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Paved with Good Intentions: the Development of German and American Holocaust-Era Looted Art Restitution Institutions

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Paved with Good Intentions: the Development of German and American Holocaust-Era Looted Art Restitution Institutions Paved with Good Intentions: The Development of German and American Holocaust-era Looted Art Restitution Institutions Alyssa Stokvis-Hauer A Thesis in The Department of Art History Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Master of Arts (Art History) at Concordia University Montreal, Quebec, Canada January 2018 Alyssa Stokvis-Hauer, 2018 CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY School of Graduate Studies This is to certify that the thesis prepared By: Alyssa Stokvis-Hauer Entitled: Paved with Good Intentions: The Development of German and American Holocaust-era Looted Art Restitution Institutions and submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (Art History) complies with the regulations of the University and meets the accepted standards with respect to originality and quality. Signed by the final Examining Committee: ______________________________________ Chair Elaine Cheasley Paterson _____________________________________ Examiner Loren Lerner _____________________________________ Supervisor Catherine MacKenzie Approved by: __________________________________________ Kristina Huneault, Graduate Program Director __________________________________________ Rebecca Taylor Duclos, Dean of Faculty of Fine Arts Date: ___________________________ Abstract Paved with Good Intentions: The Development of German and American Holocaust-era Looted Art Restitution Institutions Alyssa Stokvis-Hauer This thesis presents insights into how conceptualizing and pursuing Nazi-looted art and cultural heritage restitution has changed since 1945 in the United States and Germany. The text presents historical and institutional analyses of the two major restitution institutions in these countries; the New York Financial Service Department’s Holocaust Claims Processing Office (HCPO), and the Magdeburg-based federal institution known widely as the German Lost Art Foundation, or more correctly as the Deutsches Zentrum Kulturgutverluste, formerly the Koordinierungsstelle für Kulturgutverluste located first in Bremen and then Magdeburg. The past views of guilt, justice, and restitution as a moral imperative in the years immediately following World War II vary substantially from the contemporary ethos that characterizes the restitution of Holocaust-era spoliated cultural objects. Through the 1940s and 1950s German suffering shaped post-war German imperatives, while the American approach was heavily influenced by media coverage which highlighted American heroism and virtue, alongside a reluctant custodianship balanced with efforts to engage in effective restitution prerogatives. As such, the ascendancy of moral purpose and a politics of memory and regret in the 1990s is a significant shift.1 Filling a gap in World War II era spoliated art restitution research, this text uses institutional and cultural comparisons to bring to the fore patterns and changes within national self-narration or identification that influence institutional organization or practices. Drawing from archival documents, interviews, and secondary literature, this shift is approached and analyzed through a framework of discursive institutionalism, collective memory, and national identity construction. 1 Robert G. Moeller, War Stories: The Search for the Usable Past in the Federal Republic of Germany (Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2002), 2; Lynn H. Nicholas, The Rape of Europa: the fate of Europe’s treasures in the Third Reich and Second World War (New York: Knopf, 1994), 370, 390-391; “Further Receipt of Restitution Claims: Draft correspondence from Property Division Restitution Branch to K.A. de Keyserlingk and Richard F. Roward,” Records Relating to the Property Division 1945-1949, Records of the Control Office, box 703, record group 260 Records of the U.S. Occupation Headquarters, World War II, National Archives and Registration II, College Park, Maryland. iii Acknowledgments & Dedication There are a great many people without whose help my research and thesis would not have been possible – nor nearly as well-formed – and I would like to offer them my gratitude. First and most importantly, I want to thank my inexhaustible supervisor Dr. Catherine MacKenzie: your unflagging support, brilliance, humour, and mentorship made this project possible. My appreciation is only matched by my respect for your tireless and invaluable work and pedagogy in the field of art restitution and feminist art histories. My immense gratitude also goes to Dr. Loren Lerner, my reader, whose staggering knowledge and insightful advice have not only been instrumental in the production of this thesis, but infinitely helpful over the course of my studies. Thank you for all your support and advice; working with and learning from you has been a singular inspiration. My most profound thanks goes to the amazing faculty and administration at Concordia’s Department of Art History, and my peers in the department. It goes in equal measure to those amazing women of my cohort who showed me the meaning of Garbage Can (not Garbage Can’t). I am truly lucky to have been a part of such a supportive, intelligent, and dynamic community. Additionally, I am forever grateful for the support I received from Concordia University, the Faculty of Fine Arts, the Department of Art History, and the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst. Their support first allowed me the opportunity to pursue this degree, and then enabled me to go further afield than I had ever dreamed in pursuing my research. Throughout my research travels, I met a great many people who made a significant difference to the course of my research. A special thank you to all of you in Washington, DC, New York, Stuttgart, Hamburg, and Berlin: from those who put up a wandering scholar to those who patiently explained German archival retrieval systems, a heartfelt thank you. I owe an additional and special debt of gratitude to my interviewees for their time, effort, and advice. Finally, to my family, friends, and loved ones; thank you for always picking up the metaphorical (or actual, or banana) phone, indulging my inexplicable use of German, and the late-night edits, puns, and pep talks. You make me brave, and I would not have been able to do this without your support, love, and iron-clad patience. This work is dedicated to my Zadie, Dr. Samuel Hauer, for showing me the constellations, And my Mum, Gillian Stokvis-Hauer, for fuelling my rocket ship, and everything else. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... vi List of Abbreviations ................................................................................................................. viii Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 2 Institutional Case Study Overview: Foundings, Functions, and Developments ................... 10 “Keep doing what we’re doing”: the Holocaust Claims Processing Office .......................................... 12 “Some kind of Ewigkeitsgarantie”: the Former- Koordinierungsstelle/Deutsches Zentrum Kulturgutverluste .................................................................................................................................... 23 National Identity & Restitution After the War ........................................................................ 35 The Nation, Memory, and Regret ........................................................................................................... 36 American Prerogatives: The ‘Good’ Fight and Internal Disputes ......................................................... 39 German Trauma: “We, You and I” ........................................................................................................ 50 The Marks of Regional History: Self-Narration, Institutional Organization, and Effective Change versus Good Intentions ................................................................................................. 57 Conclusion: “confident but not too optimistic”........................................................................ 71 Figures .......................................................................................................................................... 77 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................ 90 Appendix A: Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art released on December 3rd, 1998 ...................................................................................................................................... 105 Appendix B: The Joint/Common Declaration or Gemeinsame Erklärung (1999) .................... 106 Appendix C: Interview with Dr. Anja Heuß, former employee of the Koordinierungsstelle Bremen, provenance research expert & museum professional (24 March, 2016) ...................... 109 Appendix D: Interview with anonymous government official from an undisclosed German Federal Ministry (Berlin, 19 February, 2016) ............................................................................. 113 Appendix E: Interview with Dr. Michael Franz, former Director of the Koordinierungsstelle Magdeburg & Head of the Department for General and Administrative Matters at the Deutsches Zentrum Kulturgutverluste (Magdeburg, 24 February, 2016) ...................................................
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