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WIKIMAG n. 9 - Agosto 2013
Nazi plunder
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German
Nazi plunder refers to
art
theft and other items stolen as a result of the
organized looting of European countries during the time of the
Third Reich by agents acting on behalf of the ruling
Nazi Party of
Germany.
Plundering occurred from 1933 until the end of
World War II, particularly by military units known as the
Kunstschutz, although most plunder was acquired during the war. In
addition to lucre, such as silver and currency, cultural items of great
significance were stolen, including paintings, ceramics, books, and
religious treasures. Although most of these items were recovered by the
Allies immediately following the war, many more are still missing.
Currently, there is an international effort underway to identify Nazi
plunder that still remains unaccounted for, with the aim of ultimately
returning the items to the rightful owners or their families.
German Nazi looting organizations
While the Nazis were in power, they plundered cultural property from
every territory they occupied. This was conducted in a systematic manner
with organizations specifically created to determine which public and
private collections were most valuable to the Nazi Regime. Some of the
objects were earmarked for Hitler's never realized
Führermuseum, some objects went to other high-ranking officials such
as
Hermann Göring, while other objects were traded to fund Nazi
activities.
In 1940, an organization known as the
Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg für die Besetzten Gebiete
(The
Reichsleiter Rosenberg Institute for the Occupied Territories), or
ERR, was formed, headed for
Alfred Rosenberg by
Gerhard Utikal. The first operating unit, the western branch for
France, Belgium and the Netherlands, called the Dienststelle Westen,
was located in Paris. The chief of this Dienststelle was
Kurt von Behr. Its original purpose was to collect
Jewish and
Freemasonic books and documents, either for destruction, or for
removal to Germany for further "study". However, late in 1940,
Hermann Göring, who in fact controlled the ERR, issued an order that
effectively changed the mission of the ERR, mandating it to seize
"Jewish" art collections and other objects. The
war loot had to be collected in a central place in Paris, the
Museum Jeu de Paume. At this collection point worked
art historians and other personnel who inventoried the loot before
sending it to Germany. Göring also commanded that the loot would first
be divided between Hitler and himself. For this reason, from the end of
1940 to the end of 1942 he traveled twenty times to Paris. In the Museum
Jeu de Paume, art dealer
Bruno Lohse staged 20 expositions of the newly looted art objects,
especially for Göring, from which Göring selected at least 594 pieces
for his own collection.[1]
Göring made Lohse his liaison-officer and installed him in the ERR in
March 1941 as the deputy leader of this unit. Items which Hitler and
Göring did not want were made available to other Nazi leaders. Under
Rosenberg and Göring's leadership, the ERR seized 21,903 art objects
from German-occupied countries.[2]
Other Nazi looting organizations included the Dienststelle Mühlmann,
operated by
Kajetan Mühlmann, which Göring also controlled and operated
primarily in the Netherlands, Belgium, and a Sonderkommando Kuensberg
connected to the minister of foreign affairs
Joachim von Ribbentrop, which operated first in France, then in
Russia and North Africa.
Hitler later ordered that all confiscated works of art were to be
made directly available to him. Art collections from prominent Jewish
families, including the
Rothschilds, the Rosenbergs and the
Goudstikkers and the Schloss Family were targeted because of their
significant value. By the end of the war, the Third Reich amassed
hundreds of thousands of cultural objects.
In Western Europe, with the advancing German troops, were elements of
the 'von Ribbentrop Battalion', named after
Joachim von Ribbentrop. These men were responsible for entering
private and institutional libraries in the occupied countries and
removing any materials of interest to the Germans, especially items of
scientific, technical or other informational value.[3]
Soviet Union
To investigate and estimate Nazi plunder in the
USSR during 1941 through 1945, the
Soviet State Extraordinary Commission for Ascertaining and Investigating
the Crimes Committed by the German-Fascist Invaders and Their
Accomplices was formed on 2 November 1942. During the
Great Patriotic War and afterwards, until 1991, the Commission
collected materials on Nazi crimes in the USSR, including incidents of
plunder. Immediately following the war, the Commission outlined damage
in detail to sixty-four of the most valuable Soviet museums, out of 427
damaged ones. In the
Russian SFSR, 173 museums were found to have been plundered by the
Nazis, with looted items numbering in the hundreds of thousands.
After the
dissolution of the USSR, the
Government of the Russian Federation formed the State Commission for
the Restitution of Cultural Valuables to replace the Soviet Commission.
Experts from this Russian institution originally consulted the work of
the Soviet Commission, yet continue to catalogue artworks lost during
the war museum by museum. As of 2008, lost artworks of 14 museums and
the libraries of
Voronezh Oblast,
Kursk Oblast,
Pskov Oblast,
Rostov Oblast,
Smolensk Oblast,
Northern Caucasus,
Gatchina,
Peterhof Palace,
Tsarskoye Selo (Pushkin),
Novgorod and
Novgorod Oblast, as well as the bodies of the Russian State Archives
and
CPSU Archives, were catalogued in 15 volumes, all of which were made
available online. They contain detailed information on 1,148,908 items
of lost artworks. The total number of lost items is unknown so far,
because cataloguing work for other damaged Russian museums is ongoing.[4]
Alfred Rosenberg commanded the so-called Einsatzstab Reichleiter
Rosenberg [ERR] für die Besetzten Gebiete, which was responsible for
collecting art, books, and cultural objects from invaded countries, and
also transferred their captured library collections back to Berlin
during the retreat from Russia. “In their search for 'research
materials' ERR teams and the Wehrmacht visited 375 archival
institutions, 402 museums, 531 institutes, and 957 libraries in Eastern
Europe alone”.[5]
The ERR also operated in the early days of the blitzkrieg of the Low
Countries. This caused some confusion about authority, priority, and the
chain of command among the German Army, the von Rippentropp Battalion
and the Gestapo, and as a result of personal looting among the Army
officers and troops. These ERR teams were, however, very effective. One
account estimates that from the Soviet Union alone: “one hundred
thousand geographical maps were taken on ideological grounds, for
academic research, as means for political, geographical and economic
information on Soviet cities and regions, or as collector's items”.[5]
Poland
After the occupation of Poland by German forces in September 1939,
the Nazi regime
attempted to exterminate its upper classes as well as its culture.[6]
Thousands of art objects were looted, as the Nazis systematically
carried out a plan of looting prepared even before the start of
hostilities. 25 museums and many other facilities were destroyed.[7]
The total cost of German Nazi theft and destruction of Polish art is
estimated at 20 billion dollars, or an estimated 43% of Polish cultural
heritage; over 516,000 individual art pieces were looted, including
2,800 paintings by European painters; 11,000 paintings by Polish
painters; 1,400 sculptures; 75,000 manuscripts; 25,000 maps; 90,000
books, including over 20,000 printed before 1800; and hundreds of
thousands of other items of artistic and historical value. Germany still
has much Polish material looted during World War II. For decades there
have been mostly futile negotiations between Poland and Germany
concerning the return of the looted property.[8]
The
Führermuseum
Main article:
Führermuseum
After Hitler became Chancellor, he made plans to transform his home
city of
Linz, Austria into the Third Reich's capital city for the arts.
Hitler hired architects to work from his own designs to build several
galleries and museums, which would collectively be known as the
Führermuseum. Hitler wanted to fill his museum with the greatest art
treasures in the world, and believed that most of the world's finest art
belonged to Germany after having been looted during the Napoleonic and
First World wars.
The Hermann Göring Collection
The
Hermann Göring Collection, a personal collection of
Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, was another large collection
including confiscated property, consisted of approximately 50 percent of
works of art confiscated from the enemies of the Reich.[9]
Assembled in large measure by art dealer
Bruno Lohse, Göring's adviser and ERR representative in Paris, in
1945 the collection included over 2,000 individual pieces including more
than 300 paintings. The
U.S. National Archives and Records Administration's Consolidated
Interrogation Report No. 2 states that Göring never crudely looted,
instead he always managed "to find a way of giving at least the
appearance of honesty, by a token payment or promise thereof to the
confiscation authorities. Although he and his agents never had an
official connection with the German confiscation organizations, they
nevertheless used them to the fullest extent possible."[9]
Nazi
storage of looted objects
The Third Reich amassed hundreds of thousands of objects from
occupied nations and stored them in several key locations, such as
Musée Jeu de Paume in Paris and the Nazi headquarters in
Munich.
However, as the
Allied forces gained advantage in the war and bombed Germany's
cities and historic institutions, Germany "began storing the artworks in
salt mines and caves for protection from Allied bombing raids. These
mines and caves offered the appropriate humidity and temperature
conditions for artworks."[10]
Post war
recovery effort
Immediate
aftermath
The Allies created special commissions, such as the
Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives (MFAA) organization to help
protect famous European monuments from destruction, and after the war,
to travel to once-Nazi-occupied
territories to find Nazi art repositories. In 1944 and 1945 one of
the greatest challenges for the "Monuments Men" was to keep Allied
forces from plundering and "taking artworks and sending them home to
friends and family"; When "off-limits" warning signs failed to protect
the artworks the "Monuments Men" started to mark the storage places with
white tape, which was used by Allied troops as a warning sign for
unexploded mines.[10]
They recovered thousands of objects that were pillaged by the Nazis.
The allies found these plundered artworks in over 1,050 repositories
in Germany and Austria at the end of World War II. In summer 1945, Capt.
Walter Farmer became the collecting point's first director. The first
shipment of artworks arriving at
Wiesbaden Collection Point included cases of antiquities, Egyptian
art, Islamic artifacts, and paintings from the
Kaiser Friedrich Museum. The collecting point also received
materials from the
Reichsbank and Nazi-looted, Polish,
liturgical collections. At its height, Wiesbaden stored, identified,
and restituted approximately 700,000 individual objects including
paintings and sculptures, mainly to keep them away from the Soviet Army
and wartime reparations.[11]
The Allies collected the plundered artworks and stored them in a
Central Collection Point in Munich until they could be returned. The
identifiable works of art were returned to the countries from which they
were taken, and the governments of each nation would then return the
objects to the proper owners. When the Munich collection point was
closed, the owners of many of the objects had not been found. Nations
were also unable to find all of the owners or to verify that they were
dead. Today, there are many organizations put in place to help return
the stolen items taken from the Jewish people. For example: Project
Heart, the World Jewish Restitution Organization, and The Claims
Conference.
Further reading:
United States restitution to the Soviet Union
Later developments
Although most of the stolen artworks and antiques were documented,
found or recovered "by the victorious Allied armies ... principally
hidden away in salt mines, tunnels, and secluded castles",[12]
many artworks have never been returned to their rightful owners.
Art
dealers,
galleries and
museums
world-wide have been compelled to research their collection's
provenance in order to investigate claims that some of the work was
acquired after it had been stolen from its original owners.[13]
Already in 1985, years before American museums recognized the issue and
before the international conference on Nazi-looted assets of
Holocaust victims, European countries released inventory lists of
works of art, coins and medals "that were confiscated from Jews by the
Nazis during World War II, and announced the details of a process for
returning the works to their owners and rightful heirs."[14]
In 1998 an
Austrian
advisory panel recommended the return of 6,292
objets d'art to their legal owners (most of whom are
Jews), under the terms of a 1998 restitution law.[15]
Nazi concentration camp and
death camp victims had to strip completely before their murder, and
all their personal belongings were stolen. The very valuable items such
as
gold coins,
rings,
spectacles,
jewellry and other
precious metal items were sent to the
Reichsbank for conversion to
bullion.
The value was then credited to
SS accounts.
Pieces of art looted by the Nazis can still be found in
Russian/Soviet[17]
and American institutions: the
Metropolitan Museum of Art revealed a list of 393 paintings that
have gaps in their provenance during the Nazi Era, the
Art Institute of Chicago has posted a listing of more than 500 works
"for which links in the chain of ownership for the years 1933–1945 are
still unclear or not yet fully determined.", the
San Diego Museum of Art[18]
and the
Los Angeles County Museum of Art[19]
provide lists on the internet to determine if art items within their
collection were stolen by the Nazis.
Stuart Eizenstat, the undersecretary of state and head of the U.S.
delegation sponsoring the 1998 international conference on Nazi-looted
assets of Holocaust victims in Washington conference stated that "From
now on, ... the sale, purchase, exchange and display of art from this
period will be addressed with greater sensitivity and a higher
international standard of responsibility."[20]
After the conference the
Association of Art Museum Directors developed guidelines which
require museums to review the provenance or history of their
collections, focusing especially on art looted by the Nazis.[21]
The
National Gallery of Art in Washington identified more than 400
European paintings with gaps in their provenance during World War II
era.[21]
One particular piece of art, "Still Life with Fruit and Game" by the
16th-century Flemish painter
Frans Snyders, was sold by
Karl Haberstock, whom the
World Jewish Congress describes as "one of the most notorious Nazi
art dealers."[21]
In 2000 the New York City's
Museum of Modern Art still told Congress that they were "not aware
of a single Nazi-tainted work of art in our collection, of the more than
100,000" they held.[21]
However, restitution efforts initiated by German politicians have not
been free of controversy, either. As the German law for restitution
applies to "cultural assets lost as a result of Nazi persecution, "which
includes paintings that Jews who emigrated from Germany sold to support
themselves,[22]
pretty much any trade involving Jews in that era is affected, and the
benefit of the doubt is given to claimants. German leftist politicians
Klaus Wowereit (SPD, mayor of
Berlin)
and
Thomas Flierl (Linkspartei)
were sued in 2006 for being overly willing to give away the 1913
painting
Berliner Straßenszene of expressionist
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, which was in Berlin's
Brücke Museum. On display in Cologne in 1937, it had been sold for
3,000
Reichsmark by a Jewish family residing in Switzerland to a German
collector. This sum is considered by experts to have been well over the
market price.[23]
The museum, which obtained the painting in 1980 after several ownership
changes, could not prove that the family actually received the money. It
was restituted[24]
to the heiress of the former owners, and she had it auctioned off for
$38.1 Million.[25]
Effects
of Nazi looting today
Approximately 20% of the art in Europe was looted by the Nazis, and
there are well over 100,000 items that have not been returned to their
rightful owners.[26]
The majority of what is still missing includes everyday objects such as
china, crystal or silver.
Some objects of great cultural significance remain missing, though no
one knows how many. This is a major issue for the
art market, since legitimate organizations do not want to deal in
objects with unclear ownership titles. Since the mid 1990s, after
several books, magazines, and newspapers began exposing the subject to
the general public, many dealers, auction houses and museums have grown
more careful about checking the provenance of objects that are available
for purchase in case they are looted. Some museums in the United States
and elsewhere have agreed to check the provenance of works in their
collections with the implied promise that suspect works would be
returned to rightful owners if the evidence so dictates. But the process
is time-consuming and slow, and very few disputed works have been found
in public collections.[citation
needed]
In the last two decades, information has become more accessible due
to political and economic changes as well as advances in technology.
Privacy laws in some countries have expired so records that were once
difficult to obtain are now open to the public. Information from former
Soviet countries that was previously unobtainable is now available, and
many organisations have posted information online, making it widely
accessible.[citation
needed]
In addition to the role of courts in determining restitution or
compensation, some states have created official bodies for the
consideration and resolution of claims. In the United Kingdom, the
Spoliation Advisory Panel advises the
Department for Culture, Media and Sport on such claims.[27]
The
International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR), a not-for-profit
educational and research organization, has helped provide information
leading to restitution.[citation
needed]
See also
-
^ Petropoulos,
Jonathan. Art As Politics in the Third Reich, University
of North Carolina Press, 1999, p. 190.
-
^
Walker, Andrew (2006). Nazi War
Trials. United Kingdom: Pocket Essentials. p. 141.
ISBN 1-903047-50-1.
-
^
Hadden, R.L. (2008).
"The Heringen Collection of the US Geological Survey Library,
Reston, Virginia". Earth Sciences History: Journal of the
History of the Earth Sciences Society. 27, no. 2: 247.
-
^
(Russian)
Online Catalogue of Lost Artworks,
Federal Agency of Culture and Cinematography of the
Russian Federation
- ^
a
b
Hadden, R.L. 2008.
"The Heringen Collection of the US Geological Survey Library,
Reston, Virginia". Earth Sciences History: Journal of the
History of the Earth Sciences Society. 27, no. 2: 248–249.
-
^
Olsak-Glass, Judith (January 1999).
"Review of Piotrowski's Poland's Holocaust".
Sarmatian Review.
Retrieved 2008-01-24.
-
^
(Polish)
Rewindykacja dóbr kultury at Polish Ministry of Foreign
Affairs
-
^
(Polish)
Rosjanie oddają skradzione dzieła sztuki, Gazeta Wyborcza,
2007-10-14
-
^
a
b
Rothfeld, Anne.
"Nazi Looted Art". The Holocaust Records Preservation
Project, Part 1, Fall 2002, Vol. 34, No. 3. The U.S.
National Archives and Records Administration.
-
^
a
b
Rothfeld, Anne.
"Nazi Looted Art". The Holocaust Records Preservation
Project, Part 2. Fall 2002, Vol. 34, No. 3. The
U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
-
^
h-net.org
-
^
"Nuremberg Trial Proceedings Vol. 4. Twenty-Second Day. December
18, 1945, Morning Session". yale.edu.
-
^
"Jewish Heirs Want Their Art Back". Spiegel Online
International. November 8, 2006.
-
^ Douglas C McGill.
Austria Sets Up System to Yield Nazi-Held Art.
New York Times. December 3, 1985
-
^
"Austria prepares restitution of Nazi art loot". The
Jerusalem Post. September 9, 1998.
-
^
Schnapp, Daniel.
"Raphael's Portrait of a Young Man Rediscovered". Art Law.
Retrieved 19 April 2013.
-
^ Honan, William H.
Soviets Reported to Hide Looted Art. New York Times.
March 30, 1991, Section 1, Page 9, Column 4, 887 words
-
^
San Diego Museum of Art
-
^
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
-
^
"Guidelines set for returning Nazi-looted art. Conference calls
for 'just and fair solution'". CNN. December 3, 1998.
- ^
a
b
c
d
"Manhattan museum plans to issue Holocaust looted-art study".
CNN. March 2, 2000.
-
^
Der Spiegel
-
^
Trotz Strafanzeige: Kirchner-Gemälde wird versteigert.
Der Spiegel. November 7, 2006.
-
^
Entartete Kunst: Kirchner-Gemälde wieder in Privatbesitz.
-
^
Christie's Auction raises ghosts painting confiscated by the
Nazis sold for $38.1 Million. Der Spiegel.
-
^
Bradsher, Greg (November 1997).
"Documenting Nazi Plunder of European Art". The National
Archives of the United States.
-
^
Spoliation Advisory Panel home page
Further reading
-
Edsel, Robert M. (2006).
Rescuing Da Vinci. Laurel Publishing.
ISBN 0-9774349-0-7.
-
Feliciano, Hector. The Lost Museum,
Harper Collins, New York, 1997
- Hadden, R.L. 2008. "The
Heringen Collection of the US Geological Survey Library, Reston,
Virginia". Earth Sciences History : Journal of the History of
the Earth Sciences Society. 27, no. 2: pages 242–265.
- Harclerode, Peter and Pittaway, Brendan. The Lost Masters:
WWII and the Looting of Europe's Treasurehouses,
Orion Books, London, 1999
- Löhr, Hanns Christian: Das Braune Haus der Kunst: Hitler und
der Sonderauftrag Linz,
Akademie-Verlag, 2005
ISBN 3-05-004156-0
-
Nicholas, Lynn.
The Rape of Europa,
Macmillan Publishers, London, 1994
O'Connor, Anne-Marie (2012). The Lady in Gold, The Extraordinary Tale
of Gustav Klimt's Masterpiece, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, Alfred A.
Knopf, New York,
ISBN 0-307-26564-1.
-
Petropoulos, Jonathan. Art as Politics in the Third Reich,
University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1996
- Petropoulos, Jonathan. The Faustian Bargain: The Art World in
Nazi Germany,
Penguin Press, London, 2000
- Roxan, David and Wanstall, Ken. The Jackdaw of Linz; the
Story of Hitler's Art Thefts. London,
Cassell, 1964.
- Schwarz, Birgit: Hitler's Museum. Die Fotoalben
Gemäldegalerie Linz, Wien, Böhlau Verlag, 2004
ISBN 3-205-77054-4
- Slany, William Z. "U.S. Interagency Report on U.S. and Allied
Wartime and Post Postwar Relations and Negotiations with
Argentina,Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Turkey on Looted Gold and
German External Assets." American University International Law
Review 14, no. 1 (1998): 147-153.
-
OSS Report: Activity of the Einsatzstab Rosenberg in France, 15
August 1945
-
Aly, Götz: Hitler's Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and
the Nazi Welfare State.
Metropolitan Books. January, 2007
ISBN 0-8050-7926-2,
ISBN 978-0-8050-7926-5
-
Nancy Yeide: Beyond Dreams of Avarice: The
Hermann Göring Collection.
Laurel Publishing. 2009.
ISBN 978-0-9774349-1-6 (Foreword by
Robert M. Edsel)
-
Robert M. Edsel (Contributions by Brett Witter): Monuments
Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in
History.
Center Street. 2009.
ISBN 978-1-59995-149-2
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