Law

Alsberg, Max

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:37:56 +0000

Alsberg, Max

Leonhard Weidinger Thu, 11/19/2020 - 19:45

Max Alsberg

16 October 1877 Bonn – 11 September 1933 Samedan, Switzerland

During the Weimar Republic, the defence lawyer and legal scholar Max Alsberg, who moved to Berlin in 1906, had an office at Nollendorfplatz 1 together with Kurt Peschke, Kurt Gollnick and Lothar Welt. When, as a Jew, he was banned from working in July 1933, he escaped to Switzerland, where he committed suicide on 11 September 1933. His widow Ellinor (née Sternberg, widowed Alsberg, later Böhm, 1888–1965), who remained in Berlin until 18 February 1934 before escaping to Switzerland, appointed the Berlin asset manager Friedrich Daerneborg to represent her interests in liquidating the contents of the huge villa in the Grunewald district of Berlin and in dealing subsequently until 1941 with her many other affairs. Daerneborg drew up a 74-page list of all artworks and household objects and the large library. One part of the law library in the basement alone consisted of twenty large crates of books, which were to be shipped to Britain in 1939. While the majority of Alsberg's extensive collection of valuable sculptures, ceramics, furniture, paintings and tapestries (212 lots altogether) were auctioned in January 1934 by the auctioneer Paul Graupe, who was himself later to be persecuted, other household items were auctioned with the approval of the Devisenstelle (Foreign Exchange Office) by the Berlin auctioneers Rudolph Lepke's Kunst-Auctions-Haus and Auktionshaus Goldschmidt & Co. Excluded from this list were objects that Daerneborg himself had hitherto given to friends or employees or sold on his own account. He also sold two unidentified vehicles, a Rolls Royce and a Goliath. Ellinor Alsberg fled to Britain in 1939, her removal goods having been stored by the Berlin transporter Spedition Knauer in Basel and by N.V. Koninklijke Meubeltransport-Maatschappij De Gruijter & Co. in The Hague. In April 1941 these goods were seized in the Netherlands by the recently established Nazi Sammelverwaltung feindlicher Hausgeräte (Joint Administration of Enemy Household Appliances). With her children Renate and Klaus (later Claude G. Allen, New York) she received compensation after 1945 under the German Federal Restitution Act, which took account not of the artworks or books but merely of real property, securities and special levies. In 2007 the Restitutiecommissie der Niederlande recommended the return of a valuable eighteenth-century carpet, which had turned up in 1948 at an art dealership in Hamburg. A historical print in the library of the Österreichische Galerie acquired in 1961 by Marlborough London has the ex libris Max Alsberg, but for lack of further details the Art Restitution Advisory Board failed to recommend its restitution. The whereabouts of the auctioned and seized art and cultural objects from Max Alsberg's collection have not been clarified to date.

Keywords

Katinka Gratzer-Baumgärtner

21 November 2022

Publications about the person / institution

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).

Restitutiecommissie, Recommendation regarding the application for the restitution of an eighteenth-century Savonnerie carpet (NK 1066), 16.4.2007, URL: www.restitutiecommissie.nl/en/recommendations/recommendation_158.html (3.12.2020).

Paul Graupe (Hg.), Kunstbesitz Prof. Max Alsberg †, Berlin – Gemälde und Kunstgewerbe aus einer bekannten süddeutschen Privatsammlung – Verschiedener Berliner Privatbesitz. Versteigerung 131, 29.–30.1.1934, Berlin 1934, URL: doi.org/10.11588/diglit.6198.

Alexander Ignor, Max Alsberg (1877–1933) "Unter den wissenschaftlich arbeitenden strafrechtlichen Praktikern weitaus an erster Stelle", in: Stefan Grundmann/Michael Kloepfer/Christoph G. Paulus (Hg.), Festschrift 200 Jahre Juristische Fakultät der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Geschichte, Gegenwart und Zukunft, Berlin 2010, 655–682.

Gerhard Jungfer, Max Alsberg. Verteidigung als ethische Mission, in: Kritische Justiz (Hg.), Streitbare Juristen. Eine andere Tradition, Baden-Baden 1988, 141–151.

Tillmann Krach, Max Alsberg (1877–1933). Der Kritizismus des Verteidigers als schöpferisches Prinzip der Wahrheitsfindung, in: Helmut Heinrichs (Hg.), Deutsche Juristen jüdischer Herkunft, München 1993, 655–666.

Simone Ladwig-Winters, Rechtsanwaltkammer Berlin (Hg.), Anwalt ohne Recht. Das Schicksal jüdischer Anwälte in Berlin nach 1933, Berlin 2007.

Curt Riess, Der Mann in der schwarzen Robe. Das Leben des Strafverteidigers Max Alsberg, Hamburg 1965.

Jürgen Taschke (Hg.), Max Alsberg (1877–1933) (= Schriftenreihe Deutsche Strafverteidiger e. V. 40), Baden-Baden 2013.

Publications by the person / institution

Max Alsberg, Justizirrtum und Wiederaufnahme, Berlin 1913.
Max Alsberg, Der Prozeß des Sokrates im Lichte moderner Jurisprudenz und Psychologie, Mannheim 1926.
Max Alsberg, Große Prozesse der Weltgeschichte, Berlin 1928.
Max Alsberg, Drama: Voruntersuchung, Berlin 1930.
Max Alsberg, Philosophie der Verteidigung, Mannheim-Berlin-Leipzig 1930.
Max Alsberg (Hg.), Zeitschrift für die gesamte Strafrechtswissenschaft, Kriminalistische Monatshefte.

Archives

Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv Potsdam/Vermögensverwertungsstelle des Oberfinanzpräsidenten Berlin-Brandenburg, Aktenmaterial zu Ellinor Alsberg, geb. Sternberg, Rep. 36A II 595, 596; Rep. 36A Nr. D324, W385, S. 2/3, 4/5, Bericht über die Interessenvertretung und Vermögensverwaltung in den Jahren 1934–1941 vom 5.11.1941.

Bundesamt für zentrale Dienste und offene Vermögensfragen, Berlin, Ref. B1.

Deutsches Biographisches Archiv (DBA), II 22,246-255; III 12,76-108; 1032,170.

Jüdisches Biographisches Archiv (JBA), I 90,306-309; II 19,341-369.

LAB, Wiedergutmachungsakten, B Rep. 025 (A - B) - Wiedergutmachungsämter von Berlin [Buchstabengruppe A - B], 1 WGA 644/49, 4 WGA 821/50, 4 WGA 822/50, 4 WGA 823-826, 1 WGA 1090/50, 5 WGA 1182/50, 43 WGA 1835/55.

GND: 118648322

VIAF: 77109371

Wikidata: Q90131

Bayer, Alexander

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:38:49 +0000

Bayer, Alexander

Leonhard Weidinger Tue, 03/09/2021 - 07:56

Alexander Bayer

27 November 1898 Ast near Landshut – 20 January 1973 Prien am Chiemsee

The Munich lawyer Alexander Bayer was admitted in early February 1931 to the Munich branch of the NSDAP with the number 423.018 but left six months later because – as he stated in 1942 – as defence counsel for Erich Ludendorff he wished to avoid a conflict of interests. In summer 1935 he sought to join the Party again but was unable to do so because of a membership suspension in force at the time. Bayer, who also tried his hand as a playwright and became involved in legal disputes as a result, stood out in particular for defending wealthy Jews who were in trouble after the Nazis came to power in Germany. Together with his Viennese colleague Ludwig Rochlitzer he extended this activity after the annexation of Austria to clients in Salzburg and Vienna, including Ida Herz, Wally Kulka and Elisabeth Grünbaum. By summer 1940 at the latest, it came to the notice of the office of the Reichsführer-SS that Bayer was demanding a fee of 2,000 Reichsmarks for making contact with Heinrich Himmler, whom he knew from their schooldays together in Landshut. When confronted with this, Bayer confirmed that he had written several times to the Reichsführer-SS to request the release of Jews in protective custody. He said that the persons concerned were Rochlitzer's clients. A copy of a letter from Himmler from December 1938 exists in which he informed Bayer: "We will release Jewish detainees from protective custody if they intend to emigrate, provided that their emigration is certain and there are no serious impediments to their release. I have therefore instructed my offices to lift the protective custody in the cases you mention for the purpose of emigration. "As the Nazi authorities suspected personal enrichment, Ernst Kaltenbrunner and others conducted further investigations, also in consultation with Reich Minister of Justice Otto Georg Thierack. The Personal Staff of the Reichsführer-SS let it be known that Himmler intended to put Bayer in a concentration camp: "The behaviour of the lawyer Dr. Bayer, who is using his youthful acquaintanceship with the Reichsführer-SS in this way can only be described as dirty and base." A trial in a court of honour was organized by the Rechtsanwaltskammer (Reich bar association) in Munich, which concluded that he had committed "a not insignificant violation of his professional obligations". The matter was drawn out, however, and in July 1944 Kaltenbrunner reported to Himmler that the Reich Minister of Justice had not yet reached a decision because the matter was still "unclear". The state of the war precluded further processing of the case. It is no longer possible to identify the persons whom Bayer intervened with Himmler for, but there is a discrepancy in the numbers. The investigation by the Rechtsanwaltskammer in 1942 spoke of "sixteen to eighteen Jews", for whom Bayer had made "a joint application for release and granting of emigration visas", but after the war he claimed that he had begged Himmler to release seventy-two Jewish families whose husbands had consulted him from concentration camps and to grant them emigration visas in return for Himmler having copied his Latin and Greek scripts for five years at school. He also stated to the denazification court in Munich that from March 1933 he had continuously supported active resistance to the Party through the provision of funds. One of the witnesses to speak in his defence was the Munich lawyer Hans Raff, who had been intensively involved in investigating the illegal sale of art objects belonging to Jewish art historians, collectors and dealers. Bayer turned up again in 1953 in the case brought by Jaromir Czernin in Austria against the German Reich for restitution of the Vermeer painting The Art of Painting. Bayer offered to question the former Nazi Representative for Art Policy Kajetan Mühlmann as an expert in art acquisitions for Adolf Hitler. He said that he still had contact with him following legal consultations in 1952 and could without doubt obtain a truthful statement from him that would be favourable for the Austrian state. Mühlmann appears not to have been questioned as a witness. It is also unclear what "legal consultations" took place. In October 1958, Bayer was convicted by the Bayerischer Ehrengerichtshof für Rechtsanwälte (Bavarian Law Tribunal for Lawyers) and struck off the register the following March for violation of professional obligations as a lawyer, which also meant that he could no longer represent clients. It is established that from 1933, and from 1938 with Rochlitzer, Bayer exploited the difficulties of wealthy Jews for personal enrichment. He was no longer allowed to practise as a lawyer thereafter.

Keywords

NSDAP membership

Law

Pia Schölnberger

6 January 2019

Archives

BArch Berlin, ehem. BDC, PK, Alexander Bayer.
BArch Berlin, R22, 20155, NSDAP, Partei-Kanzlei.
BArch Berlin, RKK, RSK, Alexander Bayer.

Institut für Zeitgeschichte München, Sign. NO-2764, 2766.

OeStA/AdR, Finanzen, BMF, Zl. 154.244-32/53.
OeStA/AdR, ZNsZ, Inspekteur der Sicherheitspolizei, S/IIG-705/39-80.

Stadtarchiv München, RAK 2145; 2167; 2169; 2170.

Staatsarchiv München, OLG München 2158.
Staatsarchiv München, Spk A K 96, Alexander Bayer.

Bien, Erich Arthur

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:37:54 +0000

Bien, Erich Arthur

Leonhard Weidinger Thu, 11/19/2020 - 19:52

Erich Bien

19 December 1884 Vienna – 27 January 1940 Caerphilly, Wales

The insurance clerk and Prokurist Erich Bien obtained a doctorate in law from the University of Vienna in 1908. Because of his Jewish origins, he was dismissed from Kosmos Versicherungs AG in Vienna at the end of July 1938. He was detained for several days by the Gestapo in November 1938 and fled the following year to Britain, taking with him his artworks, probably mostly watercolours, having received export authorization from the Zentralstelle für Denkmalschutz (Central Monument Protection Authority). He died in 1940, shortly after his arrival in exile in Wales.

Five volumes of prints that Bien had apparently not been able to take with him were restituted by the University of Vienna library in 2013 to his legal successors. His ex libris stamp is also to be found in two books in the Württembergische Landesbibliothek (Württemberg State Library) in Stuttgart, and in four prints in the Österreichische Galerie library, which were acquired in 1939 and 1945 from Antiquariat und Buchhandel Deuticke in Vienna. Their restitution was recommended in 2014 and given to the Österreichische Galerie library as a gift in 2022 by the heirs of Erich Arthur Bien.

Keywords

Library

Nazi persecutee

Law

Katinka Gratzer-Baumgärtner

2 June 2022

Publications about the person / institution

Stefan Alker-Windbichler/Bruno Bauer/Markus Stumpf, NS-Provenienzforschung und Restitution an Bibliotheken, Berlin-Boston 2017.

Eintrag im ProvenienzWIKI, URL: provenienz.gbv.de/Erich_Bien_(Wien) (3.12.2020).

Restitution aus der Universitätsbibliothek Wien 2013, URL: bibliothek.univie.ac.at/provenienzforschung-restitutionen.html (3.12.2020).

Archives

BDA-Ausfuhr, Zl. 3299/39, Ausfuhransuchen 19.4.1939.

National Archives, PRO/HO 396/7/357, Moving Here Catalogue, Records of enemy aliens exempt from internment (1939-1942), ausgestellt am 24.11.1939.

OeStA/AdR, E-uReang, VVSt, VA 15533, Erich Bien.

UAW, Jur. Nat. 1902/03, Erich Bien; Jur. Rigorosenprotokoll J 13/19, Fol. 2406.

WStLA, Historische Wiener Meldeunterlagen, Meldeauskunft Erich Bien.

GND: 1192254473

VIAF: 4235156565724123500009

Wikidata: Q106878444

Blauhorn, Josef

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:38:07 +0000

Blauhorn, Josef Susanne Hehenberger Thu, 11/19/2020 - 08:45

Josef Blauhorn

19 June 1883 Vienna – 1944 London

After studying law at the University of Vienna, Josef Blauhorn joined the Prager Eisenindustrie-Gesellschaft, before becoming sole Prokurist in 1916 of the Vienna bank Gebrüder Gutmann, where he worked until escaping from Austria in 1939. He was also member of the board of Hanf-, Jute- und Textil-Industrie AG and of the supervisory board of Österreichische Waffenfabriks-Gesellschaft and a partner in the Vienna trading company M. G. Pinter & Co. With his wife Auguste ("Gusti", née Koppel, 1886–1961) and three children Karl Max, Anna Lisbeth and Hans Georg he lived initially at Esteplatz 8 in Vienna's 3rd district. In 1924 the family moved to Döbling, the 19th district, where they lived in a villa at Grinzinger Allee 54. The family had a valuable art collection there consisting of around 200 works, mostly by Austrian nineteenth- and twentieth-century artists. In Auguste's asset declaration filled out after the annexation of Austria in 1938 on account of her Jewish origins—Josef's list has been lost since 1947—the assessor Ambros Moritz put the value of the collection at almost 67,000 Reichsmarks. In early 1939, when the Blauhorns were preparing to leave Austria, Josef applied for the first time for export authorization for the artworks, which was granted for all but ten items, which the Vienna city council department MA50 withheld as "valuable national property". From the withheld paintings, which were taken to the depots of the Österreichische Galerie and Zentralstelle für Denkmalschutz (Central Monument Protection Authority), the "Führer's special representative" acquired Franz Eybl's Grandmother at the Spinning Wheel. Rudolf von Alt's Prague Bridge was purchased by the University of Prague and later presented to Hitler as a gift. As the Vienna Gestapo and the Reichswirtschaftsministerium (Reich Ministry of Economic Affairs) were particularly interested in disposing of Blauhorn's assets, the remaining works were not exported and remained in Villa Blauhorn. The lawyer and trustee Hans Dechant arranged for the villa and securities to be used to pay the Reichsfluchtsteuer (Reich Flight Tax) of 284,000 Reichsmarks owed by Blauhorn. In return the Ministry of Economic Affairs considered allowing the "duty-free export of his household furnishings, picture collection (subject to approval by the monuments authority) and silver on account of his loyal attitude". After the works were still not shipped to London following the resubmission of his export request in March 1940, on 6 October 1941 the Vienna Gestapo ordered the seizure of his assets and the start of denaturalization proceedings for the Blauhorn family. Dechant, who saw his own revenue increasingly threatened, had petitioned the Oberfinanzpräsident (chief tax officer) in Vienna in an attempt to stop the seizure of Blauhorn's household assets. After his petition was rejected, he made a successful claim against Josef Blauhorn at the Vienna Landesgericht (provincial court) for payment of outstanding fees. Dechant was removed from office in May 1942 at his own request, to be replaced by Stephan Lehner as administrator. The Gestapo entered into sales negotiations regarding the villa with the Nationalsozialistischer Lehrerbund (NSLB) (National Socialist Teachers' Federation), which used the building thereafter as a training centre. The estimations made by Bernhard Witke, Julius Fargel, and Adolf Wawra in October 1941 on behalf of the Gestapo in Villa Blauhorn revealed that there were only fifty-four pictures remaining there, which Witke was to dispose of. They included a painting by Anton Eberth, acquired by the Neue Galerie of the Joanneum in Graz, while five other works were sold by the Dorotheum. The investigation ordered by Karl Ebner, deputy head of the Vienna Gestapo, into the whereabouts of the artworks that had disappeared since the last appraisal of Villa Blauhorn in 1939, produced no results. These events could be connected with the prosecution in 1943 of three members of the art commission in the Vermögensverkehrsstelle (Property Transaction Office) — Heinrich Höfflinger, Hans Kousek and Erich Sandruschütz — who had removed items from Villa Blauhorn and sold them. It is impossible today, however, to determine which precise items were involved.

Josef Blauhorn died in early 1944 in exile in London. In 1945, his widow married the jurist Rudolf Franz Bienenfeld, who had also escaped to London. Together with her sons Karl and Georg, who also survived in exile (daughter Anna Lisbeth had died in 1937), they applied unsuccessfully in October 1948 for restitution of the artworks. The villa itself was restituted. In 1959, the Joanneum in Graz came to an arrangement with the heirs regarding the Eberth painting. At the end of the century, the Blauhorn collection attracted the attention of Austrian provenance research. In 2012, the Art Restitution Advisory Board declared the sale by Hans Dechant of two paintings by Leopold Kupelwieser and Ludwig Ferdinand Schnorr to the Österreichische Galerie in June 1940 to be invalid. Dechant claimed that Blauhorn had given him these paintings as a "gift" or "in place of a fee". Two watercolours by Josef Kriehuber in the Albertina were restituted in 2013. They could be demonstrated to have been in Villa Blauhorn in 1939 before being sold in 1943 and 1944 by two private individuals, Gabriele Gross and her mother Mutter Luise Winter, to the "Führermuseum" and directly to the Albertina Graphic Art Collection. In 2014 the Jewish Museum Vienna restituted the portrait of Josef Blauhorn by Jehudo Epstein to Blauhorn's legal successors. The majority of Blauhorn's collection is still untraceable, however.

Keywords

6 January 2019

Publications about the person / institution

Beschluss des Kunstrückgabebeirats, Dr. Josef Blauhorn, 29.6.2012, URL: www.provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Blauhorn_Josef_2012-06-29.pdf (3.12.2020).
Beschluss des Kunstrückgabebeirats, Josef und Auguste Blauhorn, 3.5.2013, URL: www.provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Blauhorn_Auguste_Josef_2013-05-03.pdf (3.12.2020).

Karin Leitner-Ruhe/Gudrun Danzer/Monika Binder-Krieglstein (Hg.), Restitutionsbericht 1999–2010 Universalmuseum Joanneum, Graz 2010, URL: www.museum-joanneum.at/fileadmin//user_upload/Presse/Aktuelle_Projekte/Archiv/2010/praesentation-des-re/Restitutionsbericht_01.pdf (3.12.2020).

Olga Kronsteiner, Jüdisches Museum Wien restituiert Epstein-Gemälde, in: Der Standard, 18.9.2014, URL: derstandard.at/2000005747810/Juedisches-Museum-Wien-restituiert-Epstein-Gemaelde (3.12.2020).

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

Pia Schölnberger, Emil Geyer – Ein Sammler im Verborgenen, 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, 135–160, URL: doi.org/10.7767/boehlau.9783205793564.135.

Anita Stelzl-Gallian, Der Fall Blauhorn: Das Schicksal einer Sammlung, in: Gabriele Anderl/Christoph Bazil/Eva Blimlinger/Oliver Kühschelm/Monika Mayer/Anita Stelzl-Gallian/Leonhard Weidinger (Hg.), …wesentlich mehr Fälle als angenommen. 10 Jahre Kommission für Provenienzforschung, Wien-Köln-Weimar 2009 (= Schriftenreihe der Kommission für Provenienzforschung 1), 360–374, URL: doi.org/10.7767/boehlau.9783205118862.360.

Publications by the person / institution

Josef Blauhorn, Die Naphthagesetznovelle, in: Neue Freie Presse, 16.7.1907, 21.

Archives

BDA-Archiv, Restitutionsmaterialien, K. 31/4, PM Blauhorn.
BDA-Ausfuhr, Ausfuhransuchen Josef und Auguste Blauhorn.
BDA, Fotoarchiv, Fotoplatteninventar P.

OeStA/AdR, E-uReang, FLD, Zl. Ö-73, Josef Blauhorn.
OeStA/AdR, E-uReang, VVSt, VA 7421, Gusti Blauhorn.

WStLA, LG für Strafsachen, A11, Vr-Strafakten, Vr 1327/39, Heinrich Höfflinger, Hans Kousek, Erich Sandruschütz.
WStLA, LG für Strafsachen, A11, Vr-Strafakten, Vr 248/48, Heinrich Höfflinger, Hans Kousek, Erich Sandruschütz.

GND: 1068253681

VIAF: 314892404

Wikidata: Q107316626

Demel (von Elswehr), Hans

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:38:06 +0000

Demel (von Elswehr), Hans

Leonhard Weidinger Sat, 02/27/2021 - 12:17

Hans Demel (von Elswehr)

14 April 1886 Teschen, Silesia (now Cieszyn, Poland / Český Těšín, Czech Republic) – 28 December 1951 Vienna

Hans Demel von Elswehr was born in Teschen in 1886 as the son of the Silesian Reichstag member Johann Demel Ritter von Elswehr. In 1904 he matriculated in the Faculty of Law and Political Science in Vienna and obtained his doctorate in law in 1911. A year earlier he enrolled in the Faculty of Philosophy and studied Egyptian language and classical archaeology under Hermann Junker, Islamic languages, art history under Max Dvořák and Josef Strzygowski, and archaeology under Emil Reisch. In 1913 he wrote his doctoral thesis "On late Nubian vessels from the excavations by the Vienna Academy of Sciences under Professor Junker". In the same year he worked as an unpaid intern at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna and became an assistant in 1914. In 1922 he became head of the Egyptian Collection. He went on several study trips to Egypt, participating in 1926 in the excavations by the Vienna Academy of Sciences at the Pyramids of Giza. In 1934 he was elected as a regular member of the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut (German Archaeology Institute). Together with his colleagues Eduard Holzmair (coins) and Leopold Ruprecht (weapons) and the librarian of the Akademie der bildenden Künste (Academy of Fine Arts) Anton Kraus, Demel travelled at the end of 1939 by order of the Reich Minister of Education Bernhard Rust to Poland, where he had contact with Kajetan Mühlmann, who had been appointed "Sonderbeauftragter für den Schutz und die Sicherung von Kunstwerken in den besetzten Ostgebieten" (special representative for the protection and securing of artworks in the occupied territories in the East). During the war, Demel deputized for Fritz Dworschak in air raid protection matters and from November 1941 was head of the administration and personnel department, with the exception of the affairs of official researchers. In 1942 he was given a teaching course at the University of Vienna. He was to have retired at the end of December 1951 but died suddenly of a heart attack beforehand.

Keywords

6 January 2019

Publications about the person / institution

Morris L. Bierbrier, Who was who in Egyptology, 4th revised edition, London 2012.

Franz Heiduk, Oberschlesisches Literatur-Lexikon, Teil 1: A–H, Berlin 1990.

Publications by the person / institution

Hermann Junker, Das Kloster am Isisberg. Bericht über die Grabungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien bei El-Kubanich, Winter 1910–1911. 3. Teil. Mit einem Abschnitt von Hans Demel, Wien 1922.
Hermann Junker, Ermenne. Bericht über die Grabungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien auf den Friedhöfen von Ermenne (Nubien), im Winter 1911/12. Mit einem Abschnitt von Hans Demel, Wien 1925.

Hans Demel, Die Reliefs der Kultkammer des Kaninsut und ihre Stellung in der Kunst des alten Reiches, in: Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien (1929) N.F. 3, 5–24.
Hans Demel, Der Totenpapyrus des Chonsu-Mes, in: Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien 13 (1944), 1–16.
Hans Demel, Ägyptische Kunst, Wien 1947.

Archives

KHM-Archiv, III 249, PA Hans Demel; IV 24, NL Hans Demel; 74/KORR/1939/40; 280/KL/1939, 322/KL/1939.

OeStA/AdR, BMU, Personalakten, 3/28, Hans Demel.

GND: 172040248

VIAF: 237874546

Wikidata: Q9286123

Ecker, Karl

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:38:26 +0000

Ecker, Karl Leonhard Weidinger Thu, 04/01/2021 - 18:17

Karl Ecker

17 August 1882 Stockerau – 4 May 1959 Vienna

After studying law at the University of Vienna, Karl Ecker had theatre training at the k. k. Akademie für Musik und darstellende Kunst (Imperial Royal Academy of Music and Performing Arts) and private lessons with Burgtheater actors Ernst Arndt and Hans Siebert. He worked originally as a dramaturge and actor, from 1913 to 1917 also as director at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg under Max Grube, 1919/1920 at the Vereinigtes Deutsches Theater in Brünn / Brno under Rudolf Beer and from 1920 to 1922 at the Wanderbühne des Österreichischen Volksbildungsamtes (Travelling Theatre of the Office for Popular Education) under Friedrich Rosenthal, until he came in 1922 to the Urania in Vienna, where he was head of the administration and also deputized for the artistic director. As his influence was restricted because of financial difficulties, he left in 1934 and in 1936 became a research assistant in the National Library's Theatre Collection. He was mainly involved at the outset in exhibitions, such as the 1936 International Theatre Exhibition, and in the library, but during the Nazi era he was a member of the National Library branch of the SA dealing with the salvaging and storage of artworks and, from 1940, managing the library's administrative air raid protection agendas. It was in this connection that he was exempted from military service in 1942. Ecker's contract with the National Library ended in March 1950.

Keywords

6 January 2019

Publications by the person / institution

Karl Ecker, Die Theatersammlung der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek in den Jahren 1932–1946, in: Joseph Gregor (Hg.), Meister und Meisterbriefe um Hermann Bahr. Aus seinen Entwürfen, Tagebüchern und seinem Briefwechsel mit Richard Strauss, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Max Reinhardt, Josef Kainz, Eleonore Duse und Anna von Mildenburg (= Museion. Veröffentlichungen der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek, Neue Folge, 1. Reihe, 1), Wien 1947, 5–45.

Karl Ecker, Die Sammlung Stefan Zweig, in: Josef Stummvoll (Hg.), Die Österreichische Nationalbibliothek. Festschrift. Hrsg. zum 25jährigen Dienstjubiläum des Generaldirektors Univ.-Prof. Dr. Josef Bick, Wien 1948, 321–330.

Archives

ÖTM, NL Karl Ecker, HS_Ec5 Nachlass.

ÖNB-Archiv, PA Karl Ecker.
ÖNB-Archiv, o.Zl., 13.9.1938, o.Zl., 20.4.1942, Az. P Nr. 400, 1.4.1950, Az. P Nr. 1128, 7.11.1949, Az. P Nr. 1048, 14.10.1949, Az. P Nr. 67, 18.1.1949, Zl. ad P 67, 17.1.1949.

Feldmann, Arthur

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:38:12 +0000

Feldmann, Arthur Leonhard Weidinger Tue, 11/17/2020 - 18:14

Arthur Feldmann

9 February 1877 Wischau / Vyškov, Moravia – 16 March 1941 Brünn / Brno

The Brno lawyer Arthur Feldmann started collecting art in the early 1920s. Otto Benesch, future director of the Albertina, assisted him considerably in compiling his collection of drawings and prints. He gave advice but also provided a professional evaluation of Feldmann's Old Master drawings of the Italian, French, German and Dutch schools. The rich collection of around 800 works was highly regarded in specialist circles in the 1930s and mentioned in numerous publications. The world economic crisis forced Feldmann to part with some of the collection. The selected works were auctioned in June 1934 by Buch- und Kunstantiquariat Gilhofer & Ranschburg in Luzern. Only a few of the lots were sold, and the remaining sheets were returned to Feldmann. The creation of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia by the Nazi regime in March 1939 sealed the fate of the collector, who had Jewish origins. In that same month, the Gestapo seized his villa in Brno and the entire art collection. Already in poor health, Feldmann was held in custody for a short time in early 1940. He died in 1941 of a stroke. His wife Gisela was deported to Theresienstadt ghetto in 1942 and murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1944. Their two sons managed to escape in 1940 to Palestine. That same year the collection was broken up and dispersed. In mid-October Heinrich Rosorius was appointed as trustee of Feldmann's assets and also acted as administrator of his estate after Feldmann's death. In 1941, Rosorius offered some 130 drawings for purchase to the Albertina but the sales were not completed. Finally, the Ministerium für Schulwesen und Volkskultur (Ministry of Schools and Popular Culture) bought the drawings and stored them as property of the Protectorate in the Moravian Museum in Brno. Some of the collection also went to the National Gallery in Prague. Others turned up in 1946 at an auction at Sotheby & Co in London, further dispersing the works in museums and private collections around the world.

Feldmann's grandson Uri Arthur Peled-Feldmann has managed in recent years to locate just over 200 drawings from his grandfather's collection and to have them restituted. They include the drawing Landschaft mit einem Felsblock dating from the second half of the sixteenth century acquired by the Albertina from the Dorotheum in 1989, whose restitution was originally rejected by the Art Restitution Advisory Board in 2005 but then recommended in 2008. Other works have been returned from the British Museum in London, the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, the Moravian Museum in Brno and the National Gallery in Prague.

Keywords

6 January 2019

Publications about the person / institution

Beschluss des Kunstrückgabebeirats, Arthur Feldmann, 14.12.2005, URL: www.provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Feldmann_Arthur_2005-12-14.pdf (3.12.2020).
Beschluss des Kunstrückgabebeirats, Arthur Feldmann, 3.10.2008, URL: www.provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Feldmann_Arthur_2008-10-03.pdf (3.12.2020).

Report of the Spoliation Advisory Panel in respect of four drawings now in the possession of the British Museum, 17. April 2006, URL: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/231795/1052.pdf (3.12.2020).
Report of the Spoliation Advisory Panel in respect of three drawings now in the possession of the Courtauld Institute of Art, January 2007, URL: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/231370/0200.pdf (3.12.2020).

Otto Benesch, in: Versteigerungskatalog Gilhofer & Ranschburg, Handzeichungen alter Meister aus zwei Privatsammlungen, Versteigerung am 28. Juni 1934, Luzern 1934, o. S.

Julia Eßl, Die Sammlung Feldmann: Spuren – Fragmente – Dokumente. Weg einer Rekonstruktion, in: Achim Gnann/Heinz Schödl (Hg.), Spurensuche. Die Sammlung Arthur Feldmann und die Albertina (= Schriftenreihe der Kommission für Provenienzforschung, Sonderband), Wien 2015, 9–23, URL: doi.org/10.7767/9783205201571-001.

Achim Gnann/Heinz Schödl (Hg.), Spurensuche. Die Sammlung Arthur Feldmann und die Albertina (= Schriftenreihe der Kommission für Provenienzforschung, Sonderband), Wien 2015, URL: doi.org/10.7767/9783205201571.

Marie Plevová, Arthur Feldmann a osud jeho umĕlecké sbírky, in: Bulletin Moravské galerie v Brně 58/59 (2001), 344–352.

Archives

Archiv Mĕsta Brna (Stadtarchiv Brünn), fond B 1/39, Národní výbor mĕsta Brna, Kartotéka domovského práva 1850–1948, Kartothek des Heimatsrechts von Arthur Feldmann.
Archiv Mĕsta Brna, fond Z 1, Pobytová evidence občanů, Brno (1909) 1918–1953, Meldezettel der Familie Feldmann.

Archiv Národního Památkové ho Ústavu úop v Brnĕ (Bundesdenkmalamt Brünn), fond Státní památkový úřad pro Moravu a Slezsko, Prezidiální spisy, sg. V 29/4, kart. č. 38.

Bundesarchiv Koblenz, B 323/491.

Landesarchiv Berlin, B Rep. 026-06, Nr. 6337/59.

Moravský zemský archiv v Brno (Mährisches Landesarchiv Brünn), Zollfahndungszweigstelle Brünn, Devisenschutz Sonderkommando Brünn, Signatur E 1339/39.

Národní archiv Praha, Arizační spisy (Nationalarchiv Prag, Arisierungsakten), Signatur 1283 A, Karton 207.
Národní archiv Praha, Ministerstvo školství (Ministerium für Schulwesen), Karton 3294.
Národní archiv Praha, Okupační vězeňské spisy (Nationalarchiv Prag, Besatzungsgefangenenakten), Signatur 101-615/5.
Národní archiv Praha, Úřad říšského protektora v Čechách a na Moravĕ (Büro des Reichsprotektors in Böhmen und Mähren), Signatur IV, Karton 1174.

UAW, Juridische Fakultät – Nationalen, Sign. 275–276.
UAW, Juridische Fakultät – Promotionsprotokoll für das Doktorat der Rechtswissenschaften, Sign. M32.4 – 797.

GND: 130175404

VIAF: 74952730

Wikidata: Q63074029

Fuchs, Siegfried

Konstantin Ferihumer — Fri, 26 Nov 2021 11:56:58 +0000

Fuchs, Siegfried Konstantin Ferihumer Fri, 11/26/2021 - 12:03

Siegfried Fuchs

26 December 1883 Vienna – 25 July 1946 Shanghai

Siegfried Fuchs was the son of the commercial agent Rudolf Fuchs from Deutschkreutz/Zelem and his wife Mathilde, née Grünwald. He studied law at the University of Vienna, graduating on 11 April 1908. In April 1918 he was admitted to the Vienna Rechtsanwaltskammer (bar association) and worked thereafter in his office at Mölkerbastei 3 in the 1st district. While still a student, he had begun to collect books, music manuscripts, scores, Viennensia and fashion items. He also owned musical instruments. After the annexation of Austria to the Nazi German Reich, Fuchs faced racial persecution on account of his origins. Under the Fifth Regulation to the Reich Citizenship Act of 27 September 1938, he was banned from working as a lawyer. Deprived of his revenue, he rapidly used up his savings to cover his living expenses and organization of his flight. He was ultimately forced to sell ethnological objects from his collection to the Museum of Folk Life and Folk Art, two musical instruments to the Kunsthistorisches Museum, music manuscripts to the City Library, and fashion items to the Städtische Sammlungen Wien. He had already sold objects to the last-named before 1938 and knew what it was interested in. On 15 September 1939, Karl Wagner, director of the Städtische Sammlungen, applied to the Central Monument Protection Office to secure the Fuchs collection, referring to its threatened "disappearance" abroad. The Central Office rejected the application, as an offer from the Städtische Sammlungen to Fuchs already existed, but it also informed other institutions about the collection. Music manuscripts and printed scores were ultimately acquired by the Music Collection at the National Library, fashion items and Viennensia by the Städtische Sammlungen, militaria by the Museum of Military History, and designs for ground glass by the Arts and Crafts Museum. Although Fuchs had been issued export authorization on 14 June 1940 for the rest of his collection, he appears to have been unable to take anything with him when he fled in December 1940. He reached Shanghai via the USSR, where he died in 1946.

During the systematic provenance research by the city of Vienna, in 2002 the Vienna restitution commission recommended the return of objects owned by Siegfried Fuchs to his heirs. Similar decisions were passed by the federal Art Restitution Advisory Board in 2005 for objects in the Austrian National Library, in 2006 for objects in the MAK and in 2012 for those in the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Further restitution recommendations by the Art Restitution Advisory Board were made in 2015 and 2021 for objects from the Fuchs collection in the Museum of Military History.

Keywords

19 October 2021

Publications about the person / institution

Beiratsbeschluss Siegfried Fuchs, 29.6.2005, URL: www.provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Fuchs_Siegfried_2005-06-29.pdf (13.9.2021).
Beiratsbeschluss Siegfried Fuchs, 28.6.2006, URL: www.provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Fuchs_Siegfried_2006-06-28.pdf (13.9.2021).
Resolution of the Advisory Board Siegfried Fuchs, 20 April 2012, URL: www.provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Fuchs_Siegfried_2012-04-20_english.pdf (13 September 2021).
Resolution of the Advisory Board Siegfried Fuchs, 15 October 2015, URL: www.provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Fuchs_Siegfried_2015-10-15.pdf (13 September 2021).
Resolution of the Advisory Board Siegfried Fuchs, 29 June 2021, URL: www.provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Fuchs_Siegfried_2021-06-29.pdf (13 September 2021).

Peter Eppel/Christian Mertens, Die Restitution von Kunst- und Kulturgegenständen aus dem Besitz der Stadt Wien 1998–2001, Historisches Museum der Stadt Wien (Museen der Stadt Wien) und Wiener Stadt- und Landesbibliothek (Hg.), Wien 2002, 27–29 u. 81–83.

Murray G. Hall/Christina Köstner, … Allerlei für die Nationalbibliothek zu ergattern … Eine österreichische Institution in der NS-Zeit. Wien-Köln-Weimar 2006, 302–304.

Michaela Melián, Sammlung Siegfried Fuchs, 2008, in: Alexandra Reininghaus (Hg.), Recollecting. Raub und Restitution. Wien 2008, 168.

Michael Wladika, Fallgeschichte Siegfried Fuchs, in: Alexandra Reininghaus (Hg.), Recollecting. Raub und Restitution. Wien 2008, 165.

Archives

BDA-Archiv, Restitutionsmaterialien, K 35/1, Siegfried Fuchs.

OeStA/AdR, E-uReang, VVSt, VA 40.691, Siegfried Fuchs.

Geyer, Emil

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:38:10 +0000

Geyer, Emil Leonhard Weidinger Tue, 03/09/2021 - 08:54

Emil Geyer

29 November 1872 Swoikowitz / Vojkovice, Moravia – 12 October 1942 Mauthausen concentration camp

born Emil Goldmann, artist's name Geyer

Emil Goldmann was born in Swoikowitz, Moravia, in 1872 as the oldest of nine children of the tenant farmer Jakob Goldmann and his wife Amalie. After completing his secondary schooling in Znaim (Znojmo), he moved to Vienna to study and became a doctor of law in 1895. He then went to Berlin to study economics but stopped after just one semester to devote himself to the theatre, working initially above all as an actor. In these early years, he met Max Reinhardt, who became a lifelong friend. After converting from Judaism to Protestantism, Goldmann is documented at least from 1902 as performing under the name Geyer. After working at the Schauspielhaus in Dusseldorf as director and dramaturge, and in the Märkisches Wandertheater in Berlin, Emil Geyer returned to Vienna in 1912 with his wife, the Berlin actress Ellen Neustädter (1885–1926), and their daughter Eva Maria (1907–1975), where he became director of the Neue Wiener Bühne in Harmoniegasse in Vienna's 9th district. Probably as a result of the separation from his wife, who left for Hamburg with the actor Leo Reuss, he moved again to Berlin in 1921 to take up the position of chief director and deputy manager at the Robert-Bühnen belonging to Eugen Robert. After Ellen Neustädter's suicide in 1926, Geyer, who had now been appointed deputy director of Theater in der Josefstadt by Max Reinhardt and in 1930 also authorized director of the Max Reinhardt Seminar, returned to Vienna. In this theatre, which had considerable financial difficulties as a result of the general theatre crisis, he was replaced by his former deputy, the future Hollywood director Otto Preminger, but he continued as a director there and at the Deutsches Volkstheater. Thanks to his various engagements, he had many contacts in the German-speaking art and culture world, including Arthur Schnitzler, Richard Beer-Hofmann, Egon Friedell, Franz Theodor Csokor, Else Lasker-Schüler, Lina Loos, Salka Viertel, Attila Hörbiger and Paula Wessely.

There are numerous letters from the time after the annexation of Austria to the German Reich describing Geyer's increasing despair at the successive deprivations of his rights. His daughter Eva Geyer, also an actress, managed to escape to the USA with her husband, the gynaecologist and art collector Paul Singer (1904–1997), but Emil Geyer, who was now obliged to use his former name Goldmann, was no longer able to escape from Austria. After his dismissal from the Reinhardt Seminar he was forced of necessity, as he told his former student Judith Holzmeister, to sell some of his art collection. It is not possible today to reconstruct exactly what it consisted of. On the advice of the writer and art historian George Saiko, whom Geyer had supported financially, he had acquired works by Oskar Kokoschka, Egon Schiele, whose patron Arthur Roessler he also knew personally, Gustav Klimt, Theodor Allesch-Alescha, Franz Pechstein and also Wassili Kandinsky. The many letters by Geyer, among others to his friends Richard Beer-Hofmann or Max Reinhardt's secretary Gusti Adler in US exile and to Erhard Buschbeck at the Vienna Burgtheater, asking them to intervene were in vain. He was forced to move from Siebensterngasse (renamed Straße der Julikämpfer to commemorate the failed July putsch by the Austrian National Socialists in 1934) to collective housing at Krugerstraße 5 in the 1st district. After being captured by the Gestapo following a failed attempt to escape with his sister Jeanette and her husband Otto Richard Hermann, he was deported on 31 July 1942 to Mauthausen concentration camp and shot a few days later "while attempting to escape". There is no documentary evidence to support the claims made after the war that Paula Wessely and other fellow actors attempted to have Geyer released from Gestapo detention. It is unclear whether and in what way Joseph Gregor, director of the Österreichisches Theatermuseum, shared responsibility for Geyer's fate, as his future wife Maria Kotera attempted to disclaim in 1947. That same year George Saiko's partner Gabriele Gross informed the Federal Monuments Authority that he had acquired from Emil Geyer a watercolour by Josef Kriehuber, which she had brought to the Dorotheum in 1943 and sold for the Linzer Kunstmuseum. Research subsequently revealed, however, that this watercolour had been part of the art collection of the Viennese lawyer Josef Blauhorn, who fled to London. The picture was returned to his legal successors in May 2013. The whereabouts of Emil Geyer's art collection and extensive library are not known.

Keywords

6 January 2019

Publications about the person / institution

Beschluss des Kunstrückgabebeirats, Auguste und Josef Blauhorn, 3.5.2013, URL: www.provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Blauhorn_Auguste_Josef_2013-05-03.pdf (3.12.2020).

Ilse Bachmann, Emil Geyer (1872–1942). Regisseur – Theaterleiter – Pädagoge – Schauspieler, Dissertation Universität Wien 2003.

Franz Theodor Csokor, Auch heute noch nicht an Land. Briefe und Gedichte aus dem Exil, hg. v. Franz Richard Reiter, Wien 1993.

Milan Dubrovic, Veruntreute Geschichte. Die Wiener Salons und Literatencafés, Wien 1985.

Edda Fuhrich, Das Theater in der Josefstadt 1924 bis 1935, in: Gerald M. Bauer/Birgit Peter (Hg.), Das Theater in der Josefstadt. Kultur, Politik, Ideologie für Eliten? (= Wien – Musik und Theater 3), Wien 2010, 47–58.

Hilde Haider-Pregler, Überlebens-Theater. Der Schauspieler Reuss, Wien 1998.

Hilde Haider-Pregler, Wien 1938 – Spurensuche nach den Vergessenen der Theatergeschichte. Eine biographische Annäherung an Emil Geyer und Lilly Karoly, in: Theo Girshausen/Henry Thorau (Hg.), Theater als Ort der Geschichte. Festschrift für Henning Rischbieter, Velber 1998, 183–191.

Judith Holzmeister, Erzählte Erinnerung, in: Peter Roessler/Susanne Gföller (Hg.), Erinnerung. Beiträge zum 75. Jahrestag der Eröffnung des Max Reinhardt Seminars. Eine Dokumentation, Wien 2005, 37–39.

Else Lasker-Schüler, Briefe 1925–1933, bearb. v. Sigrid Bauschinger, Frankfurt am Main 2005.
Else Lasker-Schüler, Briefe 1933–1936, bearb. v. Karl Jürgen Skrodzki, Frankfurt am Main 2008.

Peter Roessler, Paul Kalbeck – der Regisseur als Lehrer, in: Judith Pór-Kalbeck (Hg.), Paul Kalbeck – ein Poet der Regie. Der Lebensweg eines Wieners (= Bilder aus einem Theaterleben 3), Wien 2005, 173–212.
Peter Roessler, Zur Geschichte des Reinhardt-Seminars von 1928 bis 1938, in: Peter Roessler/Günter Einbrodt/Susanne Gföllner (Hg.), Die vergessenen Jahre. Zum 75. Jahrestag der Eröffnung des Max Reinhardt Seminars, Wien 2004, 11–52.

Arthur Schnitzler, Tagebuch 1913–1916, hg. v. Peter Michael Braunwarth, Wien 1983.
Arthur Schnitzler, Tagebuch 1920–1922, hg. v. Peter Michael Braunwarth, Wien 1993.

Andrea Winkelbauer/Brigitte Borchardt-Birbaumer (Hg.), Euphorie und Unbehagen. Das jüdische Wien und Richard Wagner. Publikation anlässlich der Ausstellung Euphorie und Unbehagen. Das jüdische Wien und Richard Wagner des Jüdischen Museums Wien, 25.9.2013–16.3.2014, Wien 2013.

Publications by the person / institution

Emil Goldmann, Gerhart Hauptmann. Vortrag, gehalten in der Redehalle-Versammlung vom 29. October 1892, in: Bericht der Lese- und Redehalle der Deutschen Studenten in Prag über das Jahr 1892, Prag 1893, 3–23.

Emil Geyer, Das Pathos im Werk des Kuenstlers, in: Franz Flaum, Fuenf Essays von Stanislaw Przybyszewski, Rudolf v. Delius, S. Lublinski, Dr. Emil Geyer, Cesary Jellenta, Berlin 1904, 26–31.
Emil Geyer, Ein Dichter, in: Morgen 2 (1908) 2, 1208–1210.
Emil Geyer, Vom Pathos der Zeit, Leipzig 1908.

Theater und Kunst. Vokstheaterkandidaten. II. Gespräch mit Direktor Dr. Emil Geyer, in: Fremden-Blatt, 21.2.1918, 10–11, URL: anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?aid=fdb&datum=19180221&seite=10 (3.12.2020).

Archives

Archiv des Max Reinhardt Seminars, Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst, Zl. 84/Res/39.

Archiv hl. mesta Prahy, Bratislava, NDT Inv. cis 13/Karton 15, Regieseminar Schönbrunn.

BDA-Archiv, Restitutionsmaterialien, K. 36/3, PM Gabriele Gross.
BDA-Ausfuhr, Zl.167/1941, Emil Geyer.

Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach, A: Salka Viertel.

DÖW, Datenbank österreichischer Shoah-Opfer und Todesopfer politischer Verfolgung 1938 bis 1945 sowie von der Gestapo Wien erkennungsdienstlich erfasster Männer und Frauen.
DÖW, Zl. 5733c, Gestapo-Leitstelle Wien, Tagesbericht Nr. 10, Rapport vom 22. bis 24.5.1942.
DÖW, Zl. 15.950, Gustav Breuer an Adrienne Gessner, 18.9.1945.

Harvard University, Houghton Library_Beer-Hofmann, Richard, 1866–1945, Richard Beer-Hofmann correspondence, 1882–1967, MS Ger 183 (177).

OeStA/AdR, E-uReang, VVSt, VA 40.256, Emil Goldmann.
OeStA/AVA, 2898, 15 C 1, Leumundszeugnis Emil Geyer, Bundespolizeidirektion Wien, 17.12.1928.

ÖNB, Literaturarchiv, Teil-NL Ernst Martin Benedikt, Zl. 381/B21.
ÖNB, Sammlung von Handschriften und alten Drucken, NL Erhard Buschbeck.

ÖTM-Archiv, PA Josef Gregor, Maria Kotera, Eidesstattliche Erklärung, 5.6.1947.
ÖTM, Handschriftensammlung, NL Heinrich Schnitzler.
ÖTM, Handschriftensammlung, NL Paula Wessely.

Wienbibliothek, Handschriftensammlung, NL Theodor Allesch-Alescha, ZPH 1399/1; ZPH 1331.
Wienbibliothek, Handschriftensammlung, NL Milan Dubrovic, ZPH 944
Wienbibliothek, Handschriftensammlung, NL Max Reinhardt, ZPH 1565, K. 11, 2.5.193.

GND: 116602872

VIAF: 74607487

Wikidata: Q1336114

Grünebaum, Moriz

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:38:10 +0000

Grünebaum, Moriz

Susanne Hehenberger Thu, 11/19/2020 - 10:55

Moriz Grünebaum

6 March 1873 Vienna – 21 December 1942 Theresienstadt ghetto / Terezín

also Moriz Ritter von Grünebaum

Moriz Grünebaum was the son of Gustav Grünebaum, k. k. Hofrat and head of the Bauabteilung der Staatsbahnen (building department of the state railways), who was made a hereditary peer in 1876. After studying law in Vienna and Kraków (doctorate in 1905), Moriz entered the service of the Niederösterreichische Statthalterei (Lower Austria governor's office). In 1910 he became librarian of the k. k. statistische Zentralkommission (Imperial Royal Main Statistics Commission), transferred in 1925 to the University of Vienna library and in 1931 to the Akademie der bildenden Künste in Wien (Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna), from where he retired four years later as state librarian first class. He lived at Liechtensteinstraße 45A in Vienna’s 9th district with his wife Laura (née Pollak, after leaving the Jewish Community in 1910 Pernier, 15 August 1869 –22 October 1940), owner of the lingerie business John & Pernier, and his widowed mother Charlotte Grünebaum (née Forchheimer, 27 February 1849–14 October 1941). Grünebaum, who had been a member of the Österreichische Exlibris-Gesellschaft since it was founded in 1903, collected prints, ex libris and books and also had an extensive collection of "Mandlbögen" (Biedermeier cutout sheets for paper theatres) from Kunstverlag Trentsensky in Vienna. He published regularly in the Österreichisches Jahrbuch für Exlibris und Gebrauchsgraphik and in newsletters by the Österreichische Exlibris-Gesellschaft and himself illustrated one of the two fairy tale books that his mother published during the First World War. He had ex libris made by Felix Hochstimm and Hans Przibram.

After the annexation of Austria in 1938, Grünebaum was considered a Jew, in spite of his conversion to Catholicism in 1895. The Institut für Denkmalpflege (Institute for Monument Preservation) was particularly interested in disposing of his "Mandlbögen" and entered into negotiations with the Niederdonau-Sammlungen (Lower Danube Collections), the present-day Landesmuseum Niederösterreich (Lower Austria Provincial Museum) in that regard. Grünebaum had to store his art collection with the transporter Spedition J. Z. Dworak junior when he moved in October 1940 after Laura's death with his mother to sister Margarete Fürth, widow of the doctor and chemist Otto Fürth. They lived only a few months in Döbling before Moriz, Margarete and their daughter Wilhelmine were forced to move into a "Sammelwohnung" (collective apartment) in Herminengasse. In August 1942 Moriz Grünebaum was deported to Theresienstadt, where he perished at the end of the year at the age of sixty-nine. Margarete and Wilhelmine Fürth had been murdered shortly before in Maly Trostinec.

Between 1948 and 1957, works from Grünebaum's turned up on the Vienna art market. The auction house S. Kende sold over 1,500 Mandlbögen in several lots to the present-day Wien Museum; in 1957, the Albertina acquired a drawing from the art dealer Leopoldine Zelenka; and in 1986/87 three prints that had also been sold in 1953 by S. Kende were part of a major donation to the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Because of his stamp, the inscription "Fuer Pflicht und Ehr", the initials MG and an emblem, the objects were clearly identified as having come from Grünebaum's collection. It is no longer possible to reconstruct when and how the works came onto the art market. In February 2017 the Vienna Restitution Commission determined that the Mandlbögen in the Wien Museum should be restituted. In its decision of 11 January 2019, the Art Restitution Advisory Board recommended the restitution of the sheets in the Academy and the drawing in the Albertina.

Keywords

29 May 2019

Publications about the person / institution

Beschluss des Kunstrückgabebeirats, Moriz Grünebaum, 11.1.2019, URL: www.provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Gruenebaum_Moriz_2019-01-11.pdf (3.12.2020).

Marlene Falmbigl, Bücher sammeln aus Leidenschaft – Privatbibliotheken in Wien um 1900, Diplomarbeit Universität Wien 2009.

Die kleine Welt des Bilderbogens: Der Wiener Verlag Trentsensky. Sonderausstellung des Historischen Museums der Stadt Wien, 9. Juni – 11. September 1977 (= Sonderausstellung des Historischen Museums der Stadt Wien 50), Wien 1977.

Hubert Kaut, Alt-Wiener Spielzeugschachtel. Wiener Kinderspielzeug aus drei Jahrhunderten, Wien 1961.

Ellen G. Landau, "A Fairytale Circumstance". The Influence of Stage Design on the Work of Francois Boucher, in: The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 70 (1983) 9, 360–378.

Frits Lugt, Les Marques de Collections de Dessins & d’Estampes | Fondation Custodia, Eintrag aus dem Jahr 1921, URL: www.marquesdecollections.fr/detail.cfm/marque/8502/total/1 (3.12.2020).

N. N., Moritz Ritter von Grünebaum, Exlibrissammler und Bibliothekar, in: Mitteilungen der Österreichischen Exlibris-Gesellschaft NF 58 (2003) 2.

Max Osborn, Handbuch des Kunstmarktes. Kunstadressbuch für das Deutsche Reich, Danzig und Deutsch-Österreich, Berlin 1926.

Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (Hg.), Handbuch österreichischer Autorinnen und Autoren jüdischer Herkunft. 18. bis 20. Jahrhundert, Berlin 2002.

R. Werner Soukup, Die wissenschaftliche Welt von gestern. Die Preisträger des Ignaz L. Lieben-Prieses 1865–1937 und des Richard Lieben-Preises 1912–1928, Wien-Köln-Weimar 2004.

Isabella Stadler/Rudolf Werner Soukup, Das Gästebuch der Familie Lieben. Ein Dokument der Kontakte dieser bedeundenden [sic] Wissenschaftlerfamilie zu in- und ausländischen Gelehrten vor und nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg, URL: www.rudolf-werner-soukup.at/Publikationen/Dokumente/Varia/Gaestebuch_Familie_Lieben.pdf (3.12.2020).

Lisa-Marie Tillian, "Tausend Dank für dein Briefl." Eine Untersuchung weiblicher Lebenswelten im jüdischen Großbürgertum in Wien zwischen 1872 und 1937 anhand der Briefe von Mathilde Lieben an Marie de Rothschild, Dissertation Universität Wien 2013.

Robert Winter, Das Akademische Gymnasium in Wien. Vergangenheit und Gegenwart, Wien-Köln-Weimar 1996.

Verzeichnis Jüdischer Autoren. Vorläufige Zusammenstellung der Reichsstelle zur Förderung des deutschen Schrifttums, Til II, E – G, 177, Berlin 1938/1939.

Publications by the person / institution

Moritz Grünebaum, Geschichte der Bibliothek der k.k. statistischen Zentralkommission, Sonderabdruck aus dem August-September-Heft der Statistischen Monatsschrift, 18. Jahrgang, Brünn 1913.
Moriz Grünebaum, Ein Besuch bei Richard Teschner, in: Österreichische Exlibris-Gesellschaft. Jahrbuch 16 (1918), 33–38.
Moriz Grünebaum, Neue Exlibris von Walter Kühn, München, in: Österreichische Exlibris-Gesellschaft. Jahrbuch 16 (1918), 31–32.
Moriz Grünebaum, Liesbeth Haase, in: Österreichische Exlibris-Gesellschaft. Jahrbuch 17 (1919), 53–54.
Moriz Grünebaum, Ludwig Hesshaimer, in: Österreichische Exlibris-Gesellschaft. Jahrbuch 17 (1919), 37–40.
Moriz Grünebaum, Arthur Paunzen, in Österreichische Exlibris Gesellschaft, Jahrbuch 18 (1920), 17–18.
Moriz Grünebaum, Drei Exlibris-Künstlerinnen. Franziska Jaksch, Rosa R. Schwarz, Christl Kerry, in: Österreichische Exlibris-Gesellschaft. Jahrbuch 18 (1920), 19–20.
Moriz Grünebaum, Hans Przibram, in: Österreichische Exlibris-Gesellschaft (1921), 8–10.
Moriz R. v. Grünebaum, Schattentheater und Scherenschnitt, in: Jahrbuch der österreichischen Leo-Gesellschaft (1929), 141–177.
Moriz R. v. Grünebaum, Seltsame Berufsbezeichnungen aus den Sterbelisten des Wienerischen Diariums, der Wiener Zeitung und den Tauf- und Totenprotokollen Wiener Pfarrämter von 1740 bis 1828. Eine kulturhistorische Untersuchung, in: Unsere Heimat, N. F. 17 (1946) 6, 191–198.

Charlotte von Grünebaum, Was Großmama den Kindern erzählt. Märchen. Mit Bildern von Arthur Paunzen, Wien 1914.
Charlotte von Grünebaum, Aus der Kriegszeit. Märchen und Erzählungen. Mit Illustrationen von M. v. Grünebaum, Wien 1915.

Archives

BDA-Archiv, Restitutionsmaterialien, K. 36/3, PM Dr. Moritz Grünebaum.

DÖW, Datenbank der österreichischen Shoah-Opfer, Spiegelgrund-Opfer und Todesopfer politischer Verfolgung 1938 bis 1945 sowie von der Gestapo Wien erkennungsdienstlich erfasster Männer und Frauen, www.doew.at

Gedenkstätte Terezin, Ghetto Theresienstadt, Ältestenrat, Todesfallanzeige Moriz Israel Grünebaum, Sterbematrik 15.133.

Heraldisch-Genealogische Gesellschaft Adler, Partezettelsammlung, Ankündigung der hl. Seelenmesse für Dr. Moriz Ritter von Grünebaum, Dezember 1945.

OeStA/AdR, E-uReang, VVSt, § 14 Kartei, Zl. 29356, Moritz Grünebaum, 13.10.1939.
OeStA/AdR, E-uReang, VVSt, VA 35753, Moriz Grünebaum.

Privatarchiv Otto Fürth, Lebenserinnerungen, X. Teile, maschinenschriftliches Manuskript.

UAAbKW, PM Moritz Grünebaum, Staatsbibliothekar, Zl. 1004/1931.

Universitätsbibliothek Wien, PA Moriz Grünebaum

WStLA, LG für Zivilrechtssachen Wien I, 48T 956/46-8, Erkenntnis über den Beweis des Todes, 27.11.1946.
WStLA, BG Innere Stadt, 15 A 82/47, Todfallsaufnahme Moriz Grünebaum, errichtet am 5.2.1947, ergänzt am 14.2.1947.
WStLA, Handelsgericht, A43-A, Registerakten, A 14, 211, Fa. John & Cie; John & Pernier.

GND: 141515457

VIAF: 122223892

Wikidata: Q104686738