When valuable artworks plundered by the Nazi regime turn up in public and private collections, there are strict procedures to discover the , or origin, of the work — and to alert any descendants of the original owner.
During the Nazi dictatorship between 1933 and 1945, experts say that at least 200,000 works of art were taken from their mostly Jewish owners in Germany, whether through direct expropriation or forced sales. Many Jewish art collectors left Germany or were deported to death camps.
Now it has been revealed that the Bavarian State Painting Collections possess some 200 artworks looted by the Nazis — among them paintings by early 20th-century modernists like Germany’s Max Beckmann and . Yet the Jewish owners have seemingly been kept in the dark.
The body that oversees collections in Bavarian museums and public art galleries appointed provenance experts to systematically research the origins of works marked red to symbolize their theft during the Nazi dictatorship.
This is according to German daily newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, which received leaked files of the provenance research list that the Bavarian arts body had not made public. It is alleged that the true number of Nazi-looted works held in the southern German state collections could be as high as 800.
A ‘scandal’ if Nazi-looted works ‘withheld,’ says culture minister
German federal Minister of State for Culture, Claudia Roth, told German news agency dpa that the leak could signal a “lack of transparency,” and “possibly deliberate concealment.”
“It would be a scandal if knowledge about Nazi-looted art was and is deliberately withheld here,” she added.
Roth also feared that there would be a “prevention of fair and equitable solutions,” referring to the process that would see the return of plundered art.
Roth has often reaffirmed Germany’s adherence to the Washington Principles, a 1998 agreement made by 44 countries deciding that state collections holding Nazi-confiscated art were to return it to the original owners. This process would be aided by museums and collections through the funding of thorough provenance research.
Jewish art dealer’s heirs demand restitution
Based on the 900-page list of looted artworks created by Bavaria’s state painting collection, the heirs of the Jewish art dealer Alfred Flechtheim have demanded the of several works. He was a pioneering supporter of modernist masters, from Paul Klee to Matisse, Picasso and Edvard Munch.
Flechtheim’s grand-nephew Michael Hulton and his stepmother Penny Hulton filed a complaint against the state of Bavaria back in 2016 about the works, with the long-running dispute resurfacing again almost a decade later.
According to the heirs’ complaint, Flechtheim was forced to leave the paintings behind when he fled Berlin for Paris in May 1933 to escape persecution — four months after Adolf Hitler seized power. Many paintings in the art dealer’s collection were subsequently stolen, sold or hidden.
Flechtheim’s heirs have claimed that some of the paintings now held in Bavaria were sold by Nazi art dealer , who was allowed to sell works deemed “degenerate” by the Nazis. Some 1,400 ill-gotten paintings were discovered in the Munich apartment of Gurlitt’s reclusive son in 2012. The collection drew attention to the massive scale of Nazi art plunder.
Max Beckmann’s “Chinese Fireworks” (1927) are among the works that Flechtheim’s descendants want returned.
“Bavaria should have informed the surviving relatives of victims, reported the works to public databases and initiated restitution proceedings,” said the heirs’ lawyers in a statement. “In fact, it is clear that Bavaria did not want to adhere to these rules from the outset and shamelessly exploited the ignorance of many potential claimants.”
But the Bavarian authorities reject the allegations, telling dpa that the leaked list of Nazi-looted art was out-of-date, and that ongoing provenance work is now transparently available online.
A faster resolution to restitution claims
Meanwhile, Pablo Picasso’s painting “Madame Soler,” also part of the Bavarian collection, has long been subject to a fractious restitution claim from the heirs of the Jewish art collector Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy.
The dispute over “” is compounded because the parties disagree on whether the painting was sold under duress.
In 2023, Claudia Roth demanded that the Bavarian State Painting Collections agree to a review by an advisory commission that issues a recommendation on restitution disputes and enforces the Washington Principles.
Due to the slow processing of restitution claims, this process will be replaced with a which, according to Roth, can provide a “faster and more independent” decision without concealment.
On February 21, a chalk drawing by Adolph von Menzel, which was seized from the Breslau entrepreneur and art collector Leo Lewin as a result of Nazi persecution, was returned to Lewin’s heirs after it was found in a federal art collection.
“We want to return all works of art that came into the federal government’s possession through similar ways,” said Claudia Roth in a statement reacting to this latest restitution. “We want just and fair solutions for the victims of Nazi Germany.”
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