Publishing

Detoni, Josef Leopold Anton

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:40:23 +0000

Detoni, Josef Leopold Anton Leonhard Weidinger Fri, 03/05/2021 - 21:25

Josef A. Detoni

15 October 1891 Klagenfurt – 11 May 1946 Vienna

Leopold Detoni was an amateur photographer, photojournalist and from 1922 at the latest owner of Fotofachverlag Josef Detoni in Vienna. In 1916 he joined the Photographische Gesellschaft in Vienna, worked as a journalist, including for the Österreichische illustrierte Zeitung, and in 1919 founded the Allgemeine Photographische Zeitung, which in 1923 became the official mouthpiece of the Österreichischer Photographen-Verein and in the 1920s was the most prominent trade journal for Austrian professional photographers, federal and provincial professional associations and the Verband der Photographengenossenschaften Österreichs. Detoni was the publisher, editor-in-chief and from 1929 proprietor of this magazine, which was incorporated in 1943 in the Photographische Chronik published by Verlag Wilhelm Knapp in Halle an der Saale and was to continue as the Photographische Chronik und Allgemeine photographische Zeitung as the mouthpiece of the Reichsinnungsverband des Fotografengewerbes until 1945. In the April 1938 edition of the Allgemeine Photographische Zeitung he enthusiastically welcomed the annexation of Austria to Nazi Germany and urged photographers to vote in the plebiscite on 10 April 1948 for the "Führer and saviour of the greater German nation". At the same time, he distanced himself from the era of Austrofascism, which he criticized as promoting "degenerate statecraft" He hoped that the National Socialist regime would put an end to the "liberalist era" and would implement protectionist measures in favour of "Aryan" photographers, at the same time condemning the previously damaging effect of "ethnically alien" (volksfremd) elements in the trade. In 1940 he stated in an application for admission to the Reichsschrifttumskammer (Reich Literature Chamber) that he had applied to join the Party in January 1938 and became a member of the NSV (National Socialist People's Welfare) in July 1938. After 1940 he advocated close collaboration between the Fotografenzunft (professional association of photographers) and the National Library and called for the negative photo plates to be given to it for its picture archive. Until 1941, he presented monthly lists In the trade magazine published by him of Aryanized photography businesses including the names of their former owners. After the annexation, he rose in professional bodies and in 1938 became secretary of the Ostmark section of the Fotografenzunft and of its master Egon Jelinek. In this position he was also in involved in the Aryanization of Jewish photography businesses controlled by the association and was an important member of the Arisierungskommission. As assessor for the Vermögensverkehrsstelle (Property Transaction Office) he wrote at least six expert opinions in summer and autumn 1938 on studios and commercial photography businesses, including those belonging to Otto Johannes Benedikt, Baruch Kern, Arnold Schalita, Gisela Selka and Oskar Weitzmann. He was also involved in 1938 in the house search of apartment of Wilhelm Pollak. After the war and until his death in 1946 he attempted to rebuild the professional photographers' organization. His publishing company was continued by his wife after the war.

From the project Durch das NS-Regime aus Österreich vertriebene und ermordete Fotografinnen und Fotografen und der Verbleib ihrer fotografischen Sammlungen (Subsidized by the National Fund of the Republic of Austria. Conducted by Walter Mentzel).

Keywords

29 May 2019

Publications about the person / institution

N. N., Vereins- und Personalnachrichten, Protokoll der Plenarversammlung der k. k. Photographischen Gesellschaft vom 7. März 1916, abgehalten im Parterresaale der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien, in: Allgemeine Photographische Zeitung, (1946) 1, 1.
N. N., Photographische Correspondenz, 667 (1916), 134–136, 135, URL: anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno-plus?aid=phc&datum=1916&page=173 (3.12.2020).

Publications by the person / institution

Josef A. Detoni, Heimkehr, in: Allgemeine Photographische Zeitung (1938) 3, 45–46, URL: anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno-plus?aid=phz&datum=1938&page=47 (3.12.2020).
Josef A. Detoni, Die neue Zeit und der Berufsphotograph, in: Allgemeine Photographische Zeitung (1938) 3, 47–49, URL: anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno-plus?aid=phz&datum=1938&page=49 (3.12.2020).
Josef A. Detoni, Negative für das Bildarchiv der Nationalbibliothek, in: Allgemeine Photographische Zeitung (1940) 4, 41–42, URL: anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno-plus?aid=phz&datum=1940&page=45 (3.12.2020).
Josef A. Detoni, Sicherstellung alter Negative im Gau Wien, in: Allgemeine Photographische Zeitung (1941) 6, 83, URL: anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno-plus?aid=phz&datum=1941&page=87 (3.12.2020).

Archives

OeStA/AdR, E-uReang, VVSt, Gewerbe, Zl. 2.911, Arnold Schalita.
OeStA/AdR, E-uReang, VVSt, Gewerbe, Zl. 4.066, Oskar Weitzmann.
OeStA/AdR, E-uReang, VVSt, Gewerbe, Zl. 4.228, Baruch Kern.
OeStA/AdR, E-uReang, VVSt, Gewerbe, Zl. 4.388, Gisela Selka.
OeStA/AdR, E-uReang, VVSt, Handel, Zl. 8.027, Otto Benedikt.
OeStA/AdR, ZNsZ, Gauakt 14965, Josef A. Detoni.

WStLA, Gauakten, A1, Personalakten des Gaues Wien, Josef A. Detoni.
WStLA, Volksgericht, A1, Vg 1 Vr 6587/47, Alfred Wenzl, Egon Jelinek, Gustav Nohynek.

GND: 127530576

Engel, Rudolf

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:38:22 +0000

Engel, Rudolf Konstantin Ferihumer Wed, 11/18/2020 - 13:34

Rudolf Engel

27 February 1882 Hotzenplotz / Osoblaha, Silesia – 5 March 1955 Vienna

Rudolf Engel obtained a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Vienna in 1906. He worked as a secondary school teacher but was mainly involved in publishing and selling books and theatre items. In 1923, he founded EOS-Verlag, specializing in erotica and the publication of French and Latin works and their German translations. From March 1935 to September 1937 his wife Henriette Engel, née Wostry (1890–1965), owned Theaterbuchhandlung Wallishauser, founded in 1789, in Vienna's 1st district, whereas he ran Cottage-Buchhandlung in the 18th district for several years. Engel gave up his bookselling licence in October 1936. His company was deleted from the registry of companies in February 1941 following an application made the year before. From September 1938 Rudolf and Henriette Engel lived in Kirchberg am Wechsel in Lower Austria. It is unknown whether Engel worked there. He made contradictory statements regarding his NSDAP membership. In 1938 he claimed to be a member, but in a questionnaire in 1943 for admission to the Reichsschrifttumskammer (Reich Literature Chamber) he denied membership of the NSDAP or any of its bodies. After returning to Vienna in October 1946, he advertised in the magazine Das Antiquariat as Buchhandlung Kirchberg am Wechsel. The register of companies gives no further information about other business activities, but until his death in 1955 he sold numerous books and theatre items to the Austrian National Library, the University of Vienna library, the Austrian Theatre Museum and the Theatre Research Collection of the University of Cologne.

In 2009, the Art Restitution Advisory Board recommended the restitution of the items of the major Schönbrunnensia collection of Ernst Moriz Kronfeld (1865–1943), which the National Library had purchased from Engel in 1942. It is not known how they came into Engel's possession.

Keywords

Book trade

Publishing

Claudia Spring

6 August 2019

Publications about the person / institution

Beschluss des Kunstrückgabebeirats, Ernst Moriz Kronfeld, 23.1.2009, URL: www.provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Kronfeld_ErnstMoriz_2009-01-23.pdf (3.12.2020).
Beschluss des Kunstrückgabebeirats, Ernst Moriz Kronfeld, 10.6.2011, URL: www.provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Kronfeld_ErnstMoriz_2011-06-10.pdf (3.12.2020).
Beschluss des Kunstrückgabebeirats, Ernst Moriz Kronfeld, 29.9.2011, URL: www.provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Kronfeld_ErnstMoriz_2011-09-29.pdf (3.12.2020).

Brigitte Dalinger, Die Theatersammlung "Komplex Mauerbach". Bericht von einer Spurensuche, in: Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft für Buchforschung in Österreich 2 (2013), 37–48, URL: www.buchforschung.at/pdf/MB2013-2.pdf (3.12.2020).

Murray G. Hall, Österreichische Verlagsgeschichte 1918–1938. Band 2: Belletristische Verlage der Ersten Republik, Wien 1985.

Murray G. Hall/Christina Köstner, "... allerlei für die Nationalbibliothek zu ergattern ..." Eine österreichische Institution in der NS-Zeit, Wien 2006.

Georg Hupfer, Zur Geschichte des antiquarischen Buchhandels in Wien, Diplomarbeit Universität Wien 2003.

Claudia Spring, "So schön wie in Schönbrunn schneit es nirgends auf der Welt". Der Sammler, Forscher und Publizist Ernst Moriz Kronfeld, in: Eva Blimlinger/Heinz Schödl (Hg.), Die Praxis des Sammelns. Personen und Institutionen im Fokus der Provenienzforschung (= Schriftenreihe der Kommission für Provenienzforschung 5), Wien-Köln-Weimar 2014, 31–70, URL: doi.org/10.7767/boehlau.9783205793564.31.

Publications by the person / institution

Apuleius, Amor und Psyche. Übersetzung von Dr. Rudolf Engel mit 32 Stichen von Raffael, Wien o. J. [1923].

Archives

Archiv der Wirtschaftskammer Österreich, Landesgremium Wien des Handels mit Büchern, Kunstblättern, Musikalien, Zeitungen und Zeitschriften (AWKÖ), Firmenakt Dr. Rudolf Engel.

BArch Berlin, Reichskulturkammer, Fragebogen Engel Rudolf.

ÖNB-Archiv, Akten der Generaldirektion; Akten des Hauptverbandes der Antiquare.

WStLA, Verlassenschaftsakt Rudolf Engel (Wien 3); Verlassenschaftsakt Henriette Engel .

GND: 1023506750 [?]

VIAF: 74227992

Wikidata: Q108858486

Exner, Walter

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:40:00 +0000

Exner, Walter Leonhard Weidinger Fri, 03/05/2021 - 16:21

Walter Exner

13 November 1911 Vienna – 3 November 2003 Bad Wildungen

Walter Exner was the son of the Asian art dealer and collector Anton Exner, with whom he compiled the Exner collection, of which the majority is held today by the MAK and a much smaller part by the Weltmuseum Wien. It is unknown how many objects from the collection were still privately owned by Walter Exner after 1945. He left school without a leaving certificate because he had to work as an unpaid assistant in his father's art dealership in Lerchenfelderstraße. His family's origins in the Sudetenland influenced Walter Exner's ideological beliefs. Even as a youth, he espoused the pan-German ideology. As a Protestant secondary school student he joined the Kreuzfahrer (crusader) Bible group. In 1930 he became a member of the NSDAP (membership number 300121) and the SA and in 1934 became responsible for managing the finances of SS-Standarte 81 and was promoted to Obertruppführer. Shortly before the July putsch in 1934, he travelled to Britain to avoid arrest, returning to Vienna in October of that year. In 1935 he travelled for the first time with his father to the Far East. On his return with the permission of Anton Exner he removed some objects from sale and started the Exner collection, which had grown by the time of the annexation of Austria to several thousand items. Anton Exner and Walter Exner subsequently acquired items specifically for their collection. In 1936/37 Walter Exner spent a year in Beijing and founded the Siebenberg-Verlag, in which several publications (co-)written by Walter Exner also appeared. Exner later moved the publishing headquarters to Austria and then to Germany. In 1937 Walter Exner organized his first exhibition in the Museum für Völkerkunde (Museum of Ethnology, now Weltmuseum Wien) with objects from Manchuria. He returned from his third and last buying trip to Asia shortly after the annexation.

Until he volunteered for the German Wehrmacht after the start of the Second World War, he admits to having been the main contact (V-Mann) for Asian art for the SD in Vienna, where his principal task was to prevent the export of valuable woodcuts. After the plan for an Asian art museum in Vienna came to nothing, Walter began in 1939 to build up the Asienarbeitskreis (Asia working group), which had its own publishing series, and supporting an alliance between Germany and Japan. The close but also extremely conflictual relationship with his overbearing authoritarian father had a marked influence on Walter's life. They fell out completely after Anton Exner, without consulting his son, transformed their loan to the Staatliches Kunstgewerbemuseum in Wien (State Arts and Crafts Museum in Vienna) in 1944 into a bequest in the case of his death and in 1946 agreed a further donation to the museum, once again without consulting his son.

After the end of the Nazi era, three charges were brought against Walter Exner at the Vienna Volksgericht under §§ 10 and 11 of the Prohibition Act, in which he was accused of being a member of the NSDAP and other Nazi organizations between 1933 and 1938. The cases were dropped. Walter Exner did not return permanently to Austria after the war but settled in Frankenau, his wife's birthplace, and later in Bad Wildungen. In a denazification process before the Spruchkammer in Frankenberg a. d. Eder (Hesse) he was classified as a minor offender thanks to the testimony of friends. He became a German citizen in 1960 without renouncing his Austrian citizenship. After his father's death he transferred the Asian art in his inheritance to West Germany and added new acquisitions to his collection. It included valuable Asian porcelain and sculptures and around 2,000 woodcuts. From 1956 to 1963 he directed the private Asien-Institut founded by him together with an Asian art museum in Frankenau, which he transferred in 1965 to Bad Wildungen and continued there until 1977. He was co-publisher of the series Geokultur: Beiträge zur Erforschung der geschichtlichen Dynamik. Later in his life he sold most of his Asian art collection. The MAK and Museum of Ethnology in Vienna acquired a large number of objects. The purchases and the donations in 1944 and 1946 were the object of systematic provenance research, complicated by the fact that, as with practically all of the items in the Exner collection, the original provenance remains unknown.

Keywords

6 January 2019

Publications about the person / institution

Gabriele Anderl, "Nicht einmal abschätzbarer Wert…". Anton und Walter Exner – Kunsthändler, Stifter, Nationalsozialisten – und ihre Sammlung asiatischer Kunst in Wien, in: Eva Blimlinger/Heinz Schödl (Hg.), Die Praxis des Sammelns. Personen und Institutionen im Fokus der Provenienzforschung (= Schriftenreihe der Kommission für Provenienzforschung 5), Wien-Köln-Weimar 2014, 339–406, URL: doi.org/10.7767/boehlau.9783205793564.339.

Publications by the person / institution

Walter Exner/Karl Gruber, Die westlichen Kaisergräber bei Peking, Peiping 1937.

Walter Exner/Thomas Zwieauer, 111 chinesische Zeichen des Kunstkenners, Peking 1938.

Walter Exner, Hiroshige: japanische Landschaftsbilder, Frankenau 1952.

Walter Exner, Die Sammlung Exner, in: Josef Kreiner (Hg.), Japan-Sammlungen in Museen Mitteleuropas – Geschichte, Aufbau und gegenwärtige Probleme, Bonn 1981, 225–234.

Walter Exner, Als Peking noch ummauert war. Erlebtes und Gehörtes, Waldeck (BRD) 1996.

Archives

MAK-Archiv, Hauptakten (Auswahl) Zl. 53-1954, 51-1960, 14-1982.

OeStA/AdR, UWK, BMU, Kunstangelegenheiten, Sammelmappe 51, 02, Sammlung Anton Exner.
OeStA/AdR, ZNsZ, Gauakt 48.627, Walter Exner.

Weltmuseum Wien, Archiv, Sammlermappen Anton und Walter Exner.

WStLA, Volksgericht, A1, Vg 9002/46, Vg 1689/49, Vg 361/51, Walter Exner.
WStLA, Gauakten, A1, Personalakten des Gaues Wien, 76.973, Walter Exner.

GND: 120540274

VIAF: 27904275

Wikidata: Q94938509

Gilhofer und Ranschburg

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

Gilhofer und Ranschburg Leonhard Weidinger Tue, 03/09/2021 - 09:01

Gilhofer & Ranschburg

other names: Gilhofer (1883–1884), Gilhofer & Ranschburg Antiquariats GesmbH (1938–1947), Gilhofer KG (from 1947)

The Viennese book and art antique dealership Gilhofer was founded in 1883 by Hermann Gilhofer (1852–1913) as a general bookshop at Bognergasse 2 in the centre of Vienna. After Heinrich Ranschburg (1860–1914) became a partner and added antiques to the company's activities, Gilhofer & Ranschburg, which also had an auction house and publishing company, became an internationally successful player in the market for antiquarian books, prints and autographs, and also coins. As a result of this rise, which included auctions of the libraries of Clemens Wenzel Metternich and the Russian tsars and duplicates from the Albertina, a branch was opened in 1924 in Luzern, which was managed until it closed in 1941 by Leopoldine Zelenka. After the annexation of Austria to the German Reich in 1938, Heinrich Ranschburg's son Otto (1900–1985) was dismissed as managing director when the business in Vienna was Aryanized, and the former partners Wihelm Schab, Elisabeth Margulies, née Ranschburg, and Ludwig Abelis were obliged to sell their holdings. The lawyer Stefan Lehner functioned as administrator. The company was re-established in February 1939 by the former Prokurist (authorized signatory), Friedrich Steinert, and the Munich antiques dealer Hans Werner Taeuber as Gilhofer & Ranschburg Antiquariats GesmbH. In addition, Adolf Ziegler acquired 95 per cent of the shares for the Reichskammer der bildenden Künste (Reich Chamber of Fine Arts), which he was president of. The new company was founded with the authorization of the Vermögensverkehrsstelle (Property Transaction Office) despite a dispute with Heinrich Höfflinger, a member of the art commission, who put the value of the inventory at 150,000 Reichsmarks, much more than the new partners' valuation of 80,000 Reichsmarks. It was not revealed that the Reichskammer had a majority shareholding in Gilhofer & Ranschburg. In subsequent years, the company exported many Aryanized artworks to Switzerland and sold them through the Luzern branch, but was also active again in Vienna, for example through the acquisition of Rudolf Gutmann's library – originally earmarked for the "Linzer Kunstmuseum" – in January 1944.

After a long legal battle between the Aryanizer Taeuber and the former partners Margulies and Schab, who had fled to New York in 1939, the company was restituted to them in 1949. Taeuber regained it in 1950, however, and managed it – from 1958 with Rudolf Hoffmann, a former employee of the antiques dealership Christian M. Nebehay – until his death in 1970. The activity of Gilhofer KG ended in 2004 with its takeover by Antiquariat Inlibris, Gilhofer Nfg. GmbH.

Keywords

6 January 2019

Publications about the person / institution

Agnes Schildorfer/Ute Simonlehner, "Arisierungen" im Falle der Buch- und Kunstantiquariate "Gilhofer und Ranschburg" und "Dr. Ignaz Schwarz", Seminararbeit, Univ. Wien, 2001/02, URL: www.murrayhall.com/files/referate/gilhoferschwarz.pdf (3.12.2020).

Werner Schröder, Die Arisierung jüdischer Antiquariate, Teil II, in: Aus Dem Antiquariat: Zeitschrift für Antiquare und Büchersammler NF 7 (2009) 6, 359–386.

Esther Tisa Francini/Anja Heuss/Georg Kreis, Fluchtgut – Raubgut. Der Transfer von Kulturgütern in und über die Schweiz 1933–1945 und die Frage der Restitution, hg. von der Unabhängigen Expertenkommission Schweiz – Zweiter Weltkrieg (= Veröffentlichungen der Unabhängigen Expertenkommission Schweiz – Zweiter Weltkrieg 1), Zürich 2001.

Publications by the person / institution

Zahlreiche Veröffentlichungen für das Auktionsinstitut sowie den Verlag Gilhofer & Ranschburg.

Archives

BArch Berlin, R 9361-V/100199, Personenbezogene Unterlagen der Reichskulturkammer.

OeStA/AdR, E-uReang, FLD, Zl. 420.
OeStA/AdR, E-uReang, VVSt, Handel, H. 5509.

GND: 139425-3

VIAF: 128441076

Wikidata: Q1524334

Katzler, Johannes

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:40:34 +0000

Katzler, Johannes

Leonhard Weidinger Fri, 03/05/2021 - 22:19

Johannes Katzler

31 May 1900 Vienna – May 1975 Vienna

On completion of his education at commercial college, Johannes Katzler worked until 1924 in his parent's company in Vienna. After the company went bankrupt, he began training the same year as a bookseller at Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt AG in Hamburg, owned by the nationalist and antisemitic Deutschnationaler Handlungsgehilfen-Verband and integrated after the Nazis came to power in 1933 into the Deutsche Arbeitsfront (German Labour Front – DAF). After being transferred to Munich in 1929, Katzler worked for Albert Lange-Georg Müller-Verlag, which had been purchased by the Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt and from 1934 to 1938 had a 50 per cent holding in the nationalist Lhotzky-Verlag. In 1934, he joined the NSDAP publishers Franz Eher-Verlag, where he worked as a representative and advertising manager in Munich and Berlin. That same year he worked for department 2 of the Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung (Reich Ministry of Popular Enlightenment) as head of the central publicity department for anti-Comintern publications at Nibelungen-Verlag. This was part of the Gesamtverband Deutscher antikommunistischer Vereinigungen (Anti-Komintern), which conducted a propaganda campaign against the Soviet Union. In this position, he was also involved in the National Socialist propaganda against the Dollfuß/Schuschnigg regime. In January 1933, he joined the Brigade Berlin-Ost of the SA as a Rottenführer and in July of that year the Leibstandarte der SA IV/11 and 29. After the annexation of Austria in March 1938, he was transferred by Eher-Verlag to represent the publishers in Austria and organize the export of anti-Comintern propaganda to the Balkan countries. He was also local leader of NSDAP district 3 in Vienna and was one of the greatest beneficiaries of the looting of the Vienna book and antiques business. Using his contacts with the NSDAP propaganda office in Vienna, and with Wilhelm Baur, political director of Eher-Verlag, and the Gestapo, and by threatening violence to booksellers, he acquired the inventories of seven book and antiques dealerships. He Aryanized the business of Alois Reichmann at Wiedner Hauptstraße 18–20 in the 4th district and its warehouse on Karlsplatz. He also paid the Vermögensverkehrsstelle (Property Transaction Office) a token price to acquire the stocks of a further six liquidated businesses: Richard Lányi, Josef Kende, Moritz Perles, Max Breitenstein, Heinrich Saar and Carl Wilhelm Stern. He also privately appropriated Lányi's painting and print collection. He combined the looted books at the Aryanized antiques business of Alois Reichmann, which he continued to operate under the name Johannes Katzler Verlag, Buchhandlung und Antiquariat. Katzler exported books to Hungary, Yugoslavia, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland. He is thought to have sold a large part of his inventory to Baldur von Schirach. During the war, books were transferred from Katzler's inventory to depots in the vicinity of Vienna to protect them from air raids. He was conscripted to the Wehrmacht in 1941, served in the Balkans and was captured by the British.

In summer 1945 the Vienna police shut down Katzler's business and the Staatsamt für Industrie, Gewerbe, Handel und Verkehr (State Office for Industry, Commerce, Trade and Transport) put it under public administration. Katzler, who was released from British captivity in November 1945, was arrested in June 1946, charged in connection with Alois Reichmann and Richard Lányi and convicted in May 1947 and sentenced to eighteen months' imprisonment by the Vienna Volksgericht under §§ 4 and 6 of the War Criminals Act (violation of humanity and human dignity and illegal enrichment) and §§ 11 and 10/2 of the Prohibition Act (high treason and illegality). With allowance for the time spent in custody, Katzler was released after a few months. After the conviction had been partially quashed by the Supreme Court of Justice, Katzler was retried in 1949 and the 1947 conviction was confirmed. In 1951 the case was reopened but closed again in accordance with the 1957 Amnesty Act. After the Reichmann bookstore Aryanized by him was removed from public administration in April 1949 and was forfeited to the Republic of Austria, it was restituted in April 1951 by the Finanzlandesdirektion für Wien, Niederösterreich und Burgenland (Regional Tax Office for Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland) to the heirs and testamentary beneficiaries. The extensive stock of books that Katzler had appropriated after 1938 were not the object of the case heard before the Vienna Volkgericht and their whereabouts are unknown.

Keywords

29 May 2019

Publications about the person / institution

Katja Bertz, "Arisierung" im österreichischen Buchhandel. Auf den Spuren der Buchhandlungen Richard Lányi, Alois Reichmann, Josef Kende, Moritz Perles, M. Breitenstein, Heinrich Saar und Dr. Carl Wilhelm Stern, Diplomarbeit Universität Wien 2009.

Archives

OeStA/AdR, E-uReang, FLD, Zl. 19685, Alois Reichmann.
OeStA/AdR, E-uReang, VVSt, Statistik, 1890, Alois Reichmann.
OeStA/AdR, ZNsZ, Gauakt 50484, Johannes Katzler.

WStLA, Handelsgericht Wien, A 13, 75a, Alois Reichmann.
WStLA, M.Abt 119, A41, VEAV 160, 4. Bez., Felix Reichmann.
WStLA, Volksgericht, A 1, Vg Vr 5194/46, Johannes Katzler.

Lányi, Richard

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:40:13 +0000

Lányi, Richard Leonhard Weidinger Thu, 04/15/2021 - 13:03

Richard Lányi

9 December 1884 Vienna – 28 May 1942 Auschwitz concentration camp

until 1909 Richard Löwy

Richard Lányi was born in Vienna as a Hungarian citizen on 9 December 1884. He originally had the surname Löwy. His parents Leopold Löwy and Johanna, née Spitzer, were from Pressburg, at the time administered by Hungary. After marrying Anna Bartos in 1909, the couple changed their surname to Lányi. They had no children. Richard Lányi completed training as a bookseller at Buchhandlung Robert Friedländer at Kärntnerstraße 44 in Vienna's 1st district. After the owner died in 1912, he took over the bookstore and continued to run it under his own name. He had a bargain basement, an event agency and a publishing company, all three specializing in Karl Kraus. The first documented publication was a portfolio of twelve drawings by Egon Schiele in their original size, issued in 1917. In subsequent years he produced a further thirty-four pictures by Schiele as postcards. He himself owned some works by him. Lányi was Jewish and already subject to Nazi baiting in 1934 in the magazine Der Stürmer. After the annexation in 1938, his business was closed for several days by the Gestapo. It also seized some of his stocks, forcing Lányi to file for bankruptcy. The bookseller Johann Katzler purchased the bankruptcy estate at a low price. The company was not Aryanized, however. Before the bankruptcy proceedings were opened, Katzler removed books and artworks from the premises, as one of Lányi's employees later testified to the Volksgericht. Katzler incorporated Lányi's assets along with those of five other bookstores in Vienna into Buchhandlung Alois Reichmann, which had been Aryanized by him. Because of the pending bankruptcy proceedings, Lányi was not able to escape abroad, as he had planned. He was arrested by the Gestapo on 2 February 1942 and deported to Auschwitz, where he was murdered three months later. After the war, his widow Anna, who was deemed "Aryan" under the Nuremberg laws and was not directly affected by the Nazi persecution, successfully claimed restitution of her husband's expropriated art collection under the Second Restitution Act. A four-page typed list in the file of the Finanzprokuratur (Office of the Financial Procurator) gives details of the artworks still held by the company in 1945. Lányi's collection contained both oil paintings and prints, including works by Albert Paris Gütersloh and Richard Teschner.

Richard Lányi's biography was researched as part of the general provenance research by the Federal Chancellery and Leopold Museum Privatstiftung on Egon Schiele's painting The Revelation, 1911, LM inv. no. 477. This picture had also been part of Richard Lányi's collection. On the basis of personal recollections of the subsequent owner, it was ultimately assumed that Richard Lányi had already sold the painting before 1938 to a private collector and that the Art Restitution Act was not therefore applicable in this case.

Keywords

29 May 2019

Publications about the person / institution

Murray Hall, Richard Lányi, (Wien), in: Österreichische Verlagsgeschichte 1918–1938, URL: www.verlagsgeschichte.murrayhall.com/?page_id=357 (3.12.2020).

Sonja Niederacher, Dossier Provenienzforschung bm:ukk – LMP, Richard Lanyi, 21.12.2009, URL: www.bmkoes.gv.at/dam/jcr:2d092829-c6e9-43ae-9073-f8d77cb1d219/dossier_lanyi.pdf (3.12.2020).

N. N., Die Verjudung des Buchhandels, in: Der Stürmer, 7.10.1934.

Friedrich Pfäfflin (Hg.), Richard Lányi. I. Im Verlag der Buchhandlung 1917–1938 (= Bibliothek Janowitz 11), Warmbronn 2006.
Friedrich Pfäfflin (Hg.), Richard Lányi. II. Verlegerbriefe im Schein der 'Fackel' 1905–1938 (= Bibliothek Janowitz 12), Warmbronn 2006.

Claudia Reitmayr, "Arisierung" im Wiener Buchdrucks-Verlagswesen anhand zweier Fallbeispiele. Die Druckerei "Jahoda & Siegel" und der Verlag "Richard Lányi", Diplomarbeit Universität Wien 2004.

Arthur Roessler (Hg.), In Memoriam Egon Schiele, Wien 1921.
Arthur Roessler (Hg.), Egon Schiele: Briefe und Prosa, Wien 1921.

Publications by the person / institution

Zeichnungen Egon Schiele 1917 im Verlage der Buchhandlung Richard Lányi Wien [Mappe mit Zeichnungsreproduktionen], Wien 1917.

Archives

DÖW, Erkennungsdienstliche Kartei der Gestapo Wien.

OeStA/AdR, E-uReang, VVSt, VA 5193, Richard Lányi.
OeStA/AdR, E-uReang, VVSt, H 7830, Arisierungsakt Buchhandung Richard Lányi.
OeStA/AdR, FIPRO VI-2, 5.033, Anna Lányi u.a. gegen Republik Österreich, Rückstellungsantrag.

ITS Digital Archive, Bad Arolsen,1154/42, 1.1.14.6, Karteikarte Richard Lanyi.

WStLA, M. Abt.119, A 41, BG Wien I, Bescheid der FLD über Rückstellung.
WStLA, Volksgericht, A1, Vg Vr-Strafakten, VgVr 5194/46, Johann Katzler.

GND: 132966271

VIAF: 52863820

Wikidata: Q106672151

Neumann, L. T.

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:39:05 +0000

Neumann, L. T. Leonhard Weidinger Tue, 03/09/2021 - 09:20

L. T. Neumann

Kunst- und Musikalienhandlung L. T. Neumann, named after its founder Leopold Theodor Neumann (1804–1876), opened in 1833 at the exclusive address Kohlmarkt 11 in Vienna's 1st district. Neumann was in intensive contact with artists such as Jakob Alt and Rudolf von Alt, Emil Jakob Schindler, August Pettenkofen, Anton Romako and Friedrich Gauermann. He sold lithographs and colour prints of Gauermann and Alt's views of Vienna and the popular watercolour portraits by Josef Kriehuber, as well as military leaflets printed during the 1848 revolution by the publishing company affiliated to L. T. Neumann. Neumann was appointed art dealer to the court in 1868, and his sons Theodor, Heinrich and Carl took over the company after his death in 1876. Theodor died young and Heinrich left the company to open Hofkunsthandlung H. L. Neumann in Munich in 1880, which apparently existed only until its inventory was auctioned in October 1898. In 1900, Carl Neumann transferred the business to the art dealer Julius Eymer (1859–1944) from Frankfurt, who continued to specialize in Viennese painting. His nephew August Eymer joined the company in 1919 and became a partner in 1930. His wife Helene was also active in the art market. The company upheld the tradition of dealing with nineteenth-century Austrian art and Old Masters. During the Nazi era, L. T. Neumann supplied several items to the "Sonderauftrag Linz", including the Four Seasons series by Rosalba Carriera from the expropriated collection of Hans (Jean) and Lucie Engel, and also handled ten paintings from Palais Ephrussi seized by the Gestapo in 1938. August Eymer was a member of the NSDAP and was active in the Reichskammer der bildenden Künste (Reich Chamber of Fine Arts). After the war, he was classed as a lesser offender and was able to continue the business until it was transferred in 1970 to the Viennese publisher Rudolf Kremayr (1905–1989) and liquidated a short time afterwards.

Keywords

Art dealership

Publishing

Pia Schölnberger

20 January 2019

Publications about the person / institution

N. N., 125 Jahre Kunsthandlung L. T. Neumann, in: Alte und Moderne Kunst. Österreichische Zeitschrift für Kunst, Kunsthandwerk und Wohnkultur 4 (1959), 37.

I. Netopil, Nachruf auf August Eymer, in: Alte und Moderne Kunst 23, 159 (1978), 51–53, URL: hauspublikationen.mak.at/viewer/image/1369031013676_0001/57/ (3.12.2020).

Publications by the person / institution

L. T. Neumann, Verlags-Katalog, Wien 1862, URL: www.digital.wienbibliothek.at/wbrobv/content/titleinfo/1824697 (3.12.2020).

Archives

Archiv der Wirtschaftskammer Österreich, Fachgruppe Buch- und Medienwirtschaft Wien, L.T. Neumann, Rudolf Kremayr .

GND: 1072998890

VIAF: 49146937730213830480

Suschitzky, Brüder – Anzengruber Verlag (Wien-Leipzig), Buchhandlung-Antiquariat-Leihbibliothek

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:39:33 +0000

Suschitzky, Brüder – Anzengruber Verlag (Vienna–Leipzig), booksellers, antiques, lending library Susanne Hehenberger Thu, 11/19/2020 - 13:04

Brüder Suschitzky – Anzengruber Verlag (Wien-Leipzig), Buchhandlung-Antiquariat-Leihbibliothek

Brüder Suschitzky – Anzengruber Verlag (Wien-Leipzig), Buchhandlung-Antiquariat-Leihbibliothek was founded in 1901 by the bookseller Philipp Suschitzky (born 14 December 1875) with his brother Wilhelm (born 22 December 1877) at Favoritenstraße 57 in Vienna's 10th district, originally as a retail and antique bookshop, and expanded in 1911 through the addition of Anzengruber-Verlag Brüder Suschitzky. These two companies were linked to Phillip and Wilhelm Suschitzky's commitment to the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Austria (SDAPÖ). Their publishing programme including pacifist and socialist literature, and books on gender issues, free-thinking and social and sexual reform. By the end of the 1920s the bookshop and its owners came into conflict with political opponents and from 1933/34 they were subject increasingly to police reprisals (searches, book confiscations and court proceedings). After Wilhelm Suschitzky's suicide on 18 April 1934, his widow Adele (née Bauer, born 1878) took over a 50 per cent share in the company.

After the annexation, the bookshop was placed under provisional administration because of the Jewish origins of its owners. Since Aryanization of the company, classified in Nazi jargon as "Jewish-Marxist-pornographic", was rejected by the Zwangsgilde der Wiener Buch-, Kunst- und Musikalienhändler in the Reich Literature Chamber (RSK Austria branch), the bookshop and publishing company were closed. On 21 October 1938 the liquidator Herbert Schreiner filed for bankruptcy and the premises were closed. The stocks were transferred in early March 1939 to the auction rooms of Vienna Commercial Court. The sale was not completed until 17 March 1941, and the company was officially deleted from the register on 9 December 1941. The books came onto the antiques market. One was purchased by the Institute of the History of Medicine in February/March 1943 from the Viennese antiquarian Karl Stark. At this time Philipp Suschitzky, who had fled to Bouafle, France, in March 1938, had already perished. He and his wife Olga (née Hirschler, born 12 June 1862) had been deported from Drancy on 11 September 1942 to Auschwitz and murdered there. Adele Suschitzky had fled in 1938 to London, where she died on 24 May 1980.

The book was identified as belonging to Suschitzky from the stamp "Buchhandlung Brüder Suschitzky". In May 2014 it was returned by the University Library of the Medical University of Vienna to the legal successors of Philipp and Adele Suschitzky.

Keywords

Antiques business

Library

Book trade

Nazi asset expropriation

Publishing

Walter Mentzel

6 January 2019

Publications about the person / institution

Bruno Bauer/Walter Mentzel, NS-Provenienzforschung an der Medizinischen Universität Wien 2013 und 2014. Restitution von Büchern aus dem Antiquariat Hans Peter Kraus sowie der Verlagsbuchhandlung Anzengruber-Verlag, Brüder Suschitzky, in: VÖB (= Mitteilungen der Vereinigung österreichischer Bibliothekarinnen und Bibliothekare) 68 (2015) 2, 320–334, URL: fedora.phaidra.univie.ac.at/fedora/objects/o:406866/methods/bdef:Content/download (3.12.2020).

Murray G. Hall, Österreichische Verlagsgeschichte 1918–1938. Belletristische Verlage der Ersten Republik 2, Wien 1984.

Annette Lechner, Die Wiener Verlagsbuchhandlung "Anzengruber-Verlag, Brüder Suschitzky" (1901–1938) im Spiegel der Zeit, Diplomarbeit Universität Wien 1994.

Archives

Archiv der Wirtschaftskammer Österreich, Gewerbeakt, Wilhelm und Philipp Suschitzky.

OeStA/AdR, E-uReang, VVSt, Handel, Zl. 2195/6, Firma Brüder Suschitzky.
OeStA/AdR, E-uReang, VVSt, Handel, Zl. 207067, Ansuchen um Veräußerung Firma Brüder Suschitzky.
OeStA/AdR, E-uReang, VVSt, Handel, Zl. 2388, Philipp Suschitzky.
OeStA/AdR, E-uReang, VVSt, VA 3865, Adele Suschitzky.
OeStA/AdR, E-uReang,VVSt, VA 3866, Philipp Suschitzky.

WStLA, M.Abt. 119, A41, VEAV, 10. Bez., Zl. 139, Adele Suschitzky.

GND: 1066503079

VIAF: 313476381

Wolfrum, Kunstverlag

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

Wolfrum, Kunstverlag

Leonhard Weidinger Fri, 11/20/2020 - 08:59

Kunstverlag Wolfrum

other names: Kunsthandlung Wolfrum, Galerie Wolfrum

After the First World War, Marie Wolfrum (1883–1967) purchased Josef Löwy – k. u. k. Hof-Photograph, Kunst- und Verlags-Anstalt founded in 1850 with its inventory, where since 1896 she had trained and later worked as a salesperson and manager. On 2 October 1919 she established the studio as Kunstverlag Wolfrum with the object of trading and publishing artworks. The shop at Burgring 5 in Vienna's 1st district and a branch at Kohlmarkt 4 existed until 1928. The businessman Rudolf Wittig (1881–1958) became a partner in 1919, and Marie Wolfrum was the owner-partner. The premises, which still exist today, in Palais Lobkowitz, Augustinerstraße 10 in the 1st district, were rented in 1925/26 and enlarged and adapted over the years. At the end of 1926, Marie Wolfrum also registered as trading in paintings, sculptures, antiques and carpets, and two years later also added a publishing and retail book business. Her son Herbert Wolfrum (1911–1965) entered the company in 1933 as publisher and soon took over the direction and developed the publishing with his wife Helga Wolfrum, née Rauchenbichler. Composition proceedings were initiated in 1934 at the commercial court in Vienna, which safeguarded the company's continued operation.

After the annexation in 1938, the company was able to continue successfully, with a marked increase in sales from paintings and the publishing activities. Close connections with the NSDAP leadership and affiliated bodies are not evident from the documentation available, but there were business contacts with high-ranking representatives of the Nazi regime, such as the antiquarian and Reich department head of art and cultural affairs Ernst Schulte-Strathaus (1881–1968) in the "Brown House" in Munich. On 2 May 1938, Kunstverlag Wolfrum sent him an oil painting by Rudolf von Alt, Portal of the Church on Nonnberg of unclear provenance, which he purchased for Hitler in 1939. There is also a documented connection with the art dealer Johannes Jantzen from the Bremer Werkschau, who sold art objects purchased from Wolfrum for the "Sonderauftrag Linz" (Linz museum project). From the early 1920s Kunstverlag Wolfrum also had business contacts with the Österreichische Galerie (ÖG), which purchased artworks by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, Jakob Alt, Franz Xaver Gruber, Josef Mathias Grassi between 1939 and 1945 and numerous books between 1943 and 1946. The publishing manager Herbert Wolfrum, who had excellent connections with the Vienna gallery and museum scene and became a partner in 1943, was made sole authorized signatory for the company in 1953. His wife Helga Wolfrum became sole Prokurist, after the two had deposed an affidavit with the commercial court in Vienna stating that they had never been members or applicants for membership of the NSDAP. After Rudolf Wittig (1958), Herbert Wolfrum (1965) and Marie Wolfrum (1967) died, their grandchildren continued the company as sole partners.

Of the acquisitions by the ÖG from Kunstverlag Wolfrum, the Art Restitution Advisory Board in 2006 recommended the restitution of the portrait Friedrich Eltz by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller to the legal successors of Vally Honig-Roeren, who had been persecuted and later murdered by the Nazi regime. The sale was initiated in 1940 but only finalized in 1942 in an exchange between the ÖG and Wolfrum. The restitution of Jakob Alt's Cholera Chapel near Baden, sold in 1939 by Galerie Wolfrum to the ÖG, to the legal successors of Ludwig Neurath was recommended in 2010 and carried out in 2011. Neurath had been obliged to sell the painting in preparation for flight before it was acquired by the ÖG from Marie Wolfrum. Recommendations were made in 2019 for the restitution of the two Waldmüller portraits of Johann and Magdalena Werner to the legal successors of Gertrude Felsövanyi. In 1939 Felsövanyi had left the two works with Anna Seitle, who had been authorized to administer the remaining assets. She subsequently sold the pictures to Kunsthandlung Wolfrum, which sold them to the ÖG. In the same year, the Städtische Sammlungen (now Wien Museum) purchased a bust by Franz Xaver Messerschmidt that might have originally belonged to Gertrude Felsövanyi. In 2012 the Vienna Restitution Commission failed to recommend the restitution of the work, entitled The Strong Smell, as it could not be clearly established that it had been part previously of the Felsövanyi collection.

Keywords

"Sonderauftrag Linz"

Art dealership

Publishing

Katinka Gratzer-Baumgärtner

28 October 2019

Publications about the person / institution

Beschluss des Kunstrückgabebeirats, Gertrude Felsövanyi, 12.4.2019, URL: www.provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Felsoevanyi_Gertrude_2019-04-12.pdf (3.12.2020).
Beschluss des Kunstrückgabebeirats, Bibliothek der Österreichischen Galerie Belvedere, 15.5.2014, URL: www.provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Bibliothek_Oesterreichische_Galerie_Belvedere_2014-05-15.pdf (3.12.2020).
Beschluss des Kunstrückgabebeirats, Ludwig Neurath, 22.9.2010, URL: www.provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Neurath_Ludwig_2010-09-22.pdf (3.12.2020).
Beschluss des Kunstrückgabebeirats, Ludwig Neurath, 20.11.2009, URL: www.provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Neurath_Ludwig_2009-11-20.pdf (3.12.2020).
Beschluss des Kunstrückgabebeirats, Vally Honig-Roeren, 28.6.2006, URL: www.provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Honig-Roeren_Vally_2006-06-28.pdf (3.12.2020).

13. und 14. Bericht des amtsführenden Stadtrates für Kultur und Wissenschaft über die gemäß dem Gemeinderatsbeschluss vom 29. April 1999 in der Fassung vom 29. April 2011 erfolgte Übereignung von Kunst- und Kulturgegenständen aus den Sammlungen der Museen der Stadt Wien, der Wienbibliothek im Rathaus sowie dem Jüdischen Museum der Stadt Wien vom 17. April 2015 Restitutionsberichte 2012 und 2013), URL: www.wienmuseum.at/fileadmin/user_upload/PDFs/Restitutionsbericht_2012_und_2013.pdf (3.12.2020).

N. N., Zur Gründung der Galerie Wolfrum, URL: www.wolfrum.at/ueber-uns (3.12.2020).

Olga Kronsteiner, Franz Xaver Messerschmidt: Einfalt im höchsten Grade, in: Der Standard, 24.10.2015, www.derstandard.at/story/2000024418263/franz-xaver-messerschmidt-einfalt-im-hoechsten-grade (26.6.2019).

Meike Hopp, Kunsthandel im Nationalsozialismus: Adolf Weinmüller in München und Wien, Köln-Weimar-Wien 2012.

N. N., Ausstellungen der Woche, Kollektivausstellung Felix Heuberger, Hochgebirgslandschaften aus dem Lande Österreich, bis 20.12.1938, in: Die Weltkunst 12 (27.11.1938) 48, 2, URL: doi.org/10.11588/diglit.47947#0200.

N. N., Kleine Anzeigen, in: Die Weltkunst 13 (1.10.1939) 38/39, 5, URL: doi.org/10.11588/diglit.48200#0171.

N. N., Inserat Kunstverlag Wolfrum, in: Die Weltkunst 18 (15.3.1944) 3, 2, URL: doi.org/10.11588/diglit.48237#0014.

N. N., Handelsregister, Amtsgericht Wien, Veränderung, in: Völkischer Beobachter, Wiener Ausgabe, 8.3.1943, 6, URL: anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?aid=vob&datum=19430308&seite=6 (3.12.2020).

Maria Rennhofer, Biografie Koloman Moser. Ein Genie auf der Suche nach Vollkommenheit, in: belvedere.at, Werkverzeichnisse online, URL: werkverzeichnisse.belvedere.at/groups/koloman-moser-biografie (3.12.2020).

T. H., Malerehepaar Blaas wieder in Wien, in: Das kleine Volksblatt, 8.12.1946, 7, URL: anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?aid=dkv&datum=19461208&seite=7 (3.12.2020).

Archives

Archiv der Österreichischen Galerie Belvedere, Wien, Zl. 158/1934; 351/1939; 352/1939; 190/1942; 225/1942; 127/1945; 486/1947; 350/1948; 702/1963.

BDA-Ausfuhr, Zl. 244/1938, 258/1938, 344/1938, 449/1938, 592/1938, 780/1938, 917/1938, 7752/1938, 8835/1938.
BDA-Archiv, Restitutionsmaterialien, K. 12/1, CACP München 1955-60, M. 7, S. 4; K. 12/2, CACP München-Salzburg Residenz, Rückführung I, M. 1; K. 13, Kunstmuseum Linz I, M. 5d; K. 13/1, Kunstmuseum Linz II, M. 7; K. 30/1, Fotokartei, N–Z, M. 19; K. 54, Gesamtverzeichnis, Kunsthandlung Wolfrum S. 178.

Handelsgericht Wien, Firmenbuch, Handelsregister Wien, Kunstverlag Wolfrum, 132 HRA 9325.

KHM-Archiv, IV 61, NL Josef Löwy; IV 62, NL Firma Wolfrum.

OeStA/AdR, UWK, BMU, 15B1 ÖG 1940-48 bzw. 15B2-B2b 1940-54, K. 150, Zl. 6746-II-6/48; 42808-II-6/48.

Standesamt Pressbaum, Buch-Nr. 135/67.

Wirtschaftskammer Österreich, Archiv der Wirtschaftskammer Wien, Gewerbeakt, Marie Wolfrum.

WStLA, Historische Wiener Meldeunterlagen, Meldeauskunft Marie Wolfrum.

GND: 410095-5

VIAF: 314797332

Zsolnay, Paul (von)

Leonhard Weidinger — Wed, 30 Sep 2020 19:13:55 +0000

Zsolnay, Paul (von)

Leonhard Weidinger Sat, 03/27/2021 - 11:28

Paul Zsolnay

12 June 1895 Budapest – 13 May 1961 Vienna

also Paul von Zsolnay

Paul von Zsolnay was born in Budapest in 1895 as the first son of the tobacco industrialist and Austrian consul general Adolf von Zsolnay (1866–1932) and his wife Klara Amanda, called Andy (1876–1956), née Wallerstein. His brother Friedrich (Fritz) was born just under a year later in Bad Ischl. The family left the Jewish community in 1901 and joined the Augsburg Confession. After studying agriculture at the University of Natural Resources in Vienna, he managed the family's property in Oberufer near Pressburg, which thanks to his mother was a popular meeting place for artists and intellectuals. Inspired by these surroundings and with the financial support of his parents, in 1923 he founded Paul Zsolnay Verlag at Prinz Eugen-Straße 30 in Vienna's 4th district. In 1929 he married the sculptor Anna Mahler (1904–1988) secretly in Paris. The couple moved to Maxingstraße 24 in the 13th district, called the Kaunitzschlössel, which was also the home of a literary salon. Daughter Alma was born on 5 October 1930, and that year Paul Zsolnay moved briefly to Berlin. In 1935 the couple divorced. Alma lived with her father and widowed grandmother Andy. Adolf Zsolnay had died in 1932 and bequeathed one quarter of his collection of classical art to his wife and three-eighths each to his sons Paul and Fritz. A collection of Coptic textiles that Adolf Zsolnay had given to the Egyptian and Near Eastern Collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum (KHM) in Vienna for safekeeping in 1931 remained there after his death.

The asset declarations that Paul and Andy Zsolnay were obliged to make in July 1938 valued Paul Zsolnay's share of the art collection, comprising stone figures, heads, statues, reliefs, jewellery and coins, at around 10,000 Reichsmarks, and his mother's jewellery and art objects at around 57,000 Reichsmarks. In autumn 1938 Paul Zsolnay fled to London, and his mother and daughter followed, detouring through Czechoslovakia, in early 1939. After a short period of detention, his brother Fritz Zsolnay had left Reich German territory by agreement with the Gestapo on 21 March 1938 and fled initially with his family to Budapest and from there to Switzerland and then to Britain. On 14 November 1938 Andy and Paul Zsolnay applied to export to Hungary twenty-four carpets, forty-eight classical figures and reliefs, and nine paintings, which were stored with Spedition Caro & Jellinek in Vienna. The Zentralstelle für Denkmalschutz (Central Monument Protection Office) ordered in May and June 1939 the securing by Vienna municipal department 50 of two classical eave mouldings, a grave relief and a panel from the removal container and later also the artworks and furnishings remaining in the villa, which were subsequently put up for sale at the end of 1939 by Bernhard Witke, appointed as trustee by the Vermögensverkehrsstelle (Property Transaction Office). In 1940 the KHM acquired around twenty objects from the Zsolnay collection and inventoried them in the Collection of Greek and Roman Antiquities and in the Egyptian and the Near Eastern Collection. Books and manuscripts went to the National Library, while other objects transferred to Baldur von Schirach and intended for the Kunstmuseum Linz were sold through the Dorotheum or remained in the monuments office depot.

After the war, Paul Zsolnay returned to Vienna to recover his publishing company, which had been Aryanized in June 1938 by the former writer for the company Albert Jantsch-Streerbach with NSDAP member Hannes Dietl on the basis of an oral agreement between Zsolnay and Jantsch-Streerbach. Zsolnay commuted in subsequent years between London and Vienna. In 1947/48 Paul, Fritz and Andy Zsolnay applied for restitution of the art collection dispersed in Munich, Altaussee and Vienna. Parallel to the restitution proceedings, the KHM attempted to acquire the grave relief and the two eave mouldings for the Collection of Greek and Roman Antiques, and to keep one of the Coptic textiles in return for having kept it in custody for so many years. The Egyptian and the Near Eastern Collection did indeed obtain a linen item with figurative insert as a gift in 1948. The following year, 233 Greek, 26 Roman and 28 other coins, two scarabs, a number of ornaments, a Madonna and Child panel painting and some original manuscripts were returned to London. The three classical objects that had been removed from the export authorization were purchased by the KHM in 1951. In view of the material and temporal connection between the acquisition of the objects to be restituted and the Export Prohibition Law, the Art Restitution Advisory Board recommended in 2014 that the grave relief and the two eave mouldings but not the Coptic textiles be returned by the KHM to the legal successors of Andy, Friedrich and Paul Zsolnay.

Keywords

29 September 2020

Publications about the person / institution

Beschluss des Kunstrückgabebeirats, Andy, Friedrich und Paul Zsolnay, 26.9.2014, URL: www.provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Zsolnay_Andy_Friedrich_Paul_2014-09-26.pdf (3.12.2020).

Murray G. Hall, Der Paul Zsolnay Verlag. Von der Gründung bis zur Rückkehr aus dem Exil, Tübringen 1994.
Murray G. Hall, Herbert Ohrlinger, Der Paul Zsolnay Verlag 1924–1999. Dokumente und Zeugnisse, Wien 1999.

Murray G. Hall/Christina Köstner, … Allerlei für die Nationalbibliothek zu ergattern … Eine österreichische Institution in der NS-Zeit, Wien 2006.

Sophie Lillie, Was einmal war. Handbuch der enteigneten Kunstsammlungen Wiens (= Bibliothek des Raubes 8), Wien 2003.

Archives

Archiv der Universität für Bodenkultur, Studien- und Prüfungsakten, Klassenbuch XXVII/71.

BDA-Archiv, Ausfuhr, Zl. 8406/1938, Andy und Paul Zsolnay.
BDA-Archiv, Ausfuhr, Zl. 4629/1949; Z. 8402/1949; Zl. 8514/1949, Paul Zsolnay.
BDA-Archiv, Restitutionsmaterialien, K. 8/1, Ursprungsverzeichnis Zsolnay; K. 50/3, PM Paul Zsolnay.
BDA-Archiv, Sicherstellungskartei, Sammlung Paul und Andy Zsolnay.

KHM, Antikensammlung, 3/AS/1940, 4/AS/1947, 11/AS/1948, 10/AS/1949, 11/AS/1949, 13/AS/1949, 14/AS/1949, 17/AS/1949, 13/AS/1950, 18/AS/1950, 29/AS/1950, 3/AS/1951.

KHM-Archiv, Direktionsakten: 15/ED/1947, 50/GDK/1949, 98/GDK/1949.
KHM-Archiv, Verwaltungsakten: 235/VK/1950, 919/VK/1950, 111/VK/1951.

OeStA/AdR, E-uReang, FLD, Zl. 17639, Paul, Andy und Friedrich Zsolnay.
OeStA/AdR, E-uReang, VVSt, VA 05650, Paul Zsolnay.
OeStA/AdR, E-uReang, VVSt, VA 30564, Andy Zsolnay.
OeStA/AdR, E-uReang, VVSt, VA 66031, Friedrich Zsolnay.

WStLA, Historische Wiener Meldeunterlagen, Meldeauskunft Adolph Zsolnay.
WStLA, Historische Wiener Meldeunterlagen, Meldeauskunft Andy Zsolnay.
WStLA, Historische Wiener Meldeunterlagen, Meldeauskunft Fritz Zsolnay.
WStLA, Historische Wiener Meldeunterlagen, Meldeauskunft Paul Zsolnay.

GND: 117019526

VIAF: 57381542

Wikidata: Q1805034