Guelph treasure

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Arm reliquary: rear view
Front view

The Welfenschatz is the former reliquary of the collegiate church of St. Blasius and St. Johannis the Baptist , today's Brunswick Cathedral, or the majority of the treasure that became the property of the German public after 1945 . The treasure consists of handicraft items that were made between the 11th and 15th centuries, mostly goldsmith's work . It was only referred to as a Welf Treasure after 1866, when it was privately owned by the exiled family of the Welfswhose ancestors once donated it to the cathedral .

During the Nazi era , the treasure became the property of the Prussian state under controversial circumstances and then that of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation . Attempts by the heirs of the previous owners to regain the treasure failed. In Germany, the Limbach Commission spoke out against the return because the treasure was not looted art , and in the United States the Supreme Court declined the jurisdiction of the US courts to bring a claim for recovery.

history

The Brunonese Countess Gertrud the Elder of Braunschweig († 1077, wife of Liudolf of Braunschweig ) had already donated various valuable furnishings to the predecessor building of the cathedral around 1030. Some of these are still in the Welfenschatz today, including z. B. the arm reliquary of Saint Blaise , the namesake of the Brunswick Cathedral. Today it is in the medieval collection of the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum in Dankwarderode Castle .

Over the centuries, the treasure was increased considerably by bequests and foundations ; an inventory from 1482 contains 140 items. In 1545 parts of the church treasure of the Brunswick Cyriakus monastery were added.

A theft from the treasure was recorded for the first time in 1574: twenty items - mainly monstrances - were stolen, which have since been considered lost. However, some of the stolen objects were verifiably brought from Braunschweig to Dedeleben by the two perpetrators, Hans Kellermann and Hans Rotermund, shortly after their break-in. This is where the Gulden family lived, which Kellermann and Rotermund had instigated to steal. In the presence of the two thieves, the gemstones were broken out of the vasa (non) sacra, the silver objects melted down and both were then sold - with the exception of a small crystal, which he, Hans Kellerman, a megdelein in Hesse, presented in the inn . In 1658 and in the following years, Duke Anton Ulrich removed numerous parts.

  • So-called First Gertrudenkreuz, ( Cleveland Museum of Art )

  • Reliquary with the tooth of John the Baptist, rock crystal (Egypt around 1000) and gold-plated silver, 1375–1400 ( Art Institute of Chicago )

  • Portable altar of Countess Gertrud, around 1038 (Cleveland Museum of Art)

  • Dome reliquary, end of the 12th century ( Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin )

  • Welfenkreuz (Museum of Applied Arts Berlin)

Handover of the treasure to the Guelphs

After the Protestant city of Braunschweig lost its independence on June 12, 1671, the treasure - with the exception of the arm reliquary of the patron saint of the cathedral - was handed over to Duke Johann Friedrich , who converted to Catholicism in 1651 . At the time the treasure was handed over on July 16, 1671, it was still undivided. Johann Friedrich had it first brought to the Schlosskirche in Hanover , where the treasure was rarely presented and only to a few selected people. Johann Friedrich was a collector and further expanded the existing collection. He appointed the abbot of Loccum Monastery, Gerhard Wolter Molanus, to be the curator of the collection. He created a new catalog in 1697, which was also translated into Latin for the Pope.

In the course of the Napoleonic Wars , the treasure was brought to safety in England to protect it from enemy troops, but then returned to Hanover, where it was exhibited in the " Royal Welf Museum" founded by King George V in 1861 and opened in 1862 .

After the Kingdom of Hanover was annexed by Prussia in 1866 , the treasure was granted to George V as private property, after which he took it into exile to Austria and made it accessible to the public in the Vienna Museum of Art and Industry . In 1891 the first scientific catalog was finally published in which the Austrian Cistercian and church historian Wilhelm Anton Neumann listed and described all the remaining parts of the treasure.

Selling and smashing the treasure

Finally, in 1928, a grandson of George V, Duke Ernst-August von Braunschweig-Lüneburg , tried to turn the remaining 82 pieces of the treasure into cash, as he maintained a number of castles and had to bear considerable pension burdens, but his essential ones due to the revolution of 1918 Had lost source of income. Large parts of the Guelphs' household assets were also frozen from 1866 until the agreement in the dispute over the Guelph Fund in 1933. Ernst-August demanded 24 million Reichsmarks for the entire treasure. Due to the global economic crisis , however, no buyer was initially found.

Numerous German museums now endeavored to preserve the reliquary as a whole for Germany and to counteract the threat of destruction. But even submissions to the Reich Chancellor and the Prussian State Government remained in vain due to the non-negotiable conditions on the part of the Guelph Duke. On the other hand, an offer by Ernst-August to the city of Hanover to purchase the entire Welfenschatz together with the Herrenhausen Gardens for 10 million RM was rejected by the city on December 30, 1929 due to the desperate financial situation.

As a result, a consortium of three well-known Frankfurt Jewish art dealers, J. & S. Goldschmidt (Julius Falk Goldschmidt), I. Rosenbaum (Isaak Rosenbaum, Saemy Rosenberg) and ZM Hackenbroch (Zacharias Max Hackenbroch), acquired the reliquary treasure consisting of 82 individual exhibits for 7.5 million Reichsmarks on October 5, 1929. At various subsequent exhibitions in Frankfurt, Berlin and the USA, forty exhibits were finally sold to private and public collections in the USA by 1932 for a total of around 1.5 million Reichsmarks . Most of the pieces, including the so-called Gertrudis portable altar, were secured by the Cleveland Museum of Art , but the Art Institute of Chicago also received eight pieces.

For the whereabouts of all parts acquired in 1930, see: Welfenschatz (list) .

Acquisition by the Prussian state in 1935

The art dealers involved, who apparently ran into serious economic difficulties within a short time as a result of the global economic crisis and the anti-Semitic persecution that began immediately after the National Socialist seizure of power in early 1933 and some of them had to emigrate abroad before 1935, apparently began negotiating the Purchase of the remaining collection that was in Amsterdam at the time of the negotiations. Their value was put at 6 to 7 million Reichsmarks.

Both the lawyer SS-Obergruppenführer Wilhelm Stuckart , who was later convicted as a Nazi war criminal , and Finance Minister Johannes Popitz , who was later executed as a resistance fighter, played a decisive role in the negotiations on the purchase of the collection on the part of the State of Prussia .

For the National Socialist Reich government , and even more so for the then pro forma still existing Free State of Prussia under its Prime Minister Hermann Göring , the "return" of the Guelph treasure to the German Reich was of paramount cultural and political importance, because the purchase negotiations were largely carried out by the Prussian Finance Minister Johannes Popitz and Bernhard Rust , At that time Prussian minister of culture and co-initiator of the law for the restoration of the professional civil service , coordinated and enforced with Göring's consent (from the foreword of the catalog accompanying the exhibition of the Welfenschatz in Berlin in 1935: “... That the treasure after its wanderings through the new world is still for its German Homeland has been saved, we thank the culturally conscious and purposeful energy of the Prussian Finance Minister, Dr. Popitz, and the Reich and Prussian Minister for Science, Education and National Education, Mr. Bernhard Rust, both of whom with joy With the consent of Prime Minister Göring, decided and enforced the acquisition of the treasure. ")

Finally, with the help of Dresdner Bank, in June 1935 the State of Prussia acquired the 42 unsold pieces from the possession of the dealer consortium for the Staatliche Museen Berlin (two others were owned shortly afterwards) for a price of allegedly 4.25 million Reichsmarks, including the "Welfenkreuz", the Eilbertus portable altar, the dome reliquary and the plenary of Otto the Mild . These pieces are considered to be the most important parts of the (remaining) treasure in terms of art history.

During the Second World War , the items were relocated and could thus be saved from destruction or robbery.

Remaining after 1945

After the war ended, they were confiscated by US troops . The treasure was then handed over to the State of Hesse in trust and finally to Lower Saxony in 1955. In 1957 the Welfenschatz became the property of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation . From 1957 to November 1963, the Welfenschatz could be viewed again in Dankwarderode Castle , before it was sent back to Berlin to the arts and crafts museum in Berlin , where it has been exhibited since then - against great opposition from the city of Braunschweig, but also from the state of Lower Saxony . It is the most extensive church treasure exhibited in an art museum in the world. It is the highlight of the Medieval Collection of the Museum of Decorative Arts.

In addition to the oldest arm reliquary, other parts that were acquired by the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum after 1945 remained in Braunschweig .

Restitution claim

The heirs of the Jewish art dealer in Frankfurt since 2008 make claims for restitution (restitution) of the works of art submitted. The Prussian Foundation estimates the value of the treasure at 100 million euros. The plaintiff's heirs assume a value of 260 million euros.

The heirs refer to the international treaties on dealing with looted art and argue that the sale in 1935 was only made under the pressure of racist persecution, the purchase price was not reasonable and that their ancestors could not freely dispose of the purchase price. In the dispute, both sides refer to the Washington Conference on Holocaust-Era Assets (Washington Conference on Assets from the Time of the Holocaust) in December 1998, whereby the heirs argued that Germany did not do one at the Washington Conference legally but morally binding self-commitment.

Procedure in Germany

The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation refused to hand them over and did not recognize the claims. However, she agreed to the appeal to the Limbach Commission , which made formally non-binding recommendations on disputed restitution cases.

In the course of the proceedings, expert opinions were obtained from both parties. The foundation's appraisers came to the conclusion that the purchase price was appropriate for the situation on the art market in 1935 and that the Prussian state was the only interested party in the works of art. There are also no indications that the buyers could not freely dispose of the proceeds. In addition, at the time of the sale, the treasure was located abroad, safe from access by the German or Prussian state, and was only sent to Berlin after the purchase price had been paid. On the other hand, two experts for the heirs came to the conclusion that the prerequisites for a return were met, in particular that the state first brought about the plight of the dealers through its anti-Semitic policies and then exploited this situation. In September 2013, the Israeli culture minister Limor Livnat intervened in the dispute and supported the heirs in a letter to the state minister for culture, Bernd Neumann . With that the matter reached a political level.

On March 20, 2014, the Limbach Commission issued a recommendation against a return, since, in their opinion, the cause of the art dealers' loss of property was not the Nazi persecution of the art dealers (i.e. it was not stolen art). The Commission argues that there are

“There are no indications that the art dealers and their business partners have been put under pressure in the negotiations - for example by Göring - in the special case to be assessed by the Advisory Commission; in addition, in 1934/1935 one had to deal with the effects of the global economic crisis. Ultimately, both sides agreed on a purchase price that was below the purchase price of 1929, but that corresponded to the situation on the art market after the Great Depression. The art dealers used the proceeds to a large extent to repay the financial contributions of their domestic and foreign business partners. Besides, there is no evidence that the art dealers and their business partners could not freely dispose of the proceeds. "

Procedure in the USA

In February 2015, two heirs of the art dealers sued the US Federal District Court for the District of Columbia against the Federal Republic of Germany and the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation for the surrender of the 42 Berlin pieces of the Welfenschatz acquired in 1935. In the lawsuit, they argued that the sale to Prussia was due to coercion. Under its Prime Minister Goering, Prussia had acted with the help of many well-known Nazis and had the Dresdner Bank appear as the buyer. The treasure bought in 1929 for 7.5 million RM, when it was sold in June 1935, had a significantly higher value than the 4.35 million RM that was finally agreed. In the course of the negotiations, which began at the beginning of 1934, the persecution pressure on the sellers who were in Germany had increased, which, not least economically, had severely limited their ability to wait until a better buyer was found, even if they did that would have been possible for them.

In autumn 2015, the Federal Republic of Germany and the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation filed a motion to dismiss to dismiss the lawsuit. The defendants argue that an American court cannot judge the German state (to which the foundation is assigned) for reasons of international law. The exceptions provided by American law under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act are not met. In particular, the German state did not appear commercially in connection with the image in the USA (as would be the case, for example, with the purchase of American goods by German government agencies). There is also no expropriation that could also establish the jurisdiction of an American court. In addition, there is a sufficient system in Germany for dealing with cases like this, namely mediation by the Limbach Commission . The plaintiffs are therefore not dependent on going to an American court (which, exceptionally, could lead to the jurisdiction of American courts). The Nazi persecution of the plaintiffs' predecessors was not the cause of the loss. The defendants also invoked the statute of limitations.

On March 31, 2017, the Washington DC court dismissed the motion to dismiss the lawsuit. In September 2019, the German Federal Government appealed to the Supreme Court with an application for Certiorari . On July 2, 2020, the Supreme Court accepted the appeal for decision.

On February 3, 2021, the Supreme Court ruled in the Federal Republic of Germany v. Philipp unanimously states that the US courts have no jurisdiction to assess the lawsuit. The exception of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act invoked by the plaintiffs , which normally prohibits actions against other states, is not fulfilled. This exception allows actions in the case of "property rights expropriated in violation of international law". According to the court, this is not the case when a state expropriates the property of its own citizens domestically. The exception in question relates only to encroachments on property rights and not to genocide or crimes against humanity, with which the plaintiffs linked the alleged expropriation.

Protection of cultural property

On April 4, 2014, the State of Berlin initiated the process of entering the 44 Berlin pieces in the register of nationally valuable cultural assets under the Cultural Property Protection Act . The entry was made on February 6, 2015. This means that the export of the collection or individual parts of it is only possible with ministerial approval.

literature

  • Mareike Beulshausen: Thieving trade and legal process: The church robbery of St. Blasius in Braunschweig on May 5, 1574 and its perpetrators. In: Braunschweigisches Jahrbuch. Volume 99, 2018, pp. 53-84.
  • Andrea Boockmann: The lost parts of the 'Welf Treasure'. An overview based on the reliquary index from 1482 of the collegiate church of St. Blasius in Braunschweig , Göttingen 1997
  • Gisela Bungarten, Jochen Luckhardt (Ed.): Welfenschätze. Collected, sold, preserved by museums. Exhibition catalog Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Michael Imhof Verlag, Braunschweig 2007, ISBN 978-3-86568-262-8 .
  • Joachim Ehlers , Dietrich Kötzsche (ed.): The Welfenschatz and its surroundings. Mainz 1998
  • Otto von Falke , Robert Schmidt, Georg Swarzenski : The Welfenschatz. The reliquary of the Brunswick Cathedral from the possession of the Herzogl. House of Brunswick-Lüneburg , Frankfurt 1930
  • Klaus Jaitner: The reliquary treasure of the House of Braunschweig-Lüneburg ("Welfenschatz") from the 17th to the 20th century . In: Jahrbuch Preußischer Kulturbesitz 23, 1986, pp. 391–422.
  • Dietrich Kötzsche : Der Welfenschatz , In: Jochen Luckhardt, Franz Niehoff (Hrsg.): Heinrich the lion and his time. Rule and representation of the Guelphs 1125–1235. Catalog of the exhibition Braunschweig 1995, Volume 2, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-7774-6900-9 , pp. 511-528.
  • Dietrich Kötzsche: The Welfenschatz in the Berlin Museum of Decorative Arts . Berlin 1973
  • Paul Jonas Meier : The Welf Treasure . In: Braunschweigische Heimat 1929, 20, pp. 18–32.
  • Wilhelm A. Neumann : The reliquary treasure of the house Braunschweig-Lüneburg . Vienna: Hölder 1891
Text: digitized version of the Braunschweig University Library
Tables: digitized version of the Braunschweig University Library
  • National Museums in Berlin: The Welf Treasure, Introduction and Descriptive Directory , Berlin 1935.
  • Städelsches Kunstinstitut Frankfurt (Ed.) [A. Osterrieth]: The Welfenschatz - catalog of the exhibition 1930 - Berlin and in the Städelsche Kunstinstitut Frankfurt , Berlin and Frankfurt 1930
  • Georg Swarzenski : The Welf Treasure. In: Jahrbuch Preußischer Kulturbesitz 1963, pp. 91-108.
  • The Guelph Treasure shown at the Art Institute of Chicago. (Catalog of the exhibition March 31 to April 20, 1931)
Digital copy (PDF; 42.4 MB) of the Art Institute's hand copy with handwritten price notes
  • Patrick M. de Winter: The Welf Treasure. Testimony to sacred art of the German Middle Ages , Hanover 1986, ISBN 3-924415-07-2 .

Web links

Commons : Welfenschatz  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Welfenschatz  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martina Junghans: The arm reliquaries in Germany from the 11th to the middle of the 13th century, Dissertation Bonn (2000), Bonn 2002, cat. 1
  2. ↑ Mareike Beulshausen: Thieving trade and judicial process: The church robbery of St. Blasius in Braunschweig on May 5, 1574 and his perpetrators . In: Braunschweigisches Jahrbuch . tape 99 , 2018, p. 53–84, here p. 56 .
  3. ↑ Mareike Beulshausen: Thieving trade and judicial process: The church robbery of St. Blasius in Braunschweig on May 5, 1574 and his perpetrators . In: Braunschweigisches Jahrbuch . tape 99 , 2018, p. 53–84, here p. 56 .
  4. ↑ numbers after the tug of war over the legendary Welfenschatz , articles in the world and of 24 September 2013, see [1] The world of 1 November 2013, the world of 9 December (updated Dec. 12) 2013 [2] accessed on April 7, 2014
  5. ^ Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz , Yearbook Preussischer Kulturbesitz, vol. 23, Berlin 1987, p. 422.
  6. ^ National Museums in Berlin: The Welfenschatz, introduction and descriptive directory , Berlin 1935.
  7. ↑ Nazi-looted art - “Unworthy and morally highly questionable.” In Die Zeit of June 2, 2009
  8. ↑ Sonja Zekri: Nazi looted art: It wasn't a normal business. sueddeutsche.de, January 5, 2021, accessed on January 5, 2021 .
  9. ↑ Tim Ackermann; Barbara Möller in Die Welt, September 25, 2013 : The gold that leaves you speechless . ( Memento from September 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  10. ↑ Stefan Koldehoff: Who does the Welf Treasure belong to? , Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of September 23, 2013, accessed on September 23, 2013
  11. ↑ The tug of war for a unique treasure becomes a thriller in FAZ on January 11, 2014, p. 35
  12. ↑ Welt Online: Legendary Welf Treasure Is Not Looted Art , March 20, 2014.
  13. ↑ to the recommendation of March 20, 2014 ( Memento of September 19, 2015 in the Internet Archive ).
  14. ^ Alan Philipp, London, the grandson and legal successor to the estate of the late Zacharias Max Hackenbroch, the sole owner of the former Hackenbroch art dealers and Gerald G. Stiebel, Santa Fe, New Mexico, the great-nephew of the late Isaac Rosenbaum, co-owner of I. Rosenbaum art dealers with Saemy Rosenberg, and legal successor to Rosenbaum's estate. ( Application against the Federal Republic of Germany and the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation dated February 23, 2015 ( Memento dated February 25, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), p. 6)
  15. ↑ Stefan Koldehoff in the FAZ, February 25, 2015: Complaint about Welfenschatz: Again: how voluntary was this sale? The Limbach Commission has not recommended restitution of the Guelph treasure. Now the heirs of two of the former buyers are suing in America. Will the case be reopened? [3] .
  16. ↑ ( Purchase contract as Annex 1, Sheet 72 of the application ( Memento of February 25, 2015 in the Internet Archive ))
  17. ↑ p. 29 ff. Of the application.
  18. ↑ Claims to Welfenschatz: Looted Art or Bad Investment? , FAZ of October 31, 2015, accessed on October 31, 2015; Reply of October 29, 2015 to the application
  19. ↑ P. 57, 67 of the defense.
  20. ^ Deutsche Welle (www.dw.com): Nazi-looted art claim sets new test for Germany | Arts | DW.COM | 04/19/2017 ( en ) Retrieved April 20, 2017.
  21. ↑ Federal Republic of Germany v. Philipp , 592 US ___ (2021)
  22. ↑ Amy Howe: Jurisdictional win for Germany in lawsuit seeking to recover art taken by Nazis. In: SCOTUSblog. February 3, 2021, accessed February 6, 2021 (American English).
  23. ↑ Directory no. 03803 So-called Welfenschatz ( Memento from February 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  24. ↑ dpa report from February 21, 2015, see export ban for the Welfenschatz ( memento from February 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), rbb-online