arts & life

ar t

Art and
Scandal

A London-based commission
hunting down Nazi-looted art
claims pieces have been returned
to Nazi families amid a decades-
long cover up.

Stewart Ain | N.Y. Jewish Week

details

For updates
and other cases of
Nazi-looted art, visit
lootedartcommission.com.

TOP RIGHT: The Old
Burgtheater by Franz
Gerasch is a Nazi-
looted painting that
has been recovered.
BOTTOM : View of
a Dutch Square was
seized in Vienna
in 1941 from the
collection of Gottlieb
and Mathilde Kraus
and acquired in 1942
by Heinrich Hoffmann,
official photographer
to Hitler. After
being transferred to
Bavaria, it has since
been “returned” to
Hoffmann’s daughter.

50 July 28 • 2016

I

n the 2014 George Clooney movie The
Monuments Men, based on real events, World
War II Allied forces save thousands of paintings
that had been looted by the Nazis.
“The movie leaves people optimistic and happy
that all of the paintings have been found,” says Anne
Webber, co-chair of the London-based Commission
for Looted Art in Europe (CLAE). “What we discov-
ered is the truth of what happened next.”
The truth: Many of the paintings were returned
to the families of several of the high-ranking
Nazis who stole them rather than to their right-
ful owners. Among those who received paintings
were the Goering, Hoffmann, Bormann, von
Schirach, Frank and Streicher families. In many
cases, they negotiated directly with the director of
the Bavarian State Museums and ministers in the
Bavarian government.

Calling it a “remarkable scandal” that has been
“covered up by Germany for decades,” Webber
described how obstacle after obstacle was placed in
front of the families of those from whom the paintings
were stolen while Bavaria was readily returning paint-
ings to the families of the Nazis who requested them.
She added that her researchers were unable to
determine the full scope of the scandal because
some of the records were not made available. A
Catholic Cathedral Association in the German state
of North Rhine Westphalia, which now holds one of
the paintings belonging to a family CLAE represents,
also refuses to cooperate and return the painting
“despite its scandalous history.”
Two lawyers representing the families of Jewish
art dealers seeking to recover their paintings said
they have run across the same kind of stonewall-
ing in their attempts to track down missing art.

“It is an insult to the survivor community that
Nazis or their heirs could succeed in recovering loot-
ed artwork while Jews from whom it was looted are
forced to go to court to reclaim it,” says Manhattan-
based Mel Urbach, one of the two lawyers.
Calling it a “shocking revelation,” Greg Schneider,
executive vice president of the Conference on
Material Claims Against Germany, says that it
demonstrates the “need for immediate and forceful
action to bring about justice.
“There can be no more hiding behind bureau-
cratic processes,” he said. “Lawful owners and
their heirs must be provided means of legal
redress in order to have their rights recognized.”
Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish
Congress, said that if the allegations are true, “it is
one of the most scandalous incidents related to the
subject to date … [and] a great slap in the face of
the victims of the Holocaust and their families.
“Returning stolen property to the criminals
guilty of the theft is nothing short of a crime
itself,” he added. “The very idea that the state
would negotiate with the families of high-ranking
Nazi officials, rather than insisting on restitution
to those whose lives and property were upended
during the Holocaust, is dismaying. … All docu-
ments pertaining to this time, from the State Art
Collection and every other relevant governmental
organization, must be made accessible.”
Webber said her organization, a nonprofit created
in 1999 to help families recover their Nazi-looted
artwork, uncovered the scandal while searching
for 160 looted paintings for the family of the late
Gottlieb and Mathilde Kraus of Vienna. She said
their research led them to believe two of the paint-
ings would be in a state-owned museum in Munich,
to which the works were transferred in 1952 after
the U.S. handed them over to Bavaria with the
explicit direction that they be returned to their origi-
nal owners.
The museum, the Bayerische
Staatsgemaldesammlungen, has stated that it cur-
rently has four employees conducting provenance
research on the paintings in its collection and that
this work started in 1998.