Nazi-Confiscated Art Issues

Nazi-Confiscated Art Issues Dr. Jonathan Petropoulos PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY, LOYOLA COLLEGE, MD UNITED STATES Art Looting during the Third Reich: An Overview with Recommendations for Further Research Plenary Session on Nazi-Confiscated Art Issues It is an honor to be here to speak to you today. In many respects it is the highpoint of the over fifteen years I have spent working on this issue of artworks looted by the Nazis. This is a vast topic, too much for any one book, or even any one person to cover. Put simply, the Nazis plundered so many objects over such a large geographical area that it requires a collaborative effort to reconstruct this history. The project of determining what was plundered and what subsequently happened to these objects must be a team effort. And in fact, this is the way the work has proceeded. Many scholars have added pieces to the puzzle, and we are just now starting to assemble a complete picture. In my work I have focused on the Nazi plundering agencies1; Lynn Nicholas and Michael Kurtz have worked on the restitution process2; Hector Feliciano concentrated on specific collections in Western Europe which were 1 Jonathan Petropoulos, Art as Politics in the Third Reich (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press). Also, The Faustian Bargain: The Art World in Nazi Germany (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming, 1999). 2 Lynn Nicholas, The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1994); and Michael Kurtz, Nazi Contraband: American Policy on the Return of European Cultural Treasures (New York: Garland, 1985). 442 WASHINGTON CONFERENCE ON HOLOCAUST-ERA ASSETS plundered3; Thomas Buomberger has been examining the Swiss connection to this history4; Wolfgang Eichwede and his team in Bremen have explored looting on the Eastern Front5; Konstantin Akinsha, Gregori Kozlov, and Sylvia Hochfield unearthed the history of the Soviet Red Army trophy brigades6; Willi Korte and Bill Honan showed that the American G.I.s also stole works during and after the war7; and one could go on and on (my apologies to those left off this brief list).8 Certain events, notably the symposium "The Spoils of War" which was held in New York in 1995 have facilitated this cooperation, and I am pleased to say that there has generally been conscientious teamwork within the 3 Hector Feliciano, The Lost Museum: The Nazi Conspiracy to Steal the World's Greatest Works of Art (New York: Basic Books, 1997). 4 Thomas Buomberger, Raubkunst -- Kunstraub: Die Schweiz und der Handel mit gestohlene Kulturgüter zur Zeit des Zweiten Weltkrieges (Zürich: Orell Füssli, 1998). 5 See Wolfgang Eichwede and Ulrike Hartung, eds., "Betr.: Sicherstellung": NS- Kunstraub in der Sowjetunion (Hamburg: Edition Temmen, 1998); and Ulrike Hartung, Raubzüge in der Sowjetunion. Das Sonderkommando Künsberg 1941- 1943 (Bremen: Edition Temmen, 1997). 6 Konstantin Akinsha and Gregori Kozlov with Sylvia Hochfield, Beautiful Loot: The Soviet Plunder of Europe's Art Treasures (New York: Random House, 1995). 7 William Honan, Treasure Hunt: A New York Reporter Tracks the Quedlinburg Hoard (New York: Delta, 1997). Also on this theme, see Kenneth Alford, The Spoils of World War II: The American Military's Role in the Stealing of Europe's Treasures (New York: Birch Lane, 1994). 8 Other especially important studies include: Willem de Vries, Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg, Sonderstab Musik: The Confiscation of Music in the Occupied Countries of Western Europe during World War II (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1997); Wolfgang Eichwede and Ulrike Hartung, eds., "Betr. Sicherstellung": NS-Kunstraub in der Sowjetunion (Bremen: Edition Temmen, 1998); Mathias Frehner, ed., Das Geschäft mit der Raubkunst. Fakten, Thesen, Hintergründe (Zurich: Neue Zurcher Zeitung, 1998); Günther Haase, Kunstraub und Kunstschutz: Eine Dokumentation (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1991); Ulrike Hartung, Raubzüe in der Sowjetunion. Das Sonderkommando Küsberg, 1941-1943 (Bremen: Edition Temmen, 1997); Ernst Kubin, Sonderauftrag Linz: Die Kunstsammlung Adolf Hitler. Eine Thriller der Kulturgeschichte (Vienna: Orac, 1989); Jakob Kurz, Kunstraub in Europa, 1938- 1945 (Hamburg: Facta Oblita, 1989); Peter Manasse, Verschleppte Archive und Bibliotheken. Die Täigkeiten des Einsatzstab Rosenberg Zweiten Weltkrieges (St. Ingbert: Röhrig Universitätsverlag, 1997); Matila Simon, The Battle of the Louvre: The Struggle to Save French Art in World War II (New York: Hawthorn, 1971). NAZI-CONFISCATED ART ISSUES 443 scholarly community.9 I make a plea today to broaden this circle of cooperation so as to also include museum administrators and curators, gallery owners, and government officials. If we are to continue to make progress in writing this history and effecting a just restitution of the displaced artworks, it must be a collaborative venture among individuals in all of these spheres. I have been asked to speak on the National Socialists' actions with respect to artworks – an immense topic that is impossible to cover in ten minutes. But I would start with the following observation: the Nazis used art instrumentally as a part of their larger political and ideological project. Their policies with respect to art are inextricably linked to efforts to seize power within Germany, to conquer the European continent, and to execute their genocidal program. From the beginning, Hitler and the other Nazi Party leaders realized that artistic issues could be used to attract supporters. The Party Program of 1920 contained provisions about art (namely, that modern art should be viewed as "degenerate" and alien to the German people). By 1930, the Nazi leaders had learned to utilize artistic issues as a means of attacking political enemies. In Thuringia, where a Nazi had been appointed Minister of Education (Kultusminister), the target was the left, whom they associated with modernism – and indeed, they effectively forced the relocation of the Bauhaus from Dessau to Berlin. By the mid-1930s, the Nazi leaders were using art policies in their war against the Jews: the traveling Degenerate Art Exhibition, which opened in 1937, contained caustic anti-Semitic messages, and the expropriation of Jewish collections, which became more common around the same time, represented an important escalation of this war. Both developments were, as many have noted, part of the process of dehumanizing the Jews undertaken by the Nazis. Finally, the Nazis' project of seizing artworks from foreign lands that they viewed as Germanic was an expression of their geopolitical goals: the "Poland is really Germany" school of thought, which sought to seize objects deemed German and eradicate indigenous Polish culture, is but one example. In short, the Nazis' cultural policies – and specifically their efforts to loot artworks – were inextricably bound with the war and Holocaust, and this gives the project 9 Elizabeth Simpson, ed., The Spoils of War: World War II and Its Aftermath: The Loss, Reappearance, and Recovery of Cultural Property (New York: Harry Abrams, 1997). 444 WASHINGTON CONFERENCE ON HOLOCAUST-ERA ASSETS of restitution special urgency. One Polish scholar has made this linkage as he recently called for "material restitution and moral indemnity."10 I think it helpful to outline the different categories of Nazi plunder here at the outset; in part to gain a sense of the cultural objects that were displaced, but also to communicate with more specificity how the looting fit into the Nazis' ideological agenda. The first seizures involved modern art – works labeled "degenerate" – from state collections. This began by order of both Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels and Adolf Hitler in 1937 and resulted in the removal of over 17,000 works from German museums (though certain objects actually belonged to private individuals and were seized with no legal basis).11 While we do not know the fate of all these works – many were sent abroad and some were burned in Berlin – it is important to note that there have thus far been no claims on these works. The Nazis passed a law, dated May 31st 1938, which legalized the sale of artworks purged from state collections. German officials in the postwar period have recognized this law – or at least not filed claims or sought restitution. I have heard that some German museum directors and curators do not agree with this policy and would like to see their institutions pursue certain artworks that had been purged by the Nazis. But to repeat, there have been no claims made on these works and the task until now has been simply to ascertain the fate of these works (the first comprehensive list of the 17,000 purged pieces surfaced only last year in London). The second category concerns artworks taken from German and Austrian Jews. Very often artworks were seized as part of Nazi Aryanization measures: the taking over of Jewish-owned businesses, including art galleries. This happened first in Germany on a limited scale, and then was "perfected" in Vienna by Adolf Eichmann and his cohorts who oversaw a "one stop" emigration office. This is part of what scholars have termed the "Viennese model." These works, if found, should be restituted to former owners or their heirs. The third category is the property belonging to Jews outside the Reich. This includes, in order of seizure, the property of Jews in Poland, France, the Benelux countries, Greece, and subsequently the rest of Eastern Europe. The Nazis established a network

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