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Barbara and Erhard Göpel he had co-founded. Göpel had written to the 13 Barbara and Erhard Göpel: artist in the US several times, as Beckmann’s wife confirmed in a letter from 1951 while also underscoring the old, friendly bond between A Convergence Beckmann and his “Eckermann.” “Neither I nor Beckmann,” she wrote, “have forgot- ten the ‘A.-Zeit’ [time in Amsterdam]—and I Von Eugen Blume The history of one of the most exemplary cata- hope and believe you sense and understand logues raisonnés in the area of classic modern- that, even if it was only greetings and imagi- ism had its start in the late 1920s. Erhard nary letters that were sent to Eckermann!” 3 Göpel, a young art historian from Leipzig who In 1948, three years after the end of the war, had actually dedicated himself to ancient art the forty-two-year-old Göpel was hired at his and, already as a fourteen-year-old, absorbed first permanent job, as an editor at the Prestel expert knowledge at C. G. Borner, an art deal- Verlag publishing house in Munich, which ership specializing in prints and drawings, was was to become his adopted hometown. A brief captivated by the work of Max Beckmann. It is time later, the “A .-Ze it ” began to catch up not known exactly when the fire was sparked. with him. The photograph that Peter Keetman Göpel may have seen the Beckmann retrospec- took of Göpel in front of a Munich window tive organized by Gustav Hartlaub at the Mann- display in 1954 (fig. 1) seems to illustrate the heim Kunsthalle in 1928. Four years later, he question that began circulating at the time made the artist’s acquaintance in Paris and vis- about his role as a Sonderbeauftragter (special ited him at his Berlin studio in 1934. Under the representative) for the so-called Führermuseum new regime in Germany, Beckmann had lost his in Linz. 4 When Ernst Buchner, the freshly professorship at the Städelschule in Frankfurt reappointed but controversial director general am Main. The impressive Beckmann space that of the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Ludwig Justi had installed on the upper level of wanted to hire Göpel, the German Ministry of the Museum der Gegenwart in the Kronprinzen- Culture and the boardroom of several news- palais, a branch of the Nationalgalerie, had papers, including the Süddeutsche Zeitung also been successively dismantled by the time and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Beckmann and his fellow artists were ultimately received copies of Göpel’s telegram to Martin denounced in 1937. The first of Göpel’s texts Bormann from April 1943, 5 in which he on Beckmann was published in 1934, on the proposed acquiring the looted French Jewish artist’s fiftieth birthday, in the Neue Leipziger Schoss family collection for Linz. As a result, Zeitung. It was the sole public tribute to a not only was Göpel’s hoped-for employment painter who just a few years earlier had been at the Staatsgemäldesammlungen permanent- celebrated as a genius. Göpel wrote at the time: ly suspended; the newspapers for which he “When the sixty-year-old looks back at 1934, regularly wrote also ceased to engage him there will be no doubt that he would again give further. Göpel was nonetheless apparently shape to today for tomorrow.” 1 The author of able to convince a few of his critics of his these lines could scarcely have anticipated that innocence and a brief time later felt “personally Beckmann would be living in exile in the Neth- and politically” rehabilitated, as he wrote in an erlands from 1937 on or how much he himself unpublished text. 6 What was he accused of? would be involved in the artist’s fate. How right he was in presuming that Beckmann would shape “today for tomorrow.” In Frankfurt the artist had already started his triptych Departure 3 Mathilde Q. Beckmann to Erhard Göpel, January (1934), a mythical prophecy of displacement 26, 1951, estate of Barbara Göpel, Max Beckmann and violence on a previously unknown scale. Archive, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Some seven years after Beckmann passed Munich. Published in Max Beckmann: Beiträge away, Göpel wrote an essay on the artist’s life 2019, Hefte des Max Beckmann Archivs 16, and work for the Propyläen-Verlag publishing ed. Christian Lenz (2019), p. 2. house. 2 He was among the first, following the 4 The photograph by Peter Keetman (1916–2005) years of defamation, to reintroduce Beckmann was made for the book München: Lebenskreise into the public consciousness. Together with einer Stadt, text by Erhard Göpel, photography the artist’s widow, Mathilde Q. Beckmann, by Peter Keetman (Lindau, 1955). then residing in the United States, he nego- tiated the publication of the artist’s diaries 5 In 1957 (?), in an undated letter to the then and was engaged with the idea of a catalogue director of the culture section of the Frankfurter raisonné, a task he proposed be undertaken Allgemeine Zeitung, Karl Korn, Erhard Göpel by the Max Beckmann Gesellschaft, which suspected that the Jewish journalist Susanne Carvin, who had returned from exile, along with the SPD politician and resistance fighter Walde- mar von Knoeringen had distributed the 1 Erhard Göpel, Max Beckmann: Berichte eines telegram. Cf. the typewritten copy of the letter, Augenzeugen, ed. Barbara Göpel (Frankfurt am estate of Barbara Göpel, Max Beckmann Archive, Main, 1984), p. 11. Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich. 2 Cf. Erhard Göpel, “Max Beckmann–Mensch 6 Cf. typewritten manuscript, 14 pages, undated, und Werk,” ibid., pp. 12–35. ibid. 14 In 1939 the art historian Göpel (b. 1906 in sums made available by Hitler via the party One “rescued” oneself in work-by-the-book Leipzig) was drafted as a Sonderführer (special headquarters led by Martin Bormann. His oriented toward a higher ideal and smoothly leader) in the salary grade—though not the ser- credentials included above all his work as an served the system, operating fluently un- vice rank—of a captain in an interpreter platoon assistant to the great scholar and connoisseur der its regulations. Neither Posse, who was of an infantry replacement battalion. With Frits Lugt, who knew every collector and dealer already terminally ill at the time of Göpel’s that, his art-historical career appeared to be in the area of Old Masters in Europe. There appointment; his successor, Hermann Voss; temporary ended. In 1941 the art historian Göpel had worked in particular on the cata- nor the employees Gottfried Reimer and Robert Oertel, likewise a Leipzig native and a loguing of Netherlandish drawings from the Robert Oertel were committed National friend of Göpel’s then working, under Hans Louvre. 8 He spoke, among other languages, Socialists but, rather, conservative art his- Posse for the planned museum in Linz, at the fluent Dutch and had graduated with a disser- torians who saw themselves as apolitical. Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden, tation, supervised by Theodor Hetzer, titled When Göpel arrived in Holland and moved recommended him as an expert for Old Ein Bildnisauftrag für van Dyck (A portrait into his office at the former Czechoslovakian Dutch art. Posse was no longer able to look commission for Van Dyck). embassy in The Hague, he was surrounded after this area himself due to health reasons. Preserved in several archives, the correspon- by military and secret service command posts. On April 16, 1942, Göpel was released from dence between Dresden and Göpel’s office He dealt with the Reichskommissar of the the army and starting May 1, ordered to in The Hague reveals how this art-histor- occupied Netherlands, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, the enterprise headquarters in Dresden. The ical procurement office perceived itself. In and was subordinate to General Commis- work he now began under Posse’s direction contrast to the gamblers in the entourage of sioner for Special Purposes Schmidt and, and, after the latter’s death, under that of Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, dealers after his unexplained death, the SS member Hermann Voss, for the Special Commission like Karl Haberstock, and the racist function- Wilhelm Ritterbusch. The brutal occupation Linz at the Reichskommisar for the occu- aries around Alfred Rosenberg, the Special power immediately began interning the Jewish pied Netherlandish area in the Department Commission Linz apparently saw itself as an population at and successively deporting them for Special Questions of Art Acquisition in art historically serious enterprise that solely from the Westerbork transit camp. The task The Hague, was more than problematic. fulfilled Hitler’s assignment to procure a of viewing and acquiring artworks emotion- The surviving documents are a windfall for re- qualitatively superior art collection for the lessly, preferably at a distance via middlemen constructing this unprecedented undertaking, museum planned in the so-called Ostmark. or agencies, might have succeeded while at a although important questions remain unan- This becomes evident in a November 23, 1942 desk in Dresden. Göpel, however, was directly swered. Birgit Schwarz is to be credited for memorandum Göpel penned to his superi- confronted with the practices of the SD (Secu- her research rectifying the hitherto prevailing or in Holland, General Commissioner for rity Service) and the SS (Protective Echelon) myth about the scope of the museum project. Special Purposes Fritz Schmidt. Addressing on site. The reality exposed the lie of an She set the proportions of this enterprise on the article on art theft in Holland “What unpolitical art-historical task and was further a realistic scale. 7 Considerably more difficult a Country to Plunder!,” 9 which had been fraught by old friends and acquaintances who is forming an opinion about the people who published in the flyer Voice of the Nether- repeatedly approached Göpel and the Special worked as privileged functionaries on an lands, Göpel wrote: “Truth and exaggeration Commission with pleas to help their Jewish ambitious museum project, personally run are mixed here, but even so, the majority relatives and acquaintances.
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