Kajetan Mühlmann

Reception of actors by Goebbels, with Gertrud Seyß-Inquart, Mühlmann and Paula Wessely , in the Vienna Hofburg on March 30, 1938

The Krakow high altar was stolen by Mühlmann for the Linz Führer Museum

Leonardo's lady with the ermine was expropriated and brought to Frank's residence. In 1944 the picture was taken to Germany. It now hangs in the National Museum in Krakow.

Portrait of a Young Man , by Raffael . Formerly in the collection of the Czartoryski Museum, its whereabouts are unknown.

Mühlmann bought the Fritz Mannheimer collection. Chardin's picture from 1737 hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art today

Ernst G. Rathenau loaned the Rembrandt to the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam in 1925 . The Mühlmann office stole the picture.

Lucas Cranach the Elder, Venus and Cupid as a honey thief . Mühlmann bought the picture for Göring from Kröller-Müller.

Kajetan Mühlmann , also Kaj or Kai (born June 26, 1898 in Uttendorf , Austria-Hungary ; died August 2, 1958 in Munich ) was an Austrian art historian , National Socialist and SS leader . Mühlmann was one of the most successful art thieves of National Socialism. He stole works of art from his Jewish victims in Austria , Poland and the Netherlands at the time of National Socialism .

Life

Kajetan Mühlmann came from a rural background, his mother, nee Juliana Nussbaumer was widowed at an early age and married her husband's cousin. Sears went to Salzburg to school, taking 1915 as a soldier in the Imperial Army at the First World War in part and was severely wounded. From 1922 Mühlmann first studied painting and then art history in Innsbruck and Vienna , where in 1926 he was awarded a doctorate with a thesis on the baroque fountains and water art in Salzburg. phil. received his doctorate . From 1926 he was employed in the organization of the Salzburg Festival and was responsible for advertising. So he worked under Max Reinhardt , the boss and founder of the festival. During this work he met the graphic artist Leopoldine "Poldi" Wojtek (1903–1978), whom he married in 1932. Wojtek created the official poster for the Salzburg Festival. In 1941, Mühlmann divorced Poldi Wojtek to marry Hilda Ziegler, with whom he already had three children. Mühlmann was a prominent figure in Salzburg.

1933 until the annexation of Austria to the German Reich

According to his own statement at the Nuremberg trials , Mühlmann was not a member of the NSDAP , which was banned in Austria in 1933 , but only joined it on April 1, 1938 after the "Anschluss of Austria" to the German Reich ( "I was never an illegal Nazi" ) (membership number 6,106,587). This is countered by the fact that he was friends with Goering's sister Olga as early as the 1920s and met Goering in the early 1930s. Goering invited him to his house on Obersalzberg to discuss art and politics with him, as Mühlmann stated. In the early 1930s he became friends with Arthur Seyß-Inquart , with whom he was in the service of the NSDAP from 1934. This friendship remained the basis of the later cooperation in Vienna, Cracow and the Netherlands. In 1935 Mühlmann was arrested with five other National Socialists in Salzburg after they tried to infiltrate the Austrian state with a clandestine SD group. The conspirators were charged with high treason and Mühlmann was only acquitted of this charge through the art of his defense counsel. The connection between Mühlmann and the NSDAP remained secret, as the party was banned during Austro-Fascism and the SA and SS units were stationed across the border in Bavaria as the Austrian Legion . Nevertheless, Mühlmann had been arrested several times for political offenses.

On March 11, 1938, he was in the house of the national leadership of the Austrian NSDAP in the group of leading National Socialists who were in the forefront of overthrowing the Schuschnigg government in Vienna . For these services he was then appointed State Secretary for Art in the state government of Seyß-Inquart . One of his employees in Vienna was Gert Adriani . During his tenure, the imperial regalia were brought to Nuremberg. Since Mühlmann had fallen out with Reichskommissar Josef Bürckel in Vienna in June 1939 , Seyß-Inquart appealed for him to Hermann Göring on July 14, 1939 , and Mühlmann went to Berlin .

As a member of the SS (membership number 309.791) he reached the rank of SS-Oberführer in 1942 . Mühlmann thus had the highest SS rank among the Nazi art thieves, which he himself described as the "general rank".

General Government

After Poland surrendered, Seyß-Inquart became Deputy Governor General Hans Frank in the Generalgouvernement and Mühlmann was appointed by Göring as “Special Representative for the Protection and Safeguarding of Works of Art in the Occupied Eastern Territories” and had been in Poland since October 6, 1939. Initially, his task was to inventory the works of art collected in the depot of the National Museum in Warsaw and in Wawel Castle in Krakow .

He was also head of the Education and Science Department in the General Government from October 1939, probably until the end of 1940.

On December 16, 1939, Frank issued an ordinance through which the entire public art collection in the Generalgouvernement could be confiscated. The first implementing regulation was issued on January 15, 1940. The purpose of the ordinance was the systematic recording of art objects in Poland, their inventory and selection of "most important art objects for the benefit of the empire". In addition to state museums and church institutions, private museums were subsequently also covered by legislation, in particular the Czartoryski Museum in Krakow. Peter Paulsen and Wolfram Sievers organized the archaeological part of the robbery . It was the declared intention that these works of art were "actually confiscated" in order to move them permanently from Poland to the German Reich.

Mühlmann was removed from his post in Poland by Frank on October 1, 1943 due to incompetence and inaction. His successor there was Wilhelm Ernst de Palezieux .

Hans Posse , Hitler's special representative for building up the collection of the special order Linz (“Führermuseum”), visited Warsaw at the end of November 1939 and met with Mühlmann, among others. Except for the Krakow Veit-Stoss altar and the panels of Hans von Kulmbach from the Marienkirche in Krakow, a Raphael , a Leonardo and a Rembrandt from the Czartoryski collection , Posse did not choose anything for the planned “Führermuseum” in Linz .

Netherlands

"Rotterdam was still burning when Kajetan Mühlmann in his SS uniform arrived in Holland to take up his new task."

Mühlmann followed Seyß-Inquart to the Netherlands in 1940 and founded the "Mühlmann Office" in The Hague . Your task was:

• Preparation of lists of works of art
• Issuance of reports on confiscated art objects
• Summary of these objects and sale to Germany to the preferred Nazi figures Hitler , Göring, von Schirach , Hoffmann , Todt , Frank, Kaltenbrunner , as well as to museums and auction houses.
• The agency claimed a 15% commission, and the agency was financed through sales alone. Profits in business with Göring or Hitler were "forbidden".
• Purchase of important works of art on the open market

The employees of the office in The Hague were Eduard Plietzsch , who was considered an expert on Dutch masters, and Franz Kieslinger .

Lists of so-called hostile assets were drawn up in such a way that an intervening trust company commissioned a trustee for each of the Jewish art dealers and collectors. The office then received a list of all art objects with their exact location from each trustee. All art objects were first transported to The Hague to be auctioned here or sold directly to party leaders. Some of the art objects that came into the office were offered by Dutch dealers who were by no means forced to make these sales. Göring also offered the agency barter deals and among other things took Cranach (from the Kröller-Müller Museum ) and gave Van Gogh in return .

The Mühlmann office confiscated works of art from Jews who had fled abroad. In this way, the Alfons Jaffé and Jacob Polak collections, the Rembrandt from the Rathenau collection and parts of the Frits Lugt collection came into their possession. The collection of Fritz Mannheimer , who died in 1939, was bought from the creditor banks, whereby Mühlmann knew how to lower the price demanded by hinting at reprisals.

In addition to the big robbers, the "Vlug Report" also lists a long series of smaller beneficiaries from Mühlmann's circle of friends and also names the art objects that he brought to his Vienna apartment, Rennweg 6. For Hermann Fegelein and Mrs. “Gretl” Braun (sister of Eva ) he was supposed to create a whole house interior in the “American Villa” on the Attersee , since Fegelein's house had not yet been completely converted, his antiques were in the SS cavalry base at Fischhorn Castle stored. Mühlmann had also settled down at the Attersee and had pictures by Cranach , Bredal, Osias Beert, Jan van Kessel , Roelant Savery , Lucas van Uden , Abraham van Beijeren brought into his house in Kammer.

post war period

At the end of 1944 the Mühlmann office moved to Vienna. Mühlmann was arrested and interned on June 13, 1945 by members of the US Army . A trial against him by the Allies did not take place. In August and September 1945 he was asked about his work in the theft of art in Altaussee , the results were recorded in the Vlug Report, which, in addition to the statements of the service employees, contains a list of the works of art at their respective locations, as well as an accounting overview of the transactions in one Volume of about five million guilders. Mühlmann continued to make statements that were read out in the Nuremberg trial against the main war criminals , in which his two superiors, Seyss-Inquart and Hans Frank, were sentenced to death by hanging. In 1947 he was a witness in the trial of the former Austrian Foreign Minister Guido Schmidt , who was acquitted of the charge of high treason for activities similar to a coup d'état in early 1938. This judgment also exonerated Mühlmann. In 1948 he managed to escape from American internment custody, from then on he lived on Lake Starnberg and evaded the “half-hearted” attempts by the Austrian judiciary to indict him in 1938 for his activities. The German judiciary took no notice of him either.

He may have made a living from selling works of art that he had put aside in the art theft, where the same art dealers helped him.

Mühlmann died of cancer in Munich. He is buried in the Maxglan cemetery in Salzburg . His stepbrother Josef Mühlmann helped him with the art theft during the Nazi era. He was also buried in the Maxglaner cemetery after his death in 1972.

Fonts

• The new buildings and operating facilities of the tobacco factory in Linz , Salzburg: R. Kiesel, 1936, cover design Poldi Woytek.
• with Leo Lippert, modern hotel construction in Badgastein., work of the company Franz Franzmair , Munich: Industrie- u. Commercial publ. Widmann & Janker, 1932.
• Baroque fountain and water art in Salzburg . Vienna, 1926.
• Urban preservation and urban renewal in Salzburg using examples of Franz Wagner's restorations . Munich: Industrie und Gewerbe Verlag, 1932
• with Gustav Barthel : Seized works of art in the Generalgouvernement . Wroclaw 1940
• with Gustav Barthel: Krakow. Capital of the German Government General Poland: Shape and artistic achievement of a German city in the east , Krakow: Office of the Governor General Dept. Volksaufklärg u. Propaganda, Wroclaw: Korn Verlag 1940.
• Seized works of art in the occupied Dutch territories . The Hague: Reichskommissariat Netherlands, 1943.
• Austrian contemporary painting: the painter Ferdinand Kitt , in: Die Kunst , Munich: 73.1936, pp. 252–256.

literature

• Wolfgang Graf: Austrian SS generals. Himmler's reliable vassals , Hermagoras-Verlag, Klagenfurt / Ljubljana / Vienna 2012, ISBN 978-3-7086-0578-4 .
• Günther Haase: Art theft and art protection . A documentation. 1st edition. tape 1 . Books on Demand, 2008, ISBN 978-3-8334-8975-4 , pp. 568 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed December 30, 2016]).
• Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich . 2nd updated edition. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 .
• Jonathan Petropoulos: The Faustian bargain. The art world in Nazi Germany . Oxford University Press, New York NY 2000, ISBN 0-19-512964-4 .
• Walter Thaler : Pinzgauer! Heroes - fools - pioneers. Portraits from the provinces . Vienna: newacademicpress, 2017, ISBN 978-3-99036-014-9 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Kajetan Mühlmann in the catalog of the German National Library
• Kajetan Mühlmann , in the person index of the Nuremberg trial of the main war criminals
• Mühlmann office in the Netherlands , at http://residence.aec.at/
• Kajetan Mühlmann , short biography
• Jean Vlug: Vlug Report, December 25, 1945 , parts 1-5, 226 typewritten pages
• Kajetan Mühlmann , Dictionary of Art Historians
• James S. Plaut: Loot for the masterrace , in: The Atlantic Monthly , September 1946
• James S. Plaut: Hitler's Capital , in: The Atlantic Monthly , October 1946
• Baptism entry from Kajetan Mühlmann: [1]

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Vlug Report, p. 32.
2. ↑ "Kajetan Mühlmann (since 1938 State Secretary for Art in Vienna, working for the Reich Commissioner for the occupied Dutch and Polish territories, played an important role in art theft in Poland and the Netherlands; his half-brother Joseph Mühlmann administered the Paris office of the agency)" Federal Government March 26, 2009  ( page can no longer be accessed , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Handout for the implementation of the “Declaration of the Federal Government, the Länder and the Central Municipal Associations on the Finding and Returning of Cultural Property Stolen by National Socialist Persecution, especially from Jewish Property” from December 1999 from February 2001, revised in November 2007  
3. ↑ Kajetan Mühlmann's baptism day on Matricula-online.eu http://data.matricula-online.eu/de/oesterreich/salzburg/uttendorf/TFBVI/?pg=98 .
4. ↑ Her most important and still most visible work comes from a competition for a poster for the Festival in 1928, which she won: since then, her poster design has served as the logo of the Salzburg Festival. Hildegard Fraueneder, Salzburg city walks: In the footsteps of women 2005, In the footsteps of female artists, City of Salzburg ( Memento of the original from November 22nd, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
5. ↑ Vlug Report, p. 10.
6. ↑ Jonathan Petropoulos: Art theft. Why it is important to understand the biographies of the art experts in the Third Reich. In: The Political Economy of the Holocaust. On the economic logic of persecution and "reparation". Munich 2001, p. 248.
7. ^ Nuremberg Trial, Tuesday, December 18, 1945, Volume IV, p. 91.
8. ↑ s. Jonathan Petropoulos, The Faustian Bargain: the Art World in Nazi Germany , Oxford University Press, USA 2000, p. 173 ff.
9. ↑ s. Jonathan Petropoulos, The Faustian Bargain: the Art World in Nazi Germany , Oxford University Press, USA 2000, p. 175.
10. ↑ Report by Gauleiter Rainer to Reich Commissioner Bürckel, in: Nürnberger Prozess, Volume II, p. 455.
11. ↑ Vlug Report, p. 53.
12. ↑ Nuremberg Trial, Volume II, p. 417.
13. ↑ Nuremberg Trial, Volume II, p. 455.
14. ^ Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 419.
15. ↑ see dictionary of arthistorians
16. ^ Affidavit Mühlmann, Nürnberger Prozess, Volume VI, p. 92.
17. ↑ Vlug Report, Foreword, p. 5.
18. ↑ see: Dienststelle Mühlmann in the Netherlands ( Memento of the original dated February 24, 2008 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. 
19. ↑ Vlug Report, p. 9.
20. ↑ List of dealers and detailed description in the Vlug Report, pp. 35–45.
21. ↑ > Dienststelle Mühlmann in the Netherlands < ( Memento of the original dated February 24, 2008 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. . The picture "Venus with Cupid as a honey thief" by Cranach was bought, see: Hanns C. Löhr, The Brown House of Art: Hitler and the "Special Order Linz" , p. 137.  
22. ↑ Alfons Jaffé  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , at lostart  
23. ↑ Jacob Polak  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , at lostart  
24. ^ Günther Haase: Art theft and art protection , p. 196.
25. ^ Günther Haase: Art theft and art protection , p. 194.
26. ↑ Vlug Report, pp. 101-103.
27. ↑ Vlug Report, p. 76.
28. ↑ Mühlmann's declaration was signed on August 5, 1945, Vlug Report, p. 57.
29. ↑ Jonathan Petropoulos, The Faustian bargain , p. 201.
30. ^ Dictionary of arthistorians