cardboard box after the war. It isn't
difficult to discover whose wrist it once adorned. The following
inscription, along with a handwritten signature, appears on the back
of the casing: "On February 6, 1939. With all my heart. A. Hitler."
That February day was the 27th birthday of Eva Braun. The Reich
Chancellor had dedicated the diamond-studded watch with a chain clasp
to his mistress, 22 years his junior. The precious watch survived the
turmoil of the ensuing violence virtually unharmed.
Today the watch is kept in storage at the Pinakothek der Moderne, a
modern art museum in Munich, where it is registered as "Estate of Eva
Hitler, nee Eva Braun" -- in a cabinet that contains a large number of
other devotional objects from the darkest period of German history.
The collection includes a 41-piece set of silverware engraved with
Hitler's initials. There is also a diamond-studded gold cigarette case
that belonged to Field Marshall Hermann Goring (inventory number
466/96), with an inscription from 1940 on the inside cover: "Filled
with happiness and pride, we congratulate you on your appointment as
'Field Marshall.' With our deepest love, Emmy and Edda" -- Goring's
wife and daughter.
For decades, the Pinakothek has had in its custody an entire case of
blood diamonds that Hitler's paladin once called his own: a tiara with
32 carats of diamonds, a platinum tie ring with emeralds, gold
cufflinks with rubies, a diamond ring and a large amethyst -- just the
sorts of things a worldly fiend needs.
Out of Sight, Out of Mind
It's the kind of legacy that is inconvenient in the extreme for a
fledgling democracy. What should a newly emerging political system do
with such valuable refuse, the true origins of which are unknown? What
was to be done with the gaudy ornaments of a regime that no one wants
to exhibit? The answer proved simple. They were placed into storage
and locked away, never to be seen again. Out of sight, out of mind.
Even today, this remains Germany's preferred way of dealing with the
treasures that Hitler, Goring and all the other Nazi leaders snatched
up and stole from others during 12 years of tyranny. The items being
kept in a Munich museum's storage rooms are merely a tiny portion of
the Nazi legacy that fell into the lap of postwar Germany. Almost
seven decades later, the German state continues to hold paintings,
rugs, furniture, graphics, sculptures, silver vessels, tapestries,
books and precious stones appropriated by the Nazi clique. The German
government owns about 20,000 items, including paintings, sculptures,
furniture, books and coins. According to a 2004 estimate, the 2,300
paintings alone have an insurance value of ~@60 million ($81 million).
Hundreds more are in the storage rooms of museums in the country.
No one likes to talk about this enormous cache of Nazi treasure,
partly because of a feeling of guilt for possessing assets that are
often of unclear provenance: Art objects acquired from Jewish
collections that were sold off in a panic after 1933, or that were
simply taken from their rightful owners before they disappeared into
concentration camps.
Not all of this art is being kept from the public. A number of works
are distributed throughout Germany in public museums, private
collections, at the office of the German president, at the Chancellery
in Berlin, in government guesthouses and in German embassies around
the globe.
The treatment of the gigantic art collections of Hitler, Goring,
Chancellery head and Hitler confidant Martin Bormann and other Nazi
top brass counts as a particularly macabre chapter in Germany's
efforts to come to terms with its Third Reich past. For almost 68
years now, those in charge of the art -- no matter their political
persuasion -- have done little to investigate the provenance of the
valuable pieces that make up this poisonous legacy and return them to
their rightful owners.
Ridiculously Low
None of Germany's chancellors, be it Konrad Adenauer, who was
persecuted by the Nazis, or former Nazi Party member Kurt Georg
Kiesinger, emigrant Willy Brandt, former Wehrmacht officer Helmut
Schmidt, Helmut Kohl, or those born near the end or after the war,
Gerhard Schroder and Angela Merkel, showed an interest in going beyond
the unctuous speeches that are traditionally given on Nov. 9 to
commemorate Kristallnacht ("Night of the Broken Glass") and take the
last step of doing everything possible to return the Nazi loot.
SPIEGEL embarked on a search for the legacy of the Third Reich and, in
doing so, stumbled upon long transfer lists of the assets of former
Nazi officials, as well as tax officers who were somewhat reluctant to
remember the valuable legacy. Museum officials seemed embarrassed as
they shamefacedly opened their vaults. The search led to contemporary
documents that attest to how the Federal Republic of Germany and the
State of Bavaria, in the 1960s and 70s, threw works from the Hitler
and Goring collections onto the art market at bargain basement prices,
but neglected to turn over the proceeds to the possible previous
owners or to Jewish victim organizations.
Documents turned up that show how Bavarian lakeside real estate seized
by the Nazis changed hands for ridiculously low prices, even though
the proceeds from the sales were initially supposed to be paid into a
special fund for victims of the Nazi regime. Hundreds of drawings were
found that had been hidden in steel cabinets for decades, partly to
avoid having to face the heirs of Jewish collectors. It is also
possible now to reconstruct how Hitler's personal photographer,
Heinrich Hoffmann, quietly and secretly withheld more than 100
paintings that are now part of a collection, probably worth millions,
from the Bavarian government.
The effort led to an unmistakable conclusion: The handling of this
Nazi legacy is a moral disaster that began in the 1950s and continues
to the present day.
To its credit, five years ago the federal government created the
"Working Group for the Research and Study of Provenance," which
receives ~@2 million a year in government funding. But the group, which
has four employees, has not been able to launch more than 84 research
projects in museums and libraries since it was established -- 84
projects in 6,300 German museums. At this rate, it will take decades
more before German cultural institutions have searched through their
inventories for possible Nazi loot.
'A Lot to Be Done'
It's clear that without additional funding and without political will,
what is currently the last chapter of reparations by postwar Germany
will not come to a dignified end. Restitution is actually the
reestablishment of an earlier legal state. As far as the return of the
artworks is concerned, the Jewish Claims Conference (JCC) laments that
there is "still a lot to be done" in Germany. The organization says
that the funds made available by the federal government cover "only a
small portion of the necessary measures." Instead, the JCC argues,
"the heirs are forced to do their own research and, in case of doubt,
fight for their family legacy and go to court."
Munich is the best place to begin tracking down the Nazi legacy. In
1945, when Germany was in ruins, up to five million works of art were
gathering dust in mines and castle basements, monasteries and 1,500
other warehouse facilities of the defeated German Reich. Hitler had
had his officials buy, steal or simply confiscate paintings and other
precious items throughout Europe. The Allies were so well informed
about this that they developed a plan to deal with the sensitive loot
long before the end of the war. They chose a collecting point in a
historic location: two adjacent, monumental structures, faced with
pale Danube limestone, in downtown Munich. Hitler had used one of the
buildings to receive state guests, while the other housed the Nazi
Party headquarters.
The Central Collecting Point, or CCP, was formed in this gruesome
reminder of the Nazi past, complete with balconies, marble staircases
and an elaborate bunker system. Beginning in the summer of 1945, the
artworks that had been secured in the three Western occupation zones
began to accumulate at the CCP. They included Hitler's treasures, more
than 4,700 objects that had been intended for the Fuhrer Museum
planned for the Austrian city of Linz, the 4,200 objects in Goring's
collection, most of which he had kept at Carinhall, his country estate
near Berlin, as well as the smaller collections of Joseph Goebbels,
Joachim von Ribbentrop, Heinrich Himmler, Baldur von Schirach, Albert
Speer, Martin Bormann and Hans Frank.
A Train Full of Art
Not everyone in Hitler's entourage had a passion for art. But because
Hitler, a former postcard painter, collected art, they all collected
art. In this absurd way, says US historian Jonathan Petropoulos, the
party luminaries complied with the so-called Fuhrerprinzip (leader
principle), which held that they were to treat the interests of the
Fuhrer as their own.
At the CCP, the Americans examined and registered everything that the
Nazi leaders had collected. If the provenance was easy to determine
(and when soldiers or civilian employees had not already sold the loot
on the booming black market), the works were quickly returned to their
original owners. Petropoulous estimates that, using this approach, the
Americans and the British had returned some 2.5 million cultural
assets -- including 468,000 paintings, drawings and sculptures -- to
their rightful owners by 1950.
In the initial postwar years, the Germans were largely uninvolved
spectators in the Munich art market. But starting in the summer of
1948, the US entrusted the remaining inventory to the care of then
Bavarian Governor Hans Ehard, who later turned it over to the Foreign
Ministry in Bonn. There, a specially formed restitution committee
conferred for almost three years, ultimately setting the objective
that the restitution issue was to be resolved by the 1960s.
This, of course, was much easier said than done, because in many cases
it proved enormously difficult to ascertain the rightful owners.
Nevertheless, in 1996 German parliament decided that suitable works of
art were to be lent to museums, as well as to top-level and
upper-level federal government agencies. This resulted in something of
a roadshow for Nazi art. At CCP headquarters in Munich, as well as at
the Baroque Schleissheim Palace and the Bavarian National Museum,
curators from all over Germany were invited to pick out works that
might fit well into their museums. The event was closed to the general
public.
'Painful Matter'
Treasury Minister Werner Dollinger announced the results to the world
press in 1966. Almost 2,000 works went to 112 German museums and 660
paintings to 18 federal government offices at home and abroad. As a
result:
There is a Sultanabad rug from the Goring collection at the Chancellery today;
a painting once owned by Goring hangs in the federal government's
guesthouse near Bonn;
a three-drawer cherry secretary from the collection of Hans Posse, one
of Hitler's top art thieves, stands in the Office of the Federal
President;
a copy of a painting by Giovanni Canaletto, "Canal Grande with Punta
della Salute and Doge's Palace," acquired by Hitler, can be viewed at
the German Parliamentary Society.
At the time, the government led citizens to believe that the subject
of restitution had been resolved. According to Minister Dollinger, a
"painful matter" had been brought to a close. SPIEGEL at the time also
praised the government's efforts, noting that the works of art were no
longer burdened with the "taint of unlawful acquisition."
But, as it turned out, we and others were mistaken. In fact, the
provenance of the works had not been thoroughly investigated by any
means. It remains unclear today in some cases, such as the painting in
Bonn, the desk at the president's office and the Canaletto copy at the
Parliamentary Society.
To understand why Germany never truly cleared up the biggest art theft
of the last century, it's worth taking a look back at the
perpetrators' obsession with collecting.
The White Leather Tuxedo
In May 1945, the Allies found two trains in Berchtesgaden, a town in
the Bavarian Alps, that had apparently been used by Field Marshall
Goring. The cars were filled with art from around the world. Goring
had engaged in a true rivalry with Hitler to acquire the most
significant works in the European market. In his Carinhall estate,
some paintings were hanging on the ceiling because there was no room
left on the walls.
It is unclear how the heavyset Wehrmacht officer developed an
appreciation for art. Although he was from a wealthy family and had
lived in castles as a child, unlike Hitler, Goring had never shown a
passion for art. He had finished high school at a cadet school and
taken an officer's exam, a test which likely didn't address Rubens and
Rembrandt.
The art collection that the Americans uncovered in Berchtesgaden had
an estimated value of 600 million reichsmarks. His other assets
included Veldenstein Castle, a bombed-out villa at the Obersalzberg
mountainside retreat, a hunting cabin near the town of Bayrischzell,
an account with the Reichs-Kredit-Gesellschaft bank in Munich worth
1.1 million reichsmarks, as well as curiosities like a collection of
antlers, a white leather tuxedo and a French blanket from 1730.
Under an agreement with the Allies, the top Nazis' private assets went
to the state in which they had been found after the end of the war.
This meant that Bavaria benefited more than most other states. In
addition to Goring, with his homes in the foothills of the Alps, many
other key players in the Nazi system, like Rudolf Hess, Heinrich
Himmler and Julius Streicher, had moved their possessions to secret
hiding places in the south as the Allies advanced into Germany. The
Munich State Archive has a list, compiled in 1949, of the confiscated
assets of former Nazi Party leaders in Bavaria. The value of their
real estate and bank accounts alone was estimated at 51.4 million
deutschmarks at the time.
What happened to the Nazi properties is a particularly disturbing
chapter in Bavarian postwar history, as documented in a 1971 report by
the Bavarian Supreme Audit Court -- a document which was long kept
secret and later forgotten. The auditors had scrutinized the State of
Bavaria's real estate transactions between 1952 and 1967, including
the sales of confiscated Nazi villas.
The 'Jovial Austrian'
It's a shameful report that tellingly demonstrates how quickly the
victims of Nazi rule were once again given short shrift when it came
to government transactions in the reconstruction years.
An unbelievable case occurred in the town of Kochel am See. It
revolved around a 4,312-square-meter (about an acre) waterfront
property with a wooden house on it. It was where Nazi youth leader
Baldur von Schirach went to relax -- before he was sentenced in
Nuremberg to a 20-year prison term for crimes against humanity. The
property went to the State of Bavaria. In 1939, the idyllic site was
already valued at a land price of 2.50 reichsmarks per square meter.
But in 1955, Bavaria sold the property for 1.45 deutschmarks per
square meter, which was well below its value, as the Audit Court later
wrote in its critical but classified report.
To add insult to injury, the property was then resold after only 10
months, with the fortunate buyer managing to sell it at a 100 percent
profit.
The short-term owner was very familiar with the house. It was Von
Schirach's wife Henriette, who was also the daughter of Hitler's
personal photographer Heinrich Hoffmann and the Fuhrer's secretary for
a time. As recently as the early 1980s, Henriette -- the grandmother
of attorney and bestselling author Ferdinand von Schirach -- attracted
attention with a book in which she had reinvented Hitler, turning him
into a "jovial Austrian."
An isolated case? Hardly. Heinrich Hoffmann owned an attractive,
956-square-meter (about 10,000 square feet) villa in Munich's
Bogenhausen neighborhood, worth millions today. In 1954, the State of
Bavaria, which had been awarded the assets of the long-time Nazi (Nazi
Party membership number 59), sold it for 52,000 deutschmarks. For the
appraisal, the government's real estate agents had used a 1936
construction index. The government chose not to sell the property at
public auction.
And the list goes on. Nazi Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick, executed
in 1946 as a major war criminal, owned a magnificent villa on 32,196
square meters of land (8 acres) in Kempfenhausen on Lake Starnberg. In
1959, a publisher bought the estate from the government. It was
appraised at only 6 deutschmarks per square meter, even though the
authorities themselves had described the property as a "luxury
property" on "park-like grounds in an excellent lakeside location."
According to the Audit Court, the price was too low, and it concluded:
"Even in 1959, there was also considerable interest in large
properties in such preferred locations."
Selling Off the Hitler Collection
By today's standards, the Bavarian lawmakers would be found guilty of
breach of trust, toward both the state's taxpayers and the victims'
rights organizations.
A real estate deal concluded by Fritz Ruth, the president of the
Munich regional tax office at the time, was also more than favorable
to the buyer. In 1959, Ruth spent 7,000 deutschmarks to acquire the
Schoberhof, a 5,311-square-meter property on Lake Schliersee that had
been owned by Nazi war criminal Hans Frank, the "Butcher of Poland."
Neither the lucky bargain hunters nor the government brokers had much
to fear. The Audit Court did not submit its classified report until
1971. And it had hardly been made public before a note was placed into
the Finance Ministry files, to the effect that the public prosecutor's
office was terminating its investigations because the statute of
limitations had passed. The crime of breach of trust came under the
statute of limitations after five years, and the last objectionable
real estate sale had taken place eight years earlier.
As the auditors concluded, "none of the properties from the
confiscated assets was offered for sale by public auction."
And why should they have been? The only people who could have had an
interest in achieving the highest possible proceeds were the victims
of the Nazi regime. Under the 1948 Bavarian law governing confiscation
of property, the proceeds from these sales were to be paid to the
Foundation for the Redress of Nazi Injustices and, following its
dissolution, to the State Office of Restitution.
The Auerbach case illustrates the Bavarian authorities' reluctance in
an especially brazen way. Philipp Auerbach, president of the Bavarian
State Office of Restitution, had survived the Auschwitz and Buchenwald
concentration camps and, after the war, was a member of the Central
Council of Jews in Germany. The bulky Hamburg native had a powerful
voice and confidently represented, in Bavaria, the interests of those
who had been persecuted for political and racist reasons. Auerbach
rubbed people the wrong way and frequently received anti-Semitic mail
-- until the government stopped him.
On March 10, 1951, he was arrested while on a business trip and
accused of fraud, embezzlement, neglect of official duties and
wrongful disbursement of reparations money.
'Victim of His Duties'
A court riddled with old Nazi Party jurists sentenced the Holocaust
survivor to two-and-a-half years in prison. Two days later, the
45-year-old committed suicide with sleeping pills. An investigative
committed in the state parliament rehabilitated Auerbach two years
later, and little was left of the charges against him. Today the
following words are inscribed on his tombstone: "Helper of the Poorest
of the Poor, Victim of his Duties."
A complaint by the "Association of Jewish Invalids in Bavaria" also
documents the climate in the early 1950s. The State of Bavaria, the
letter to American occupation forces reads, was deliberately delaying
restitution payments, even as it was spending billions on the
non-Jewish population. Furthermore, the Christian Social Union, the
conservative political party that held sway in the state (as it still
does), was accused of neglecting the interests of Nazi victims for
political reasons. The population, still living in want itself, also
had little sympathy for the victims of Nazi dictatorship. Many felt
that the government should first attend to the needs of Germany's war
widows.
A similar mentality prevailed in Munich government offices, where a
fair number of collaborators and accessories from the Nazi days
worked. For instance, the general director of the Bavarian State
Painting Collections from 1953 to 1957 was the same man who served in
the position before 1945: Ernst Buchner. US historian Petropoulos
describes him as "part of Hitler's kleptocracy." According to
Petropoulos, Buchner played an important role in the seizure of Jewish
collections and the Aryanization of Jewish art galleries. After the
Night of the Long Knives pogrom, it was Buchner who opened the
National Museum to the Gestapo so that it could store Aryanized Jewish
collections there. He also advised Himmler and Hitler on the appraisal
of their looted art.
And he wasn't the only one. There were "experts" in key positions
throughout the art business in the postwar era who assisted in various
capacities in the biggest art theft of the 20th century. The artworks
they had looted now fell into their hands a second time. Not
surprisingly, they had little interest in tracking down Jewish owners.
The lack of attention Germans paid to the origins of their art
treasures did not go unnoticed by the Americans. They considered
selling what was left of the sensitive collections overseas. Perhaps
it would have been the only morally correct approach to putting an end
to Hitler's mad looting expedition. But the opportunity was missed.
Deliberate Cover Ups
In the mid-1960s, Germany began selling off portions of the Hitler
collection. In doing so, it resorted to traditional channels. Two of
the art dealers involved in the selloff, Kunsthaus Lempertz in Cologne
and Kunsthandlung Weinmuller in Munich, had also served as art
suppliers to Hitler until 1945.
According to the federal government, some 243 paintings, 47 works of
graphic art, 10 sculpture and 24 articles of furniture from Nazi
estates were sold at the time "to explore marketability." Because the
market was still sluggish, the proceeds amounted to only about 1
million deutschmarks. Once again, the money was not paid to victims'
rights groups but ended up in the federal budget instead, even though
the provenance of the artworks that had been sold off had by no means
been adequately investigated.
On the contrary, in some cases the origins were deliberately covered
up, as a number of sales by the State of Bavaria show.
An example from a December 1966 Weinmuller auction catalogue: Lot
number 1374, Vincent Sellaer, "Leda and the Swan." Regarding the
painting's provenance, the buyer is referred to the Thieme-Becker
Artists' Encyclopedia, Volume 30. On page 478, the encyclopedia lists
the Musee des Beaux-Arts in Valenciennes, France as the last owner.
The truth, however, can still today be found on the CCP file cards in
the German Federal Archives: "Property of Dr. R. Ley." Robert Ley, a
major war criminal, was head of organization for the Nazi Party and
head of the German Labor Front. The Allies found the painting --
clearly looted art -- in his possession in 1945. It was then
transferred to the State of Bavaria
By the time the rightful owners began searching for the painting, it
had long since been sold off. The new owner had no idea about its true
origins. In the end, the rightful owners were paid the paltry 2,200
deutschmarks that the painting had fetched at auction.
Hitler's Photographer
Under the leadership of then Governor Alfons Goppel, a former member
of the SA, the State of Bavaria sold 106 paintings in this dubious
manner. Most were hawked at up to 40 percent below their appraised
value.
And the proceeds? They were invested in new artworks, specifically
those with untainted provenance. Munich's Pinakothek der Moderne
acquired Georges Braque's "Woman with Mandolin" in this fashion. In
1967, the Bavarian state parliament had approved the purchase of the
work, valued at 1.25 million deutschmarks, for the State Paintings
Collections. The public was given a vague account of how the purchase
was to be financed: with a contribution from the state, a contribution
from the Association of Friends of the Collections and "sales from the
property of the state gallery." The latter referred specifically to
the proceeds from the scandalous sale of Nazi art.
Much of what went wrong in the restitution debate, that is, what
should have happened or what shouldn't have been allowed to happen, is
reflected in the case of one individual: Heinrich Hoffmann, born in
1885, Adolf Hitler's personal photographer since 1923.
Hoffmann, who Werner Friedmann, founder of the Munich Abendzeitung
newspaper, described as one of "the greediest parasites of the Hitler
plague," was one of the main profiteers of the Nazi state. The
publisher and photojournalist, as a member of the "Commission for the
Exploitation of Confiscated Works of Degenerate Art," advised the
buyers for the Fuhrer Museum in Linz and was named a professor of art
by Hitler himself. In 1943, his personal fortune was valued at almost
6 million reichsmarks. Four years later, the Americans listed 278
works of art that Hoffmann claimed, untruthfully, to have acquired
legally.
Hoffmann spent five years in prison after the war. In 1947, the Allies
classified him as a "Major Offender," which meant that his assets were
to be fully confiscated, a penalty he fought until 1956. Ultimately,
he was permitted to retain 20 percent of his assets. In October 1956,
the Bavarian Finance Ministry ordered "that all art objects (belonging
to Hoffmann) under administration of the Bavarian State Paintings
Collections" were to be "turned over to Mr. Heinrich Hoffmann, Nazi
Party photographer."
Receiving Honecker on Goring's Carpet
The paintings were apparently seen as a way to reinstate that portion
of his assets which the denazification ruling had granted him. The
estimated amount was 350,000 deutschmarks.
The act of mercy, largely unknown to this day, was the apparent result
of settlement negotiations between the photographer and the finance
minister. And Hoffmann was clever enough to keep the settlement quiet,
and to not accept cash. The files suggest that no one was interested
in wasting any further thought on the provenance of Hoffmann's
paintings.
The consequences became apparent just two years later when the
Austrian government lodged a complaint with Bavaria. According to
correspondence in the archives of the Bavarian Paintings Collections,
Austria demanded the return of two paintings from the Hoffmann
collection: works by Ferdinand Georg Waldmuller, the most important
painter of the Viennese Biedermaier movement. The Munich officials
replied somewhat sheepishly that they had already turned over the
paintings to Hitler's former confidant in 1954.
Even before reaching his settlement with the state government,
Hoffmann had repeatedly managed to reclaim individual paintings from
the state government's custody. A popular technique was to have
associates tell the state authorities that they had received a
painting from Hoffmann's collection as a gift during the war.
Hoffmann's physical therapist was one of them. On July 22, 1955, he
was handed "The Angler," a painting by Carl Spitzweg, at the Bavarian
Paintings Collections. He had claimed that the photographer had given
him the picture during the Hitler era as a token of his gratitude.
Conveniently, the art-loving physical therapist brought along his
personal art historian, who scrawled his signature on the handover
document: "Dr. Kai Muhlmann."
It was the same Muhlmann whom Goring had once named his special envoy
for art in the occupied eastern territories -- an SS man who had
verifiably seized Jewish collections and supplied them to Hoffmann.
Missing the Dignified Route
In the roughly seven decades since the end of World War II, there was
one moment in which Germany could have, and should have, succeeded in
embarking down a more dignified path. In December 1998, 44 countries
met at the Washington Conference, where they agreed to track down art
confiscated during the Nazi era and identify the original owners. A
"just and fair solution" for the return of the works or compensation
was to be found with the heirs. For the first time in decades, it was
once again possible to file restitution claims.
State Minister for Culture Michael Naumann, a member of the
center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), enthusiastically supported
the implementation of the Washington Declaration and, by virtue of his
office, expanded the definition of looted art: If Jews had sold
paintings to support themselves while fleeing the Nazis, they or their
heirs could also file claims for compensation. Naumann wrote to all
leading German museums and urged them to address provenance research.
But, as he recalls today, he received a response from only one
institution, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation.
To this day, provenance research has remained a stepchild of
accounting for Germany's Nazi past -- lacking in financial means and
human resources, but replete with accusations that heirs care more for
money than art. At least the federal government has now examined most
of the paintings it holds, and German museums are gradually following
suit.
The only specialist currently addressing the provenance of thousands
of works in the Bavarian Paintings Collections is art historian Andrea
Bambi. She likens her work to a police investigation. More than 10
years ago, her employer launched a research project to examine the
provenance of 126 pictures from the Goring collection, 72 of which are
still in the museum's hands. Bambi's job is to examine the rest of the
massive Nazi legacy.
It's a role that is both unique in Germany and rather peculiar. In the
spirit of the Washington agreement, she has an obligation to the
victims of the Nazi reign of terror. On the other hand, she is paid by
the museum and has lifetime tenure there. Her job is a balancing act,
because she has to satisfy both sides. Heirs, such as those of Jewish
art dealer Alfred Flechtheim, accuse the Collections of taking a
restrictive approach.
A Chaotic Collection
In most of the cases, the art detective's job is a difficult one.
Bambi walks out of her office, takes a sharp right around the corner
and enters a dimly lit library, where there is a beige folder on a
table. It contains parts of 3,500 document pages that Bambi has to
comb through to ascertain the origins of the Munich paintings. It's a
collection of loose sheets of paper, unsorted, with carbon copies on
parchment paper, and with poorly legible notes made by long-retired
colleagues. Estimated prices for sculptures are noted in red pencil on
the back of a calendar sheet from February 1 of some year. It's a
chaotic collection of documents.
Bambi says that she could use three staff members: an archivist, a
historian and an art historian. The estimated personnel costs would be
about ~@230,000 a year. The Bavarian finance minister, who holds both
the rights to Hitler's book "Mein Kampf" and the entire legacy of the
Fuhrer, has refused to commit any funds to the project so far.
There is clearly a need for the federal government to step in. If the
collections of the three Munich Pinakothek museums, the Schack
collection and the 12 satellite galleries are combined, a total of
4,400 paintings and 770 sculptures that have accumulated in the
Collections since 1933 will have to be examined.
The legacy is so extensive that not even Bavaria's senior-most
politicians are unaware of the former Nazi property they use on a
daily basis. The Bavarian State Chancellery, for instance, used a
building on Prinzregentenstrasse for representational purposes for
many years. Former Bavarian Governor and CSU Chairman Franz Josef
Strauss used the great hall for cabinet meetings, as well as to
receive state guests, like East German leader Erich Honecker.
A giant carpet was laid out on the floor of the room: 15.18 meters by
7.27 meters. The motif was Persian, but the carpet had been made in
India. It still has the number 6498 on the bottom, which the Americans
gave it at the CCP. The carpet also has a file card in the Federal
Archives, where it is referred to as a "giant carpet" that was found
in Berchtesgaden. It was on the Goring train.
Stuck Between Wooden Pallets
Very few people know what a significant role the carpet played in
German history. It allegedly was once laid out at Goring's Carinhall
estate, in the hallway to the library. And then there are photos of
East Germany's anti-fascist leader Honecker's 1987 visit to
Prinzregentenstrasse, with Strauss, Edmund Stoiber and a number of
other prominent Bavarian politicians. And it all happened on Goring's
rug.
Today the carpet is rolled up in a hallway at the Schack collection,
where it illustrates the size of the dilemma the Nazi legacy poses. No
one can use it anymore, and yet no one dares sell a carpet that is so
steeped in history. A potential buyer from the US turned up a few
years ago, but left empty-handed. Now the carpet lies, forgotten and
wrapped in plastic, between old wooden pallets.
Of course, forgetting is also sometimes part of a strategy. The State
Graphic Collection in Munich has 601 drawings and watercolors by the
painter Rudolf von Alt (1812 to 1905), once owned by the Nazi Party.
Hitler confidant Martin Bormann had procured the pictures for Hitler's
Obersalzberg retreat, the Fuhrer buildings in Berlin and Munich and
the planned Fuhrer museum in Linz. Drawings by the painter were also
on the list of artworks returned to Hitler's personal photographer,
Heinrich Hoffmann.
For decades, the Munich museum officials knew that, until the 1930s,
the works were primarily the property of Jewish business people from
Vienna. But what happened to them?
Since 1959, they were kept in two steel cabinets in the former Nazi
Party administration building, which is now home to the State Graphic
Collection. The status quo was only disturbed two years ago, when the
London-based Commission for Looted Art in Europe came calling and
filed claims for a watercolor. It demanded the return of the work "The
Old North Train Station in Vienna," which had belonged to a Jewish
woman from Brno, in the present-day Czech Republic, until 1938. The
Commission announced its intention to pursue other claims as well,
enough to finally push the State Graphic Collection to embark on a
provenance project.
Breathtakingly Absurd
There are references to Jewish collectors like Eissler, Goldmann,
Mautner and Zuckerkandl. The museum managers have promised to examine
their collection "as thoroughly as possible." And they regret, of
course, not having approached possible heirs directly.
It is a late start. And the fact that it has taken so long probably
has a lot to do with an earlier generation of curators and their
reluctance to exhibit the magnificent collection, for fear that Jewish
heirs could promptly file claims for the art.
For years, a number of museum directors pursued a breathtakingly
absurd line of reasoning. This attitude flared up as recently as 2006,
when a painting by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, "Berlin Street Scene," worth
about ~@30 million, was handed over to the granddaughter of a former
Jewish owner, who lived in England. The incident prompted Michael
Eissenhauer, president of the German Museums Association at the time,
to sharply criticize the "big business" of restitution art. "It's
worthwhile to embark on a hunt and take a look at which paintings
could inject new blood into the art market."
A "hunt"? By the victims? Former State Minister for Culture Naumann
recalls a speech by Berlin art auctioneer Bernd Schultz, which was
published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper, under the heading:
"They Say Holocaust, But They Mean Money." That speech, says Naumann,
"contained, without the man even noticing it -- which only made it
worse -- a classic anti-Semitic sentiment. Shameless."
People like Gunnar Schnabel, who represents the interests of the
heirs, continue to run up against the limits of openness and
cooperativeness among museums today. Since the Washington conference,
the Berlin attorney has taken on 30 cases relating to valuable
paintings. The work often escalates. "I begin by researching three
paintings and end up with 50," says Schnabel. On behalf of Jewish
heirs, Schnabel has wrested a painting by Carl Spitzweg ("Fiat
Justitia") from the Office of the Federal President. He is not
particularly conciliatory as he sums up his experiences: "Negotiations
with the museums remain tough and incredibly expensive."
No Evidence of Fairness
The cost of research is especially staggering for the victims.
Schnabel remembers the case of a colleague, in which a painting was
sold for [email protected] million after restitution. The legal fees amounted to
more than ~@2 million, all but eliminating the concept of compensation.
Schnabel accuses museums of sometimes "fighting with everything they
have, and stalling the negotiations." Even if they do examine their
collections once in a while, says the attorney, he knows of no cases
in which a museum has approached heirs directly.
Monika Tatzkow agrees with his assessment. She too represents Jewish
heirs, including her current clients, the heirs of Max Liebermann. A
great-grandson has hired the Berlin provenance researcher to examine
62 paintings, 51 drawings, 10 volumes of graphics and one watercolor.
The list includes top artists like Manet and Monet, and the works
could be in museums or private collections. "The evidentiary
requirements are getting more and more stringent and exaggerated,"
says Tatzkow. After 70 years, the heirs are still expected to furnish
the "last sales receipt," to ensure that the restitution is completely
watertight. The historian sees no evidence of fair and just
agreements, as stipulated in Washington.
Former State Minister for Culture Naumann wants the next federal
government to pass a law that goes beyond the moral impetus of the
Washington agreement. "Lawmakers have to outline more specific
restitution claims." He also has an idea of where the money for more
intensive provenance research should come from. There are currently
plans for a museum dedicated to the Sudeten Germans, those ethnic
Germans forced out of lands belonging to present-day Czech Republic.
The federal government together with the state government of Bavaria
is to provide ~@30 million for the facility. It would be the third or
the fourth such museum dedicated to the expellees, says Naumann, and
hardly anyone visits the ones that already exist. "Diverting ~@10
million from this budget and putting it into provenance research is a
possible approach." The states would also have to become more
committed, says Naumann.
Of course, there are countless cases in which clarification of the
ownership issue will no longer be possible, and in which doubts will
never be set aside. But does the rule have to be: When in doubt, rule
in favor of the state? Or the museum?
The Germans could learn from the Austrians. After the end of the war,
8,422 works of art, most of Jewish origin, were stored in a monastery
near Vienna. Only in 93 cases were heirs able to prove ownership.
After 50 years and many agonizing debates, the Republic of Austria
decided on a solution that was morally unassailable: An auction at
Christie's, with the proceeds benefiting Nazi victims. The October
1996 auction raised ~@11 million.
Could this be a solution for Goring's diamonds and Eva Braun's
platinum watch? Perhaps it would only reignite the trade in Nazi
devotional objects, as critics fear. But the Internet is already
filled with such objects today: Hitler's brass desk set, notes by
concentration camp doctor Josef Mengele, letters and postcards written
by Joseph Goebbels. A few rings and tiaras are hardly likely to make a
difference.
The idea at least merits a public debate. After all, the sale of the
precious objects ought to raise enough money to pay for a few
additional positions in provenance research.
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/germany-s-unsatisfactory-approach-to-art-looted-by-the-nazis-a-880363.html
01/30/2013 06:35 PM
By Steffen Winter
Getty Images
Adolf Hitler and his Nazi henchmen amassed huge amounts of valuable
art, jewelry and other collectibles prior to and during World War II.
It is a poisonous legacy which German museums and governments have
failed to properly address. The moral disaster continues to the
present day.
For decades, item number 471/96 has only seen the light of day in
exceptional cases. On those rare occasions, fingers encased in clean,
white cotton gloves carefully lift the platinum watch out of its
velvet-lined case. Diamonds encircle the round face, refracting the
ambient light into a glittering cascade.
The watch, made in the southwestern German city of Pforzheim by
Eszeha, was kept in a plain cardboard box after the war. It isn't
difficult to discover whose wrist it once adorned. The following
inscription, along with a handwritten signature, appears on the back
of the casing: "On February 6, 1939. With all my heart. A. Hitler."
That February day was the 27th birthday of Eva Braun. The Reich
Chancellor had dedicated the diamond-studded watch with a chain clasp
to his mistress, 22 years his junior. The precious watch survived the
turmoil of the ensuing violence virtually unharmed.
Today the watch is kept in storage at the Pinakothek der Moderne, a
modern art museum in Munich, where it is registered as "Estate of Eva
Hitler, nee Eva Braun" -- in a cabinet that contains a large number of
other devotional objects from the darkest period of German history.
The collection includes a 41-piece set of silverware engraved with
Hitler's initials. There is also a diamond-studded gold cigarette case
that belonged to Field Marshall Hermann Goring (inventory number
466/96), with an inscription from 1940 on the inside cover: "Filled
with happiness and pride, we congratulate you on your appointment as
'Field Marshall.' With our deepest love, Emmy and Edda" -- Goring's
wife and daughter.
For decades, the Pinakothek has had in its custody an entire case of
blood diamonds that Hitler's paladin once called his own: a tiara with
32 carats of diamonds, a platinum tie ring with emeralds, gold
cufflinks with rubies, a diamond ring and a large amethyst -- just the
sorts of things a worldly fiend needs.
Out of Sight, Out of Mind
It's the kind of legacy that is inconvenient in the extreme for a
fledgling democracy. What should a newly emerging political system do
with such valuable refuse, the true origins of which are unknown? What
was to be done with the gaudy ornaments of a regime that no one wants
to exhibit? The answer proved simple. They were placed into storage
and locked away, never to be seen again. Out of sight, out of mind.
Even today, this remains Germany's preferred way of dealing with the
treasures that Hitler, Goring and all the other Nazi leaders snatched
up and stole from others during 12 years of tyranny. The items being
kept in a Munich museum's storage rooms are merely a tiny portion of
the Nazi legacy that fell into the lap of postwar Germany. Almost
seven decades later, the German state continues to hold paintings,
rugs, furniture, graphics, sculptures, silver vessels, tapestries,
books and precious stones appropriated by the Nazi clique. The German
government owns about 20,000 items, including paintings, sculptures,
furniture, books and coins. According to a 2004 estimate, the 2,300
paintings alone have an insurance value of ~@60 million ($81 million).
Hundreds more are in the storage rooms of museums in the country.
No one likes to talk about this enormous cache of Nazi treasure,
partly because of a feeling of guilt for possessing assets that are
often of unclear provenance: Art objects acquired from Jewish
collections that were sold off in a panic after 1933, or that were
simply taken from their rightful owners before they disappeared into
concentration camps.
Not all of this art is being kept from the public. A number of works
are distributed throughout Germany in public museums, private
collections, at the office of the German president, at the Chancellery
in Berlin, in government guesthouses and in German embassies around
the globe.
The treatment of the gigantic art collections of Hitler, Goring,
Chancellery head and Hitler confidant Martin Bormann and other Nazi
top brass counts as a particularly macabre chapter in Germany's
efforts to come to terms with its Third Reich past. For almost 68
years now, those in charge of the art -- no matter their political
persuasion -- have done little to investigate the provenance of the
valuable pieces that make up this poisonous legacy and return them to
their rightful owners.
Ridiculously Low
None of Germany's chancellors, be it Konrad Adenauer, who was
persecuted by the Nazis, or former Nazi Party member Kurt Georg
Kiesinger, emigrant Willy Brandt, former Wehrmacht officer Helmut
Schmidt, Helmut Kohl, or those born near the end or after the war,
Gerhard Schroder and Angela Merkel, showed an interest in going beyond
the unctuous speeches that are traditionally given on Nov. 9 to
commemorate Kristallnacht ("Night of the Broken Glass") and take the
last step of doing everything possible to return the Nazi loot.
SPIEGEL embarked on a search for the legacy of the Third Reich and, in
doing so, stumbled upon long transfer lists of the assets of former
Nazi officials, as well as tax officers who were somewhat reluctant to
remember the valuable legacy. Museum officials seemed embarrassed as
they shamefacedly opened their vaults. The search led to contemporary
documents that attest to how the Federal Republic of Germany and the
State of Bavaria, in the 1960s and 70s, threw works from the Hitler
and Goring collections onto the art market at bargain basement prices,
but neglected to turn over the proceeds to the possible previous
owners or to Jewish victim organizations.
Documents turned up that show how Bavarian lakeside real estate seized
by the Nazis changed hands for ridiculously low prices, even though
the proceeds from the sales were initially supposed to be paid into a
special fund for victims of the Nazi regime. Hundreds of drawings were
found that had been hidden in steel cabinets for decades, partly to
avoid having to face the heirs of Jewish collectors. It is also
possible now to reconstruct how Hitler's personal photographer,
Heinrich Hoffmann, quietly and secretly withheld more than 100
paintings that are now part of a collection, probably worth millions,
from the Bavarian government.
The effort led to an unmistakable conclusion: The handling of this
Nazi legacy is a moral disaster that began in the 1950s and continues
to the present day.
To its credit, five years ago the federal government created the
"Working Group for the Research and Study of Provenance," which
receives ~@2 million a year in government funding. But the group, which
has four employees, has not been able to launch more than 84 research
projects in museums and libraries since it was established -- 84
projects in 6,300 German museums. At this rate, it will take decades
more before German cultural institutions have searched through their
inventories for possible Nazi loot.
'A Lot to Be Done'
It's clear that without additional funding and without political will,
what is currently the last chapter of reparations by postwar Germany
will not come to a dignified end. Restitution is actually the
reestablishment of an earlier legal state. As far as the return of the
artworks is concerned, the Jewish Claims Conference (JCC) laments that
there is "still a lot to be done" in Germany. The organization says
that the funds made available by the federal government cover "only a
small portion of the necessary measures." Instead, the JCC argues,
"the heirs are forced to do their own research and, in case of doubt,
fight for their family legacy and go to court."
Munich is the best place to begin tracking down the Nazi legacy. In
1945, when Germany was in ruins, up to five million works of art were
gathering dust in mines and castle basements, monasteries and 1,500
other warehouse facilities of the defeated German Reich. Hitler had
had his officials buy, steal or simply confiscate paintings and other
precious items throughout Europe. The Allies were so well informed
about this that they developed a plan to deal with the sensitive loot
long before the end of the war. They chose a collecting point in a
historic location: two adjacent, monumental structures, faced with
pale Danube limestone, in downtown Munich. Hitler had used one of the
buildings to receive state guests, while the other housed the Nazi
Party headquarters.
The Central Collecting Point, or CCP, was formed in this gruesome
reminder of the Nazi past, complete with balconies, marble staircases
and an elaborate bunker system. Beginning in the summer of 1945, the
artworks that had been secured in the three Western occupation zones
began to accumulate at the CCP. They included Hitler's treasures, more
than 4,700 objects that had been intended for the Fuhrer Museum
planned for the Austrian city of Linz, the 4,200 objects in Goring's
collection, most of which he had kept at Carinhall, his country estate
near Berlin, as well as the smaller collections of Joseph Goebbels,
Joachim von Ribbentrop, Heinrich Himmler, Baldur von Schirach, Albert
Speer, Martin Bormann and Hans Frank.
A Train Full of Art
Not everyone in Hitler's entourage had a passion for art. But because
Hitler, a former postcard painter, collected art, they all collected
art. In this absurd way, says US historian Jonathan Petropoulos, the
party luminaries complied with the so-called Fuhrerprinzip (leader
principle), which held that they were to treat the interests of the
Fuhrer as their own.
At the CCP, the Americans examined and registered everything that the
Nazi leaders had collected. If the provenance was easy to determine
(and when soldiers or civilian employees had not already sold the loot
on the booming black market), the works were quickly returned to their
original owners. Petropoulous estimates that, using this approach, the
Americans and the British had returned some 2.5 million cultural
assets -- including 468,000 paintings, drawings and sculptures -- to
their rightful owners by 1950.
In the initial postwar years, the Germans were largely uninvolved
spectators in the Munich art market. But starting in the summer of
1948, the US entrusted the remaining inventory to the care of then
Bavarian Governor Hans Ehard, who later turned it over to the Foreign
Ministry in Bonn. There, a specially formed restitution committee
conferred for almost three years, ultimately setting the objective
that the restitution issue was to be resolved by the 1960s.
This, of course, was much easier said than done, because in many cases
it proved enormously difficult to ascertain the rightful owners.
Nevertheless, in 1996 German parliament decided that suitable works of
art were to be lent to museums, as well as to top-level and
upper-level federal government agencies. This resulted in something of
a roadshow for Nazi art. At CCP headquarters in Munich, as well as at
the Baroque Schleissheim Palace and the Bavarian National Museum,
curators from all over Germany were invited to pick out works that
might fit well into their museums. The event was closed to the general
public.
'Painful Matter'
Treasury Minister Werner Dollinger announced the results to the world
press in 1966. Almost 2,000 works went to 112 German museums and 660
paintings to 18 federal government offices at home and abroad. As a
result:
There is a Sultanabad rug from the Goring collection at the Chancellery today;
a painting once owned by Goring hangs in the federal government's
guesthouse near Bonn;
a three-drawer cherry secretary from the collection of Hans Posse, one
of Hitler's top art thieves, stands in the Office of the Federal
President;
a copy of a painting by Giovanni Canaletto, "Canal Grande with Punta
della Salute and Doge's Palace," acquired by Hitler, can be viewed at
the German Parliamentary Society.
At the time, the government led citizens to believe that the subject
of restitution had been resolved. According to Minister Dollinger, a
"painful matter" had been brought to a close. SPIEGEL at the time also
praised the government's efforts, noting that the works of art were no
longer burdened with the "taint of unlawful acquisition."
But, as it turned out, we and others were mistaken. In fact, the
provenance of the works had not been thoroughly investigated by any
means. It remains unclear today in some cases, such as the painting in
Bonn, the desk at the president's office and the Canaletto copy at the
Parliamentary Society.
To understand why Germany never truly cleared up the biggest art theft
of the last century, it's worth taking a look back at the
perpetrators' obsession with collecting.
The White Leather Tuxedo
In May 1945, the Allies found two trains in Berchtesgaden, a town in
the Bavarian Alps, that had apparently been used by Field Marshall
Goring. The cars were filled with art from around the world. Goring
had engaged in a true rivalry with Hitler to acquire the most
significant works in the European market. In his Carinhall estate,
some paintings were hanging on the ceiling because there was no room
left on the walls.
It is unclear how the heavyset Wehrmacht officer developed an
appreciation for art. Although he was from a wealthy family and had
lived in castles as a child, unlike Hitler, Goring had never shown a
passion for art. He had finished high school at a cadet school and
taken an officer's exam, a test which likely didn't address Rubens and
Rembrandt.
The art collection that the Americans uncovered in Berchtesgaden had
an estimated value of 600 million reichsmarks. His other assets
included Veldenstein Castle, a bombed-out villa at the Obersalzberg
mountainside retreat, a hunting cabin near the town of Bayrischzell,
an account with the Reichs-Kredit-Gesellschaft bank in Munich worth
1.1 million reichsmarks, as well as curiosities like a collection of
antlers, a white leather tuxedo and a French blanket from 1730.
Under an agreement with the Allies, the top Nazis' private assets went
to the state in which they had been found after the end of the war.
This meant that Bavaria benefited more than most other states. In
addition to Goring, with his homes in the foothills of the Alps, many
other key players in the Nazi system, like Rudolf Hess, Heinrich
Himmler and Julius Streicher, had moved their possessions to secret
hiding places in the south as the Allies advanced into Germany. The
Munich State Archive has a list, compiled in 1949, of the confiscated
assets of former Nazi Party leaders in Bavaria. The value of their
real estate and bank accounts alone was estimated at 51.4 million
deutschmarks at the time.
What happened to the Nazi properties is a particularly disturbing
chapter in Bavarian postwar history, as documented in a 1971 report by
the Bavarian Supreme Audit Court -- a document which was long kept
secret and later forgotten. The auditors had scrutinized the State of
Bavaria's real estate transactions between 1952 and 1967, including
the sales of confiscated Nazi villas.
The 'Jovial Austrian'
It's a shameful report that tellingly demonstrates how quickly the
victims of Nazi rule were once again given short shrift when it came
to government transactions in the reconstruction years.
An unbelievable case occurred in the town of Kochel am See. It
revolved around a 4,312-square-meter (about an acre) waterfront
property with a wooden house on it. It was where Nazi youth leader
Baldur von Schirach went to relax -- before he was sentenced in
Nuremberg to a 20-year prison term for crimes against humanity. The
property went to the State of Bavaria. In 1939, the idyllic site was
already valued at a land price of 2.50 reichsmarks per square meter.
But in 1955, Bavaria sold the property for 1.45 deutschmarks per
square meter, which was well below its value, as the Audit Court later
wrote in its critical but classified report.
To add insult to injury, the property was then resold after only 10
months, with the fortunate buyer managing to sell it at a 100 percent
profit.
The short-term owner was very familiar with the house. It was Von
Schirach's wife Henriette, who was also the daughter of Hitler's
personal photographer Heinrich Hoffmann and the Fuhrer's secretary for
a time. As recently as the early 1980s, Henriette -- the grandmother
of attorney and bestselling author Ferdinand von Schirach -- attracted
attention with a book in which she had reinvented Hitler, turning him
into a "jovial Austrian."
An isolated case? Hardly. Heinrich Hoffmann owned an attractive,
956-square-meter (about 10,000 square feet) villa in Munich's
Bogenhausen neighborhood, worth millions today. In 1954, the State of
Bavaria, which had been awarded the assets of the long-time Nazi (Nazi
Party membership number 59), sold it for 52,000 deutschmarks. For the
appraisal, the government's real estate agents had used a 1936
construction index. The government chose not to sell the property at
public auction.
And the list goes on. Nazi Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick, executed
in 1946 as a major war criminal, owned a magnificent villa on 32,196
square meters of land (8 acres) in Kempfenhausen on Lake Starnberg. In
1959, a publisher bought the estate from the government. It was
appraised at only 6 deutschmarks per square meter, even though the
authorities themselves had described the property as a "luxury
property" on "park-like grounds in an excellent lakeside location."
According to the Audit Court, the price was too low, and it concluded:
"Even in 1959, there was also considerable interest in large
properties in such preferred locations."
Selling Off the Hitler Collection
By today's standards, the Bavarian lawmakers would be found guilty of
breach of trust, toward both the state's taxpayers and the victims'
rights organizations.
A real estate deal concluded by Fritz Ruth, the president of the
Munich regional tax office at the time, was also more than favorable
to the buyer. In 1959, Ruth spent 7,000 deutschmarks to acquire the
Schoberhof, a 5,311-square-meter property on Lake Schliersee that had
been owned by Nazi war criminal Hans Frank, the "Butcher of Poland."
Neither the lucky bargain hunters nor the government brokers had much
to fear. The Audit Court did not submit its classified report until
1971. And it had hardly been made public before a note was placed into
the Finance Ministry files, to the effect that the public prosecutor's
office was terminating its investigations because the statute of
limitations had passed. The crime of breach of trust came under the
statute of limitations after five years, and the last objectionable
real estate sale had taken place eight years earlier.
As the auditors concluded, "none of the properties from the
confiscated assets was offered for sale by public auction."
And why should they have been? The only people who could have had an
interest in achieving the highest possible proceeds were the victims
of the Nazi regime. Under the 1948 Bavarian law governing confiscation
of property, the proceeds from these sales were to be paid to the
Foundation for the Redress of Nazi Injustices and, following its
dissolution, to the State Office of Restitution.
The Auerbach case illustrates the Bavarian authorities' reluctance in
an especially brazen way. Philipp Auerbach, president of the Bavarian
State Office of Restitution, had survived the Auschwitz and Buchenwald
concentration camps and, after the war, was a member of the Central
Council of Jews in Germany. The bulky Hamburg native had a powerful
voice and confidently represented, in Bavaria, the interests of those
who had been persecuted for political and racist reasons. Auerbach
rubbed people the wrong way and frequently received anti-Semitic mail
-- until the government stopped him.
On March 10, 1951, he was arrested while on a business trip and
accused of fraud, embezzlement, neglect of official duties and
wrongful disbursement of reparations money.
'Victim of His Duties'
A court riddled with old Nazi Party jurists sentenced the Holocaust
survivor to two-and-a-half years in prison. Two days later, the
45-year-old committed suicide with sleeping pills. An investigative
committed in the state parliament rehabilitated Auerbach two years
later, and little was left of the charges against him. Today the
following words are inscribed on his tombstone: "Helper of the Poorest
of the Poor, Victim of his Duties."
A complaint by the "Association of Jewish Invalids in Bavaria" also
documents the climate in the early 1950s. The State of Bavaria, the
letter to American occupation forces reads, was deliberately delaying
restitution payments, even as it was spending billions on the
non-Jewish population. Furthermore, the Christian Social Union, the
conservative political party that held sway in the state (as it still
does), was accused of neglecting the interests of Nazi victims for
political reasons. The population, still living in want itself, also
had little sympathy for the victims of Nazi dictatorship. Many felt
that the government should first attend to the needs of Germany's war
widows.
A similar mentality prevailed in Munich government offices, where a
fair number of collaborators and accessories from the Nazi days
worked. For instance, the general director of the Bavarian State
Painting Collections from 1953 to 1957 was the same man who served in
the position before 1945: Ernst Buchner. US historian Petropoulos
describes him as "part of Hitler's kleptocracy." According to
Petropoulos, Buchner played an important role in the seizure of Jewish
collections and the Aryanization of Jewish art galleries. After the
Night of the Long Knives pogrom, it was Buchner who opened the
National Museum to the Gestapo so that it could store Aryanized Jewish
collections there. He also advised Himmler and Hitler on the appraisal
of their looted art.
And he wasn't the only one. There were "experts" in key positions
throughout the art business in the postwar era who assisted in various
capacities in the biggest art theft of the 20th century. The artworks
they had looted now fell into their hands a second time. Not
surprisingly, they had little interest in tracking down Jewish owners.
The lack of attention Germans paid to the origins of their art
treasures did not go unnoticed by the Americans. They considered
selling what was left of the sensitive collections overseas. Perhaps
it would have been the only morally correct approach to putting an end
to Hitler's mad looting expedition. But the opportunity was missed.
Deliberate Cover Ups
In the mid-1960s, Germany began selling off portions of the Hitler
collection. In doing so, it resorted to traditional channels. Two of
the art dealers involved in the selloff, Kunsthaus Lempertz in Cologne
and Kunsthandlung Weinmuller in Munich, had also served as art
suppliers to Hitler until 1945.
According to the federal government, some 243 paintings, 47 works of
graphic art, 10 sculpture and 24 articles of furniture from Nazi
estates were sold at the time "to explore marketability." Because the
market was still sluggish, the proceeds amounted to only about 1
million deutschmarks. Once again, the money was not paid to victims'
rights groups but ended up in the federal budget instead, even though
the provenance of the artworks that had been sold off had by no means
been adequately investigated.
On the contrary, in some cases the origins were deliberately covered
up, as a number of sales by the State of Bavaria show.
An example from a December 1966 Weinmuller auction catalogue: Lot
number 1374, Vincent Sellaer, "Leda and the Swan." Regarding the
painting's provenance, the buyer is referred to the Thieme-Becker
Artists' Encyclopedia, Volume 30. On page 478, the encyclopedia lists
the Musee des Beaux-Arts in Valenciennes, France as the last owner.
The truth, however, can still today be found on the CCP file cards in
the German Federal Archives: "Property of Dr. R. Ley." Robert Ley, a
major war criminal, was head of organization for the Nazi Party and
head of the German Labor Front. The Allies found the painting --
clearly looted art -- in his possession in 1945. It was then
transferred to the State of Bavaria
By the time the rightful owners began searching for the painting, it
had long since been sold off. The new owner had no idea about its true
origins. In the end, the rightful owners were paid the paltry 2,200
deutschmarks that the painting had fetched at auction.
Hitler's Photographer
Under the leadership of then Governor Alfons Goppel, a former member
of the SA, the State of Bavaria sold 106 paintings in this dubious
manner. Most were hawked at up to 40 percent below their appraised
value.
And the proceeds? They were invested in new artworks, specifically
those with untainted provenance. Munich's Pinakothek der Moderne
acquired Georges Braque's "Woman with Mandolin" in this fashion. In
1967, the Bavarian state parliament had approved the purchase of the
work, valued at 1.25 million deutschmarks, for the State Paintings
Collections. The public was given a vague account of how the purchase
was to be financed: with a contribution from the state, a contribution
from the Association of Friends of the Collections and "sales from the
property of the state gallery." The latter referred specifically to
the proceeds from the scandalous sale of Nazi art.
Much of what went wrong in the restitution debate, that is, what
should have happened or what shouldn't have been allowed to happen, is
reflected in the case of one individual: Heinrich Hoffmann, born in
1885, Adolf Hitler's personal photographer since 1923.
Hoffmann, who Werner Friedmann, founder of the Munich Abendzeitung
newspaper, described as one of "the greediest parasites of the Hitler
plague," was one of the main profiteers of the Nazi state. The
publisher and photojournalist, as a member of the "Commission for the
Exploitation of Confiscated Works of Degenerate Art," advised the
buyers for the Fuhrer Museum in Linz and was named a professor of art
by Hitler himself. In 1943, his personal fortune was valued at almost
6 million reichsmarks. Four years later, the Americans listed 278
works of art that Hoffmann claimed, untruthfully, to have acquired
legally.
Hoffmann spent five years in prison after the war. In 1947, the Allies
classified him as a "Major Offender," which meant that his assets were
to be fully confiscated, a penalty he fought until 1956. Ultimately,
he was permitted to retain 20 percent of his assets. In October 1956,
the Bavarian Finance Ministry ordered "that all art objects (belonging
to Hoffmann) under administration of the Bavarian State Paintings
Collections" were to be "turned over to Mr. Heinrich Hoffmann, Nazi
Party photographer."
Receiving Honecker on Goring's Carpet
The paintings were apparently seen as a way to reinstate that portion
of his assets which the denazification ruling had granted him. The
estimated amount was 350,000 deutschmarks.
The act of mercy, largely unknown to this day, was the apparent result
of settlement negotiations between the photographer and the finance
minister. And Hoffmann was clever enough to keep the settlement quiet,
and to not accept cash. The files suggest that no one was interested
in wasting any further thought on the provenance of Hoffmann's
paintings.
The consequences became apparent just two years later when the
Austrian government lodged a complaint with Bavaria. According to
correspondence in the archives of the Bavarian Paintings Collections,
Austria demanded the return of two paintings from the Hoffmann
collection: works by Ferdinand Georg Waldmuller, the most important
painter of the Viennese Biedermaier movement. The Munich officials
replied somewhat sheepishly that they had already turned over the
paintings to Hitler's former confidant in 1954.
Even before reaching his settlement with the state government,
Hoffmann had repeatedly managed to reclaim individual paintings from
the state government's custody. A popular technique was to have
associates tell the state authorities that they had received a
painting from Hoffmann's collection as a gift during the war.
Hoffmann's physical therapist was one of them. On July 22, 1955, he
was handed "The Angler," a painting by Carl Spitzweg, at the Bavarian
Paintings Collections. He had claimed that the photographer had given
him the picture during the Hitler era as a token of his gratitude.
Conveniently, the art-loving physical therapist brought along his
personal art historian, who scrawled his signature on the handover
document: "Dr. Kai Muhlmann."
It was the same Muhlmann whom Goring had once named his special envoy
for art in the occupied eastern territories -- an SS man who had
verifiably seized Jewish collections and supplied them to Hoffmann.
Missing the Dignified Route
In the roughly seven decades since the end of World War II, there was
one moment in which Germany could have, and should have, succeeded in
embarking down a more dignified path. In December 1998, 44 countries
met at the Washington Conference, where they agreed to track down art
confiscated during the Nazi era and identify the original owners. A
"just and fair solution" for the return of the works or compensation
was to be found with the heirs. For the first time in decades, it was
once again possible to file restitution claims.
State Minister for Culture Michael Naumann, a member of the
center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), enthusiastically supported
the implementation of the Washington Declaration and, by virtue of his
office, expanded the definition of looted art: If Jews had sold
paintings to support themselves while fleeing the Nazis, they or their
heirs could also file claims for compensation. Naumann wrote to all
leading German museums and urged them to address provenance research.
But, as he recalls today, he received a response from only one
institution, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation.
To this day, provenance research has remained a stepchild of
accounting for Germany's Nazi past -- lacking in financial means and
human resources, but replete with accusations that heirs care more for
money than art. At least the federal government has now examined most
of the paintings it holds, and German museums are gradually following
suit.
The only specialist currently addressing the provenance of thousands
of works in the Bavarian Paintings Collections is art historian Andrea
Bambi. She likens her work to a police investigation. More than 10
years ago, her employer launched a research project to examine the
provenance of 126 pictures from the Goring collection, 72 of which are
still in the museum's hands. Bambi's job is to examine the rest of the
massive Nazi legacy.
It's a role that is both unique in Germany and rather peculiar. In the
spirit of the Washington agreement, she has an obligation to the
victims of the Nazi reign of terror. On the other hand, she is paid by
the museum and has lifetime tenure there. Her job is a balancing act,
because she has to satisfy both sides. Heirs, such as those of Jewish
art dealer Alfred Flechtheim, accuse the Collections of taking a
restrictive approach.
A Chaotic Collection
In most of the cases, the art detective's job is a difficult one.
Bambi walks out of her office, takes a sharp right around the corner
and enters a dimly lit library, where there is a beige folder on a
table. It contains parts of 3,500 document pages that Bambi has to
comb through to ascertain the origins of the Munich paintings. It's a
collection of loose sheets of paper, unsorted, with carbon copies on
parchment paper, and with poorly legible notes made by long-retired
colleagues. Estimated prices for sculptures are noted in red pencil on
the back of a calendar sheet from February 1 of some year. It's a
chaotic collection of documents.
Bambi says that she could use three staff members: an archivist, a
historian and an art historian. The estimated personnel costs would be
about ~@230,000 a year. The Bavarian finance minister, who holds both
the rights to Hitler's book "Mein Kampf" and the entire legacy of the
Fuhrer, has refused to commit any funds to the project so far.
There is clearly a need for the federal government to step in. If the
collections of the three Munich Pinakothek museums, the Schack
collection and the 12 satellite galleries are combined, a total of
4,400 paintings and 770 sculptures that have accumulated in the
Collections since 1933 will have to be examined.
The legacy is so extensive that not even Bavaria's senior-most
politicians are unaware of the former Nazi property they use on a
daily basis. The Bavarian State Chancellery, for instance, used a
building on Prinzregentenstrasse for representational purposes for
many years. Former Bavarian Governor and CSU Chairman Franz Josef
Strauss used the great hall for cabinet meetings, as well as to
receive state guests, like East German leader Erich Honecker.
A giant carpet was laid out on the floor of the room: 15.18 meters by
7.27 meters. The motif was Persian, but the carpet had been made in
India. It still has the number 6498 on the bottom, which the Americans
gave it at the CCP. The carpet also has a file card in the Federal
Archives, where it is referred to as a "giant carpet" that was found
in Berchtesgaden. It was on the Goring train.
Stuck Between Wooden Pallets
Very few people know what a significant role the carpet played in
German history. It allegedly was once laid out at Goring's Carinhall
estate, in the hallway to the library. And then there are photos of
East Germany's anti-fascist leader Honecker's 1987 visit to
Prinzregentenstrasse, with Strauss, Edmund Stoiber and a number of
other prominent Bavarian politicians. And it all happened on Goring's
rug.
Today the carpet is rolled up in a hallway at the Schack collection,
where it illustrates the size of the dilemma the Nazi legacy poses. No
one can use it anymore, and yet no one dares sell a carpet that is so
steeped in history. A potential buyer from the US turned up a few
years ago, but left empty-handed. Now the carpet lies, forgotten and
wrapped in plastic, between old wooden pallets.
Of course, forgetting is also sometimes part of a strategy. The State
Graphic Collection in Munich has 601 drawings and watercolors by the
painter Rudolf von Alt (1812 to 1905), once owned by the Nazi Party.
Hitler confidant Martin Bormann had procured the pictures for Hitler's
Obersalzberg retreat, the Fuhrer buildings in Berlin and Munich and
the planned Fuhrer museum in Linz. Drawings by the painter were also
on the list of artworks returned to Hitler's personal photographer,
Heinrich Hoffmann.
For decades, the Munich museum officials knew that, until the 1930s,
the works were primarily the property of Jewish business people from
Vienna. But what happened to them?
Since 1959, they were kept in two steel cabinets in the former Nazi
Party administration building, which is now home to the State Graphic
Collection. The status quo was only disturbed two years ago, when the
London-based Commission for Looted Art in Europe came calling and
filed claims for a watercolor. It demanded the return of the work "The
Old North Train Station in Vienna," which had belonged to a Jewish
woman from Brno, in the present-day Czech Republic, until 1938. The
Commission announced its intention to pursue other claims as well,
enough to finally push the State Graphic Collection to embark on a
provenance project.
Breathtakingly Absurd
There are references to Jewish collectors like Eissler, Goldmann,
Mautner and Zuckerkandl. The museum managers have promised to examine
their collection "as thoroughly as possible." And they regret, of
course, not having approached possible heirs directly.
It is a late start. And the fact that it has taken so long probably
has a lot to do with an earlier generation of curators and their
reluctance to exhibit the magnificent collection, for fear that Jewish
heirs could promptly file claims for the art.
For years, a number of museum directors pursued a breathtakingly
absurd line of reasoning. This attitude flared up as recently as 2006,
when a painting by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, "Berlin Street Scene," worth
about ~@30 million, was handed over to the granddaughter of a former
Jewish owner, who lived in England. The incident prompted Michael
Eissenhauer, president of the German Museums Association at the time,
to sharply criticize the "big business" of restitution art. "It's
worthwhile to embark on a hunt and take a look at which paintings
could inject new blood into the art market."
A "hunt"? By the victims? Former State Minister for Culture Naumann
recalls a speech by Berlin art auctioneer Bernd Schultz, which was
published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper, under the heading:
"They Say Holocaust, But They Mean Money." That speech, says Naumann,
"contained, without the man even noticing it -- which only made it
worse -- a classic anti-Semitic sentiment. Shameless."
People like Gunnar Schnabel, who represents the interests of the
heirs, continue to run up against the limits of openness and
cooperativeness among museums today. Since the Washington conference,
the Berlin attorney has taken on 30 cases relating to valuable
paintings. The work often escalates. "I begin by researching three
paintings and end up with 50," says Schnabel. On behalf of Jewish
heirs, Schnabel has wrested a painting by Carl Spitzweg ("Fiat
Justitia") from the Office of the Federal President. He is not
particularly conciliatory as he sums up his experiences: "Negotiations
with the museums remain tough and incredibly expensive."
No Evidence of Fairness
The cost of research is especially staggering for the victims.
Schnabel remembers the case of a colleague, in which a painting was
sold for [email protected] million after restitution. The legal fees amounted to
more than ~@2 million, all but eliminating the concept of compensation.
Schnabel accuses museums of sometimes "fighting with everything they
have, and stalling the negotiations." Even if they do examine their
collections once in a while, says the attorney, he knows of no cases
in which a museum has approached heirs directly.
Monika Tatzkow agrees with his assessment. She too represents Jewish
heirs, including her current clients, the heirs of Max Liebermann. A
great-grandson has hired the Berlin provenance researcher to examine
62 paintings, 51 drawings, 10 volumes of graphics and one watercolor.
The list includes top artists like Manet and Monet, and the works
could be in museums or private collections. "The evidentiary
requirements are getting more and more stringent and exaggerated,"
says Tatzkow. After 70 years, the heirs are still expected to furnish
the "last sales receipt," to ensure that the restitution is completely
watertight. The historian sees no evidence of fair and just
agreements, as stipulated in Washington.
Former State Minister for Culture Naumann wants the next federal
government to pass a law that goes beyond the moral impetus of the
Washington agreement. "Lawmakers have to outline more specific
restitution claims." He also has an idea of where the money for more
intensive provenance research should come from. There are currently
plans for a museum dedicated to the Sudeten Germans, those ethnic
Germans forced out of lands belonging to present-day Czech Republic.
The federal government together with the state government of Bavaria
is to provide ~@30 million for the facility. It would be the third or
the fourth such museum dedicated to the expellees, says Naumann, and
hardly anyone visits the ones that already exist. "Diverting ~@10
million from this budget and putting it into provenance research is a
possible approach." The states would also have to become more
committed, says Naumann.
Of course, there are countless cases in which clarification of the
ownership issue will no longer be possible, and in which doubts will
never be set aside. But does the rule have to be: When in doubt, rule
in favor of the state? Or the museum?
The Germans could learn from the Austrians. After the end of the war,
8,422 works of art, most of Jewish origin, were stored in a monastery
near Vienna. Only in 93 cases were heirs able to prove ownership.
After 50 years and many agonizing debates, the Republic of Austria
decided on a solution that was morally unassailable: An auction at
Christie's, with the proceeds benefiting Nazi victims. The October
1996 auction raised ~@11 million.
Could this be a solution for Goring's diamonds and Eva Braun's
platinum watch? Perhaps it would only reignite the trade in Nazi
devotional objects, as critics fear. But the Internet is already
filled with such objects today: Hitler's brass desk set, notes by
concentration camp doctor Josef Mengele, letters and postcards written
by Joseph Goebbels. A few rings and tiaras are hardly likely to make a
difference.
The idea at least merits a public debate. After all, the sale of the
precious objects ought to raise enough money to pay for a few
additional positions in provenance research.
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/germany-s-unsatisfactory-approach-to-art-looted-by-the-nazis-a-880363.html