Depot

Altaussee, Salzbergwerk

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:38:54 +0000

Altaussee, Salzbergwerk Konstantin Ferihumer Wed, 11/18/2020 - 12:19

Salzbergwerk Altaussee

Saltmine Altaussee

other names: Altaussee, Steinberg

During the Nazi era, Salzbergwerk (salt mine) Altaussee in Upper Danube Gau was one of the most important depots, along with Schloss Thürnthal, managed by the Institute for Monument Preservation in Vienna. In the first half of 1943 the Steinberg tunnel, an already disused part of the salt mine, was considered by Franz Juraschek, Gau curator in the Upper Danube, and Herbert Seiberl, head of the Institute for Monument Preservation, as a possible salvage depot – on account of the atmosphere in the mine determined in several expert opinions, including one by the chemist Maximilian Eder (60–75% humidity, 6–8°C temperature), the accessibility and the remote location. After an agreement had been reached in early August 1943 between the Institute for Monument Preservation and Alpenländische Salinen regarding the temporary storage of artworks, the first transport left Vienna on 25 August 1943 and arrived at the mine the following day. It contained cultural objects from Wiener Neustadt, e. g. objects from the municipal museum and the Lorenz Luchsperger's statues of the apostles from the cathedral. The Monument Preservation employees Eva Kraft, Linde Schrader, Alice Hoyos and the restorer Emmerich Bergthold were responsible for the photo documentation and inventory of the stored works, while Seiberl was responsible for the salvaging. Transports left Vienna thereafter every month. In October 1943 secured artworks belonging to Jewish collections administered by the monument authority arrived for the first time. Salvaged items were evacuated to Altaussee from the Gau Upper Danube, for example from the library of the Historical Research Institute of Reichsgau Upper Danube (manuscripts and codices from the abbeys Kremsmünster, St Florian, Wilhering and Hohenfurt closed by the Nazis), as well as the Altdorfer panels from St Florian Abbey, the Mount of Olives group from the Dominican church in Steyr and numerous artworks from Lambach. From February 1944 privately owned items were transported there from Vienna and Linz. From January to September 1944 artworks for the planned Kunstmuseum Linz were also moved from Kremsmünster to the salt mine, supervised specially by a local restorer Karl Sieber. In the first half of that year, cultural items from the expropriated collection of the banker Jean Baron Cassel van Door, which had arrived from Paris, undistributed items from the seized Viennese collections of Louis and Alphonse Rothschild and salvaged items from looting by the Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce in western Europe were moved from Neuschwanstein and Herrenchiemsee castles in Bavaria. Added to this were stained glass windows from Maria am Gestade church in Vienna, the Franzensburg in the Laxenburg complex, and the photo and map collection and parts of the library of the Institute for Monument Preservation. In May 1944 transports also commenced from the "Führerbau" in Munich, which continued until April 1945. In addition, in September 1944 seventy pictures from the Schack-Galerie in Munich and the Ghent Altarpiece, previously stored in Neuschwanstein, were moved to the mine. The last major transport to arrive was the collection belonging to the German-Dutch banker Fritz Mannheimer. With the impending defeat of Nazi Germany, August Eigruber, Upper Danube Gauleiter, had four crates with bombs brought to the mine on 10 and 15 April 1945 with a view to destroying the artworks stored there. On Seiberl's initiative, many items were moved, in some cases within the mine, and in others cases to Bad Aussee and Lauffen. On 3 and 4 May, mineworkers removed the crates from the mine, referring to an order by Ernst Kaltenbrunner, head of the Reich Security Head Office. The following day, several entrances to the mine were blown up and not cleared until mid-May 1945. On 8 May 1945, the 3rd US Armored Division arrived in Altaussee, and the mine was handed over to the US Army. From then on, most of the artworks were transferred in numerous transports to the Central Collecting Point in Munich. Items whose Austrian provenance had been ascertained were left initially in the mine, mostly items belonging to the state or church, along with objects whose provenance needed to be verified by the Austrians. A few items, including the Rothschild family coin collection, remained in the mine until 1963. At the end of March 1946 the United States Forces in Austria handed over the art depot to the Republic of Austria, and its administration was taken over by the Bundesministerium für Vermögenssicherung und Wirtschaftplanung (Federal Ministry for Securing Property and Economic Planning). From 1966 until well into the 1970s, the Steinberg tunnel of Altaussee saltmine was enlarged in accordance with the Hague Convention as a central salvage site for Vienna's major collections and was placed under special protection until September 2000.

Keywords

"Sonderauftrag Linz"

Salvaging

Depot

Anneliese Schallmeiner

6 January 2019

Publications about the person / institution

Theodor Brückler, Gefährdung und Rettung der Kunstschätze im Altausseer Salzberg: Versuch einer kritischen Rekonstruktion, in: Eva Frodl-Kraft, Gefährdetes Erbe. Österreichs Denkmalschutz und Denkmalpflege 1918–1945 im Prisma der Zeitgeschichte, Wien-Köln-Weimar 1997, 363–379.

Theodor Brückler, Kunstwerke zwischen Kunstraub und Kunstbergung 1938–1945, in: Theodor Brückler (Hg.), Kunstraub, Kunstbergung und Restitution in Österreich 1938 bis heute (= Studien zu Denkmalschutz und Denkmalpflege 19), Wien-Köln-Weimar 1999, 13–30.

Robert M. Edsel/Bret Witter, Monuments Men. Die Jagd nach Hitlers Raubkunst, Salzburg 2009.

Eva Frodl-Kraft, Gefährdetes Erbe. Österreichs Denkmalschutz und Denkmalpflege 1918–1945 im Prisma der Zeitgeschichte, Wien-Köln-Weimar 1997.

Katharina Hammer, Glanz im Dunkel. Die Bergung von Kunstschätzen im Salzkammergut am Ende des 2. Weltkrieges, Altaussee 1996.

Veronika Hofer (Hg.), Berg der Schätze. Die dramatische Rettung europäischer Kunst im Altauseer Salzbergwerk, o. O. 2006.

Franz Juraschek, Die Klosterdenkmale Oberösterreichs. Ihr Schicksal in und nach dem Kriege, in: Jahrbuch des Oberösterreichischen Musealvereins 92 (1947), 84–99.

Konrad Kramar, Mission Michelangelo. Wie die Bergleute von Altaussee Hitlers Raubkunst vor der Vernichtung retteten, St. Pölten-Salzburg-Wien 2013.

Emmerich Pöchmüller, Weltkunstschätze in Gefahr, Salzburg 1948.

Anneliese Schallmeiner, Die modernen Nibelungen "salzen" ihre Schätze ein. Altaussee als Bergungsort des Instituts für Denkmalpflege, in: Pia Schölnberger/Sabine Loitfellner (Hg.), Bergung von Kulturgut im Nationalsozialismus. Mythen – Hintergründe – Auswirkungen (= Schriftenreihe der Kommission für Provenienzforschung 6), Wien-Köln-Weimar 2015, 103–128, URL: doi.org/10.7767/9783205201564-007.

Archives

BDA-Archiv, Restitutionsmaterialien, K. 10/1, sog. Posse Korrespondenz; K. 22, Bergungsort Altaussee; K. 22/1, Bergungsort Altaussee I; K. 22/2, Bergungsort Altaussee II; K. 22/3, Bergungsort Altaussee III; K. 22/4, Bergungsort Altaussee IV; K. 22/5, Bergungsort Altaussee V.
BDA-Archiv, Bundesdenkmalamt allgemein, K. 32, Zentralbergungsort Altaussee (1967–1984).
BDA-Archiv, Haager Konvention, K. 2 (1982–1985).

BArch Berlin, NS 6/413.
BArch Berlin, NS 8/190.
BArch Koblenz, B323/106.

OeStA/AdR, UWK, BMU, II, 15B1, K 97, 98.

UAAbKW, Zl. 303/1943.

GND: 7560631-8

VIAF: 246318459

Wikidata: Q1635896

Ambras, Schloss

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:38:54 +0000

Ambras, Schloss Susanne Hehenberger Wed, 11/18/2020 - 16:19

Schloss Ambras

Ambras Castle

Schlossstraße 20, Innsbruck

Ambras Castle, consisting of the upper castle with the Spanish Hall and the lower castle, looks down on the village of Amras in the municipality of Innsbruck. Archduke Ferdinand II of Austria (1529–1595), from 1564 Count of Tyrol, lived in Innsbruck. He had the medieval Ambras Castle converted into a Renaissance-style residence, which he gave to his patrician first wife Philippine Welser, and moved his major collection of armour, weapons, portraits and rarities there. After his death, much of the collection was transferred to Vienna. Now that it was barely lived in any more, it was redesigned in the mid-19th century under the governor of Tyrol Archduke Karl Ludwig of Austria (1833–1896) as his summer residence. In 1919 the castle became the property of the Republic of Austria. It had been open to the public between 1880 and 1913 and was reopened as a museum in 1922. Since 1950 it has been administered by the Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien.

From 1939, air raid protection measures were installed in the Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum. The collections were kept initially in the museum building, as it was considered that the danger of moving them was greater than the risk of an air raid in Innsbruck. The major works were stored in a vaulted room in the museum library, which was further fireproofed by bricking up the doors. But by the end of 1939, Ambras Castle was being discussed as a salvage depot on account of the "escalating situation". It was not until major German cities began to be bombed, however, that museum director Oswald Trapp – also in his function as Gau curator for Tyrol and Vorarlberg – started preparation in April 1942 for storage in Ambras Castle. As representative of the castle's owners, Franz Hofer, Reichsstatthalter of Tirol und Vorarlberg, gave permission for some rooms in the upper castle to be used for storage. Not all of the necessary adaptations, such as the fitting of iron doors and window shutters in the vaulted rooms, were carried out. In autumn 1942 the most valuable items in the Tiroler Landesmuseum were transferred to Ambras Castle. The vaulted ground-floor rooms were ideal for storage purposes and the most valuable paintings and sculptures were stored there, while the coin collection was housed on the second floor. Added to this were items from closed abbeys and many objects from private art collections. At the end of 1943 the scrolled paintings from the Ferdinandeum, including works by Albin Egger-Lienz, Franz von Defregger, Johann Evangelist Holzer and Antonio Balestra, and Leonhard von Görz’s wax figures were transported to Ambras Castle, and set up on easels of different sizes. The sculptor Franz Staud was put in charge of the salvaged objects, and museum and monument authority employees visited weekly. In March 1944 the Reichsstatthalter of Tyrol and Vorarlberg ordered the castle to be cleared within three days, after the rerouting of the Brenner railway took it close to the village of Amras, thereby increasing the danger of bombardment. The building of an illuminated nocturnal installation in the Amraser Au that was intended to deceive enemy pilots into thinking they were over the city of Innsbruck caused additional security problems. Most of the contents were to be moved to Stams Abbey and its collegiate church, while the photo plates and newspaper were transported to Friedberg Castle and crates with glass and books to Lichtenwerth. Ambras Castle was used after the war as a distribution centre for returned art objects.

Keywords

6 January 2019

Publications about the person / institution

Oswald Trapp, Die Kunstdenkmäler Tirols in Not und Gefahr. Bericht des Landeskonservators über die Geschehnisse in den Jahren 1938–1945, Innsbruck-Wien 1947.

Veröffentlichungen des Vereins Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum.

Archives

Archiv Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum, Hausakten.
Archiv Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum, Verhandlungsschriften der Ausschusssitzungen des Tiroler Landesmuseums Ferdinandeum.

GND: 4001643-2

VIAF: 247611274

Wikidata: Q700764

Augustinerkeller, Wien

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:39:08 +0000

Augustinerkeller, Wien Susanne Hehenberger Thu, 11/19/2020 - 11:09

Augustinerkeller, Wien

Augustinerstraße 1, Vienna 1

The Augustinerkeller in the centre of Vienna was used as a depot to house the art collection belonging to Count Karl Lanckoronski (1848–1939), which had been seized in autumn 1939 from his son Anton in accordance with the Regulation on Management of the Assets of Members of the Former Polish State. Although they came under the responsibility of Hermann Göring's Haupttreuhandstelle Ost (HTO), Hitler claimed a pre-emptive right to the collection, which he intended to distribute among Austrian museums after the war. While the paintings were stored initially in Immendorf Castle in 1942 and then in Thürnthal Castle in 1943, a site had to be found for the sculptures. The City of Vienna recalled the Augustinerkeller basement underneath the Albertina, which was the location of a restaurant. Ludwig Berg, salvage director in the Reichsstatthalterei, noted in 1943 that the 1,000 square metres there would be ideal because the site was "well aired, heatable, easy to access, in a prestigious building and considered bombproof because it was integrated in the old Augustinerbastei fortifications with their multiple vaults." After Reichsstatthalter Baldur von Schirach agreed to its use as a depot, under the supervision of the Albertina as depot administrator, the stone statues from the Lanckoronski collection and some of the antiques collection from the Kunsthistorisches Museum, including the Ephesus reliefs, the statues of St Stephen from the Wiener Städtische Sammlungen, statues from the Österreichische Galerie, such as Franz Xaver Messerschmidt's famous character heads, Georg Raphael Donner's statues and the marble Habsburg statues by Paul and Peter Strudel from the National Library Stateroom were transferred to the Augustinerkeller. The Institute for Monument Preservation also arranged the salvaging of statues from private buildings and public squares, including Johann Martin Fischer's statue of Hygieia from the front courtyard of the Josephinum. Some marble blocks belonging to the Administration of Palaces (Schlösserverwaltung) intended for a "Führer" relief were also stored there. Probably because of the high air humidity, Klimt's Beethoven Frieze, which was originally to have been stored underneath the Albertina as well, was eventually moved to Thürnthal Castle. Although the theft of some objects by members of the Reichsstatthalterei was reported after the war, the artworks remained intact. Together with other collection objects, the statues from the Lanckoronski collection were restituted after the war to Anton Lanckoronski. Plans to open a lapidarium after the war in the former depot were not followed up. The Augustinerkeller was cleared in October 1947 and the restaurant reopened.

Keywords

6 January 2019

Publications about the person / institution

Pia Schölnberger, "Hier feiert der Luftschutz Orgien". Die Bergungsmaßnahmen der Graphischen Sammlung Albertina unter George Saiko, in: Pia Schölnberger/Sabine Loitfellner (Hg.), Bergung von Kulturgut im Nationalsozialismus. Mythen – Hintergründe – Auswirkungen (= Schriftenreihe der Kommission für Provenienzforschung 6), Wien-Köln-Weimar 2016, 129–148, URL: doi.org/10.7767/9783205201564-008.

Archives

BDA-Archiv, Restitutionsmaterialien, K. 6, M. 6, Augustinerkeller.

Bodenkreditanstalt / Depot Löwelstraße, Wien

Susanne Hehenberger — Wed, 13 Jan 2021 15:06:33 +0000

Bodenkreditanstalt / Depot Löwelstraße, Wien

Leonhard Weidinger Wed, 03/31/2021 - 20:19

Bodenkreditanstalt / Depot Löwelstraße, Wien

Löwelstraße 20, Teinfaltstraße 8, Vienna 1

other name: Bodencreditanstalt

The Bodenkreditanstalt building was erected from 1884 to 1887 according to plans by Emil von Förster on behalf of the Allgemeine k. k. private Boden-Credit Anstalt. Because of its size, it had two addresses – Teinfaltstraße 8 and Löwelstraße 20. Following the world economic crisis in 1929, Creditanstalt für Handel und Gewerbe took over what had been the second-largest bank in Austria. The building remained empty at first until 1934, when the Schutzkorpskommando für das Bundesland Wien had its headquarters there. After the annexation of Austria to the Nazi German Reich it was used from 15 March 1938 as an SA barracks. The Industrie- und Handelskammer für Niederdonau (Lower Danube Chamber of Industry and Commerce) had its offices there from 1940, Flugmotorenwerke Ostmark from 1942, and Gauwirtschaftskammer Niederdonau (Lower Danube Gau Economic Chamber) from 1943. From May 1943, the Institut für Denkmalpflege (Institute for Monument Preservation) rented strongrooms in the basement and on the ground floor from Gauwerke Niederdonau, after Ludwig Berg, museum expert in the Generalreferat für Kunstförderung (Department for the Promotion of the Arts) in the Reichsstatthalterei in Vienna, identified it as suitable for storing artworks and had its windows bricked up. In an area of 200 to 300 m² objects from the restoration workshop of the Institut für Denkmalpflege and from secured collections (e.g. classical and East Asian objects from the Lanckoroński collection), paintings and sculptures from the Schottenstift, artworks from the Städtische Sammlungen Wien (e.g. Grillparzer collection), the State Arts and Crafts Museum in Vienna, the Painting Gallery of the Akademie der bildenden Künste (Academy of Fine Arts) and selected works from the Österreichische Galerie and the musical instrument collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum were all stored separately there. From 1944, private collectors, including Maria Buberl, Hermine Schattenfroh and Josef Pfundner also stored items there. In mid-November 1944 a large quantity of the goods were transported to Altaussee; other transports went to castles in Thürnthal, Schönborn and Waidhofen an der Thaya, which had been repurposed as depots. The storage space was never completely emptied, however.

On 8 May 1945, the artworks belonging to the Schottenstift stored at Löwelstraße 20 were returned to it. In October 1946 the Städtische Sammlungen collected thirty-two crates from it. The Bundesdenkmalamt (BDA) (Federal Monuments Authority) continued to use the strongrooms as a depot, in particular for objects documented as having been expropriated or whose provenance was unknown, including, for example, the artworks in the collection belonging to Wilhelm Freund, which were later auctioned. The BDA took the objects at the depot in St. Marx, which was closed in 1948, to the Bodenkreditanstalt, followed in September 1949 by the objects from Schloss Schönborn and 1951 the artworks from the "former holdings of the Institut für Denkmalpflege" and those stored at the Wollzeile depot until its closure on 22 March 1951. These and the objects that came in June 1961 from the Central Collecting Point Munich were of unknown provenance, i.e. unclaimed or unidentified objects. After the depots in Salzburg and Altaussee were closed in 1963, the objects hitherto stored there were also transferred to Löwelstraße 20. The BDA closed the depot because of the inadequate storage conditions and transported the last crates on 20 January 1967 to the former Mauerbach charterhouse.

Keywords

Salvaging

Depot

Elisabeth Schroll

16 December 2020

Publications about the person / institution

Peter Eigner/Peter Melichar, Das Ende der Boden-Credit-Anstalt 1929 und die Rolle Rudolf Siegharts, in: Bankrott. Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften 19 (2008) 3, 56–114.

Peter Eigner/Helmut Falschlehner/Andreas Resch, Geschichte der österreichischen Privatbanken, Wiesbaden 2018.

Sabine Erkinger-Kovanda, Bodenkreditanstalt, Allgemeine Österreichische, URL: www.austria-forum.org/af/AEIOU/Bodencreditanstalt%2C_Allgemeine_%C3%96sterreichische, unter Bezugnahme auf Eintrag in E. Bruckmüller, Österreich-Lexikon, Verlagsgemeinschaft Österreich-Lexikon, 2004 (3 Bde.) (7.12.2020).

N. N., Errichtung der Gauwirtschaftskammer Niederdonau, in: Badener Zeitung, 19.6.1943, 6, URL: anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?aid=bzt&datum=19430619&seite=6 (17.12.2020).

N. N., Einheitliche Führung des Wiener Freiwilligen Schutzkorps, in: Illustrierte Kronen-Zeitung, 3.7.1934, 7, URL: anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?aid=krz&datum=19340703&seite=7 (17.12.2020).

N. N., Mitteilungen der NSDAP, in: Das Kleine Volksblatt, 15.3.1938, 11–12, URL: anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?aid=dkv&datum=19380315&seite=11 (17.12.2020).

N. N., Spezialgas für frühere Heimwehrkaserne – Wiens Stadtverwaltung braucht Platz, in: Kleine Volks-Zeitung, 30.9.1938, 8, URL: anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?aid=kvz&datum=19380930&seite=8 (17.12.2020).

Anneliese Schallmeiner, "Die modernen Nibelungen salzen ihre Schätze ein", Altaussee als Bergungsort des Instituts für Denkmalpflege, in: Pia Schölnberger/Sabine Loitfellner (Hg.), Bergung von Kulturgut im Nationalsozialismus, Mythen – Hintergründe – Auswirkungen (= Schriftenreihe der Kommission für Provenienzforschung 6), Wien-Köln-Weimar 2016, 103–128, URL: doi.org/10.7767/9783205201564-007.

René Schober, "… da ihre Beschädigung keinen Verlust von unersetzlichen Kulturwerten darstellen würde", Bergungen und Kriegsverluste der akademischen Gemäldegalerie im Zweiten Weltkrieg, in: Pia Schölnberger/Sabine Loitfellner (Hg.), Bergung von Kulturgut im Nationalsozialismus, Mythen – Hintergründe – Auswirkungen (= Schriftenreihe der Kommission für Provenienzforschung 6), Wien-Köln-Weimar 2016, 149–174, URL: doi.org/10.7767/9783205201564-009.

Dieter Stiefel, Die Krise der Credit-Anstalt in den 1930er Jahren und ihre Folgen für das österreichische Bankensystem, in: Bankrott. Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften 19 (2008) 3, 117–141.

Archives

BDA-Archiv, Restitutionsmaterialien, K. 2; K. 5/1; K. 5/2, M. 4, M. 5; K. 6; K. 7, M. 1, M. 4, M. 5, M. 6, M. 8, M. 12; K. 24, M. 2; K. 26, M. 4; K. 26/1, M. 17; K29, M.1b.

OeStA/AdR, UWK, BMU, II, 15B1, K. 98, M. 1; M. 2.

Friedberg, Schloss

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:39:16 +0000

Friedberg, Schloss

Leonhard Weidinger Tue, 02/09/2021 - 17:53

Schloss Friedberg

Friedberg Castle

Volders, Tyrol

Friedberg Castle, perched on a rise overlooking the Inn valley, was built in the thirteenth century. In 1844 it was acquired by Count Trapp, who renovated it from 1847 to 1854. The castle is owned today by the family. Oswald Trapp, who moved to Friedberg in 1930, was curator of the weapons collection at the Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum and from 1937 to 1946 was chairman of the museum association. He was also Landeskonservator (head curator) of Tyrol from 1934 to 1960. In July 1943 he made the castle available as a depot for artworks from the Ferdinandeum. The most valuable examples of minor art and the prehistoric and patriotic collection were stored in the castle archive and the most important sculptures and some of the library (e.g., the Fischnaler library catalogue) were deposited in the castle chapel. Privately owned objects were also stored there. The decision adopted in autumn 1943 to store the Ferdinandeum's zoological collection in the castle was not implemented because of transport difficulties. Instead, the newspapers from the Ferdinandeum library, the museum files and the salvage lists were stored in Friedberg. The museum employee Gretl Köllensperger, who moved to Friedberg Castle in autumn 1944, continued the work on the library files there. By the end of 1945, the objects had been returned to the museum.

By order of Franz Hofer, Gauleiter of Tyrol-Vorarlberg, as Oberster Kommissar für die Operationszone Alpenvorland (Supreme Commissar for the Operational Zone of the Alpine Foothills), three crates were brought to Friedberg Castle in January 1945 for storage. In 1951 these crates were opened in the Tiroler Landesmuseum and the contents, including works by Albin Egger-Lienz, were inventoried by the museum. Previous owners of these works still remain unidentified today.

Keywords

Salvaging

Depot

Sonia Buchroithner

6 January 2019

Publications about the person / institution

Oswald Trapp, Die Kunstdenkmäler Tirols in Not und Gefahr. Bericht des Landeskonservators über die Geschehnisse in den Jahren 1938–1945. Innsbruck-Wien 1947.

Veröffentlichungen des Vereins Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum.

Archives

Archiv Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum, Verhandlungsschriften der Ausschusssitzungen des Tiroler Landesmuseums Ferdinandeum.
Archiv Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum, Hausakten.

GND: 4194466-5

VIAF: 235968744

Wikidata: Q14545641

Fügen, Schloss

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:39:16 +0000

Fügen, Schloss Leonhard Weidinger Tue, 02/09/2021 - 17:57

Schloss Fügen

Fügen Castle

Fügen, Zillertal

Fügen Castle, transformed in the eighteenth century by the aristocratic Tyrolean Fieger family into a Baroque castle, was owned from 1926 under the name Bubenburg by the Seraphisches Liebeswerk, which used it as a boys' boarding school. In 1939 this institution was requisitioned by the Nazis, who established a Gau boarding school there. In 1943 the children were transferred to Jagdberg near Schlins in Vorarlberg and the castle was used thereafter for the evacuation of children. At the same time a large part of the painting collection of the Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum, around 1,300 works, was stored in the castle in autumn of that year. Another room was used to store the extensive estate of the Innsbruck jeweller and museum committee member Bernhard Höfel (around 130 paintings, minor art objects, books). The objects were returned by the end of 1945, as the Allies required the rooms and there had also been two break-ins. From 1946 the castle was used again by the Seraphisches Liebeswerk as a confessional boys' boarding school (Bubenburg St. Josef 1949).

Keywords

Salvaging

Depot

Sonia Buchroithner

6 January 2019

Publications about the person / institution

Oswald Trapp, Die Kunstdenkmäler Tirols in Not und Gefahr. Bericht des Landeskonservators über die Geschehnisse in den Jahren 1938–1945, Innsbruck-Wien 1947.

Veröffentlichungen des Vereins Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum.

Archives

Archiv Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum, Hausakten.
Archiv Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum, Verhandlungsschriften der Ausschusssitzungen des Tiroler Landesmuseums Ferdinandeum.

Wikidata: Q16102023

Immendorf, Schloss

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:39:14 +0000

Immendorf, Schloss Leonhard Weidinger Thu, 10/08/2020 - 18:27

Schloss Immendorf

Immendorf Castle

Wullersdorf

Immendorf Castle in the northern Weinviertel, mentioned for the first time in records in the thirteenth century, was originally a two-storey complex around a rectangular courtyard with square towers. It was restored and modified in the late nineteenth century. In 1942 Rudolf Freudenthal, the owner of the castle at the time, made rooms available to the Reichsstatthalter in Vienna for salvage. That same year, some of the Lanckoronski collection was stored there before being moved to Thürnthal Castle in 1943. From March 1943, paintings, statues and applied art objects from the Lederer collection and the Österreichische Galerie, including the Faculty pictures and other paintings by Gustav Klimt, were transported to Immendorf. In November and December 1943 the Staatliches Kunstgewerbemuseum in Wien (State Arts and Crafts Museum in Vienna, now the MAK) stored the Laxenburg Room, various East Asian and Islamic objects, early modern handicrafts, over fifty pieces of furniture, leather wallpaper, twelve carpets and the Möchlinger Grab, a fifteenth-century wooden shrine carved in the form of a Gothic church. Privately owned objects were also stored here. In late March 1945, as the Red Army was approaching Vienna, Richard Ernst, director of the Arts and Crafts Museum, tried unsuccessfully to transport forty crates and three leather wallpaper items back to Vienna. In the second half of April 1945, the front approached Immendorf. In early May German units were stationed in the castle, moving off around lunchtime on 8 May 1945. A few hours later the Red Army arrived in Immendorf with a large number of trucks and began to occupy the castle and annexes. A fire broke out around 6 p.m. in the southwest tower and quickly spread. The Soviet troops escaped from the burning building. In the morning of 9 May 1945, the first day after the end of the Second World War in Europe, the fire appeared to have been extinguished. The second floor of the castle caught fire in the early morning of 10 May, however, and the fire spread to the rooms on the first floor and parterre. By the following day, the entire building had been burned to the ground. Only the walls remained with just a high pile of rubble in the interior. Attempts to put out the fire and rescue the art objects had been in vain. Only two carpets from the Arts and Crafts Museum were salvaged. All of the other stored objects burned. In the 1950s, most of the castle ruins were demolished.

Many reports of the fire suggest that the depot was deliberately destroyed by German troops, probably SS units, to prevent the objects stored there falling into the hands of the Red Army. This supposition cannot be definitively confirmed, however. There are no indications that Soviet troops started the fire. There is also the suspicion that not all of the artworks were destroyed but that some objects were rescued before or during the fire. No single object from the list of items stored in Immendorf has turned up until now.

Keywords

6 January 2019

Publications about the person / institution

Handbuch der deutschen Kunstdenkmäler in der Ostmark, Band 1, Wien und Niederdonau, Wien-Berlin 1941.

Christina Gschiel, "Transport der Teile ohne zu schneiden". Die Bergung des Beethoven-Frieses aus der Sammlung Lederer in Schloss Thürnthal, in: Pia Schölnberger/Sabine Loitfellner (Hg.), Bergung von Kulturgut im Nationalsozialismus. Mythen – Hintergründe – Auswirkungen (= Schriftenreihe der Kommission für Provenienzforschung 6), Wien-Köln-Weimar 2016, 359–382, URL: doi.org/10.7767/9783205201564-018.

Leonhard Weidinger, "hiebei muß die Möglichkeit eines Luftangriffes und die Konservierungsfrage in gleicher Weise die Wahl bestimmen". Die Bergungsmaßnahmen des Staatlichen Kunstgewerbemuseums in Wien, in: Pia Schölnberger/Sabine Loitfellner (Hg.), Bergung von Kulturgut im Nationalsozialismus. Mythen – Hintergründe – Auswirkungen (= Schriftenreihe der Kommission für Provenienzforschung 6), Wien-Köln-Weimar 2016, 197–218, URL: doi.org/10.7767/9783205201564-011.

Archives

BDA-Archiv, Restitutionsmaterialien, K. 1, Immendorf.

GND: 1073623262

VIAF: 316533433

Wikidata: Q28533228

Klein-Engersdorf, Pfarrhof

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:39:12 +0000

Klein-Engersdorf, Pfarrhof Leonhard Weidinger Tue, 03/09/2021 - 21:00

Pfarrhof Klein-Engersdorf

Klein-Engersdorf parsonage

Enzersfeld

The parsonage in Klein-Engersdorf am Bisamberg was one of sixteen storage sites of the Wiener Städtische Sammlungen in Lower Austria, where museum objects were deposited from 1943 to protect them from air raids. As the parsonage was on the outskirts of the town and was inhabited only by the parson and his sister, the museum authorities considered the first floor of the house to be an ideal place to store some of the clock and watch collection. In the last days of April 1945, Soviet troops looted the parsonage and destroyed the interior in their search for watches. When the contents of the depot were restored in November 1945, only five of the original eight crates were recovered.

Keywords

6 January 2019

Publications about the person / institution

Gerhard Milchram/Michael Wladika, "Es konnte festgestellt werden, dass tatsächlich Verwüstungen und Plünderungen sowohl durch SS-Truppen als auch durch Russen und Landbewohner stattfanden". Bergungen und Rückbergungen der Städtischen Sammlungen (Museen der Stadt Wien), in: Pia Schölnberger/Sabine Loitfellner (Hg.), Bergung von Kulturgut im Nationalsozialismus. Mythen – Hintergründe – Auswirkungen (= Schriftenreihe der Kommission für Provenienzforschung 6), Wien-Köln-Weimar 2016, 219–248, URL: doi.org/10.7767/9783205201564-012.

Heinz Schöny, Erinnerungen an die Rückbergungen nach dem Krieg, in: Hundert Jahre Historisches Museum der Stadt Wien, Katalog der 106. Sonderausstellung des Historischen Museums der Stadt Wien, 21. Mai bis 30. August 1987, Wien 1987, 87.

Archives

Chronik der Pfarre Enzersfeld, Jänner bis 31. Mai 1945, S. 475–476.

Museen der Stadt Wien (Städtische Sammlungen, MA 10), Bestand Bergungen, K. 2, Bergungsorte, I. u. II. Kistenverzeichnis.
Museen der Stadt Wien (Städtische Sammlungen, MA 10), Bestand Bergungen, K. 3, Kriegsverluste 1.

GND: 1052086284

VIAF: 313418282

Wikidata: Q37874618

Klosterneuburg, Stift

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:39:12 +0000

Klosterneuburg, Stift Susanne Hehenberger Fri, 11/13/2020 - 08:37

Stift Klosterneuburg

Monastery Klosterneuburg

Stiftsplatz 1, Klosterneuburg

other names: Augustiner-Chorherrenstift Klosterneuburg, code name "Stift"

In June 1941 the seized and later expropriated Monastery of the Augustinian Canons with its art collection was put in the charge of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. The artworks from Klosterneuberg, inventoried separately, remained locked up on site. The basement and underground rooms were equipped by Fritz Dworschak with a ventilation and heating system. From autumn 1942 artworks were stored here, making Klosterneuburg into one of the largest of the Kunsthistorisches Museum's depots. The first items stored there included the contents of the museum library and Imperial Treasury, followed by objects from other Kunsthistorisches Museum collections, as well as files from the Museum of Natural History, archives from the Vienna municipality, carpets from the State Arts and Crafts Museum, paintings and tapestries from the Liechtenstein collection, stained glass windows from Laxenburg Castle, collection items from the Monastery and Städtisches Museum Klosterneuburg, paintings from the Heeresmuseum, and a magnificent baroque cabinet from Berlin Palace museum. The separation for security reasons from other users of the building complex was not always without friction. There were classrooms and residences in the old monastery, and the field hospital installed in 1941 required more and more space as the war went on. Apart from the air raid shelter, which could only be accessed from the Imperial Courtyard and was reserved for museum staff and wounded patients from the hospital, a public air raid shelter was installed in the wine cellars in summer 1944. At the end of 1944 the stored items were returned to Vienna and transported in part to Lauffen. At the beginning of April 1945, Dworschak reported to Section Z/GK of the Reichsstatthalter in Vienna that relocation was still going on. A few days later the first Soviet troops arrived at the monastery. At the end of April 1945 the first canons returned, and in May the monastery was once again in the hands of the Order. A week after the war ended, representatives of the monastery administration and Kunsthistorisches Museum agreed that items should remain in storage as long as was necessary. Most of the goods were returned by the end of 1945, but some of the museum items brought back to Vienna remained in crates for several years, as a curator discovered at the end of 1954.

Keywords

6 January 2019

Publications about the person / institution

Herbert Haupt, Jahre der Gefährdung. Das Kunsthistorische Museum 1938–1945. Wien 1995.
Herbert Haupt, Getroffen, doch nicht vernichtet. Das Kunsthistorische Museum im Kriegjahr 1945. Eine Chronologie der Ereignisse in Bildern. Wien 2005.
Herbert Haupt, Die Rolle des Kunsthistorischen Museums bei der Beschlagnahme, Bergung und Rückführung von Kunstgut in den Jahren 1938–1945, in: Theodor Brückler (Hg.), Kunstraub, Kunstbergung und Restitution in Österreich. 1938 bis heute. Wien 1999, 53–75.

Susanne Hehenberger/Monika Löscher, "Geheime" Bergungsorte: das Rothschildsche Jagdschloss Steinbach bei Göstling (Jagd), die Kartause Gaming (Schloss), das aufgelassene Stift Klosterneuburg (Stift) und das Salzbergwerk Lauffen bei Bad lschl (Berg). Arbeitsalltag – Sicherheitsvorkehrungen – Rückbergungen, in: Pia Schölnberger/Sabine Loitfellner (Hg.), Bergung von Kulturgut im Nationalsozialismus. Mythen – Hintergründe – Auswirkungen (= Schriftenreihe der Kommission für Provenienzforschung 6), Wien-Köln-Weimar 2016, 35–68, URL: doi.org/10.7767/9783205201564-004.

Robert Rill, Geschichte des Augustiner-Chorherrenstiftes Klosterneuburg 1938 bis 1945. Wien, Salzburg 1985.

Archives

BDA-Archiv, Restitutionsmaterialien, K. 4/1, M. 4, Kunsthistorisches Museum 1939–1943, M 5, Kunsthistorisches Museum 1943–1949; K. 6/1, M. 35, Bergungsorte in Wien J–Z: Klosterneuburg;.

KHM-Archiv, Direktionsakten: 1/ED/1944; 1/ED/1945; Bergungsunterlagen: XIII 81, XIII 82, XIII 18, XIII 24.
KHM-Archiv, Typoskript: Mathilde Pfannl, Das Kunsthistorische Museum im Zweiten Weltkrieg. Erinnerungen aus meiner Dienstzeit, Wien 1981.

GND: 2078067-9

VIAF: 158948225

Wikidata: Q697145

Kremsmünster, Reichskunstdepot

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:39:12 +0000

Kremsmünster, Reichskunstdepot Konstantin Ferihumer Wed, 11/18/2020 - 12:39

Reichskunstdepot Kremsmünster

Reich art depot Kremsmünster

other name: Kremsmünster Benedictine Monastery

Kremsmünster Benedictine Abbey in Upper Austria, founded in 777, was seized by order of the Gestapo in 1941 and placed under the administration of Reichsgau Oberdonau (Upper Danube). From summer 1941 it was used to store artworks for the "Sonderauftrag Linz". The proposal came from Gau curator Franz Juraschek, who, like Gauleiter August Eigruber, hoped it would work in favour of his Gau and suggested that the valuable objects stored in Kremsmünster should be shown "in the form of an exhibition". Nothing came of this, but Eigruber's suggestion was heard by those responsible for the "Sonderauftrag Linz", and important items secured and seized in Vienna in 1938 and managed at the time by the Institute for Monument Preservation were transported to Kremsmünster. The first and largest transports took place in May and June 1941 (28 May, 30 May, 4 June, 11 June, 24 June, 26 June) and included paintings, prints and art objects and furniture from the Alphonse Rothschild, Louis Rothschild, Oscar Bondy and Albert Pollak collections and, to a lesser extent from the collections of David Goldmann, Rudolf Gutmann, Felix Haas, Felix Kornfeld, Wally Kulka, Alfons Thorsch, Emmy Aldor and N. Pilzer. The transports were organized by Spedition Bäuml. While the Gau leadership and monument preservation authority hoped to store the most valuable objects in Kremsmünster, Hans Posse, head of the Linz project, quickly decided that more and more items from the "Führerbau" depot in Munich considered to be inferior should be transferred to Kremsmünster so as to make space in Munich for more valuable ones. Between August 1941 and November 1943 1,732 paintings were transferred from Munich to Kremsmünster, and some of the items transported from Vienna to Kremsmünster were kept there only in temporary storage prior to onward transport to Munich (for example, a transport on 24 August 1942 of objects from the collections of Berta Morelli, Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, Oscar Bondy, Franz Erlach and others). Until 1943 transports continued to come from Vienna, and in 1942 two transports (25 September and 24 November) with eighty-eight paintings and fifteen crates of art objects from the "Jagd" depot in Steinbach near Göstling were also transferred to Kremsmünster. According to the Benedictine father Richard Rankl, in autumn 1943 there were around 5,000 pictures and 400 crates in the Kremsmünster Reich Art Depot. They were kept in the baroque ceremonial hall (Kaisersaal) and in several rooms of the former convent. For security reasons, the doors were bricked up and moved. The art historian Justus (Heinrich) Schmidt, who was head of the art history department of the Gau museum in Linz and deputy culture officer of the Reichsgau Upper Danube, was appointed as local manager of the depot. His deputy in Kremsmünster was art historian Father Petrus (Franz) Mayrhofer. Ignaz Hager, the provisional administrator of the abbey appointed by the Linz Gestapo, also considered himself responsible for the Reich Art Depot and complained about the unclearly defined competences and responsibilities of the staff of the "Sonderauftrag Linz", the Vienna Institute for Monument Preservation and the Linz Gau offices. In spite of the camouflage measures designed to protect the abbey complex from air raids, the Kremsmünster Reich Art Depot was too unsafe in the event of aerial bombardment, and its contents began to be removed in 1943. They were transferred in part to Hohenfurth Abbey (Vyšší Brod), which had also been seized by Reichsgau Upper Danube, and to Thürnthal castle, but mostly to the salt mine in Altaussee, which was now the central depot for objects intended for the planned "Sonderauftrag Linz".

Even after the contents had been transferred to Altaussee, Kremsmünster's role as an art depot was not over, because after the war the abbey was once again used to hold artworks, this time while awaiting their return and restitution. On 6 May 1945, the US military authorities appointed the prior, Father Richard Rankl, to manage the abbey, and on 29 July 1945 the abbot was able to return. Between November 1945 and summer 1946 art objects from Austria were transferred in eight shipments from the Central Collecting Point in Munich to Kremsmünster. They included objects seized from Viennese collections and already stored in the abbey during the war, and also expropriated church property from the abbeys at Kremsmünster, St Florian, Göttweig and Klosterneuburg. According to existing lists, the items were stored this time in the abbey mill and in rooms such as the Apostle Room within the abbey itself. From 1948 the abbey urgently requested that they be removed. At the time, objects that had not yet been restituted were transferred in 1949 for temporary storage in the depot of the Federal Monuments Authority in Salzburg-Kleßheim.

Keywords

"Sonderauftrag Linz"

Depot

Birgit Kirchmayr

9 July 2022

Publications about the person / institution

Johann Großruck, Vermögensentzug und Restitution betreffend die oberösterreichischen Stifte mit den inkorporierten Pfarren (= Veröffentlichungen der Österreichischen Historikerkommission. Vermögensentzug während der NS-Zeit sowie Rückstellungen und Entschädigungen seit 1945 in Österreich 22/4), Wien-München 2004, URL: hiko.univie.ac.at/PDF/22-4.pdf (3.12.2020).

Rudolf Hundstorfer, Das Stift unterm Hakenkreuz, Kremsmünster-Linz 1961.

Birgit Kirchmayr/Friedrich Buchmayr/Michael John, Geraubte Kunst in Oberdonau, Linz 2007.

Benedikt Pitschmann, Die Einlagerung von Kunstschätzen im Stift Kremsmünster (1941–1944), in: Jahrbuch des öffentlichen Stiftsgymnasiums Kremsmünster 138 (1995), 59–61.

Archives

BDA-Archiv, Restitutionsmaterialien, K. 13/3 und 13/4: K-Inventar, Transportlisten, Korrespondenz.

BArch Koblenz, B323-123 und 124.
BArch Koblenz, NS 6-413, Transportlisten München Führerbau nach Kremsmünster.

Stiftsarchiv Kremsmünster, Tagebuch Richard Rankl.

GND: 2046531-2

VIAF: 156602229

Wikidata: Q688659