1. Art Collections on the Eve of World War II
May 3, 2011
The 1937 World’s Fair in Paris
German pavilion on the left, Soviet on the right

2. Rivalries in the Cultural Administration
Goering/Rosenberg/Rust
Rosenberg headed main looting agency in Western Europe, with Goering’s protection
Rust: Minister for Science, Education and Public Instructions (ministry that traditionally oversaw arts policy)
Versus…
Goebbels/Ziegler, President of the Chamber for the Visual Arts
“…these venomous individuals were engrossed with art.” Jonathan Petropoulos, Art as Politics in the Third Reich, p. 16

3. Four Years Defining Aryan Style
March 1933: Goebbels created the Reich Chamber of Culture (RKK). Membership required for all artists; banned Jews, Communists, modernists who displeased Nazi leadership.
1936: Goebbels banned art criticism
July 1937: Exhibition of “degenerate” art

4. Program cover for “degenerate art” exhibition

5. Linking degenerate people and art
From Paul Schultze-Naumberg’s Art and Race, Paintings by Otto Dix, Modigliani

6. Degenerate Art: Picasso
Picasso, Absinthe Drinker, 1903

7. Degenerate Art: Kirchner
Two Women in the Street, 1914
Street, Berlin, 1913

8. Degenerate Art: Kokoschka
Nature with a death mask, n.d.
Self-Portrait, 1917

9. Degenerate Art: Chagall
I and the Village, 1911
Paris Through the Window, 1913

10. Four Years Defining Aryan Style
June 1939: major art auction in Lucerne, Switz., with works by Picasso, van Gogh, Braque, Klee from German public museums
16,000 works removed from German museums
March 20, 1939: bonfire in courtyard of Berlin fire department. More than 1000 paintings, nearly 4000 drawings, watercolors, graphic designs

11. Knirr, Adolf Hitler, The Creator of the Third Reich and Leader who Revived German Art, 1937

12. Breker, Bust of Hitler
Thorak, Bust of Hitler 1936

13. Breker, Readiness
Thorak, Comradeship

14. Spitzweg, The Alchemist, n.d.

15. Eduard von Grützner, Mealtime, 1891

16. Reserved for Hitler Johannes Vermeer, The Astronomer, 1668
Looted from Edouard de Rothschild in France; bequeathed to French state, 1983
Rothschilds recovered some 2600 paintings.

17. Types of paintings given to Hitler by Goering
Types of paintings given to Hitler by Goering. Created by Giovanni Pannini, mid 18th century.

18. Jacques Jaujard, Director of French National Museums

19. Chambord chateau

20. Paintings being prepared for evacuation
Evacuation of
Winged Victory

21. Protecting Greek sculptures
Transporting The
Raft of the Medusa

22. David’s Sabines at the
Sourches chateau
Transporting Courbet’s Atelier

23. A warning to pilots...
…and to passers-by

24. Work sold in September 2006, allegedly created by Hitler during WWI
Work sold in September 2006, allegedly created by Hitler during WWI. Highest price for watercolors, nearly $20,000.
Created by Hitler?