Looted art

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Exhibition room in the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg with pieces of unclear origin.

As Nazi-looted art , short- looted art , are works of art referred that during the period of National Socialism stolen or "Nazi-deprived" were. The victims of the robbery were primarily Jews and those persecuted as Jews, both within the German Reich from 1933 to 1945 and in all areas occupied by the Germans during World War II . The robbery took place on the basis of a large number of legal regulations and with the participation of various authorities and specially set up institutions. It was classified as a crime against humanity by the 1945 London Charter of the International Military Tribunal (IMT Statute) . The extent is estimated at 600,000 works of art that were stolen by the Germans in Europe between 1933 and 1945 : 200,000 within Germany and Austria, 100,000 in Western Europe and 300,000 in Eastern Europe. The number of works of art not returned to their rightful owners and possibly still identifiable, which are suspected to be scattered around the world in public and private collections, is estimated at up to 10,000. With the so-called Washington Declaration in 1998, international regulations were made for the finding of looted art and restitution to the owners or their heirs.

term

Carl Spitzweg : Justitia
former Leo Bendel collection , an example of looted art: sold in 1937 to finance emigration, until 2006 in Villa Hammerschmidt , Bonn; Restituted by the Office of the Federal President in 2007.

The term looted art denotes cultural assets confiscated as a result of persecution and thus includes the confiscation of works of art from people “who belong to a group of people who were persecuted by the National Socialists between 1933 and 1945 for racial, religious and political reasons”. It differs from the term looted art , which designates cultural goods brought in during the war, i.e. refers to the loot of an occupier in war. The term looted art in question goes on to the looted art addition, since it determines the art theft involving citizens in their own country and before the Second World War. In the cases of robbery during the war, in the areas occupied by the Germans of the local Jewish and persecuted population, the terms overlap. In this case, it is common to speak of looted art and thus the aspect of persecution is placed in the foreground.

Based on the English expression nazi looted art (Nazi looted art), the term Nazi looted art is used in the relevant literature for the entirety of art looted by the National Socialists. It is thus both part of looted art and the generic term for the robbery by the German state of its own population and of its public collections in the case of so-called "degenerate art" .

Legally, deprivation due to persecution does not only include removal or confiscation, but also giving away for reasons of persecution. Already in the immediate post-war and occupation period in Germany, the Allied legislation, in particular with the Military Government Act No. 59, took into account the fact that persecuted groups of people found themselves in dire straits after the Nazis came to power and were unable to freely dispose of their property. The sale of works of art to earn a living after existential foundations have broken away or to finance emigration, so-called escape sales, can be assessed as looted art.

So-called persecution-related loss

With the persecution and displacement of the Jews from German society, their robbery was propagated and carried out from the start. Professional bans, extorted business deals, control and later confiscation of property ruined, in addition to the social, economic existence of the persecuted. For example, Jewish civil servants were dismissed by the law for the restoration of the civil service of April 7, 1933; dismissals in the private sector, including forcible ousting from supervisory boards, were based on this norm. By the law on admission to the bar of the same day, many lawyers were excluded with effect from September 30, 1933. With the 5th ordinance to the Reich Citizenship Act of 1938, Jewish lawyers were barred from practicing any activity. Further ordinances in 1938 prohibited Jewish doctors and patent attorneys from practicing their profession; In 1939 dentists, pharmacists and veterinarians were banned from practicing their profession. With the ordinance to exclude Jews from German economic life , Jews were prohibited from operating retail outlets and independently running a craft business.

In close cooperation between the tax authorities , foreign exchange offices and the Gestapo , the assets of wealthy Jews were recorded, controlled and their power of disposal limited. Based on the general suspicion of “ capital flight ”, access to one's own account could be blocked by a security order. The property exemption limits were repeatedly lowered so that emigrants were partially expropriated by the Reich Flight Tax. For removal goods that were purchased after January 1, 1933, a " Dego tax " had to be paid, which mostly corresponded to the purchase value. From 1934 onwards, only ten Reichsmarks were allowed to travel with you. Bank and securities balances remained in a Sperrmark account, which could only be exchanged for foreign currency at a considerable discount. At the same time, Jews were disadvantaged in conventional tax law: They were grouped into higher tax brackets, tax exemptions and child discounts were canceled, and Jewish communities were denied recognition as “non-profit”.

Art theft within the German Reich

Otto Mueller : Two female half-nudes 1919, Ismar Littmann Collection, Breslau, confiscated in 1935, restituted in 1999

These encroachments on property also affected the works of art and art collections of the persecuted from the start. In order to secure a livelihood or to finance emigration, those affected were forced to sell a large number of paintings, drawings, graphics and sculptures, but also books and antiques, or put them up for auction . Previously important collections have been closed. People who a few years earlier were benefactors and patrons of cultural life were put under pressure and coveted works of art were removed from the control of the owners. After the Great Depression , from 1933 onwards, the art trade and auction business flourished again. At the same time, both the oversupply and the pressure that the sellers were under caused prices to fall, so that many works were sold well below their value. A prominent example of this private law “loss of property through sale” is the dissolution of the art collection of the Wroclaw lawyer Ismar Littmann . After being banned from practicing his profession, he committed suicide in 1934. In order to secure a livelihood, his widow was forced to sell part of the art collection through the Berlin auction house Max Perl. Before the auction, however, eighteen pictures were confiscated by the Gestapo because of “typical cultural Bolshevik depiction of a pornographic character”, including two paintings by Otto Mueller “Two female half-nudes” and “Boy in front of two standing and one seated girl”. The remaining stock, known as the “Jewish auction”, achieved only a fraction of the estimated value.

After Austria's annexation on March 12, 1938, the well-known art collections were confiscated within a few days and secured in a central depot set up for this purpose in the Vienna Hofburg . Adolf Hitler secured the first access to the high-quality art treasures and old master paintings, including the Louis Rothschild collection . What was left was distributed amid massive squabbles between special commissioners and museums. Louis Rothschild himself was arrested on March 14, 1938 and only released after more than a year after he had agreed to an agreement to transfer his property to the German Reich. By autumn 1938, 10,000 works of art had already been inventoried in the Vienna depot.

This “loss of property through state-sovereign action” was subsequently legitimized on April 26, 1938 with the regulation on the registration of property of Jews . The bureaucratic title conceals restrictions on disposal and the possibility of securing assets. This law, which was initially intended for the “ Aryanization policy ” of Austria, was seen by leading National Socialists as so convincing that it was decided to extend the provisions to the entire territory of the Reich . Increasing anti-Semitism, pogrom-like attacks on Jewish citizens and arbitrary arrests caused many persecuted people to try to flee, leaving their belongings behind. For example, the extensive art collection of the Viennese cabaret artist Fritz Grünbaum , including a considerable bundle of works by Egon Schiele , was scattered, stolen or taken out of the country in a way that cannot be reconstructed. To a large extent, the pictures are considered lost to this day. After a failed escape, Fritz Grünbaum was arrested by the Gestapo and taken to various concentration camps, murdered in Dachau in 1941 . His wife Lilly Green Tree (Elisabeth Herzl) died in 1942 after the deportation in the extermination camp Maly Trostinez .

The pillaging of the Jewish population was accelerated after the November pogroms in 1938. With the ordinance on the “Jewish property tax” issued on November 12, 1938 , a special tax totaling one billion Reichsmarks had to be raised. For many it could only be settled by dissolving collections and selling them. The 11th ordinance on the Reich Citizenship Law in November 1941 stood at the end of this chain of systematic looting. According to this law, wealth deteriorated when a Jew crossed the imperial border into a foreign country. With bitter cynicism and "bureaucratic consistency, the tax authorities immediately applied the regulation to the ongoing deportation of German Jews ." As soon as the trains had crossed the Reich border , the exploitation of the was made under the cover name " Aktion 3 ", in cooperation with the Gestapo and the tax authorities the inventory left behind in the apartments and the collection of the remaining assets of the deportees.

The fate of the art dealer Walter Westfeld is characteristic of this process: In 1935 the Reich Chamber of Culture issued a general ban on his profession. As a result , he had to close his art shop in Wuppertal ; He housed his extensive art collection privately. In the following years he tried to sell some works of art and managed to bring 250 of his most valuable paintings to France. On November 15, 1938, the Gestapo arrested him for a foreign exchange offense, his assets remaining in Germany were confiscated, the auction of his art collection ordered and carried out in December 1939 at the Lempertz auction house in Cologne . Walter Westfeld was deported from prison on October 1, 1942 via Theresienstadt to the Auschwitz extermination camp . There he was murdered. His remaining assets were confiscated.

Seizure of Modern Art

Another, but different, case of Nazi art theft is the confiscation of modern art . Even before they came to power, the National Socialists, under the ideological leadership of Alfred Rosenberg and the Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur , founded in 1928, slandered contemporary art as a “ Jewish-Bolshevik ” attack on “Aryan culture”. The party leadership, however, did not agree on what should be included as German art and what should be excluded. Until 1937 this dispute was carried out in the so-called Expressionism Controversy . It got into a power struggle between the Rosenberg office, which emerged from the Kampfbund, on the one hand, and Joseph Goebbels as head of the Propaganda Ministry on the other.

Despite an unclear political orientation, since 1933 - in the state of Thuringia with the participation of the NSDAP in government as early as 1930 - professional bans have been issued against artists, museum directors and art professors, exhibitions have been closed, museums, art dealers and auctions monitored, and murals painted over or destroyed and isolated works of art confiscated.

Joseph Goebbels in the exhibition “Degenerate Art”, 1938 Berlin - left: two paintings by Emil Nolde: Christ and the sinner and the wise and the foolish virgins , right a sculpture by Gerhard Marcks : Saint George

With the authorization of the Reichskunstkammerpräsident Adolf Ziegler on June 30th, 1937, the dispute was officially declared over by Adolf Hitler and a clear goal was given: The publicly owned works of “German decaying art since 1910” were to be selected for a propaganda exhibition and secured become. In the first week of July 1937, around 700 works of art by 120 artists from 32 German museums were confiscated and exhibited in Munich with defamatory intent as early as July 19, 1937 under the title “Degenerate Art” . The exhibition concerned well-known artists such as Ernst Barlach , Marc Chagall , Lovis Corinth , Otto Dix , Lyonel Feininger , Ernst Ludwig Kirchner , Erich Heckel as well as now forgotten artists such as Jankel Adler , Otto Freundlich , Anita Rée , but also artists who have been had been valued by some Nazi leaders, such as Emil Nolde or Franz Marc . By April 1941, this exhibition traveled in a partially modified form through a total of twelve cities in the German Reich.

The extensive confiscation began in August 1937, when almost 20,000 works of art by 1,400 artists were removed from more than one hundred museums and public collections in 74 German cities. The German museums thus almost completely lost their holdings of modern art. Most of the paintings were owned by the relevant collections themselves. There were also around two hundred loans from private collections, for example 13 paintings by the art historian Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers , which she had given to the Provincial Museum in Hanover before she emigrated to the Soviet Union. or the paintings by Otto Mueller from the Littmann collection, which had been confiscated from the Perl auction house in 1935 and which had previously been stored in the Kronprinzen-Palais in Berlin.

A large part of the confiscated paintings was initially collected in the Niederschönhausen Palace in Berlin and subsequently administered by the “Commission for the Exploitation of the Products of Degenerate Art” (Exploitation Commission). Selected art dealers were given the job of selling the “decay art” or exchanging it for art desired by the National Socialists. Swiss art dealers and auction houses played a key role in this. An auction by the Lucerne art dealer Theodor Fischer on June 30, 1939, attracted particular attention , at which 126 high-priced pictures from the confiscated inventory were up for auction . Some works of art had a different fate. On March 20, 1939, 1004 oil paintings and 3825 graphics of the confiscated works are said to have been burned in the courtyard of the fire station in Berlin. Since there is no clear evidence for this act, it is often doubted. The confiscation was only legally legitimized in retrospect with the law on confiscation of products of degenerate art (Confiscation Act) passed on May 31, 1938 .

Art theft in occupied territories

Stolen Krakow Veit-Stoss altar for the Linz Führer Museum
The Amber Room that was moved to Königsberg has been missing since the end of World War II, picture from 1931
German units load Polish works of art from Zachęta , July 1944

With the annexation and occupation of countries in World War II, the attack on Jewish property was extended to all territories that came under the rule of National Socialism. The annexation of Austria in March 1938 was followed by the appropriation of the Czech Sudetenland . Poland was overwhelmed by anti-Jewish and anti-Slav violence in both 1939 and 1941 . After France surrendered in June 1940, similar ordinances “relating to measures against Jews” were issued in the Netherlands, Belgium and France in autumn 1940, regulating the expropriation of Jews and those persecuted as Jews. At this point in time, art theft was already underway in all countries.

With the invasion of France, the so-called “ Art Protection Troop ” came to the occupied territories as part of the German armed forces with the task of securing works of art both from the French state and from private individuals, especially from Jews. The German ambassador in Paris , Otto Abetz , also took part in tracking down the famous French collections. With the Führer order of September 17, 1940, Reichsleiter Alfred Rosenberg was empowered to “capture and confiscate all other valuable cultural assets of abandoned Jewish property and have them transported to Germany.” With this, the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) gained supremacy in the competitive struggle about the art treasures of the French Jews. Nazi Germany also endeavored to procure works of art not in the possession of Jews from French and other countries. For this purpose, the general director of the Berlin museums Otto Kümmel, on behalf of Joseph Goebbels , compiled a secret list in three volumes of the works of art in foreign possession that had to be plundered , which was available in December 1940 with more than 300 pages. In it, Kümmel declared works of art that were once in German ownership dating back to the 15th century to be purely German art, which would therefore have to be stolen and brought "home to the Reich".

Many of the Jewish art dealers and collectors had fled the German invasion and were unable to bring their property to safety. By July 1944, according to the meticulous documentation of the ERR, 21,903 art objects from 203 art collections were confiscated, including 5281 paintings and graphics, 583 sculptures, 684 miniatures, glass and enamel paintings, books and manuscripts, terracottas, medals, furniture, textiles, handicrafts, Porcelain and faience , Asian art and 259 ancient works of art. The origin is also documented: According to this, 5009 objects come from the various collections of the Rothschild family , 2697 from David-Weill , 1202 from Alphonse Kann , 989 from Levy de Benzion and 302 from Georges Wildenstein .

Even after the occupation of the Netherlands, immediate access to the property of the Jews began there. Unlike in Austria or France, the acquisition was carried out through pseudo-legal transactions. A well-known example is the case of the Amsterdam art dealer Jacques Goudstikker . He wanted to flee before the Wehrmacht invaded Scotland and had a fatal accident on the way. Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring secured access to the 1,300 paintings that had been left behind, including by Lucas Cranach , Vincent van Gogh , Francisco de Goya , Rembrandt van Rijn , Peter Paul Rubens , Tizian and Diego Velázquez . He acquired these holdings from the director of the gallery, who was forced to agree to a sale price of around two million guilders. Göring had 780 works brought to Germany, the rest he sold to the German banker Alois Miedl, who resold some of the works of art, he deposited others in Switzerland and moved them to Spain.

While the National Socialists gave art theft in Western Europe a legal paint job, in occupied Eastern Europe all inhibitions were dropped. No legal ordinances were issued, only general regulations for the expropriation of Jews. From the beginning, the arbitrary and systematic looting and deliberate destruction, which affected Jews and non-Jews to a large extent, occurred almost at the same time as the deportations and the ghettoization of the population, the mass shootings and mass murders. In Poland the aim was to destroy the roots of culture and to eliminate both the state and the nation. The irretrievably destroyed inventory of cultural goods in Poland, Ukraine and Belarus by the German occupying power happened to an extent that could never be quantified. Works of art that were supposed to be of German origin were seen as valuable to be “brought home” to the German Reich. Under these conditions, museum holdings were looted, works of art from private collections were confiscated and stolen from people who were persecuted for political or racial reasons. Units specializing in art, such as the Paulsen Special Command of the Reich Security Main Office, Wolfram Sievers, the general trustee for “securing German cultural assets”, SS leader Kajetan Mühlmann and others brought the valuable art to the Reich. At the beginning of 1943 there was practically no more Jewish property in occupied Eastern Europe, and hardly any of the persecuted in Poland and the Soviet Union lived.

Institutions and beneficiaries

Himmler gives Hitler a painting for his birthday, 1939

The monstrous theft of art by the National Socialists is partly reflected in the understanding of art by the National Socialist ruling elite. Adolf Hitler saw himself as an art lover and patron ; his followers did the same. Eleven of the highest Nazi leaders built up extensive and valuable art collections between 1933 and 1945: Hermann Göring, Joseph Goebbels, Joachim von Ribbentrop , Heinrich Himmler , Baldur von Schirach , Hans Frank , Robert Ley , Albert Speer , Martin Bormann , Arthur Seyss-Inquart and Josef Bürckel . The motives were ideas of national art that had sprung from a totalitarian ideology , the aim being to amass an art collection of unsurpassed size that would "bring the German people to glory". As far as the formulated “noble goals”, in private it was simply about personal enrichment.

With the invasion of the Wehrmacht in Austria and the organization of the special order Linz, the plans for a picture gallery in Hitler's hometown Linz became concrete. His own collection, predominantly Bavarian and Austrian painting of the 19th century, should form the basis, which should be expanded to include old master paintings. From 1938 onwards, both purchased and stolen art treasures were hoarded in several depots in Munich and Austria for this purpose. Access to the collections of Austrian Jews caused Hitler to reserve the first choice for the stolen works of art by issuing a Führer decree. From 1940, the Führer's reservation was extended to the entire German Reich and all occupied territories. H. on all art collections that one could get hold of. What was not needed for Linz should be distributed to other museums, especially in the occupied eastern areas of the Greater German Reich that were deprived of their own culture. At the end of the war, the Allies found 4,747 works of art in the relevant depots, 211 of which came from the Louis Rothschild collection in Vienna and 285 from the Jacques Goudstikker gallery in Amsterdam, in both cases only a fraction of the stolen goods. The largest part, as far as the allocations to the special order Linz were concerned, has been documented in a database of the German Historical Museum since 2008 . Rosenberg retained control of most of the ERR's seizures until the end of the war. He planned to show the stolen art in a special museum in Berlin.

Hitler gives Goering a painting for his birthday, 1938

Hermann Göring, too, had been a passionate art collector since the First World War ; from 1933 he had sufficient power and money and thus had the opportunity to purchase art on a large scale. From 1937 he was advised and supported by the Berlin art dealer Walter Andreas Hofer . When securing Polish as well as French and Dutch art treasures, he tried to get first access against Hitler's instructions. He boasted of having “the most important private collection, at least in Germany, if not in Europe”. His preference was for works by old German masters, and in 1939 he owned 15 paintings by Lucas Cranach. In Carinhall , his country estate, which he wanted to convert into a museum, he collected by the end of the war: 1,375 paintings, 250 sculptures, 108 tapestries , 200 antique furniture , 60 Persian and French carpets, 75 glass windows, 175 arts and crafts objects.

The case of the Styrian Folklore Museum in Graz shows that there was scope for action in the acquisition of looted art by public institutions : in February 1940, the museum was offered a total of 14 objects from the expropriated possession of the collector Oscar Bondy . The museum director Viktor von Geramb , who had lost his professorship after the “Anschluss” in 1938, declined the purchase out of moral considerations. In doing so, he argued to the state authorities that the objects on offer did not match the museum's existing holdings. In a letter to one of his employees, Geramb wrote bitterly that a takeover should be rejected for technical reasons, "quite apart from the ethical reasons, which are apparently my private matter". Finally the purchase could be prevented.

The extent of the robbery

Viewing Torah scrolls in the basement of the Nazi Institute for Research into the Jewish Question , Frankfurt, July 6, 1945

The intensity, the extent of the area temporarily occupied by Germans, the different duration and handling of the Nazi art theft and the destruction of documents adequately explain that the total amount can only be roughly estimated. When specifying numbers, it is also important to distinguish between works of art and cultural assets . The term work of art is used generally for products of artistic creation and particularly refers to paintings, graphics and sculptural works. The term cultural assets as the result of artistic production is broader: this term also includes handicrafts, gold and silversmiths, porcelain and faience, jewelry, coins, books, furniture, ancient art and much more. Since the delimitation is sometimes difficult and the methods of counting are different (for example, graphic portfolios were counted with the proportionate sheets in some places and as a single bundle in other places), the numbers vary considerably even with the works that have been found.

With this inaccuracy in mind, one has to assume a number of 600,000 works of art that were stolen by Germans in Europe between 1933 and 1945: 200,000 within Germany and Austria, 100,000 in Western Europe and 300,000 in Eastern Europe.

The number of works of art not yet returned to their rightful owners, suspected to be in private property, public collections, museums and art exhibitions worldwide, is estimated to be between 10,000 and 110,000. This large difference in estimates is partly due to the fact that many of the lost works of art are paintings and works that were not of conspicuous and international value and that were stolen from now nameless owners. The further path via sales, auctions, gifts and appropriations or even their destruction is no longer comprehensible.

The robbery of cultural goods goes far beyond the theft of works of art. At the end of the war, five million objects were found in German depots. This included a proportion of works that were not stolen but were relocated from museum holdings that were actually owned by the German Reich. One can only speculate about the dimensions of the stolen goods that did not get into the depots, that were either irretrievably destroyed, stored elsewhere or used privately.

Ernst Klee notes in a comment on archival work that in the camouflage language of the perpetrators of the Nazi era, “securing” of art meant: “art theft”.

Nazi-looted art after 1945 in the Federal Republic

Since 2003 there has been an “Advisory Commission in the Federal Republic of Germany in connection with the return of cultural assets seized as a result of Nazi persecution, especially those belonging to Jews”, chaired by Jutta Limbach , also known as the Limbach Commission . As a state institution, it deals with looted art and its return to the heirs.

In 2013, the magazine Der Spiegel revealed that at that time around 20,000 works of art from the possession of Nazis were still in federal depots. These were paintings, sculptures, books, furniture, coins, etc. The 2300 pictures were estimated in 2004 at an insurance value of 20 million euros. There are also hundreds of pictures that are in German museums. The origin is often unclear. In the 1960s and 1970s, works of art owned by Nazi giants who were now federally owned were sold on the art market at bargain prices. The proceeds went into the general budget.

In June 2016 the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen had partially appropriated the works entrusted to them from the American " Collecting Points " in 1949 , and partially in cooperation with Bavarian ministries also sold them to families of former Nazi greats instead of to the ( Jewish) previous owners. For example, the Holländisches Platzbild (a small copy after a work by the Dutch baroque painter Jan van der Heyden ) from a Jewish collection in Vienna was "sold back" to Henriette Hoffmann in 1963 (divorced wife of the " Reich Governor " of Vienna , Baldur von Schirach , responsible the deportation of the Austrian Jews). Only a little later it was auctioned at the Cologne auction house Lempertz to the Xanten cathedral building association , where it is still located today. The Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen did not want to make the results of a research project in this regard that has been ongoing for years; they did not allow scientists, lawyers or victims' families unrestricted access to the archive and were the only Bavarian authorities not to pass on relevant documents to the Bavarian State Archives as required by law , where they would be publicly accessible.

The New York Times quotes Ferdinand von Schirach on the necessity of provenance research with the words: "We need to know about the evil ... That's the only way we can live with it." ()

See also

literature

  • Thomas Armbruster, Restitution of Nazi Loot, Search, Recovery and Restitution of Cultural Property by the Western Allies after the Second World War. (= Publications on the protection of cultural property ). de Gruyter, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-89949-542-3 . (Also: Zurich, University, dissertation, 2007)
  • Inka Bertz, Michael Dorrmann (ed.): Looted art and restitution. Jewish property from 1933 to the present day. Published on behalf of the Jewish Museum Berlin and the Jewish Museum Frankfurt am Main. Frankfurt am Main 2008, ISBN 978-3-8353-0361-4 . (Exhibition catalog for the 2008/2009 exhibition of the same name in the Jewish Museum Berlin and the Jewish Museum Frankfurt)
  • Uwe Fleckner (ed.): Attack on the avant-garde. Art and Art Politics in National Socialism. (= Writings of the research center "Degenerate Art". 1). Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-05-004062-2 .
  • Constantin Goschler, Philipp Ther (ed.): Looted art and restitution. “Aryanization” and restitution of Jewish property in Europe . Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2003, ISBN 3-596-15738-2 .
  • Ulf Häder: Contributions by public institutions in the Federal Republic of Germany on dealing with cultural goods from former Jewish property (= publications by the coordination office for the loss of cultural goods . 1). Coordination Office for the Loss of Cultural Property, Magdeburg 2001, ISBN 3-00-008868-7 .
  • Hannes Hartung: Art theft in war and persecution. The restitution of looted and looted art in conflict of laws and international law. (= Publications on the protection of cultural property ). de Gruyter, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-89949-210-2 . (At the same time: Zurich, Univ., Diss., 2004)
  • Stefan Koldehoff : The pictures are among us. The business with Nazi looted art . Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 2009, ISBN 978-3-8218-5844-9 .
    • The pictures are among us. The Nazi-looted art business and the Gurlitt case . Galiani, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-86971-093-8 .
  • 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 . (2nd edition: Gebr. Mann, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-7861-2736-9 ).
    • The iron collector. The Hermann Göring collection. Art and Corruption in the “Third Reich” . Gebr. Mann, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-7861-2601-0 .
    • Hanns Christian Löhr, Art as a Weapon - The Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg, ideology and art theft in the “Third Reich” , Gebr. Mann, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-7861-2806-9 .
  • Melissa Müller , Monika Tatzkow: Lost pictures, lost lives - Jewish collectors and what became of their works of art. Elisabeth-Sandmann-Verlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-938045-30-5 .
  • Jonathan Petropoulos: Art theft and collecting mania. Art and Politics in the Third Reich . Propylaea, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-549-05594-3 .
  • Waldemar Ritter: cultural heritage as spoil? The repatriation of cultural assets brought out of Germany during the war - necessity and opportunities for solving a historical problem (Scientific supplements to the Anzeiger des Germanisches Nationalmuseums, Volume 13). Verlag des Germanisches Nationalmuseums, Nuremberg 1997, ISBN 3-926982-49-7 .
  • Jan Schleusener: robbery of cultural property. The access of the Nazi state to Jewish art possessions in Munich and its post-history (= Bavarian Studies on Museum History, Volume 3). Ed .: State Office for Non-State Museums in Bavaria. 1st edition. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Berlin / Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-422-07366-1 .
  • Gunnar Schnabel, Monika Tatzkow: Nazi Looted Art. Handbook Art Restitution Worldwide . Proprietas-Verlag, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-00-019368-2 .
  • Julius H. Schoeps, Anna-Dorothea Ludewig (Eds.): An endless debate? Looted art and restitution in German-speaking countries. Hentrich & Hentrich Verlag, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-95565-057-5 .
  • Irena Strelow: "But I will continue to worry". Nazi-looted art in Catholic churches (studies on provenance research), Hentrich & Hentrich Verlag, edited by Julius H Schoeps, Berlin 2017, Volume 2, ISBN 978-3-95565-207-4 .
  • Katharina Stengel (ed.): Before the destruction. The state expropriation of the Jews under National Socialism . (= Scientific series of the Fritz Bauer Institute. 15). Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main u. a. 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38371-2 .
  • Birgit Schwarz: Hitler's Museum. The photo albums “Gemäldegalerie Linz”. Documents on the “Führer Museum”. Böhlau, Vienna a. a. 2004, ISBN 3-205-77054-4

Web links

Wiktionary: looted art  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hannes Hartung: Art theft in war and persecution. The restitution of looted and looted art in conflict of laws and international law. Zurich 2004, p. 60 f.
  2. ^ Joint Allied London Declaration of January 5, 1943, paragraph 3; Quoted here from Wilfried Fiedler : The Allied (London) Declaration of January 5, 1943: Content, interpretation and legal nature in the discussion of the post-war years , in the legal archive of Saarland University , viewed on December 4, 2010.
  3. ↑ Jonathan Petropulos in a statement dated February 10, 2000 before the House Banking Committee in Washington Hearing of February 10, 2000 ( October 17, 2012 memento in the Internet Archive ), accessed October 19, 2012.
  4. ^ Hannes Hartung: Art theft in war and persecution. The restitution of looted and looted art in conflict of laws and international law. Zurich 2004, p. 44 f.
  5. ^ Hannes Hartung: Art theft in war and persecution. The restitution of looted and looted art in conflict of laws and international law. Zurich 2004, p. 60.
  6. ^ Hannes Hartung: Art theft in war and persecution. The restitution of looted and looted art in conflict of laws and international law. Zurich 2004, p. 59.
  7. ↑ Gunnar Schnabel, Monika Tatzkow: Nazi Looted Art. Manual. Art restitution worldwide. Berlin 2007, p. 503.
  8. ↑ Inca Bertz, Michael Dorrmann (ed.): Looted Art and Restitution. Jewish property from 1933 to the present day. Published on behalf of the Jewish Museum Berlin and the Jewish Museum Frankfurt am Main, Frankfurt am Main 2008, p. 9.
  9. ↑ cf. Katharina Stengel: Before the extermination. The state expropriation of the Jews under National Socialism . Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 10 f.
  10. ↑ Dieter Ziegler: Upper citizens and entrepreneurs: the German business elite in the 20th century. Göttingen 2000, p. 49 f.
  11. ↑ Christoph Franke: The role of the foreign exchange offices in the expropriation of the Jews. In: Katharina Stengel (ed.): Before the destruction. The state expropriation of the Jews under National Socialism . Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 85; Act amending the Act on Foreign Exchange Control of December 1, 1936 (RGBl. I, p. 1000)
  12. ↑ Martin Friedenberger / Klaus-Dieter Gössel / Eberhard Schönknecht (eds.): The realm finance administration in National Socialism. Presentation and documents . Bremen 2002, ISBN 3-86108-377-9 , p. 14.
  13. ↑ Martin Friedenberger / Klaus-Dieter Gössel / Eberhard Schönknecht (eds.): The realm finance administration in National Socialism. Presentation and documents . Bremen 2002, ISBN 3-86108-377-9 , pp. 16-19.
  14. ↑ Gunnar Schnabel, Monika Tatzkow: Nazi Looted Art. Manual. Art restitution worldwide . Berlin 2007, p. 33.
  15. ^ Anja Heuss : The Littmann Collection and the "Degenerate Art" campaign. In: Inka Bertz, Michael Dorrmann (eds.): Looted art and restitution. Jewish property from 1933 to the present day . Frankfurt am Main 2008, p. 69 ff.
  16. ↑ Gunnar Schnabel, Monika Tatzkow: Nazi Looted Art. Manual. Art restitution worldwide. Berlin 2007, p. 62.
  17. ↑ Gunnar Schnabel, Monika Tatzkow: Nazi Looted Art. Manual. Art restitution worldwide. Berlin 2007, p. 36.
  18. ^ Hans Safrian : No right to property. On the genesis of anti-Jewish laws in the spring of 1938 in the area of ​​tension between the periphery and the center. In: Katharina Stengel (ed.): Before the destruction. The state expropriation of the Jews under National Socialism . Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 246 ff.
  19. ↑ Gunnar Schnabel, Monika Tatzkow: Nazi Looted Art. Manual. Art restitution worldwide. Berlin 2007, p. 392.
  20. ↑ Christiane Kuller: The bureaucracy of robbery and its consequences. In: Inka Bertz, Michael Dorrmann (eds.): Looted art and restitution. Jewish property from 1933 to the present day. Frankfurt am Main 2008, p. 64.
  21. ^ Monika Tatzkow: Walter Westfeld (1889–1945), Düsseldorf. In: Melissa Müller, Monika Tatzkow: Lost Pictures, Lost Lives. Jewish collectors and what became of their works of art . Munich 2009, p. 87 ff.
  22. ↑ cf. Katrin Engelhardt: The exhibition Degenerate Art in Berlin 1938. In: Uwe Fleckner (Hrsg.): Attack on the avant-garde. Art and Art Politics in National Socialism. Berlin 2007, p. 90.
  23. ↑ cf. Paul Ortwin Rave: Art dictatorship in the Third Reich (1949), reprint, edited by Uwe M. Schneede, Berlin o. D., p. 93 ff.
  24. ↑ Gunnar Schnabel, Monika Tatzkow: Nazi Looted Art. Manual. Art restitution worldwide . Berlin 2007, p. 38 and archived copy ( memento of the original dated June 29, 2009 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 March 23, 2009. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.geschkult.fu-berlin.de
  25. ↑ Melissa Müller: Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers (1891–1978) Hanover / Munich. In: Melissa Müller, Monika Tatzkow: Lost Pictures, Lost Lives. Jewish collectors and what became of their works of art . Munich 2009, p. 99 ff.
  26. ^ Thomas Buomberger: Looted art - art theft. Switzerland and the trade in stolen cultural goods during the Second World War . Zurich 1998, p. 56 f.
  27. ↑ Paul Ortwin Rave: Art dictatorship in the Third Reich (1949) . Reprint, edited by Uwe M. Schneede, Berlin undated, p. 124.
  28. ↑ Reg. Measures against Jews, September 27, 1940, ordinance sheet of the military commanders in France (VOBL.MBF) September 30, 1940, and others; quoted from: Jean Dreyfus, The Expropriation of the Jews in Western Europe. In: Constantin Goschler, Philipp Ther (ed.): Looted art and restitution. “Aryanization” and restitution of Jewish property in Europe. Frankfurt am Main 2003, p. 43 and p. 55, fn. 11
  29. ^ Thomas Buomberger: Looted art - art theft. Switzerland and the trade in stolen cultural goods during the Second World War . Zurich 1998, p. 32.
  30. ↑ 2nd report on the decree of the Reich Minister and Head of the Reich Chancellery RK 118 II A of August 19, 1940 and on the decree of the Reich Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda BK 9900-02 / 8/13/40/89 - 1/6 of August 20 1940: Concerning works of art and historically significant objects which have come into foreign possession since 1500 without our will or due to dubious legal transactions; Part I - III; completed December 31, 1940 // Otto Kümmel . Holdings of the Berlin State Library
  31. ↑ all numbers according to: Thomas Buomberger: Raubkunst - Kunstraub. Switzerland and the trade in stolen cultural goods during the Second World War . Zurich 1998, p. 37.
  32. ↑ Gunnar Schnabel, Monika Tatzkow: Nazi Looted Art. Manual. Art restitution worldwide. Berlin 2007, p. 86 f.
  33. ^ Dieter Pohl: The robbery of the Jews in occupied Eastern Europe 1939–1942. In: Constantin Goschler, Philipp Ther (ed.): Looted art and restitution. “Aryanization” and restitution of Jewish property in Europe . Frankfurt am Main 2003, p. 58 ff .; see. also: Gunnar Schnabel, Monika Tatzkow: Nazi Looted Art. Manual. Art restitution worldwide. Berlin 2007, p. 164.
  34. ↑ Jonathan Petropoulos: Art theft and collecting mania. Art and politics in the Third Reich ; Hamburg 1996, p. 226 f.
  35. ↑ Birgit Schwarz: Special order Linz and "Führermuseum". In: Inka Bertz, Michael Dorrmann (eds.): Looted art and restitution. Jewish property from 1933 to the present day. Frankfurt am Main 2008, p. 127 ff.
  36. ↑ Linz Collection, database of the German Historical Museum, accessed on March 25, 2009: [1] and Hanns Christian Löhr, Neufund, A new document on the "Special Order Linz" , Art Chronicle, 69 year issue 1, January 2016, p. 2 –7.
  37. ^ Hanns Christian Löhr: Art as a weapon. The task force Reichsleiter Rosenberg. , Berlin 2018, p. 39 ff.
  38. ^ Letter from Hermann Göring to Alfred Rosenberg dated November 21, 1940, Document 1651-PS from IMT: The Nuremberg Trial. Reprint Munich 1989, ISBN 3-7735-2522-2 , volume 27 (= document volume 3), quotation on p. 430.
  39. ↑ Ilse von zur Mühlen: Hermann Göring as an art collector. In: Inka Bertz, Michael Dorrmann (eds.): Looted art and restitution. Jewish property from 1933 to the present day . Frankfurt am Main 2008, p. 145; Nancy H. Yeide: Beyond the Dreams of Avarice. The Hermann Goering Collection. Dallas 2009 ; see also the documentation of the "Göring Collection" found objects that cannot be assigned, Lost Art Database, Magdeburg [2]  ( 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. , last accessed on March 28, 2009.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.lostart.de  
  40. ↑ Helmut Eberhart: "Inner politics is largely applied folklore ..." in: Alfred Ableitinger (Ed.): Federal state and Reichsgau. Democracy, “corporate state” and Nazi rule in Styria 1918 to 1945. Volume 2, Böhlau Verlag, Vienna-Cologne-Weimar 2015, ISBN 978-3-205-20062-8 , pp. 135–162, here p. 155 .
  41. ↑ all figures according to: Jonathan Petropulos in a statement on February 10, 2000 before the House Banking Committee in Washington Archived copy ( memento of the original from October 17, 2012 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 October 19, 2012) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / archives.financialservices.house.gov
  42. ↑ cf. Hannes Hartung: Art theft in war and persecution. The restitution of looted and looted art in conflict of laws and international law. Zurich 2004, p. 44 f.
  43. ^ Ernst Klee: The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Updated edition, 4th edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2013, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 , in the foreword, p. 5.
  44. ↑ Advisory Commission ( Memento from January 24, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), lostart.de, accessed on April 10, 2013.
  45. ↑ Steffen Winter: Brown booty. Der Spiegel 5/2013, 34-43 , accessed on November 4, 2013.
  46. ↑ June 25, 2016, Jörg Häntzschel, Catrin Lorch : Bavarian museums sold looted art to families of high-ranking Nazis ; according to Commission for Looted Art in Europe , London, lootedartcommission.com (June 26, 2016)
  47. ↑ Doreen Carvajal and Alison Smale : Nazi Art Loot Returned ... to Nazis - NYT, 2016-07-15
  48. ↑ previously in Spiegel 28/2016, p. 109.