During the Nazi era in Germany, Jews were robbed of their valuable art collections or forced to sell them at ridiculously deflated prices. Paintings by such masters as Henri Matisse and Marc Chagall were shamelessly expropriated by Nazi officials like Hermann Goering, a self-styled art connoisseur, and by fellow travellers.
In one of the most notorious cases, Lea Bondi Jaray, a collector in Vienna, was pressured into giving up one of her most prized paintings, Egon Schiele’s Portrait of Wally.
Masterpieces by “degenerate” artists such as Otto Dix, Franz Marc and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner were also targeted by the totalitarian Nazi state, having been removed from German galleries under a 1938 law and destroyed or sold off.
Hildebrand Gurlitt, a German art dealer of partial Jewish ancestry who both supported banned German artists and dabbled in the sale of stolen art at the behest of Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, amassed a mountain of looted paintings and drawings by being in the right place at the right time.
His son, Cornelius, now 80, inherited his father’s plundered treasure trove, supposedly worth more than $1 billion, and stashed it away in his apartment in Munich. Occasionally, he sold pieces to maintain his standard of living.
Buyers who dealt with Gurlitt may not have been that interested in the provenance of the art they had bought. Alternatively, Gurlitt may have bent the truth regarding their true ownership.
Recently, the Gurlitt family’s dirty secret was exposed by the German media, which disclosed that 1,404 paintings and drawings, including Max Liebermann’s Two Riders on the Beach, had been discovered in Cornelius’ flat.
By all accounts, the German government was apprised of the cache almost two years ago, but kept quiet while prosecutors carried out an investigation.
German authorities have yet to determine how many of these works were acquired by criminal means, but to its credit, the German government has decided to clear up this issue once and for all.
In an announcement on the heels of the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht, Germany disclosed it would establish a task force to investigate the provenance of the paintings and drawings acquired by Gurlitt. As well, Germany promised to immediately post 25 of the canvasses on the federal government website www.lostart.de.
Germany took these steps after Jewish groups criticized its secrecy and German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle warned that Germany’s reputation could be damaged unless the matter was resolved quickly and transparently.
Having moved expeditiously to address the issue, the German government has now set an example that other nations can emulate in the near future.
In the meantime, Germany should enact legislation that would make it possible for plundered art works to be returned to their rightful owners. Germany should also repeal that 1938 law that enabled the Nazis to seize “degenerate” art. These are Germany’s moral and legal obligations, today and tomorrow.