Michael Wladika

Mühlmann, Kajetan

Konstantin Ferihumer — Wed, 01 Dec 2021 13:22:41 +0000

Mühlmann, Kajetan

Konstantin Ferihumer Wed, 12/01/2021 - 13:30

Kajetan Mühlmann

26 June 1898 Uttendorf – 2 August 1958 Munich

also Kaj Mühlmann

Kajetan Mühlmann studied from 1913 to 1917 at the k. k. Staatslehrerbildungsanstalt in Salzburg-Stadt together with lifelong friends and future National Socialists Karl Heinrich Waggerl and Karl Springenschmid. Because of a lung condition acquired during the First World War, he was forced to give up his position as teaching assistant in Fusch on the Glocknerstraße. Like his half-brother Josef, he therefore started studying art history in 1921 at the University of Vienna, financing his studies by operating a tobacconist shop. After obtaining his doctorate at the University of Innsbruck on the subject of Baroque fountains and water art in Salzburg – he also wrote numerous art history articles in that connection – Mühlmann became propaganda director of the Salzburg Festival in 1926. Dismissed in connection with accusations of corruption, he began to sympathize with the NSDAP. After the Party was banned, he was briefly arrested for illegal activities in 1935. In the confused rivalry among the "illegals", he looked for the support of his close friend, the lawyer Arthur Seyß-Inquart, who ultimately led the victorious wing. Mühlmann also had contacts with the Austrofascist camp led by Federal Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg, and with State Secretary and short-term Foreign Minister Guido Schmidt. Mühlmann's insider knowledge was in such demand that he reported directly to Adolf Hitler on the situation in Austria before Hitler's meeting with Schuschnigg at the Obersalzberg in February 1938.

After the annexation of Austria to Nazi Germany, Mühlmann officially joined the NSDAP (membership number 6,106.587) and the SS (membership number 309.791). Reichsstatthalter Seyß‑Inquart made him a state secretary, first for a month in the Federal Chancellery (in March 1938), and then, after the rebuilding of the government, in the Ministry of Internal and Cultural Affairs. Mühlmann was responsible, among other things, for drafting guidelines for the confiscation of artworks from collections belonging to Jews. The uncontrolled Aryanization was to be replaced by systematic expropriations. Mühlmann himself was active as an Aryanizer. In 1941 he expropriated for his wife Leopoldine Poldi, née Wojtek, whom he had married in 1932, the studio of the artist Helene Taussig in Salzburg-Anif. Like Seyß-Inquart, Mühlmann believed that the most significant art treasures in Austria and above all those in Vienna should remain there as part of the city's cultural heritage. Mühlmann repeatedly attempted to persuade Hitler, who in August 1938 had promulgated the "Führervorbehalt" (Führer reserve), giving him the pre-emptive right to decide on the fate of artworks, to follow his line. When Reichsstatthalter Josef Bürckel removed him from office in June 1939 for pro-Austrian tendencies, Mühlmann turned to Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, whose two sisters he had known since the 1920s. On 6 October 1939, Göring appointed Mühlmann as special representative of the Reichsmarschall for securing art and cultural objects in the former Polish territories. A few days later he received written authorization giving him wide-ranging powers to secure all artworks owned by Jews, the former Polish state and other enemies of National Socialism. An agreement was made with Kommando Paulsen and the SS‑Ahnenerbe as to which objects should be confiscated by each of these Nazi offices. Looting orders were subsequently issued by Reinhard Heydrich and Generalgouverneur Hans Frank. Mühlmann was soon in overall charge of the looting in Poland, forming raiding parties to locate, transport and catalogue the artworks. Göring, who had appointed him, demanded Mühlmann's loyalty and Mühlmann sent him outstanding artworks as special gifts. Hans Frank and Heinrich Himmler also requested privileged treatment. Mühlmann cultivated his relationship with Adolf Hitler as well, sending him five photo albums with 521 first-choice objects for his "Führermuseum" in Linz and announcing that all of Poland's art treasures would be seized within six months. In autumn 1943 he nevertheless fell out with Hans Frank, who accused Mühlmann of chaotic management but probably also of having not given him enough art objects. At the time of his recall from Poland, Mühlmann had long shifted his field of operation, however. Shortly after the invasion of the Netherlands in 1940, his old companion and the newly appointed Reichskommissar Arthur Seyß-Inquart summoned him to The Hague. Because the brutality in the West had to be more efficiently covered up, Mühlmann sought to give his activities a veneer of legality. He established an art dealership of a sort, the "Dienststelle Mühlmann", for the disposal of expropriated works, which were no longer brought to him by his own looting parties but by the Security Service (SD), the Reichskommissariat für feindliches Vermögen (Reich Commissariat for Enemy Assets) or collaborating art dealers, from whom Mühlmann made purchases at reduced prices. Alongside the head office in The Hague, he soon opened subsidiaries in Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, Vienna and Berlin. The dealership took 15 per cent commission on all sales, except those to Hitler and his intermediaries, and was thus soon able to finance itself. Its clients included the entire Nazi elite. The office fulfilled two purposes: the liquidation of confiscated assets belonging to some of the largest Dutch collections, such as those of the Mannheimer and Hamburger families and of Frits Lugt; and the profitable sale of cheaply acquired artworks. Mühlmann also used the operation to acquire artworks for himself. As in Poland, he gave the Dienststelle Mühlmann and its small staff, which included the two Viennese art historians Bernhard Degenhart and Franz Kieslinger and Mühlmann's half-brother Josef, a veneer of seriousness in its identification and cataloguing the various collections. A number of works also went to auction houses such as the Dorotheum in Vienna, Adolf Weinmüller in Munich, in whose Vienna subsidiary Mühlmann also had a direct share, and Hans Lange in Berlin. The Dienststelle Mühlmann continued to exist until summer 1944. Mühlmann then moved with his staff to Vienna, before seeking refuge at the end of the war in the Salzkammergut.

On 13 June 1945 Mühlmann was arrested by the US authorities in Seewalchen on the Attersee and taken to Glasenbach (Marcus W. Orr) camp near Salzburg. He was transferred in July to Peuerbach camp in Upper Austria, where he was interrogated by a unit of the Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) responsible for art and culture. In August and September 1945 he was questioned again in the Special Interrogation Centre in Altaussee. Mühlmann's testimony on the crimes committed by Hermann Göring, Arthur Seyß-Inquart, Hans Frank and Ernst Kaltenbrunner before the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg helped in their conviction and sentence to death. Through his willingness to cooperate and assist in locating looted art, he won over the US authorities, on whom his own life depended. Poland, where he was likely to be sentenced to death, demanded his extradition. In October 1946 the CIC handed Mühlmann over to the Austrian authorities with the written assurance that he would be released only with the explicit approval of the US authorities. He was taken from custody to give testimony in 1947 in the trial for high treason of Guido Schmidt and once again used this public forum to profile himself as an insignificant bureaucrat and to deny all Nazi activities before the annexation of Austria. He also trivialized his looting in Austria, Poland and the Netherlands as attempts to rescue artworks at risk. With the start of the Cold War, the US authorities and then the Austrians were less energetic in their prosecution of second-level Nazi criminals. In autumn 1947, Mühlmann was summoned to Munich by members of the former Office of Strategic Services to assist in the restitution of artworks. He became ill in February 1948 and was moved to hospital, from where he managed to escape on 16 February 1948. Although Mühlmann was put on the wanted list by the Austrians, he remained in Bavaria and was ultimately able to find shelter with a lover in Munich. In 1951 he was put on trial by the Volksgericht in Vienna for his activity as an "illegal" but not for his role in Nazi asset expropriation. He did not appear for the hearings and was found guilty in absentia and his known assets seized by the authorities. The Austrian Ministry of the Interior rejected a last request by Poland for extradition in 1955, just before the signing of the State Treaty. No serious attempts were made to capture him, although his place of abode in Munich must have been known, since his family from Upper Austria regularly visited him – he had four children with his second wife Hilde Ziegler – until his death on 2 August 1958.

Keywords

"Führer reserve"

Art history

Art dealership

Nazi art and culture policy

Nazi asset expropriation

Michael Wladika

24 November 2021

Publications about the person / institution

Gerard Aalders, Geraubt! Die Enteignung jüdischen Besitzes im Zweiten Weltkrieg, Köln 2000.

Hildegard Brenner, Kunstpolitik im Dritten Reich, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1963.

Der Hochverratsprozess gegen Dr. Guido Schmidt vor dem Wiener Volksgericht. Die gerichtlichen Protokolle mit den Zeugenaussagen, unveröffentlichten Dokumenten, sämtlichen Geheimbriefen und Geheimakten, Wien 1947.

Der Prozess gegen die Hauptkriegsverbrecher vor dem Internationalen Militärgerichtshof Nürnberg, 14. November 1945–1. Oktober 1946, URL: www.zeno.org/Geschichte/M/Der+N%C3%BCrnberger+Proze%C3%9F/Hauptverhandlungen (31.10.2021).

Gerhard Eisenblätter, Grundlinien der Politik des Reiches gegenüber dem Generalgouvernement, 1939–1945, Frankfurt am Main 1969.

Agnieszka Gasior, Zwischen Okkupation und Konspiration. Streiflichter auf die Situation von Kunsthistorikern im besetzten Polen (1939–1945), in: Magdalena Bushart/Agnieszka Gasior/Alena Janatková (Hg.), Kunstgeschichte in den besetzten Gebieten 1939–1945, Köln-Weimar-Wien 2016, 111–139.

Günther Haase, Die Kunstsammlung des Reichsmarschalls Hermann Göring. Eine Dokumentation, Berlin 2000.

Günther Haase, Die Kunstsammlung Adolf Hitler. Eine Dokumentation, Berlin 2002.

Günther Haase, Kunstraub und Kunstschutz. Eine Dokumentation 1, 2., erw. Aufl., Norderstedt 2008.

Ernst Hanisch, Gau der guten Nerven. Die nationalsozialistische Herrschaft in Salzburg 1938–1945, Salzburg 1997.

Johannes Hofinger, Nationalsozialismus in Salzburg. Opfer. Täter. Gegner (= Nationalsozialismus in den österreichischen Bundesländern 5), 2. Aufl., Innsbruck 2018.

Ernst Klee, Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich. Wer war was vor und nach 1945, 2. Aufl., Hamburg 2016.

Christoph Kleßmann, Die Selbstbehauptung einer Nation. NS-Kulturpolitik und polnische Widerstandsbewegung im Generalgouvernement 1939–1945, Düsseldorf 1971.

Johannes Koll, Arthur Seyß-Inquart und die deutsche Besatzungspolitik in den Niederlanden (1940–1945), Wien-Köln-Weimar 2015.

Ernst Kubin, Sonderauftrag Linz. Die Kunstsammlung Adolf Hitler, Wien 1989.

Jakob Kurz, Kunstraub in Europa 1938–1945, Hamburg 1989.

Juliane Marquard-Twarowsi, Ex Libris Dr. Dagobert Frey. Beobachtungen zur kunstgeschichtlichen Ostforschung, in: Magdalena Bushart/Agnieszka Gasior/Alena Janatková (Hg.), Kunstgeschichte in den besetzten Gebieten 1939–1945, Köln-Weimar-Wien 2016, 211–237.

Andrzej Meżyński, Kommando Paulsen. Organisierter Kunstraub in Polen 1942–1945, Köln 2000.

Lynn H. Nicholas, The Rape of Europa. The Fate of Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War, New York 1994.

Ossolinski National Institute, The Fate of the Lubomirski Dürers, Wroclaw 2004.

Jonathan Petropoulos, The Importance of the Second Rank. The Case of the Art Plunderer Kajetan Mühlmann, in: Günter Bischof/Anton Pelinka (Hg.), Austro-Corporatism, New Brunswick, NJ, 1996, 177–193.

Jonathan Petropoulos, Kunstraub und Sammelwahn. Kunst und Politik im Dritten Reich, Berlin 1999.

Jonathan Petropoulos, The Faustian Bargain. The Art World in Nazi Germany, Oxford 2000.

Jonathan Petropoulos, Kunstraub. Warum es wichtig ist, die Biographien der Kunstsachverständigen im Dritten Reich zu verstehen, in: Dieter Stiefel (Hg.), Die politische Ökonomie des Holocaust. Zur wirtschaftlichen Logik von Verfolgung und "Wiedergutmachung", Wien-München 2001, 239–257.

Jonathan Petropoulos, Goering's man in Paris. The story of a Nazi art plunderer and his world, New Haven 2021.

James S. Plaut, Loot for the Masterrace, in: The Atlantic Monthly, September 1946, URL: www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1946/09/loot-master-race/354838/ (31.10.2021).

Werner Präg/Wolfgang Jacobmeyer (Hg.), Das Diensttagebuch des deutschen Generalgouverneurs in Polen 1939–1945, Stuttgart 1975.

Wolfgang Rosar, Deutsche Gemeinschaft. Sess-Inquart und der Anschluss, Wien Frankfurt Zürich 1971.

Anders Rydell, Kunstraub der Nazis–Raubkunst der Gegenwart, Frankfurt New York 2014.

Birgit Schwarz, Hitlers Museum. Die Fotoalben Gemäldegalerie Linz: Dokumente zum "Führermuseum", Wien-Köln-Weimar 2004.

Birgit Schwarz, Auf Befehl des Führers. Hitler und der NS-Kunstraub, Darmstadt 2014.

Birgit Schwarz, Nationalsozialistische Raubkunstpolitik im Gau Salzburg, in: Sabine Breitwieser, Anti:modern. Salzburg inmitten von Europa zwischen Tradition und Erneuerung, München 2016, 121–133.

Lee Sorenson, Mühlmann Kajetan, in: Dictionary of Art Historians, URL: www.arthistorians.info/muhlmannk (31.10. 2021).

Ruth und Max Seydewitz, Die Dame mit dem Hermelin. Der größte Kunstraub aller Zeiten, Berlin 1963.

Gerhard Tomkowitz/Dieter Wagner, "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer!" Der "Anschluss" Österreichs 1938, München Zürich 1988.

Jean Vlug, Report on Objects Removed to Germany from Holland, Belgium and France during the German Occupation in the Countries, Amsterdam 1945.

Nancy H. Yeide, Beyond the Dreams of Avarice. The Hermann Goering Collection, Dallas 2009.

Publications by the person / institution

Kai Mühlmann, Das Salzburger Festspielhaus, Salzburg 1926.

Kai Mühlmann, Salzburg Festival Guidebook, Salzburg 1928.

Kai Mühlmann (Vorwort), Moderner Hotelbau in Badgastein. Bauten der Firma Franz Franzmair Badgastein, Badgastein 1932.

Kaj Mühlmann, Die Neubauten und Betriebseinrichtungen der Tabakfabrik in Linz. Die Bauten wurden nach den Entwürfen der Architekten Z. V. Prof. Dr. Peter Behrens und Prof. Alexander Popp errichtet, Salzburg 1936.

Kai Mühlmann, Vom Erz zum Stahl. Ein Bildbericht der Österreichisch-Alpinen Montangesellschaft, Salzburg 1937.

Gustav Barthel/Kai Mühlmann (Hg.), Krakau. Hauptstadt des deutschen Generalgouvernements Polen. Gestalt und künstlerische Leistung einer deutschen Stadt im Osten, Krakau 1940.

Thenen, Josef

Konstantin Ferihumer — Wed, 01 Dec 2021 13:36:23 +0000

Thenen, Josef

Konstantin Ferihumer Wed, 12/01/2021 - 13:43

Josef Thenen

21 August 1866 Galatz / Galați, Romania – 15 January 1949 Braila, Romania

Josef Thenen was born on 21 August 1866 in Galati in present-day Romania into a Jewish merchant family. He had a sister Carolina and a brother Adolf. After attending the Leopoldstädter Communal-Real- und Obergymnasium he studied medicine at the University of Vienna from 1884 and obtained his doctorate in 1890. His first marriage was to Hermine Doctor from Náchod, Bohemia. The marriage was childless. After divorcing her, he married Isabella "Bella-Charlotte" Rottenberg from Galati in 1893. This marriage was also childless. He continued his training, first as an assistant physician at the General Hospital in Vienna at the clinics run by Hermann Nothnagel and Friedrich Schauta, and carried out a number of experiments at the pathology laboratory headed by Samuel von Basch. He was a member of the Internationales Komitee für das ärztliche Fortbildungswesen (International Committee for Continuing Medical Education) and was instrumental in the introduction of advanced training in Vienna and Lower Austria. In 1905, he was the first to suggest the administration of adrenaline as a treatment for shock, a therapy that is still used today. He is also regarded as the inventor of the catalytic oxygen bath. His insistence on liability insurance for doctors resulted in the founding in 1910 of the Unfall- und Haftpflichtversicherungs-Aktiengesellschaft Kosmos with himself as chairman of the board of administrators. In 1920 he was appointed Obermedizinalrat, and 1923 member of the Oberster Sanitätsrat (Supreme Health Council). From 1920 to 1936 he was president of the Wiener Ärztekammer (Vienna Medical Chamber). In 1928 he became Hofrat and member of the Federal Committee of the Austrian Red Cross Society. During all of this time he had an internal medicine practice at his apartment at Ferstelgasse 1 in the 9th district. In March 1938 his practice, according to his own statement, effectively ceased to exist.

After the annexation of Austria to Nazi Germany, Josef and Isabella Thenen were persecuted by the Nazi regime because of their Jewish origins. On 1 August 1939, Josef wrote to the head of the Städtische Sammlungen Wien that he had been given "notice to leave the apartment he had lived in for forty-six years in implementation of the Jewish laws" and that he therefore no longer had room for the plaster statue Gladiator and Conquered Slave by Viktor Tilgner, which he therefore proposed to "donate" to the museum. Thenen was paid a "token amount" of 100 Reichsmarks. On 16 October 1939 Josef and Isabella Thenen were registered as having left Vienna for Romania, the country of their birth. Isabella died on 1 July 1942, Josef on 15 January 1949 in Braila. Thenen's divorced first wife Hermine Doctor perished on 23 September 1942 probably during her transport from Theresienstadt to the Maly Trostinec extermination camp. The Wien Museum restituted the plaster statue in March 2012 to the legal successors of Josef Thenen.

Keywords

Doctor

Nazi persecutee

Michael Wladika

24 November 2021

Publications about the person / institution

Achter Bericht des amtsführenden Stadtrates für Kultur und Wissenschaft über die gemäß dem Gemeinderatsbeschluss vom 29. April 1999 erfolgte Übereignung von Kunst- und Kulturgegenständen aus den Sammlungen der Museen der Stadt Wien sowie der Wienbibliothek im Rathaus vom 1. Februar 2008 (Restitutionsbericht 2007), URL: www.wienmuseum.at/fileadmin/user_upload/PDFs/Restitutionsbericht_2007.pdf (3.11.2021).

Zehnter Bericht des amtsführenden Stadtrates für Kultur- und Wissenschaft über die gemäß dem Gemeinderatsbeschluss vom 29. April 1999 erfolgte Übereignung von Kunst- und Kulturgegenständen aus den Sammlungen der Museen der Stadt Wien sowie der Wienbibliothek im Rathaus vom 1. Februar 2010 (Restitutionsbericht 2007), URL: www.wienmuseum.at/fileadmin/user_upload/PDFs/Restitutionsbericht_2009.pdf (3.11.2021).

Daniela Angetter-Pfeiffer, Thenen, Josef, in: Österreichisches Biographisches Lexikon 1815–1955 14 (Lfg 65, 2014), 290, URL: www.biographien.ac.at/oebl/oebl_T/Thenen_Josef_1866_1949.xml (3.11.2021).

I. Fischer, Biographisches Lexikon der hervorragenden Ärzte der letzten fünfzig Jahre, 3. Aufl., Bd. 2 (= Kon-Zweig Nachträge und Berichtigungen), München-Berlin 1962.

Zeitungsberichterstattung:

N. N., Ärztliche Unfall- und Haftpflichtversicherungs-Aktiengesellschaft "Kosmos", in: Neue Freie Presse, 29.9.1910, 6, URL: anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?aid=nfp&datum=19100929&seite=6 (3.11.2021).

N. N., Versicherungs-Aktiengesellschaft "Kosmos", in: Der Tresor, 1.10.1910, 329, URL: anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno-plus?aid=tre&datum=1910&page=329 (3.11.2021).

N. N., Zentralhilfskomitee der Ärzte Österreichs, in: Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift, Nr. 10 (1920), 484, URL: anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno-plus?aid=wmw&datum=1920&size=45&page=225 (3.11.2021).

N. N., Vorstandswahlen der Wiener Ärztekammer, in: Neues Wiener Tagblatt, 9.12.1921, 6, URL: anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?aid=nwg&datum=19211209&seite=6 (3.11.2021).

N. N., Zentralhilfskomitee der Ärzte Österreichs, in: Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift Nr. 47 (1922), 1954, URL: anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno-plus?aid=wmw&datum=1922&size=45&page=966 (3.11.2021).

N. N., Der neue Oberste Sanitätsrat, in: Wiener Zeitung, 27.10.1923, 2, URL: anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?aid=wrz&datum=19231027&seite=2 (3.11.2021).

N. N., Die Wahlen in die Ärztekammer. Die offizielle Liste Thenen wiedergewählt, in: Der Tag, 10.12.1924, 5, URL: anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?aid=tag&datum=19241210&seite=5 (3.11.2021).

N. N., Der Präsident der neuen Ärztekammer, in: Neues Wiener Tagblatt, 24.12.1924, 7, URL: anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?aid=nwg&datum=19241224&seite=7 (3.11.2021).

N. N., Bevorstehende Auszeichnung der Präsidenten Thenen und Stritzko, in: Wiener Sonn- und Montagszeitung, 19.12.1927, 3, URL: anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?aid=wsz&datum=19271219&seite=3 (3.11.2021).

N. N., Auszeichnungen im Obersten Sanitätsrat, in: Grazer Tagblatt, 30.5.1928, 14, URL: anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?aid=gtb&datum=19280530&seite=14 (3.11.2021).

N. N., Auszeichnung zweier Führer der Ärzteschaft. Der Hofratstitel für die Präsidenten Dr. Thenen und Dr. Stritzko, in: Neues Wiener Journal, 30.5.1928, 4, URL: anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?aid=nwj&datum=19280530&seite=4 (3.11.2021).

Publications by the person / institution

Josef Thenen, Die Ursache des Geburtseintrittes, in: Wiener klinische Wochenschrift. Organ der k. k. Gesellschaft der Ärzte in Wien, 19.4.1900, 365–369, URL: anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?aid=wkw&datum=19000419&seite=1 (3.11.2021).

Josef Thenen, Vorläufige Mitteilung: Versuche über Sauerstoffzufuhr durch die Haut, in: Wiener klinische Wochenschrift, 22.1.1903, 112, URL: anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?aid=wkw&datum=19030122&seite=28 (3.11.2021).

Josef Thenen, Zahlstock und Aerzte-Sanatorium, in: Die Zeit, 22.4.1907, 5.

Josef Thenen, Die große Notlage der Ärzte, in: Der Tag, 3.3.1923, 5-6, URL: anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?aid=tag&datum=19230303&seite=5 (3.11.2021).

Josef Thenen, Der Arzt und die Krankenkasse, in: Neues Wiener Journal, 17.12.1926, 5, URL: anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?aid=nwj&datum=19261217&seite=5 (3.11.2021).