David Friedmann (entrepreneur)

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David Friedmann ( January 24, 1857 in Rawitsch - February 15, 1942 in Breslau ) was a German entrepreneur and art collector .

Life, work

Friedmann was a Jew, the son of the Silesian merchant Louis Friedmann (around 1830-1894) and his wife Seraphine, née Wachtel (died on May 16, 1890). He had a younger brother, Siegmund Friedmann (1859–1931). David Friedmann became a successful entrepreneur. In 1882 he married Laura, née Friedmann, daughter of the manor owner and royal councilor Gustav Friedmann (1835–1899) and his wife Charlotte, née Lissen (1835–1876). The couple had a daughter, Charlotte, born on April 11, 1883 in Breslau.

Together with his brother, David Friedmann first established himself as a brick manufacturer. After the death of his father-in-law, he took over his business and the manor. From 1903 to 1921 the family lived in Berlin, where Friedmann traded in real estate. The Friedmanns spent the summers in their New Castle in Großburg , today's Borek Strzeliński, and the winters later in an elegant villa in the Ahornallee in Wroclaw. Friedmann was a passionate collector. He acquired an extensive collection of mainly French, Dutch and German painters of Realism and Impressionism , including works by Gustave Courbet , Camille Pissarro and Jean-François Raffaëlli , by Jozef Israëls as well as by Lovis Corinth , Walter Leistikow and Max Liebermann . He was the first owner of Liebermann's painting Two Riders on the Beach Left from 1901.

Two riders on the beach from the Schwabing art find (David Friedmann collection, Breslau)

After the seizure of power in January 1933, the National Socialists attacked Friedmann. In 1937 he had to sell the summer residence in Großburg, and in November 1938 the Haltauf manor, including the hunting grounds that he had inherited from his father-in-law. In 1938 the first estimate of his art collection, which the Nazi regime had its eye on, was made, followed by a second on January 24, 1940. In 1941 he was driven from his house and farm, his belongings were " Aryanized ", including works of art. He found modest accommodation on Akazienallee and died in February 1942.

His daughter Charlotte was deported to the Ravensbrück concentration camp , then transferred to Auschwitz and murdered there on October 9, 1942. His sister-in-law Bettina was murdered in Theresienstadt on October 19, 1942, and his niece Marie Hildegard Tarnowski there in March 1943. The niece's husband, Georg Martin Tarnowski, was murdered in Auschwitz in March 1943. Their sons, Herman Peter Tarnesby (1921–2014) and David Toren (1925–2020), were brought to safety in good time. They survived.

Since the daughter remained childless and was murdered, the grand-nephews became sole heirs after David Friedmann's death.

restitution

The entire Friedmann collection, 306 objects, sorted according to the rooms in the Breslau villa at Ahornallee 27, was stolen by the Nazi regime. Only the painting Two Riders on the Beach by Max Liebermann was returned until 2020 , after it was part of the Schwabinger in 2012 Art finds had been confiscated by the Bavarian authorities and only after David Toren filed a lawsuit against the German government in Washington in 2014.

Heirs were the collector's great-nephews, who both got to know the collection as children and teenagers and spent a lot of time with their great-uncle. Restitution only took place after the older heir, Herman Peter Tarnesby (1921–2014), died and the younger, David Toren (born 1925), was completely blind. Since Tarnesby had three daughters, there were now four heirs. They then had the painting auctioned at Sotheby’s in London . An unknown bidder bought it over the phone for £ 1.9 million. The artist Christian Thee made a relief of Liebermann's painting in 2014 and gave it to David Toren so that he could feel the picture.

Another work by Liebermann, the pastel Die Korbflechter , No. 252 on the inventory list of Friedmann's confiscated collection, had also reached the art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt . This picture was given to the Villa Grisebach auction house for auction by Benita Fräßle-Gurlitt (1935–2012), Cornelius Gurlitt's sister, in 2000 . The sheet fetched 130,000 DM and went to a Holocaust survivor who lived in Israel. Benita Fräßle-Gurlitt was an art historian. Der Spiegel wrote, "She must have known what looted art was." Maurice Philip Remy, on the other hand, considers it "unlikely" that she knew about the picture's troubled past. There was a bitter dispute between David Toren, the legitimate half-heir of the Friedmann Collection, and the bona fide purchaser of the picture, a then over 90-year-old who himself had lost relatives in the Holocaust. There was suspicion in the room that the buyer might have known about the provenance. An apology from the Toren family paved the way for an agreement. David Toren received the picture and the buyer was reimbursed the purchase price.

The other 304 objects stolen by the Nazis have not yet been restituted.

swell

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names : Charlotte SARA FRIEDMANN , accessed July 8, 2020
  2. ↑ The Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names in Yad Vashem has two entries on the person, both accessed on July 8, 2020:
    * MARIE HILDEGARD TARNOWSKI , based on the memorial book of the Federal Archives, and
    * MARIE HILDEGARD TARNOWSKI , based on a death     report of her son Herman Peter Tarnesby from 1969.
  3. ↑ The Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names in Yad Vashem has two entries on the person, both accessed on July 8, 2020:
    * GEORG MARTIN TARNOWSKI , based on the memorial book of the Federal Archives, and
    * GEORG MARTIN EPHRAIM TARNOWSKI , based on a death     report of his Son Herman Peter Tarnesby from 1969.
  4. ↑ Deutsche Welle : David Toren: 'Why wait so long?' , November 10, 2014
  5. ↑ Der Spiegel: Picture from the Gurlitt collection auctioned in London , accessed on July 10, 2020
  6. ^ Marc Connelly: "Propaganda and Conflict War, Media and Shaping the Twentieth Century", Bloomsbury Academic 2019, ISBN 978-1788314039 , p. 78
  7. ↑ Der Spiegel (Hamburg): The house on Ahornallee , report by Ulrike Knöfel, October 17, 2015
  8. ↑ Nordwest-Zeitung : Nazi Looted Art: Two Holocaust Survivors Agree , April 7, 2017
personal data
SURNAME Friedmann, David
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German entrepreneur and art collector
DATE OF BIRTH January 24, 1857
PLACE OF BIRTH Rawitsch
DATE OF DEATH February 15, 1942
Place of death Wroclaw