Readings in Nazi looted art: The Rape of Europa by Lynn Nicholas

Published in 1995, Lynn Nicholas' book The Rape of Europa was one of the first to investigate Hitler's massive looting of artworks. Many archives have opened since then and progress with digitization of source documents as well as and museum collections databases following the Washington Declaration have made new material available. 

It is nevertheless interesting to reread Nicholas' book for its insights, especially since the book was published nearly twenty years before the Gurlitt stash was discovered.

Below are a couple of brief extracts.

 "Voss would now channel his purchase funds, which would surpass those spent by Posse, through his own trusted agents, principal among whom was Hildebrand Gurlitt..."

- The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War by Lynn Nicholas

"Despite their disgust the OSS and MFAA men were human. Craig Smyth, who later had to supervise the house arrest of Hermann Voss, found it difficult to treat so eminent a scholar as a criminal and had him report daily to someone else. Monuments officer Charles Parkhurst, sent to question the widow of Hans Posse, whom he found living on the proceeds of sales of the pathetic contents of two suitcases of family bibelots, described her as a “gentle, elderly person” and broke off his interrogation when she began to weep. In the few answers she did provide it was clear that she was very proud of her husband’s accomplishments. She even showed Parkhurst photographs of Hitler at Posse’s state funeral, but of his actual transactions she clearly knew nothing."

- The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War by Lynn Nicholas

 "Plaut doubted that Bruno Lohse had really known the extent of Goering’s evildoing and noted that both he and Fräulein Limberger had become despondent when all was revealed. Rousseau and Faison too, after weeks of questioning Miss Limberger, were convinced that despite the fact that she had read the damning daily correspondence from Hofer to Goering, she bore no blame. When they had finished with her, Faison could not bring himself to leave her at the squalid internment camp to which she had been assigned and instead asked her where she would like to go. She named the Munich dealer Walter Bornheim, he of the suitcases full of francs, and a principal supplier to both Linz and Goering. Faison consented, and left her at the military post in Gräfelfing, where Bornheim lived."

- The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War by Lynn Nicholas

 available on Amazon 

Buried for more than half a century

Altaussee Salt/Art Mine discovery after WW II
Lieutenants Kern & Sieber, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

What must it have been like for Samson Lane Faison, Jr., James S. Plaut, Theodore Rousseau, Jr. and Jean Vlug to watch their reports on Nazi art looting and art dealer networks be buried and lost?

The ALIU reports contained names, dates, places, specific events, artworks - crucial information for tracking down looted art. 

All classified. Hidden away. Inaccessible. Unknown. Unexplored.

What lesson could these museum men possibly have learned from Washington's treatment of their historic work?

When, in 2001, the reports were to be published on microfiche, Dr. Greg Bradsher contacted S. Lane Faison, to tell him the news that their work would finally be public and to ask permission to give Faison's phone number to journalists who might want to know more. Bradsher described the conversation in a blog post for the National Archives:

On April 23, 2001, I phoned Professor Faison and told him the National Archives was issuing the next day a press release announcing the release of Microfilm Publication M-1782, “OSS Art Looting Investigation Unit Reports, 1945-46.”  I told him the microfilmed records—including the detailed, consolidated, and final reports—were being made available on May 8, the 56th anniversary of the U.S. Army’s discovery of the salt mine at Alt Aussee, Austria, where the greatest concentration of Nazi plunder from Western Europe was concealed.  I asked him if he minded me making his phone number available if I received press inquiries about the records and the work of the ALIU.  He said at his age it was tough enough to get up to change the television channel, much less answer the phone regarding things he had done ages ago and which were well-documented in the records we were making available. So, yes, he did mind.

-  "An Office of Strategic Services Monuments Man: S. Lane Faison"

 This is the seventh in an ongoing series of posts on real-life Monuments Men. Today’s post is by Dr. Greg Bradsher. See related posts on Sir Charles Leonard Woolley, Walter J. Huchthausen, Seymour J. Pomrenze, Mason Hammond, Edith Standen, and Karol Estreicher. 

January 16, 2014 By US National Archives, Posted In Monuments Men

Kende LINZ

LINZ Kende DHM

LOSTART Waldmüller

German Lost Art Foundation search Waldmüller

Linz ALMAS

Maria Almas-Dietrich: Nazi art looter

"Art dealer; personal friend of Hitler, and for a time his principal buyer of works of art. One of the most important purchasing agents for Linz. Was under house arrest at Grafing, Bavaria, autumn 1945."

- ALIU 1946 Final Report

Art historians, "Almas" in a provenance text means: dig deep.

The probability of Nazi looting is high.

Below, artworks from the DHM Linz database that contain "Almas" in the provenance.

LINZ Waldmüller

searching for Waldmüller: Hitler's LINZ museum

 LINZ Waldmüller DMH

Names of persecuted Austrian Jewish collectors

How to verify the provenance texts of artworks for names that might indicate a history of Nazi looting or persecution?

There are many potential sources and lists.

In this post, we look an official Austrian report from 2008 that contains names of Austrian Jewish collectors whose art collections were plundered by the Nazis.

Where do fake art provenances come from?

WARNING: Art historians who cite these sources should know that they contain omissions and outright lies concerning Nazi looted art.

"The painting was bought at the auction in 1940 by a Dutch man, S.B.S. Slijper"

see: Heirs Sue for Return of a Kandinsky, Saying It Was Looted by Nazis, NYT,  https://www.lootedart.com/news.php?r=SBYXH2908751

Who was S.B.S. Slijper?

Court cases databases and APIs: art theft and Nazi looted art

Where to find detailed information about lawsuits involving Nazi-looted art?

a few online databases...

_____

Caselaw Access Project

https://cite.case.law

Suspicious provenance errors: Manet's Mellon

Mrs Kurt Riezler (née Käthe Liebermann, daughter of Max Liebermann) was previously mis-identified as Liezler

 Why does it matter? Because her family was persecuted by the Nazis and she herself was a refugee.

EDOUARD MANET

The Melon, c. 1880

Nazi-looted art: names of plundered collectors to verify in provenances

Books such as Was einmal war. Die enteigneten Kunstsammlungen Wiens by Sophie Lillie provide names of looted collectors

Rüdenberg Heirs vs. the City of Hanover

 Advisory Commission on the return of cultural property seized as a result of Nazi persecution, especially Jewish property

Office: German Lost Art Foundation, Humboldtstraße 12, 39112 Magdeburg, Germany

Recommendation of the Advisory Commission in the case of Rüdenberg Heirs vs. the City of Hanover

Dr. and Mrs. Max Stern Foundation v. Bavarian State Painting Collections - German Advisory Commission

Advisory Commission on the return of cultural property seized as a result of Nazi persecution, especially Jewish property

Recommendation of the Advisory Commission in the case of Dr. and Mrs. Max Stern Foundation v. Bavarian State Painting Collections

Heirs of A. B. ./. Bavarian State Painting Collections - German Advisory Commission

Advisory Commission on the return of cultural property seized as a result of National Socialist persecution, especially Jewish property

Office: Seydelstraße 18, 10117 Berlin

Recommendation of the Advisory Commission in the case of Heirs of A. B. ./. Bavarian State Painting Collections

Heirs of Max Fischer v. the Federal State of Baden-Württemberg - German Advisory Commission

 Advisory Commission

on the return of cultural property seized as a result of Nazi persecution, especially Jewish property
Office: Seydelstr. 18, 10117 Berlin

Recommendation of the Advisory Commission in the case of the heirs of Max Fischer v. the Federal State of Baden-Württemberg

Heinrich Rieger v. The City of Cologne German Advisory Commission

Advisory Commission
on the return of cultural property seized as a result of Nazi persecution, especially Jewish property
Office: Seydelstr. 18, 10117 Berlin

Recommendation of the Advisory Commission in the case of the heirs of Heinrich Rieger v. The City of Cologne

Provenance cases for students of art history

"...the Grünbaum heirs contend that Mr. Kornfeld’s account is a fiction and that the documents are forgeries. They say it is suspicious that he did not identify Ms. Lukacs-Herzl as his supplier until nearly two decades after her death, and they contest the validity of the signatures on the records, pointing to places where Ms. Lukacs-Herzl’s name is misspelled or written in pencil...."

 

- William D. Cohan, Jewish Heirs Take on an Art Foundation That Rights Nazi Wrongs, NYT, Aug. 26, 2018

 

***

READING GUIDE

Questions for students of art history

1) Why is it important to establish an accurate account of the ownership history of an artwork?

2) How to verify whether an art dealer is telling the truth or lying about the provenance an artwork he or she sold?

3) What elements in this story help to clarify an accurate sequence of events? 

4) What historical knowledge is needed to make sense of these different accounts?

5) What additional information can you find from other sources that make it possible to see more clearly what really happened?

6) This NYT news story was published in 2018. What has happened since then? Do recent events shed light on who was telling the truth and who was lying? If so, how?

read more at: http://archive.is/mNym6#selection-825.517-825.541

Jewish Heirs Take on an Art Foundation That Rights Nazi Wrongs by By William D. Cohan, Aug. 26, 2018

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/26/arts/design/nazi-art-egon-schiele-fritz-grunbaum.html

Jewish Digital Cultural Recovery Project Stiftung Board, Advisory Council and Staff March 2021

JEWISH DIGITAL CULTURAL
RECOVERY PROJECT FOUNDATION

 https://jdcrp.org/foundation/

The JDCRP Foundation, “Jewish Digital Cultural Recovery Project Stiftung”, headquartered in Berlin, is the legal administrator of the project and is subject to the German Civil Code. The Foundation embodies the governing framework for the project, and ensures its financial viability. It is comprised of a Board of Trustees, an Executive Board and an Advisory Council. 

Holocaust-related claims for art: tactics observed

Reactions to claims for Nazi-looted art, forced sales and duress sales vary.

Some museums or private collectors, when they learn that a prized artwork belonged to an art collector who was plundered by the Nazis, immediately set out to research the history and return the artwork to the family.

Others fight with every weapon in their arsenal, not hesitating to make up perfectly false stories to explain how the artwork landed in their collection or even to sue the claimants.

Question: can one identify the different responses and classify each response accordingly?

This post is a first attempt to list a few of the tactics observed in the past:

TACTICS OBSERVED IN NAZI ERA ART RESTITUTION CASES

1. Deny that the artwork in the defendant's collection is the same as the artwork claimed
2. Deny the claimant's ancestor owned the artwork
3. Deny the context of the Holocaust by portraying events as a normal commercial transaction
4. Deny or discount physical evidence of ripped labels, resized or otherwise distorted canvases  
5. Conceal evidence that the defendant possesses
6. Misrepresent and misinterpret evidence 
7. Use false evidence previously inserted by bad actors, including Nazis and known looted art dealers among others
8. Invent stories based on speculation creating alternative "facts"
9. Use influence to plant and spread false information, including creating publications to spread false story
10. On the legal front, mobilise any and all tactics to stop case while publicly proclaiming adherence to Washington Principles.
11. In case of settlement, misrepresent the history of the case, and prevent claimants from revealing an accurate account with non-disclosure clauses 

This list is just a start. It will be an interesting exercise to attach the tactic to the case, based on the published public record.