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In this post, we reproduce the case studies published in April 2023 (Number 16) by the Network of European Restitution Committees on Nazi-Looted Art (originally published by the Advisory Commission)
- CASE STUDY Update: A German family hands over to France two paintings stolen in Brittany during the Occupation
- CASE STUDY Restitution to heirs of Dr. Erich Stern
- CASE STUDY The painter Hirschenhauser and a special work of art
- CASE STUDY The Fritz Illner collection. Provenance Research in the Natural History Museum Vienna
Update: A German family hands over to France two paintings stolen in Brittany during the Occupation (case study: France)
Initial research undertaken by the CIVS identified several clues pointing to the commune of Audierne. However, the origin of the property could not be fully clarified, nor the rightful owners found. Pending these identifications, under the aegis of the CIVS, the municipality of Audierne and the German family wishing to return the paintings then reached an agreement authorising the exhibition of the paintings in the marriage hall of the Breton port‘s town hall, which then undertook to guarantee the proper conservation of the property. The official award ceremony was held on 19 September 2022 in Audierne.
The joint research carried out by the CIVS and the Ministry of Culture‘s Mission for Research and Restitution of Spoliated Cultural Property (1933-1945) (M2RS) made it possible to clarify the provenance of the works and identify the spoliated person.
The investigations revealed that R. J. had filed a claim with the Commission de récupération artistique, which was set up between 1944 and 1949 to receive claims from dispossessed owners, and with the Office des biens et intérêts privés (Office for Private Property and Interests – O.B.I.P.), which was attached to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and which also received reports of theft and looting of all types of property. In his application, R. J. mentioned his villa in Audierne, which had been occupied from February 1941 to August 1944, and declared the theft of several works of art on 7 October 1945: 3 oils, 2 large charcoals and 5 sketches by Lionel FLOCH.
From this research, it emerges that 3 oils by Lionel FLOCH claimed by “R. J.” are listed in the Répertoire des biens spoliés en France durant la guerre 1939-1945 (RBS) published between 1947 and 1949 by the Bureau central des restitutions. They were not restituted in 1961 and, in the case of two of them listed:
– Scène de marché à Guarda, 65 x 50 cm
– Vue de la côte sud de la baie de Douarnenez, 65 x 50 cm
The Ministry of Culture‘s Mission for Research and Restitution of Spoliated Cultural Property (1933-1945) (M2RS) concludes that their subject matter and dimensions correspond to the works deposited in Audierne.
Once the owner of the works had been identified, the CIVS conducted genealogical research and established the rightful owners.
Following mediation and agreement between the heirs, the works will be returned at a ceremony organised at the Audierne town hall on 1 April 2023.
This original arrangement corresponded perfectly to the spirit of the Washington Principles (1998).
(photo caption: Audierne - two paintings by the Frenchpainter Lionel Flochexpropriated during the Occupation were restituted to their rightful owners in April 2023)
Restitution to heirs of Dr. Erich Stern (case study: France)
On 16 September 2022, during a plenary session of the Commission pour l‘Indemnisation des victimes de spoliations (CIVS) in Paris, the case of the spoliation of 19 books belonging to Erich Stern, currently in the custody of the Zentral- und Landesbibliothek Berlin, was examined.
The facts
Erich Stern was a psychiatrist and psychologist, renowned for his work on psychosomatics. In 1933, because of his Jewish origins, he was forced into retirement and dismissed from his position in Germany. He emigrated with his wife and daughter to Paris at the end of 1933 and worked as a foreign assistant in the child neuropsychiatry clinic at the Sorbonne while at the same time running a clinic for Jewish immigrants.
He obtained French nationality in 1938, which was withdrawn in 1943. He lived with his family in Boulogne-Billancourt (Hauts-de-Seine), near Paris.
When France was invaded by German troops in June 1940, the Stern family took refuge in Salagnac in the Dordogne, where Dr. Stern worked at the Clairvivre health centre. The family stayed in Salagnac until 1948 before returning to the Paris suburbs.
During the Occupation, the flat in Boulogne-Billancourt was completely emptied of its contents. Dr. Stern‘s rich library of more than 6,000 books was put in boxes and transported to Germany.
On a date that remains unknown, his books were transferred to Germany and stored in the Reichs-sicherheitshauptamt (Reich Central Security Office – RSHA) warehouse in the Berlin district of Schöneberg. This is where the RSHA had stored the books stolen from all over Europe. At the end of the war, some of these books were distributed to various Berlin libraries, including the ZLB.
After the war
Dr. Stern took various steps both with the French authorities of the Commission de récupération artistique (Artistic Recovery Commission – C.R.A.) and the Office des biens et intérêts privés (Office for Private Property and Interests – O.B.I.P.) and with the German authorities under the BRüG Act, with a view to obtaining the return of his library and compensation for his furniture.
In July 1946, he refused 27 legal books as compensation, explaining that he was only interested in this type of work if it was related to his speciality and research.
At the same time, some twenty books in German on philosophy and psychology were returned to him. In addition, in October 1947, he was able to recover four boxes of books from the Central Collecting Point in Munich.
The procedure
In accordance with the provisions of Article 1-2 of Decree no. 99-778 of 10 September 1999, as amended, by decisions of the Chairman of the CIVS dated 14 May 2020 and 10 July 2021, the CIVS took over the restitution of 19 medical and psychological books that belonged to Dr. Erich Stern, following a report on the existence of his books at the Zentral- und Landes-bibliothek Berlin.
Dr. Erich Stern had an only daughter, who did not marry and died childless.
The doctor‘s daughter Stern had, by holographic will, instituted the Fonds social juif unifié (United Jewish Social Fund – FSJU) as her universal legatee, and several legatees in particular, namely, on the one hand, four persons to whom she bequeathed sums of money as well as her furniture, clothes and other belongings, and on the other hand, the association called Groupe toulousain de la société psychanalytique de Paris (Toulouse Group of the Paris Psychoanalytical Society), to which she bequeathed all the psychiatric and psychoanalytical books and journals that she owned.
In his declaration of 22 September 1949 addressed to the Office for Private Property and Interests (O.B.I.P.) Erich Stern estimated the value of his library at 500,000 French francs (about 17000 euros), of which he gave a general description, specifying that the catalogues had disappeared at the same time as the books, and explaining that it was divided into 16 sections, each corresponding to a subject (dictionaries and encyclopaedias, medicine, psychoanalysis and individual psychology, sciences, philosophy, law, economics, politics and history, religion, etc.), specifying that most of the books do not bear any mark or exlibris, but that on one part of the books his name appears, on another part his initials.
CIVS recommendation
There is no longer any doubt about the provenance of these books. The books, which were found during provenance research carried out at the Zentral- und Landesbibliothek Berlin, were part of the library belonging to Dr. Erich Stern and were stolen from his home in Boulogne-Billancourt by the German authorities as part of the anti-Semitic legislation in force in France during the Occupation. They correspond to the description of Dr. Stern‘s library given to the O.B.I.P.
Consequently, the Zentral- und Landesbibliothek Berlin having expressed its intention to return these books to Dr. Stern‘s heirs, and the administrative authorities having been consulted having given a favourable opinion, the works are currently being restored by the ZLB, and the return of the 19 books should soon be organised with the association “Groupe toulousain de la société psychanalytique de Paris”, Hilde Stern‘s universal heir.This research effort and the future restitution (in spring 2023) is once again an example of the excellent and successful French-German cooperation between the CIVS and the Zentral- und Landesbibliothek Berlin (ZLB).
The painter Hirschenhauser and a special work of art (case study: Austria)
When searching for works of art in museums and collections that were seized as a result of Nazi persecution, experience has shown that provenance research falls back on inventory books and in-house documents in order to obtain initial basic information on the origin of the work of art under investigation: namely, when and from whom the object was acquired.
Acquisitions during the Nazi period (in Austria March 1938 - May 1945), but also immediately thereafter, repeatedly include exhibits whose acquisition methods are questionable and whose provenance is only incompletely clarified. Also in the case of the print Shepherd Scene with Ruins by Gerhard Janssen (1636-1725), acquired in 1939, the inventory book lacked more detailed information about the circumstances of the acquisition.
Made around 1720, the print which at first glance looks like an aquatint, was created by etching the printing plate twice. The significance of Janssen‘s prints lies in a special technical process in which the figures appear white against a black background. This particular form of execution may also have aroused the Albertina‘s interest in purchasing the work. The first clues to the acquisition were found by consulting the in-house archival records. The purchase of these and other works had been financed in 1939 by the office of the Reichsstatthalter, then held by Baldur von Schirach, through an allocation in the amount of 10,000 Reichsmark. The preserved invoices and receipts showed that the Albertina had purchased the print created by Janssen from Rudolf Hirschenhauser for 30 Reichsmark on 29 March 1939. In the course of further research, it turned out that the seller was the academic painter Rudolf Paul Hirschenhauser (1882-1951), who had completed his training from 1901 to 1907 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna (General School of Painting and Special School of Graphic Arts). His marriage to Hedwig Karoline Sofie Mina Marx, which took place in 1914, produced two daughters. From 1924 to 1930 the couple lived in the third district in Vienna. In 1932, the marriage was divorced due to “insurmountable aversion,” and Hedwig married the lawyer Adolf Rziha in the same year. Between 1930 and 1932 Rudolf Hirschenhauser was then resident in Mödling near Vienna. The next registration is noted from October 1932 until August 1939 in Eitelbergergasse in the thirteenth district of Vienna. After that, he was registered as having left for London.Persecuted as a Jew by the National Socialist regime, Rudolf Hirschenhauser was targeted by the Property Transaction Office at the end of 1938. Since he received a monthly pension from his divorced wife and had not disclosed these assets in accordance with the so-called declaration of assets, charges were filed with the Provincial Court for Criminal Matters in January 1939. According to the indictment, Rudolf Hirschenhauser was visibly in need of money to cover the upcoming costs of his emigration. During his interrogation in early March 1939, Hirschenhauser stated for the record that he had left works of art to his former wife in exchange for money that he had needed for passport procurement, living expenses and various other expenses, as well as for the advance payment to the Vienna Foreign Exchange Office. The subsequent sale of the print and possibly other works of art at the end of March 1939 seems to have been motivated by the existing financial emergency. At the end of June 1939, Rudolf Hirschenhauser finally applied to the Central Office for the Protection of Monuments for the export of his own works and other art objects to London. He settled in Harrogate/North Yorkshire, where he died on 1 November 1951. He kept in touch with one of his daughters but never returned to Vienna. Thanks to proactive provenance research on the part of the Commission for Provenance Research, it was possible to determine the circumstances of the sale and the further fate of Rudolf Hirschenhauser. In its decision of 5 October 2017, the Austrian Art Restitution Advisory Board recommended the return of the print from the Albertina collection to the legal successors causa mortis to Rudolf Hirschenhauser. At the request of the competent Ministry, the Jewish Community Vienna (IKG Vienna) identified the legal successors. The community of heirs finally decided to offer the print to the Albertina for repurchase. The return to the authorized representative of the community of heirs, Ludwig Popper, and the repurchase of the sheet finally took place on 20 January 2023 in the Albertina.
At the handover by the Albertina‘s Director General, Klaus Albrecht Schröder, Ludwig Popper, nephew of Rudolf Hirschenhauser, told of his own family history. He was born shortly before the annexation of Austria to the German Reich. A few months later, his father Ludwig, a Jewish doctor, fled to Switzerland, while his mother Friederike, a nurse by profession, prepared the escape with her two sons. In 1939 the family emigrated to Bolivia, where Ludwig Popper spent his childhood until the age of nine. In 1947 they all returned to Vienna, where hardly any relatives were still alive. These had either also fled, died, committed suicide because of the pending deportation, or had been murdered in the Shoah. Popper studied medicine after graduating from high school. With his wife Helga he has two children. From 1973 he worked as a specialist in Oberwart, Burgenland. Popper‘s self-image as a physician was influenced by the socio-medical orientation of his father, whose biographical notes Bolivien für Gringos. Exil-Tagebuch eines Wiener Arztes (2005) and Briefe aus einer versinkenden Welt. 1938/39 (2008) he published. Today, as a contemporary witness, Ludwig Popper often speaks publicly, including at schools, about his family history. He never met his uncle Rudolf Hirschenhauser, a brother of his father.
https://www.provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Hirschenhauser_Rudolf_2017-10-05.pdf
https://www.weitererzaehlen.at/interviews/ludwig-popper
JULIA EßL Provenance researcher at the Albertina on behalf of the Commission for Provenance Research at the Federal Ministry for Art, Culture, the Civil Service and Sport
(photo caption: Return of the print to Dr. Ludwig Popper (on behalf of the community of heirs) and subsequent repurchase by the Albertina; from left: Director General of the Albertina Klaus Albrecht Schröder, Yvonne Popper, Ludwig Popper, Director of the Commission for Provenance ResearchPia Schölnberger, Chief Curator Christof Metzger, Heir Researcher Mathias Lichtenwagner, Provenance Researcher Julia eßl, Provenance Representative of the Albertina Alexander Pointner, Head of Collection Services Mia Metzler © the Albertina museum, vienna )
The Fritz Illner collection
Provenance research in the Natural History Museum Vienna (case study: Austria)
Since the Art Restitution Act was passed in Austria in 1998, the collections of the Natural History Museum in Vienna (NHM) have been examined for objects confiscated by the Nazis. In the course of research undertakings in the Geological-Palaeontological Department in 2018/19, the researchers of the Austrian Commission for Provenance Research discovered concrete evidence of the confiscation of the Fritz Illner collection as a result of Nazi persecution and were ultimately able to reconstruct this case. The case study below provides an overview of Fritz Illner`s tragic fate, the historical background of his collection and its eventual restitution.
Fritz Illner was born in Vienna in 1885. He married Anna Glas in 1920; the couple had two daughters, Herta and Rita. Fritz Illner worked as a road construction engineer and apparently stayed abroad for long periods of time for professional reasons, for example in Turkey from 1928 onwards. The four fossils from his collection that were acquired by the NHM in 1938 also came from Turkey, which is why it can be assumed that he collected these objects during his work stay there between 1928 and 1931. Fritz Illner was most likely not a trained geologist and only had rudimentary geological and palaeontological knowledge. His collection items come from the same site, but their composition does not correspond to the principles of a scientific collection – for example in the sense of a taxonomic order. In addition, a handwritten note accompanying the objects could indicate that Illner himself may have misdated the fossils. While the note says the finds were Jurassic, department staff correctly dated the objects to the Cretaceous period.
Since 1933 Anna and Fritz Illner had been deregistered to France, where they lived in Nice. Their daughters initially remained with their aunt Irma Bondy in Vienna. As a result of the “Anschluss” of Austria to the German Reich, the family was subjected to anti- Semitic persecution in Vienna. In November 1938 the children left Vienna with their aunt and fled to Nice. It is not known whether Irma Bondy also fled there. In June of the same year, she had sold her brother-in-law`s fossils for 20 Reichsmark to the Geological- Palaeontological Department at the NHM.
With the beginning of the Second World War, the situation of the reunited Illner family in France became increasingly difficult. As German-speaking foreigners, the Illners were now considered “citizens of the enemy powers” (ressortissants ennemis) and were temporarily detained in the Gurs internment camp (Camp de Gurs) in May 1940. They were soon released from the camp and could live in Nice again, but only under police surveillance. From the end of September to the beginning of October 1942, Herta and Rita Illner were interned in a barracks in Nice before they
were granted further residence permits after their release under the retention of police surveillance. With the occupation of Nice by the Nazis in September 1943, the situation for the Illners escalated dramatically: On 18 March 1944, the parents were arrested by the Gestapo and subsequently deported to Drancy. The children had apparently learned about the arrest in advance and went into hiding with forged documents.
On 13 April 1944, Anna and Fritz Illner were deported from Drancy to Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp, where they were most likely murdered immediately upon arrival. In 1959, they were declared dead at the request of their daughter Rita. According to Anna Illner`s brother Otto Glas, Irma Bondy is said to also have been deported to Auschwitz and murdered there. In fact, the name Irma Bondy appears in the deportation list for transport no. 27 of 2 September 1942, but dates of birth and information on origin are missing, which is why an unequivocal identification is not possible yet. There is no official declaration of death for Irma Bondy. While her name is listed in the „Wall of Names“ in the Mémorial de la Shoah in Paris to commemorate the Jews deported from France, there is an entry for Anna and Fritz Illner in the “Walls of Names” of the Viennese Memorial to the Jewish children, women and men from Austria who were murdered in the Shoah.
Herta and Rita Illner survived Nazi persecution by going into hiding. Both returned to Nice in April 1945. Rita married and immigrated to Israel with her husband. Herta stayed in Nice until 1958 and then followed her sister to Israel. In 1960, Herta returned to Vienna, where she died in 1993.
The tragic story behind the Fritz Illner collection could be reconstructed through the research of the provenance research team. The research led to a dossier, on the basis of which the Art Restitution Advisory Board recommended the return of the objects to the legal successors of Fritz Illner in October 2019 which was followed by the Minister of Culture. After extensive research, heir researcher Mathias Lichtenwagner was able to locate the legal successors, Fritz and Anna Illner`s grandchildren and great-grandchildren in Israel. The Commission for Provenance Research would like to thank the Austrian Embassy in Tel Aviv, namely the Deputy Director of the Austrian Cultural Forum, Maria Gierlinger-Landa, who organised the handover in December 2022. In the course of the restitution ceremony at the Austrian Embassy the family presented the fossils directly to representatives of the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History at Tel Aviv University – as a loan, in memoriam of Fritz Illner.
https://provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Illner_Fritz_2019-10-18.pdf
DARIO ALEJANDRO LUGER
Provenance researcher at the NHM on behalf of the Commission for Provenance Research since 2017
***
Previous newsletters
(PDF-files)
Network Newsletter no. 15 January 2023
Network Newsletter no. 14 September 2022
Network Newsletter no. 13 May 2022
Network Newsletter no.12 December 2021
Network-Newsletter-no.11-October 2021
Network-Newsletter-no.10-June2021
Network-Newsletter-no.9-April2021
Network-Newsletter-no.8-January2021
Network-Newsletter-no.7-September2020
Network-Newsletter-no.6-May2020
Network-Newsletter-no.5-January2020
Network-Newsletter-no.4-October2019
Network-Newsletter-no.3-August2019
Network-Newsletter-no.2-June2019
Network-Newsletter-no.1-March2019
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