Special order Linz

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The Special Mission Linz was one of Adolf Hitler used and reporting directly to him informal organization that had commissioned artworks for Hitler in Linz planned on the Danube Führermuseum collect by seizing and purchase and Nazi-looted art to the museums of the Greater German Reich to distribute .

organization

The first director and formative figure was the long-time director of the Dresden Gemäldegalerie , Hans Posse , which is why the special order Linz was organizationally linked to the Gemäldegalerie in Dresden and also had its administrative headquarters there. After Posse's death in December 1942, the painting expert Hermann Voss took over his duties as gallery manager in Dresden and as a special representative for the Führermuseum. Permanent employees of the Linz special order included the art historians Robert Oertel , Erhard Göpel and Gottfried Reimer . The connection with Hitler was established by Martin Bormann , who conducted all correspondence and organized contact with Posse, Voss and their employees, usually through documents that he submitted to Hitler and his answer, from October 1942 mainly through his personal advisor Helmut von Hummel (1910–2012). Friedrich Wolffhardt , who was a friend of Bormann and who organized the purchase of books and manuscripts, Fritz Dworschak as a specialist in coinage , Leopold Ruprecht as an expert on weapons and armaments , and Kurt Hanssen as an administrative specialist (later replaced by von Hummel) also worked for the special order in Linz. and Hans Heinrich Lammers , who organized the finances; The architect Hans Reger from Munich was also responsible for cataloging.

A large part of the collected works of art were forcibly stolen from their owners. For works of art in Jewish possession, the regulation was passed that they could only be freely sold up to a price of 1,000 marks; as a result, prices fell and there was no longer any question of free sales. Many Jews did emergency sales .

Building the collection

Hitler's commission to his special commissioner consisted in a first step in making a selection for Linz from a collection of paintings he had compiled, in order to then expand this in a second step with confiscated paintings and subsequently make a museum collection through purchases on the European art market systematic claim. Posse took up his position on July 1, 1939. When he died in December 1942, he had collected 1,200 paintings for the Führermuseum . Since the paintings were stored in different depots, the planned Linz gallery inventory was documented for Hitler in a multi-volume photo catalog (title Gemäldegalerie Linz ). Until Posse's death, these photo albums were the main source of images for the collection of the Gemäldegalerie. The Linz painting collection was intended to provide an overview of European painting history with a focus on German painting of the 19th century, as defined by Hitler and in line with his personal interests.

In July 1939 Posse inspected the works of art from Jewish property that had been confiscated in Austria after the annexation of Austria in the central depot in the Vienna Hofburg . In the same month he was given the task of distributing all the looted art to the regional and culinary museums of the former Austria. With the so-called Fuehrer's reservation of June 18, 1938 , Hitler had granted himself sole power of disposal over the looted art holdings . He first wanted to use the works of art to equip the public museums of the German Reich and later museums in the occupied eastern territories. This art distribution program was carried out in Austria; for the remaining parts of the German Reich, the measures were postponed until the post-war period. Nevertheless, it shaped the work of the special order more and more: Posse bought entire art collections, for example the Lanz collection or the Fritz Mannheimer collection . The Dutch art dealers who sold several works to the special order Linz included the art dealers Frederic Müller & Co., Gustav Cramer and MHH Franssen as well as the Jewish art dealer Kurt Walter Bachstitz and the art dealers Nathan and Benjamin Katz.

Posse was seldom there, instead he used various art dealers. The main dealer for Posse was Karl Haberstock . The Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce (ERR) confiscated from 1941 art collections of Jewish owners in France, from which Hitler and Goering objects were found. Due to a decision by Hitler, Rosenberg retained control of most of the confiscations until the end of the war.

The design of the building complex to house the collection was delivered under the direction of Albert Speer . In addition to the museum building as the “Führer Museum”, this also included a theater, a parade ground, a library (“ Führerbibliothek ”) and its own “Führer Hotel” surrounded by huge boulevards.

In December 1942 Posse died of cancer. As his successor as gallery manager in Dresden and special commissioner, the director of the picture gallery of the Nassau State Museum, Hermann Voss , was appointed on Posses recommendation by decision of Hitler , who officially began his service in early March 1943. Since Voss did not get on so well with Haberstock, Hildebrand Gurlitt became the main art dealer for the special order Linz under his aegis . His area of ​​work was mainly Paris, where, due to the robbery of Jews who were persecuted and deported , there were many opportunities to procure looted art for the special order Linz.

Landfill

The peasant wedding of Pieter Bruegel the Elder is recovered, Altaussee, 1945

Originally, the Führerbau in Munich was supposed to serve as a depot for the works of art. The intention behind this was to allow Hitler a comfortable inspection and control. In view of the rapidly growing number of stocks, however, additional depots had to be set up from 1940, mainly in the Upper Danube Gau , which was considered the "air raid shelter of the German Reich". They were found in the Kremsmünster and Hohenfurth / Vyšší Brod monasteries expropriated by the National Socialists . With the escalation of the bombing war, air protection measures became necessary for the art depots, while the search for a bomb-proof central depot, which was found in the Altaussee salt mine at the end of 1943, intensified .

The art depot was confiscated by the US Army in May 1945 and the works of art were brought to the Central Collecting Point in Munich in the following months . This is where the difficult process of return began, which has not yet been completed. Of the approximately 4,700 works that are listed in the database of the German Historical Museum, 567 are verifiably confiscated Jewish property from Germany, Austria, France, the Czech Republic, Poland and Russia. Another 1,000 or so paintings came from forced sales or were brought in by Nazi agencies. Around 3,200 objects were acquired through art dealers or private purchases, an unknown part of which came from collections that had been illegally confiscated or sold under duress as so-called “refugee goods”. The extensive confiscations in Austria are included in this database, as far as Posse had selected them for the concerns of the special order. They were researched in 2013–2016 by a research project at the University of Vienna in cooperation with the Commission for Provenance Research at the Federal Chancellery.

Online database

In cooperation with the Federal Office for Central Services and Unresolved Property Issues, the German Historical Museum created an image database with over 6600 images, graphic works, sculptures, furniture, porcelain works and tapestries . This merging of photos of the objects and the inventory of the DHM's index cards has been completely available on the Internet since August 2008.

See also

literature

  • Ernst Kubin: Special order Linz. The Adolf Hitler art collection. Construction, destruction plan, rescue. A thriller of cultural history. ORAC book and magazine publisher, Vienna 1989, ISBN 3-7015-0168-8 .
  • Birgit Schwarz: Hitler's Museum. The photo albums Gemäldegalerie Linz. Documents on the “Führer Museum”. Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2004, ISBN 3-205-77054-4 .
  • Hanns Christian Löhr : The Brown House of Art. Hitler and the "special order Linz" . 2nd edition, Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-7861-2736-9 .
  • Birgit Schwarz: Special order for Linz and the “Führermuseum”. In: Inka Bertz, Michael Dorrmann (eds.): Robbery and restitution. Jewish property from 1933 to the present day. Wallstein, Göttingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-8353-0361-4 (exhibition catalog of the Jewish Museum Frankfurt a. M.), pp. 127–132.
  • Birgit Kirchmayr: “The Führer’s Capital of Culture”? Notes on art, culture and National Socialism in Upper Austria and Linz. In: Birgit Kirchmayr (Ed.): “The Führer’s Capital of Culture”. Art and National Socialism in Linz and Upper Austria. Verlag für Literatur, Kunst und Musikalien, Linz 2008, ISBN 978-3-85252-967-7 (exhibition catalog of the Upper Austrian State Museums), pp. 33–58.
  • Birgit Schwarz: Mania for genius: Hitler and art. Böhlau, Vienna 2009, ISBN 978-3-205-78307-7 .
  • Kathrin Iselt: “The Führer’s Special Representative”. The art historian and museum man Hermann Voss (1884–1969) (= Studies on Art , Volume 20). Böhlau, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2010, ISBN 978-3-41220572-0 (also dissertation at TU Dresden, 2009).
  • Hanns Christian Löhr: Hitler's Linz, the "home district of the Führer". Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-86153-736-6 .
  • Birgit Schwarz: On orders from the Führer. Hitler and the Nazi art theft. Konrad Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart / Darmstadt 2014. ISBN 978-3-8062-2958-5 .

Web links

Commons : Special order Linz  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Schwarz 2014
  2. ↑ The organization
  3. ^ Cris Whetton: Hitler's Fortune. Pen & Sword, London 2004, p. 268.
  4. ^ Theodor Brückler (Ed.): Art theft, art recovery and restitution in Austria 1938 to today . Böhlau Vienna 1999, ISBN 978-3205989264 , p. 19 ( p. 15, note 13 ).
  5. ^ Birgit Schwarz: Hitler's Museum . The photo albums Gemäldegalerie Linz. Documents on the “Führer Museum”. Böhlau, Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-205-77054-4 , p. 27 ff .
  6. ↑ Birgit Schwarz: Hitler's gallery between book covers: The photo albums “Gemäldegalerie Linz” . In: Recollecting. Robbery and Restitution. Book accompanying the exhibition at the MAK Vienna 2008/2009 . Passagen Verlag, Vienna 2009, p. 151 .
  7. ^ Hanns Christian Löhr, The Brown House of Art: Hitler and the "Special Order Linz": Visions, Crimes, Losses . Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-05-004156-0 .
  8. ↑ Dutch Restitutie Commissie RC 1.90 B Archived copy ( Memento of the original of April 8, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed August 8, 2014. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.restitutiecommissie.nl
  9. ^ Hanns Christian Löhr: New find. A new document on the "Special Order Linz" , In: Kunstchronik 69, Heft 1, 2016, pp. 2-7.
  10. ↑ The "Führer Museum"
  11. ^ Deutsches Historisches Museum: Linzer Sammlung, database , accessed on August 11, 2011.
  12. ^ "Special order Ostmark": Hitler's art theft and museum policy in Austria. University of Vienna , accessed on March 27, 2019.
  13. ↑ DHM press release of July 31, 2008: The database “Collection of the Special Order Linz” is online.
  14. ↑ Review: FAZ of December 9, 2010, p. 34: A connoisseur for the collection of the Führer.