Hitler's Museum - History of Art Theft in WWII

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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1003545/
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%BChrermuseum
 
http://bayimg.com/JAmLLAAdp


Hitler's Museum will track down more specifically the famous Van Eyck altarpiece of Ghent, one of Belgium’s greatest art treasures. It was the jewel of the Fürher's dream-of-a-life museum, among masterpieces of Leonardo da Vinci, Raphaël, Bruegel or Rembrandt… Shortly after the Germans broke in, it was dismantled and sent to the Vatican where it was to be kept during the war. But Italy entered the war and the transport was caught in the middle of the battle lines and only barely escaped fire. The Vichy government only half-heartedly blocked its confiscation and the altarpiece was stolen and added to Hitler’s Linz Museum collection, to the creation of which the dictator have been dreaming up to his very last hours in his bunker. In turn, during the liberation, the altar was left for the American and Russian troops to dispute over. One of its pieces is still missing to this day.


On 21 June 1939, Hitler set up the Sonderauftrag Linz (Special Commission: Linz) in Dresden and appointed Dr Hans Posse, director of the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister (Dresden picture gallery), as special envoy. The Sonderauftrag collected art for the Führermuseum, which Hitler wanted to build in Linz, his hometown in Upper Austria, and for other museums in the German Reich, especially in the eastern territories. The artworks would have been distributed to these museums after the war.

The Sonderauftrag was located in Dresden and consisted of art historians in service of the Dresden Gallery of Paintings, e.g. Robert Oertel and Gottfried Reimer. Posse died in December 1942 of cancer. In March 1943, Hermann Voss, an art historian and director of the Wiesbaden Gallery took over the Sonderauftrag Linz.[3]

The methods of acquisition ranged from confiscation to purchase and includes many cases of forced sale, using funds from sales of Hitler's book Mein Kampf and stamps showing his portrait.[4][5] The purchases were mostly stored in the Führerbau (Hitler's office building) in Munich; the confiscated artworks were stored in deposits in Upper Austria. Since February 1944, the art works were moved to the salt mines of Altaussee to protect them from increased bombing.[2][4] Detailed records of the collection were kept at Dresden and moved to Schloß Weesenstein at the end of the war, where they were confiscated by the Russians.

In 2008, the German Historic Museum of Berlin published a database with paintings collected for the Führermuseum and for other museums in the German Reich. But the most important historical and visual sources relating to the gallery of the "Führermuseum" are photo albums, which were created by the Sonderauftrag between autumn 1940 and autumn 1944. They were presented to Hitler every Christmas and on his birthday, 20 April. Originally thirty-one volumes existed, but only nineteen have been preserved.[6] The album are documents of the intended gallery holdings, the first 20 volumes show the gallery in a provisional state finished.

There is some debate about whether art for the Führermuseum was stolen or purchased. Hanns Christian Löhr argues in "The Brown House of Art" that only a small portion of the collection – possibly 12 percent – came from seizures or expropriation. Moreover, another 2.5% was derived from forced sales. However, Jonathan Petropoulos, a historian at Loyola College in Baltimore and an expert in wartime looting, argues that most of the purchases were not arms' length in nature.[7] Gerard Aalders, a Dutch historian, said those sales amounted to technical looting, since the Netherlands and other occupied countries were forced to accept German reichsmarks that ultimately proved worthless. Aalders argues that "If Hitler's or Goering's art agent stood on your doorstep and offered $10,000 for the painting instead of the $100,000 it was really worth, it was pretty hard to refuse". Aalders adds that Nazis who encountered reluctant sellers threatened to confiscate the art or arrest the owner.[7] Birgit Schwarz, an expert on the Führermuseum, in her review of Löhr's book, pointed out that the author focused on the purchases in the Führerbau in Munich and ignored the deposits of looted art in Upper Austria (Thürntal, Kremsmünster and Hohenfurt/Vyssi Brod) [8]

As the Allied troops approached the salt mine, August Eigruber, Gauleiter of Upper Austria, gave orders to blow it up; Hitler countermanded the order, but after the "Führer's" death Eigruber ignored this. Nevertheless his order was not carried out. Most of the collection was recovered, but some was not. Some argue that stolen artwork is hanging in museums and collections around the world.[5] This is discussed in the documentary The Rape of Europa.