Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Bavarian State Painting Collections" in English language version.
The Monuments Men tracked down Nazi looted art. Only for German museum directors to return it to the families of the Nazi leaders rather than to the Jewish families who were its rightful owners.
In response to the Sueddeutsche Zeitung article 'Munich's Looted Art Bazaar' of 25 June and the Commission for Looted Art's Press Release of 27 June, the Bavarian State Paintings Collections (Bayerische Staatsgemaeldsammlungen, BSGS) issued a statement on 28 June attempting to refute the facts set out in both documents. The Commission for Looted Art in Europe (CLAE) has today issued a full response showing that the BSGS statement is both inaccurate and misleading. The BSGS statement, which makes no mention of the victims of Nazi looting, and refers to provenance research as "tedious", further confirms the concerns expressed by families and the press across the world over the last few days, and underlines the need for root and branch reform in the way research and restitution are carried out in Germany, so that justice becomes fully available.
From 1933 onwards the family increasingly became the victim of Nazi persecution. While attacks were initially on a personal level, from 1938 onward these developed into a systematic, state-ordered persecution and an annihilation of the family. The compulsory sale of the business and the house on Annaplatz was ordered and other payments levied. The family was forced to move twice until Ludwig and Selma Friedmann received deportation orders in 1943. At this time all four children were living abroad. Their parents had, however, remained in Augsburg where they had lived and worked all their lives, and where Ludwig Friedmann was vice-president of the Jewish Community. On the eve before they were to be deported, Ludwig and Selma Friedmann took their own lives.
According to documentation received by the Commission in 2011, the Bavarian State Paintings Collection had sold the painting in 1962 for 300 German Deutsche Marks. The buyer? Henriette Hoffmann-von Schirach, Heinrich Hoffmann's daughter and the wife of Baldur von Schirach, the Hitler Youth leader who became the Nazi governor of Vienna and oversaw the deportation of the city's Jews. Henriette, it turned out, had requested and was granted several works from her father's collection.
The works—five paintings, three prints, and a wooden panel with ivory reliefs—were confiscated from the couple's apartment in Munich in 1938 and found their way into the collections of the Bavarian State Painting Collections, the Bavarian National Museum, and the State Collections of Prints and Drawings in 1955. When the Davidsohns were sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, where Julius died in August 1942 and Semaya died a few months later, in April 1943, the works ended up at a collecting point at Munich's Königsplatz before they were acquired by the museums.
A.S. Drey's gallery partners, which included the Sterns, as well as Franz and Paul Drey, were all of Jewish heritage. In 1935, the Reich chamber of fine arts announced that their Munich art gallery would be dissolved. The dealers were then required to pay a massive sum and punitive taxes, which forced them to consign several works from their holdings, including the wooden panel of Saint Florian. It was bought by the Bavarian state in 1936.
The Monuments Men tracked down Nazi looted art. Only for German museum directors to return it to the families of the Nazi leaders rather than to the Jewish families who were its rightful owners.
In response to the Sueddeutsche Zeitung article 'Munich's Looted Art Bazaar' of 25 June and the Commission for Looted Art's Press Release of 27 June, the Bavarian State Paintings Collections (Bayerische Staatsgemaeldsammlungen, BSGS) issued a statement on 28 June attempting to refute the facts set out in both documents. The Commission for Looted Art in Europe (CLAE) has today issued a full response showing that the BSGS statement is both inaccurate and misleading. The BSGS statement, which makes no mention of the victims of Nazi looting, and refers to provenance research as "tedious", further confirms the concerns expressed by families and the press across the world over the last few days, and underlines the need for root and branch reform in the way research and restitution are carried out in Germany, so that justice becomes fully available.
According to documentation received by the Commission in 2011, the Bavarian State Paintings Collection had sold the painting in 1962 for 300 German Deutsche Marks. The buyer? Henriette Hoffmann-von Schirach, Heinrich Hoffmann's daughter and the wife of Baldur von Schirach, the Hitler Youth leader who became the Nazi governor of Vienna and oversaw the deportation of the city's Jews. Henriette, it turned out, had requested and was granted several works from her father's collection.
The works—five paintings, three prints, and a wooden panel with ivory reliefs—were confiscated from the couple's apartment in Munich in 1938 and found their way into the collections of the Bavarian State Painting Collections, the Bavarian National Museum, and the State Collections of Prints and Drawings in 1955. When the Davidsohns were sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, where Julius died in August 1942 and Semaya died a few months later, in April 1943, the works ended up at a collecting point at Munich's Königsplatz before they were acquired by the museums.
A.S. Drey's gallery partners, which included the Sterns, as well as Franz and Paul Drey, were all of Jewish heritage. In 1935, the Reich chamber of fine arts announced that their Munich art gallery would be dissolved. The dealers were then required to pay a massive sum and punitive taxes, which forced them to consign several works from their holdings, including the wooden panel of Saint Florian. It was bought by the Bavarian state in 1936.
