Susan Ronald - Hitlers Art Thief

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For Alexander Hoyt, Gunther Hoyt

and

my husband, Doug

who would have thought

I could have never written this book without the inspired support of my dedicatees. My editor, Charles Spicer, and the entire St. Martins team have been incredible in allowing me to create the book I was compelled to write. To my assistant and researcher, Mara Weiner-Macario, thank you for your tireless efforts in pulling down thousands of documentsa page at a timefrom Fold3.com and analyzing all those transcripts in Spanish.

The generosity of a number of people also made this book possible. In alphabetical order, they are Ambassador Ido Aharoni, Julie Goodman Aharoni, Richard Aronowitz-Mercer, Alexander Balerdi, Stephanie Barron, Aurore Blaise, Rolf von Bleichert, Amanda Borschel-Dan, Greg Bradsher, Evelien Campfens, Virginia Cardwell-Moore, Michael Carlisle, Gerald Dtsch, Harry Ettlinger, Maureen Finkelstein, Helen Fry, Christian Fuhrmeister, Patricia Gillet, Dominic Gray, Johannes Hauslauer, Stefan Holzinger, Mieke Hopp, Polly Hutchison, Dotti Irving, Stephan Klingen, Ronald S. Lauder, Monique Leblois-Pechon, Matthias Leniert, Johanne Lisewski, Anton Lffelmeier, Chris Marinello, August Matteis, Richard G. Mitchell, Elisabeth Nowak-Thaller, Ralf Peters, Dirk Petrat, Jonathan Petropoulos, Hubert Portz, Julian Radcliffe, Ruth Redmond-Cooper, Julia Rickmeyer, Peter Robinson, Lena Schwaudecker, Jonathan Searle, Robin and Suzie Sheppard, Delphie Stockwell, Markus Stoetzel, Michael Stoetzel, Katrin Stoll, Karen Taieb, David Toren, Mel Urbach, Anne Webber, and Lois White.

I am especially grateful to lawyers Chris Marinello, Markus Stoetzel, and Mel Urbach for sharing their knowledge of the fraught area of restitution with me. Jonathan Petropoulos has also been unstinting in sharing two unpublished articles for this book and helping me to understand the tortuous relationship he had with that plausible liar who worked at times with Gurlitt, Bruno Lohse. To Stephan Holzinger, my gratitude for sharing his knowledge base at such a busy time, and letting Cornelius know that I was writing the type of book he had hoped would one day be published (although perhaps he would be less happy with the result). For all of those who wished to remain entirely anonymous, I thank you, too. As always, the staff at all the following libraries and archives have been invaluable: the London Library, the National Archives (Kew, London), Archives Nationales de France, the National Archives (College Park, MD), the Getty Research Library (Los Angeles, CA), the New York Historical Society, the Dresden City Archives, and the Bundesarchiv at Koblenz and Berlin, the National Art Library at the V&A (London), Kings College Cambridge, the Bodleian Library Oxford, the British Library, and the Courtauld Institute of Art. Photographs from Germany are included courtesy of the photographic archives of bpk, dpa, SLUB-Dresden, and Stadtarchiv Dsseldorf. In England, the Press Association and Vantage News Agency kindly provided photographs of Hildebrand and Cornelius. The Getty in Los Angeles provided photos of two of Gurlitts looted works of art. All artworks have been separately licensed (providing royalties to the artists and heirs) through DACS in the UK.

For those of you who helped me on my 26,000-mile-plus trek in the past year, I can hardly express my gratitude for sustenance, free beds, and your support. Marjorie Bliss, Maureen Burgess, Laurette Dieujuste, Sue Froud, James and Philippa Lewis, Rick and Sue Parker, Charlotte and Steve Sass, Barbi and Larry Weinberg, and Jan and Phil Zakowski, you truly helped to make this book possible. Most importantly, my husband, Doug, deserves his extra due: not only did he put up with a wife who read Mein Kampf cover to cover and had recurring nightmares, but he also accompanied me on my travels, understood when I was silent and reflective, and helped me work through conundrumsall while completing his own book on youth and war propaganda. Youre my hero.

For you, the reader, I hope that you have learned a great deal about life in Germany during the First World War and afterward; and in doing so, that you have come to understand the pressures that made three generations of Gurlitts what they were. I am pleased that Cornelius finally broke the mold and can only hope that his wishes will be respected. I implore Germany and the Bern Kunstmuseum to return the art to the heirs as he wishedurgently.

I hope you enjoy reading and learning about Hildebrand Gurlitt, the Nazis, and a billion dollars in looted art. Any errors are, of course, my own.

S USAN R ONALD

Oxford

December 2014

Obviously, times change. So do names. For those who lived through what we now call World War I, it was known as the Great War. There was no World War II at the time, and so I refer to that first war as the Great War in the book. Similarly, a number of countries changed their names in the period covered. I refer to each of those countries by the name that was current at the time of the events described, save for Great Britain, which I retain throughout. Great Britain, officially called the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland today, comprised the countries of Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and England until the Irish Free State was established, in August 1922. In December 1937, the Irish Free State became Ireland, or Eire in Gaelic. Ireland, where appropriate, is referred to separately. Other examples include the empire of Austria-Hungary, so known until it was carved up into Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia (now of course changed again to the Czech Republic and Slovakia), Slovenia, and Croatia; the German Empire under Kaiser Wilhelm II; and Palestine (as a British protectorate), which is now Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. As these countries adopt their new official names, the text changes to reflect the new national identity. Similarly, as republics or governments change within countries, such as the Weimar Republic in Germany between the world wars, I refer to these governments individually. I feel this will help the reader understand the dislocation felt by all those populations involved.

There are a number of foreign words in this book, mostly German and French. Words for Nazi organizations like Reichskulturkammer (the Reich Chamber of Culture) are abbreviated after the first use into the more acceptable English formRKK in this example. Some wordsfrom the German, in particulardo not have an exact English translation, so Ive taken the most commonly used terminology. Where appropriate, I translate the name of the organization into English. A list of these words is provided in the glossary at the end of the book. The final administrative point is that all translations from French are my own, as I am fluent in French (having lived in France for nearly six years). For German, which I can read but speak far less well than French, I have worked in conjunction with a professional mother-tongue German translator through Trans-Solutions in Oxfordshire who also verified my translations into English for accuracy.

The Gurlitt saga began for me in 1998 on one of those heavily laden, bone-chilling winter days that curse Europe from late October to April. Back then, I was an investment banker specializing almost exclusively in the restoration of historic buildings and landscapes and their conversion to alternative use. To my knowledge, I was the only such independent beast in the licensed banking community, which made me as rare as a golden unicorn to some (or a proverbial dragon to others) and gave me a very minor rock star status. I recognized that I was able to see and know things and places most people could never glimpse. That said, Id grown curmudgeonly and badly needed a change. I had no inkling that this would become one of the most significant days in my working life.