Birgit Kirchmayr

Kastner, Walther

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:39:23 +0000

Kastner, Walther Konstantin Ferihumer Wed, 11/18/2020 - 12:28

Walther Kastner

11 May 1902 Gmunden – 31 March 1994 Vienna

The future jurist and art collector Walther Kastner was born in Gmunden in 1902 and grew up and attended school in Linz. After breaking off the study of art history, German and psychology at the University of Vienna, he joined the Bank für Oberösterreich und Salzburg but was dismissed in 1925 on account of the economic situation. He then studied law in Innsbruck and returned to Vienna to complete his doctorate. He did his court training at the local court in Schiffamtsgasse in the 2nd district before moving in 1930 to the Finanzprokuratur (Financial Procurator's Office). He started to build up a private art collection specializing in graphic art and acquiring works by Alfred Kubin, Lovis Corvinth, Max Liebermann and Max Beckmann. Shortly after the annexation of Austria in 1938, he was asked by Arthur Seyß-Inquart to head the legislation and legal alignment/economic law department in the Ministry of Internal and Cultural Affairs. He claims to have refused to join the NSDAP at that time and agreed to do so only in 1942, joining the Party the following year. According to archive material, however, Kastner's first application to join the NSDAP was made in 1940. The application included several positive assessments, but Kastner was not accepted immediately. It was not until he applied again in 1942 that he was accepted (membership number 9,021.901). After just a few months in the ministry, Kastner became Prokurist in October 1938 at the Österreichische Kontrollbank, an institution that played an important role during the Nazi era in the Aryanization of large Austrian companies. In his 1982 autobiography, Kastner wrote that the Kontrollbank handled 101 Aryanizations, a figure confirmed by the documents available. In 1942, Kastner left the Kontrollbank, which was liquidated after the Aryanizations had been completed. He then joined the board of Semperit AG, later becoming chairman and remaining in this function until the end of the war.

In May 1945, Kastner, as a former member of the NSDAP, was put in a penal work detail. He belonged to the art salvaging troop and from 1946 he was employed as a labourer in Stift Klosterneuburg. He appeared before the Volksgericht in Vienna on charges of enrichment (Section 6 of the War Criminals Act) in connection with two Aryanizations handled by the Kontrollbank. The proceedings in both cases were discontinued in 1946 and 1949, respectively. By this time Kastner had already managed to reintegrate into society. He worked from 1946 as a jurist for the "Krauland ministry", the Bundesministerium für Vermögenssicherung und Wirtschaftsplanung (Federal Ministry for Securing Property and Economic Planning) headed by Peter Krauland (ÖVP). Initially Kastner was involved with nationalization legislation, later in particular with restitution legislation. He drafted the Fifth Restitution Act (BGBl. 1949/164) on his own responsibility. Thus, from being responsible for Aryanization, he now handled restitutions, not only the judicial aspects but also in some cases their specific processing. He was responsible, for example, for the restitution of Bunzl-Biach AG, a company which he himself had Aryanized while working at the Kontrollbank. This strange constellation was no exception in post-war Austria. In 1947 Kastner opened a legal practice and also used his restitution expertise to represent Jewish clients dispossessed by the Nazis. Apart from his work as a consultant at the ministry, he also sat on numerous supervisory boards. In 1964 he was given the chair of the Department of Commercial and Exchange Law at the University of Vienna. As his career progressed in the 1950s, he also turned again to his art collection. According to Kastner, much of the original collection had been destroyed in an air raid in 1945. He specialized now in nineteenth-century Austrian art and acquired objects mostly from auctions at the Dorotheum in Vienna. In 1975 Walther Kastner gave most of his art collection to the Oberösterreichisches Landesmuseum (Upper Austria Provincial Museum). It comprised around 320 objects and was valued at 20 million schillings. The donation was added to subsequently by Kastner until his death in 1994 and then by his widow Franziska Kastner (1913–2008). In connection with an honorary doctorate awarded by the University of Vienna in 1992, questions were raised for the first time about Kastner's Nazi past, and some of the university senate, albeit a minority, voted against the award. During the discussion in the late 1990s of Nazi art looting and restitution policy, suspicion finally fell on Kastner's collection. The issue was examined in a research project by the Oberösterreichisches Landesmuseum. It concluded that the vast majority of Kastner's collection had been acquired after the war and that there was no direct link between his Aryanization activities at the Kontrollbank and his art collection. There were nevertheless several works purchased by Kastner from the Dorotheum, dealers and collectors in the 1950s and 1960s that had been expropriated or belonged to Nazi persecutees. To date, one painting has been restituted to the heir of Oskar Reichel. Research is being carried out on the restitution of other items. Details can be found on the website of the Oberösterreichisches Landesmuseum.

Keywords

6 January 2019

Publications about the person / institution

Brigitte Bailer-Galanda, "Schauen Sie, das Ungeordnete ist natürlich schlimmer wie das Geordnete": Skizze zu Walther Kastner, Jurist und Staatsbediensteter für Diktatur und Demokratie, in: Michael Pammer/Herta Neiß/Michael John (Hg.), Erfahrung der Moderne. Festschrift für Roman Sandgruber, Stuttgart 2007, 289–300.

Gregor Derntl (unter Mitarbeit von Birgit Kirchmayr), Bestand Sammlung Walther Kastner. Zweiter Zwischenbericht vom 12. März 2014, URL: www.ooelkg.at/de/sammlungen/provenienzforschung.html?file=files/project/userdata/downloads/Sammlungen/Provenienzforschung/provenienzforschung-zweiter-zwischenbericht-12-03-2014-kastner-grafische-sammlung.pdf (3.12.2020).

Birgit Kirchmayr (unter Mitarbeit von Manuel Heinl), Bestand Sammlung Kastner. Erster Zwischenbericht vom 13.10.2010, URL: www.ooelkg.at/de/sammlungen/provenienzforschung.html?file=files/project/userdata/downloads/Sammlungen/Provenienzforschung/provenienzforschung-erster-zwischenbericht-13-10-2010-bestand-kastner.pdf (3.12.2020).

Bernhard Prokisch/Lothar Schultes, Die Sammlung Kastner Teil 4: Münzen (= Kataloge des OÖ. Landesmuseum Neue Folge 109), Linz 1997.

Lothar Schultes, Die Sammlung Kastner Teil 1: Mittelalter und Barock (= Kataloge des OÖ. Landesmuseums Neue Folge 53), Linz 1992.
Lothar Schultes, Die Sammlung Kastner Teil 2: Kunst des 19. Jahrhunderts (= Kataloge des OÖ. Landesmuseum Neue Folge 113), Linz 1997.

Lothar Schultes/Johannes Wieninger, Die Sammlung Kastner Teil 5: Ostasiatische Kunst und Schmuck (= Kataloge des OÖ. Landesmuseum Neue Folge 136), Linz 1999.

Fritz Weber, Die Arisierung in Österreich: Grundzüge, Akteure und Institutionen, in: Ulrike Felber/Peter Melichar/Markus Priller/Berthold Unfried/Fritz Weber, Ökonomie der Arisierung. Teil 1: Grundzüge, Akteure und Institutionen. Zwangsverkauf, Liquidierung und Restitution von Unternehmen in Österreich 1938 bis 1960 (= Veröffentlichungen der Österreichischen Historikerkommission. Vermögensentzug während der NS-Zeit sowie Rückstellungen und Entschädigungen seit 1945 in Österreich 10/1), Wien-München 2005, 40–165, URL: hiko.univie.ac.at/PDF/10-1.pdf (3.12.2020).

Publications by the person / institution

Walther Kastner, Mein Leben – kein Traum. Aus dem Leben eines österreichischen Juristen, Wien o. J.

Archives

DÖW, Akt R 453, Personal-Fragebogen zum Antragschein auf Aufnahme in die Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (Kopie des Personenakts Dr. Walther Kastner, Berlin Document Center).
DÖW, Vg 2c Vr 4148/47, Vernehmungsprotokoll Walther Kastner, 9.12.1947.

OÖLM, NL Walter Kastner.

GND: 118721119

VIAF: 34989904

Wikidata: Q1488203

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

Kunstmuseum Linz

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

Kunstmuseum Linz Konstantin Ferihumer Wed, 11/18/2020 - 12:46

Kunstmuseum Linz

other names: Linzer Führermuseum, Führermuseum, Sonderauftrag Linz, Gemäldegalerie Linz

Kunstmuseum Linz is not a real museum but a project as part of the Nazi art policy. It is also known as the Linzer Führermuseum, Führermuseum, Gemäldegalerie Linz or—with reference to the underlying project—Sonderauftrag Linz. It was Hitler's intention to erect a new art museum in his "home town" of Linz. The project got underway in April 1938, a few weeks after the annexation of Austria, when Hitler visited the Oberösterreichisches Landesmuseum in Linz to discuss his plans for a museum with director Theodor Kerschner. In May, he spent a week in Italy, visiting numerous art museums, including the Uffizi in Florence. The plans for an art gallery in Linz must have taken shape during those weeks. In June 1938, an unofficial decree known as the "Führervorbehalt" (Führer reserve) ensured that he would have the final word on artworks and assets seized since March 1938 in Vienna, thereby making them available for his museum in Linz. The creation of the Linz art museum was therefore inextricably linked with the securing, seizure and expropriation of the assets belonging to persons persecuted on political and "racial" grounds. Initially, the Berlin art dealer Karl Haberstock, who advised Hitler on art, was to draw up distribution plans based on the "Führervorbehalt" for the artworks kept in the Zentraldepot für beschlagnahmte Sammlungen (Central Depot for Seized Collections) in the Vienna Hofburg. In June 1939, Hitler then appointed the art historian and museum director Hans Posse from Dresden as special representative for Linz. He was to put together "the best of all times" from the "seized possessions, Hitler’s existing collection and new acquisitions" for a new museum in Linz, as Posse wrote in his diary. From an art history point of view, the appointment of the experienced museologist Hans Posse put the Linz project on a professional basis. The new art museum was to have sections for Old Masters and for nineteenth-century art. There was no place for contemporary Nazi art, as shown at the Great German Art exhibitions. In 1940, Posse presented a first list. Of the 324 paintings in it, the majority, 174 in all, were from the Central Depot in Vienna. The basic inventory consisted of paintings from the collections of Alphonse Rothschild, Louis Rothschild, Oscar Bondy, Felix Haas, Rudolf Gutmann, Alfons Thorsch, David Goldmann and Felix Kornfeld. The inventory and distribution list drawn up in Vienna—apart from Kunstmuseum Linz, Viennese and provincial museums were also to obtain seized works—were subdivided by themes: in the case of paintings these were German, Old Dutch, Flemish, Dutch, English and Italian from the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries. With almost unlimited funds, including foreign exchange, Posse was able to add continuously to the Linz inventory through purchases on the art market and with objects expropriated during the war from occupied/conquered territories. After Posse's death in December 1942, he was succeeded for an interim period by his deputy Gottfried Reimer, before the art historian and museum director Hermann Voss took over in 1943. Unlike his predecessor, he no longer had the same amount of looted art at his disposal, although his acquisitions also included many works belonging originally to victims of the Nazis. Under Voss's directorship, it became increasingly unclear exactly which artworks were destined for the Linz picture gallery and which were to be used elsewhere, and it is therefore impossible to precisely define the Linz inventory. The albums in which Posse and later Voss compiled photographs of the new acquisitions provide a good insight into the planned design of the museum. The leather-bound volumes were presented to Hitler between 1940 and 1944 on special occasions such as Christmas or birthdays and may be regarded as a catalogue of the Führer museum. They contain around 1,300 objects. Apart from the picture gallery (including sculptures), the museum had other planned sections, including ones for graphic art and handicrafts (managed by Posse and Voss), and a weapon and coin collection. Fritz Dworschak, director of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, was responsible from 1942 for putting together a coin collection, and weapons expert of the Kunsthistorisches Museum Leopold Ruprecht from 1943 with compiling a weapons collection for Linz. A separate library project was also planned for Linz under the responsibility by the Germanist and librarian Friedrich Wolffhardt. The Linz art museum was to be part of a planned new culture centre between the Volksgarten and the train station together with a library, opera house and theatre. Plans and models were presented by the architects Roderich Fick and Hermann Giesler but were never put into practice. The artworks intended for the museum were stored during the war in various depots, initially in the Führer's headquarters in Munich and then, from 1941, in the Reichskunstdepot (Reich art depot) in Kremsmünster, and finally in mine tunnels in Altaussee.

The Kunstmuseum Linz was thus never a museum and was never located in Linz. It refers rather to a collection of art objects of various origins, which were housed in different places and depots but are lumped together on account of their intended purpose. This has tended to confuse attitudes towards them at the time and later and to distort ideas about the reality of the project. The term "Kunstmuseum Linz" is still unclear today, and provenance researchers continue to identify the origins of the artworks intended for the Linz project, which in spite of some efforts after 1945 have not been returned to their owners and ended up in Austrian, German or other museums.

Keywords

"Führer reserve"

"Sonderauftrag Linz"

Nazi art and culture policy

Birgit Kirchmayr

6 January 2019

Publications about the person / institution

Birgit Kirchmayr, Sonderauftrag Linz. Zur Fiktion eines Museums, in: Fritz Mayrhofer/Walter Schuster (Hg.), Nationalsozialismus in Linz, Linz 2001, 557–596.
Birgit Kirchmayr, Adolf Hitlers "Sonderauftrag Linz" und seine Bedeutung für den NS-Kunstraub in Österreich, in: Gabriele Anderl/Alexandra Caruso (Hg.), Der NS-Kunstraub in Österreich und seine Folgen, Innsbruck-Wien-Bozen 2005, 26–41.

Birgit Schwarz, Hitlers Museum. Die Fotoalben Gemäldegalerie Linz, Wien-Köln-Weimar 2004.

Birgit Schwarz, Hitlers Sonderauftrag Ostmark. Kunstraub und Museumspolitik im Nationalsozialismus (= Schriftenreihe der Kommission für Provenienzforschung 7), Wien 2018, URL: doi.org/10.7767/9783205206965.

Archives

BArch Koblenz, B 323.

BDA-Archiv, Restitutionsmaterialien, besonders K. 13, 13-1, 13-2.

Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nürnberg, NL Posse.

GND: 4723641-3

VIAF: 243878145

Wikidata: Q475667

Oberösterreichisches Landesmuseum

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:40:48 +0000

Oberösterreichisches Landesmuseum Konstantin Ferihumer Wed, 11/18/2020 - 12:52

Oberösterreichisches Landesmuseum

other names: Museum Francisco Carolinum (1833/95–1920), Museum des Reichsgaues Oberdonau (1940–1945), Gaumuseum Linz (1938–1945)

The history of the Oberösterreichisches Landesmuseum dates back to the first half of the nineteenth century. In 1833, Reichsritter Anton von Spaun founded the "Verein des vaterländischen Museums für Österreich ob der Enns mit Inbegriff des Herzogthums Salzburg". The collection and research activities, initially supported solely by private benefactors, were divided into four categories: history, art, natural sciences and technology. In 1895, the contents of the Francisco-Carolinum Museum, named after its first patron, Archduke Franz Karl, were moved to a new building designed in the Historicist style by Bruno Schmitz and officially opened by Emperor Franz Joseph. It remains the headquarters of the Oberösterreichisches Landesmuseum, as the museum has been called since 1920, when patronage was assumed by the province of Upper Austria. The director at the time was the art historian Hermann Ubell, who had joined the museum in 1903 as curator of the art and cultural collections, and was its director from 1908 until his retirement in 1937. He was succeeded by the long-standing curator of the natural science department Theodor Kerschner.

After the annexation of Austria in 1938, the Landesmuseum was officially renamed Museum des Reichsgaues Oberdonau in accordance with the Ostmark Law of 1940. It hoped to acquire greater importance because of the special status of the Gau Oberdonau as the region where Hitler was born. The collection and research activities thereafter were guided by Hitler's cultural plans for Linz. While the planned "Führermuseum" in Linz was intended to house an art collection of super-regional significance, the Gau museum would have more of a regional focus. One result of this was the establishment of a folk art department headed by Franz Lipp. The art historian and folk art specialist Marianne Taub, who had been chancery clerk in the museum since 1932, had to leave. Because of her father's Jewish background, she was classified as a "first-degree Mischling" and permanently retired in May 1938. The art and culture department was headed from 1937 by the art historian Heinrich Justus Schmidt from Vienna. At his suggestion, in 1940 just under 400 items from the collections of Alphonse and Louis Rothschild, Rudolf Gutmann, David Goldmann and Otto Pick were transferred to Linz from the Zentraldepot für beschlagnahmte Sammlungen (Central Depot for Seized Collections) in the Vienna Hofburg. Numerous objects from collections expropriated by the Gestapo in Linz were also acquired, including paintings and drawings belonging to the businessman Walther Schwarz and art objects from Antiquitätenhandlung Töpfer. The museum also took charge of the art collections expropriated from abbeys and monasteries in Upper Austria. As the war progressed, it became increasingly difficult for the museum to operate, and from 1944 onwards extensive salvage operations also took place. Items were stored in abbeys seized by the Gau, including Hohenfurth/Vyšší Brod, and in Schloss Starhemberg in Eferding.

After the end of the Nazi rule, Theodor Kerschner retired from the museum on account of his NSDAP membership. Heinrich Justus Schmidt became interim director. Although he had not been a member of the Party, as culture representative of the Gauleiter Oberdonau he had purchased art objects in occupied France for the Gau. He left the museum in 1948 for health reasons. In the years immediately after the war, various objects acquired during the Nazi era were restituted, especially items from Viennese collections. Many applied art objects, items from the technology collection, artworks expropriated from monasteries and abbeys and the objects left over in the American Collecting Point administration remained for decades in the museum's inventory, as demonstrated by a research project by the province of Upper Austria in the early 2000s, which was carried out by the University of Linz. In 2002 the province of Upper Austria passed the Provincial Law on Restitution Measures for Victims of National Socialism (OÖ Restitutionsgesetz, LGBL. 29/no. 2). Since then, the Landesmuseum has restituted objects from the collections of Alphonse and Louis Rothschild (2000), Victor Ephrussi (2000), Martha Neumann (2003), Walter Schwarz (2009), Vyšší Brod abbey (2009), Ignatz Pick (2010, 2016), Antiquitätenhandlung Töpfer (2010), Oskar Reichel (2013), Margarete and Georg Bittner (2013, 2017) and Malvine Stern (2017). The current status of restitutions and unresolved cases are published on the Oberösterreichisches Landesmuseum website.

Keywords

Museum

Birgit Kirchmayr

Publications about the person / institution

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

Bernhard Prokisch, Das Museum Francisco-Carolinum. Baugeschichte. In: Oberösterreichisches Landesmuseum (Hg.), 150 Jahre Oberösterreichisches Landesmuseum, Linz 1983, 43–54.

Benno Ulm, Das älteste Kulturinstitut des Landes, in: Oberösterreichisches Landesmuseum (Hg.), 150 Jahre Oberösterreichisches Landesmuseum, Linz 1983.

Publications by the person / institution

OÖ Landes-Kultur GmbH, Provenienzforschung, URL: www.ooelkg.at/de/sammlungen/provenienzforschung.html (3.12.2020).

Archives

Oberösterreichisches Landesarchiv (OÖLA), Musealarchiv, Direktionsakten 1938–1945ff, Kunsthistorische Abteilung 1938–1945ff.

GND: 1006323-7

VIAF: 152412927

Wikidata: Q2011578

Posse, Hans

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:39:27 +0000

Posse, Hans Konstantin Ferihumer Wed, 11/18/2020 - 12:31

Hans Posse

6 February 1879 Dresden – 7 December 1942 Berlin

Hans Posse was a German art historian appointed by Hitler in June 1939 as his "special representative for Linz". At this time, Posse, who had studied art history, history and German from 1899 to 1903 in Marburg and Vienna, already had a successful career. After completing his doctoral degree, he began as an unpaid intern and research assistant at the Gemäldegalerie Berlin, which moved in 1904 to the new Kaiser Friedrich Museum, now Bode Museum. He became Wilhelm Bode's assistant in 1909. Prior to that, he had visited Italy several times and helped to inventorize the paintings in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum. In 1910 at the age of just thirty-one he became director of the Gemäldegalerie in Dresden, one of the most prestigious positions in the German museum scene. During the First World War he served on the Western front in France, where he completed numerous drawings of surprising artistic quality, some of which have only recently been rediscovered. After the war he remained director of the Gemäldegalerie in Dresden, now state-owned. As head of the German contribution to the 1922 Biennale in Venice, he supported Oskar Kokoschka, who was generally disdained in conservative art circles. Kokoschka was professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden at the time and Posse's tenant in one of the cavalier houses in the Grosser Garten. Posse's acquisitions policy as gallery director in the 1920s and 1930s also showed his openness to Modernism. It is therefore all the more surprising that Hitler chose Posse as the art history expert for his Kunstmuseum (art museum) in Linz. Posse was even removed as director in Dresden in 1938 and was only reinstated at Hitler's instigation. There are conflicting views in the literature about Posse's politics. His art policy was not always in line with National Socialist ideas, but this does not necessarily mean that he distanced himself from the Nazi ideology. When he was appointed "special representative" he was not a member of the NSDAP, nor did he join the Party later on, unlike his wife Elise, née Käpernick, who had joined the NSDAP in 1931 when she was still Posse's housekeeper and not yet married to him. In 1933, however, when the attacks on the museum director increased, he applied to join the Party, but his application was rejected in 1934. It is difficult to determine whether he made this application solely to cover himself politically. Perhaps – like many others – he considered his work in the art sector to be "unpolitical". At all events, his diary entries make it clear that he was aware from the outset that a large number of the artworks earmarked for the Kunstmuseum were from collections seized and/or secured by the Nazis from persecuted individuals. One of Posse's first official trips was to Vienna, where he visited the objects stored in the Zentraldepot für beschlagnahmte Sammlungen (Central Depot for Seized Collections) in the Hofburg and made plans for their dispersal. He was not only responsible for the selection for Linz but also organized the distribution to existing Austrian museums, based on the wish lists of the museum directors. Posse was therefore the executor of the "Führervorbehalt" (Führer reserve) to items in the Central Depot in Vienna, which were to form the basis for the future Linz museum. He also had access to expropriated collections in the conquered/occupied territories, particularly Poland, France and the Netherlands. He often travelled there to inspect and select seized/secured art. He also acquired numerous objects in the French and Dutch art markets (in which many objects sold under pressure by Jewish owners were on sale) using almost unlimited foreign exchange accounts available for the Linz project. His diary entries bear witness to an almost obsessive dedication to Linz. He continued even after he had been diagnosed with oral cancer in 1942. He died of cancer in December 1942 in Berlin. At Hitler's instigation he was given a state funeral at which Josef Goebbels gave the eulogy. He was made an honorary citizen of Linz. His widow Elise donated drawings by Posse from his estate to the city and also some of Posse's private collection of prints to the Linz project (both of which have subsequently disappeared). After Posse's assistant Gottfried Reimer took over temporarily, the art historian Hermann Voss became "special representative for Linz" in 1943. Because of his early death, Posse did not have to answer to the Allies after the war. In its first examination in 1945, the Art Looting Investigation Unit classified "Sonderauftrag Linz" as a criminal undertaking and called for prosecution of those responsible, but this was not followed up. Research in the last few decades in particular has focused increasingly on Posse himself. A symposium organized by the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden in 2013 dealt for the first time with the entire range of Posse's activities as an art historian, museum director and "special representative", which revealed not only the logical progression but also the contradictions and interruptions in his career.

Keywords

6 January 2019

Publications about the person / institution

Birgit Kirchmayr, Der Briefwechsel August Zöhrer – Elise Posse im Archiv der Stadt Linz. Eine Fußnote zur Geschichte des "Linzer Führermuseums", in: Walter Schuster/Maximilian Schimböck/Anneliese Schweiger (Hg.), Stadtarchiv und Stadtgeschichte. Festschrift für Fritz Mayrhofer (= Historisches Jahrbuch der Stadt Linz 2003/2004), Linz 2004, 515–522.

Gilbert Lupfer/Thomas Rudert (Hg.), Kennerschaft zwischen Macht und Moral. Annäherungen an Hans Posse (1879–1942), Köln-Weimar-Wien 2015.

August Zöhrer, Gestalter und Gestalten. Dr. Hans Posse. Der Schöpfer des Linzer Kunstmuseums, in: Linz, Erbe und Sendung, Linz 1943, 7–16.

Archives

Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nürnberg, Nachlass Posse.

GND: 116269952

VIAF: 49972415

Wikidata: Q95937

Voss, Hermann

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:40:53 +0000

Voss, Hermann Konstantin Ferihumer Wed, 11/18/2020 - 12:34

Hermann Voss

30 July 1884 Lüneburg – 28 April 1969 Munich

Hermann Voss studied art history, music history and history in Heidelberg. Following his doctorate in 1906, he lived in Italy and in 1908 began an internship at the Königlich Preußische Kunstsammlungen zu Berlin with Wilhelm Bode. In 1912 he became head of the Graphic Arts Collection at the Museum of Fine Arts in Leipzig, in 1922 curator of the Picture Gallery of the Staatliche Museen in Berlin and from 1935 director of the Städtische Kunstsammlung at the Landesmuseum Wiesbaden. Voss took the opportunity during the seizure of "degenerate art" in 1937 to improve the situation of the Wiesbaden museum through barter or compensation. At the latest from 1937 he approached the National Socialists, gave talks to SA leaders and worked at the start of the war as an art expert in occupied France and as an assessor for the Wiesbaden police, but was not himself a member of the NSDAP. His appointment as successor in December 1942 to the deceased Hans Posse was surprising and must have been as a result of a decision by Posse himself. Despite the defeat of the German Wehrmacht in Stalingrad in February 1943, Voss was entrusted with continuing the "Sonderauftrag Linz". Unlike his predecessor Posse, Voss was only in charge of the painting, graphic art and sculpture collections, while Fritz Dworschak, Friedrich Wolffhardt and Leopold Ruprecht (all from Vienna) continued to be responsible for the numismatic collection, the arms collection, and the library. Other agendas, including the important coordination of salvaging and depots remained under the aegis of Gottfried Reimer, the special representative for "Sonderauftrag Linz", a position he had held temporarily after Posse's death. Voss's activities were thus confined to coordinating further acquisitions. He had recourse to a large network of art dealers and agents both within the German Reich and in the occupied territories. Unlike his predecessor Posse, Voss only made three trips, and he did not personally inspect the majority of the acquired art works. He nevertheless made considerable acquisitions: he claims to have purchased almost nine hundred paintings, several hundred prints and a few sculptures and applied art objects between April 1943, when he took office, and March 1944. Because of the enormous outlays, there were fierce arguments with Reich Minister and head of the Reich Chancellery Hans Heinrich Lammers, who was responsible for finance. In summer 1944 – the Allies had already landed in Normandy – Lammers informed Reichsleiter Martin Bormann that the monthly expenditure for the "Sonderauftrag Linz" had reached 6 million Reichsmarks. Despite this, Voss continued to provoke the Reich Chancellery by demanding funds for his special foreign exchange accounts. Lammers protested, but Hitler showed no willingness to limit the funds available. The exorbitant increase in costs, compared with Posse, can be explained by the fact that Voss concentrated on acquisitions from the art market, while in the initial phase of the "Sonderauftrag Linz" most of the objects were taken directly from expropriated collections, in particular from the Zentraldepot für beschlagnahmte Sammlungen (Central Depot for Seized Collections) in Vienna. Voss's claim when interrogated after the war that as special representative he was not involved in the art looting by the National Socialists is untrue. He acquired objects directly from seized collections, such as that of Adolphe Schloss in France. He also took many objects directly from Vugesta. Furthermore, many of the objects acquired from dealers or agents were from forced sales or expropriations. After the defeat of the German Reich, Voss nevertheless claimed to have been politically uninvolved and intent as special representative merely on rescuing art treasures. His strategy proved successful. Although he was interrogated by the Art Looting Investigation Unit in summer 1945 in Altaussee, he was not charged by the allied forces nor was he later called to account by the German authorities during denazification proceedings. In 1947 he published a book entitled Deutsche Selbstkritik with the intention, as his biographer Kathrin Iselt described it, "to make known his attitude as an anti-Fascist and cosmopolitan, without having to talk about his own role and position in the Nazi system." Until his death, Voss, who lived in Munich after 1945, published numerous essays on art history, particularly research into sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italian painting. He was recognized as an art historian and assessor and until 1968 was a member of the Purchasing Commission of the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlung (Bavarian State Painting Collection). He had a private art collection, most of which was secured by the German police in Dresden in 1946, after which it was moved several times, all trace of it being lost by the end of the 1940s. Even today, neither the origins nor the whereabouts of the paintings and prints are known.

Keywords

21 November 2019

Publications about the person / institution

Kathrin Iselt, "Sonderbeauftragter des Führers". Der Kunsthistoriker und Museumsmann Hermann Voss (1884–1969), Köln-Weimar-Wien 2010.

Archives

NARA, Ardelia Hall Collection, S. Lane Faison, Detailed Interrogation Report No. 12: Subject Hermann Voss, 15.9.1945, URL: www.fold3.com/document/270423939/ (3.12.2020).

NARA, Ardelia Hall Collection, S. Lane Fasion, Consolidated Interrogation Report No. 4: Linz Museum, 15.12.1945, URL: www.fold3.com/document/283755693/ (3.12.2020).

BArch Koblenz, Bestand B 323 (Treuhandverwaltung für Kulturgut).

GND: 117450502

VIAF: 44473159

Wikidata: Q1612982