Salt mine Altaussee

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The hiding place Altaussee salt mine was 1943-1945, a storage facility for valuable movable cultural property to protect against the effects of World War II in the municipality Altaussee in Austria.

Miner's house "Steinberghaus" at the tunnel entrance to the Altaussee salt mine

Storage 1943 to 1945

From 1943 onwards, a large depot for cultural goods was set up in the closed works (called workers) of the Altaussee salt mine . After the necessary paneling and carpentry work, art treasures from Austrian churches, monasteries and museums were put into storage from August 1943. From January 1944, the inventory of around 4,700 works of art was also stored, which Adolf Hitler had collected under the code name Special Order Linz and which was intended for the planned Führer Museum in Linz. A large part of this inventory is classified as Nazi-looted art .

Towards the end of the war, the entire depot contained around 6,500 paintings as well as numerous valuable statues, furniture, weapons, coins and libraries in eight disused factories ("workers"). The value of these cultural assets was estimated at approximately $ 3.5 billion after the war.

There is evidence that 567 works come from 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 research on the origin of the individual works continues to this day; it has been supported since August 2008 via an online database of the German Historical Museum .

Events at the end of the war

Group photo after the 500 kg bombs packed in wooden boxes were recovered from the Altaussee salt mine, May 1945

A series of dramatic events occurred in April 1945 when August Eigruber , the then Gauleiter in the Reichsgau Oberdonau , made the decision to destroy the cultural assets and, for this purpose, had eight aircraft bombs, each weighing 500 kg, transported into the tunnels of the salt mine. After hectic efforts and an elaborate plan, the saltworks management, under the then General Director Emmerich Pöchmüller , the rescue officers and miners were able to thwart the destruction of the art treasures and the destruction of the mine. In the night of May 3rd to 4th, 1945 the stored bombs were successfully removed from the mine. In order to avoid further access to the art treasures, the relevant accesses to the individual workers were then blown up. After the occupation of Altaussee on May 8, 1945 by an American infantry unit, the opening of the tunnel entrances began in the following days and the securing of the art treasures began.

Relocations from 1945 to 1948

The Ghent Altarpiece during the salvage from the Altaussee salt mine, 1945
Michelangelo's Bruges Madonna being salvaged from the Altaussee salt mine, 1945

In the American Army there was a staff of officers for the protection of monuments, art and archives ( Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Section ), which set up a Central Collecting Point for salvaged cultural goods in Munich . The majority of the art objects stored in the Altaussee salt mine also ended up in this CCP. As far as possible, these were subsequently returned to the states from which they came. In many cases, however, clarifying the ownership structure was difficult. The final evacuation of the cultural assets from the Altaussee salt mine could only be completed late.

Commemoration

The Salzwelten show mine focuses on this episode during the regular tours. In the summer, special tours of art collection are offered. In 2019 an art warehouse was staged in a modern way and made accessible to visitors.

The East caterpillar tractor that transported the art treasures of the Kunsthistorisches Museum , which had been made available for the so-called Führermuseum , to the salt mine is now on display in the Vienna Army History Museum (in the projected mountain version).

literature

  • Eva Frodl-Kraft : Legacy at Risk . Austria's Monument Protection and Preservation 1918–1945, Böhlau Verlag, Vienna 1997, ISBN 3-205-98757-8 .
  • Gertrud Gerhartl , Roman Schlauss, Dorothee Horn: Wiener Neustadt's art monuments in the Second World War. Provision for the preservation of the cultural heritage in times of need and danger. Foreword by Mayor Hans Barwitzius, book accompanying the special exhibition of the Wiener Neustadt City Museum and the Austrian Society for the Protection of Cultural Property in St. Peter an der Sperr, May 5 to June 10, 1982, Wiener Neustadt 1982.
  • Katharina Hammer: Shine in the dark. The salvage of art treasures in the Salzkammergut at the end of the Second World War. Österreichischer Bundesverlag 1987, ISBN 3-215-06242-9 .
  • Rainer Hilbrand: The art assets in Altaussee Salzberg 1943-1945. Burgverein Pflindsberg, Altaussee approx. 1985, (= series of publications of the Altaussee Literature and Local History Museum 2, ZDB -ID 1196123-5 ).
  • Veronika Hofer (Ed.): Mountain of Treasures. The dramatic rescue of European art in the Altaussee salt mine. Prospera-Verlag, Scharnstein 2006, ISBN 3-9501600-1-9 .
  • Konrad Kramar: Mission Michelangelo. How the miners from Altaussee saved Hitler's looted art from destruction . Residenz Verlag, Vienna, 2013. ISBN 3-7017-3315-5 .
  • 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 .
  • Emmerich Pöchmüller: World art treasures in danger . Pallas Verlag, Salzburg, 1948.
  • Wolfgang Weiß: Be careful, marble - don't fall! The true story of saving the art treasures in the Altaussee salt pans in 1945. Ares Verlag, 2009, ISBN 978-3-902475-77-0 .

media

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ German Historical Museum: Linz Collection , Database. (accessed on August 11, 2011).
  2. ^ Deutsches Historisches Museum: Linzer Sammlung, database , accessed on August 11, 2011
  3. ^ Manfried Rauchsteiner , Manfred Litscher (Ed.): The Army History Museum in Vienna . Graz, Vienna 2000 p. 82.

Coordinates: 47 ° 39 ′ 5 ″  N , 13 ° 44 ′ 21 ″  E