The Confiscation of “Entartete Kunst” in 1937 and its Consequences

Starting in 1933 museum directors who had collected modern art were dismissed from office and replaced by others who, at best, continued to collect in a more moderate manner. However, the majority of the Modern works were banished to depots, and in some cases the purchases of predecessors were defamed in “shaming exhibitions.”

Numerous works were removed to depots out of conviction or caution, permanent loans and gifts were also returned on occasion, figure paintings were replaced with less offensive landscapes and still life paintings. Some museums also began to sell works of modern art.

In 1935, the Dresden “shaming exhibition” of 1933, which already carried the title of “Degenerate Art,” started travelling through Germany. In some other propaganda exhibitions individual pictures from museums were shown as unfavorable examples for art and collection policy in the Weimer Republic. All of these exhibits were later entered into the inventory of confiscated “degenerate art.”

At the end of 1936, Bernhard Rust, the Minister of Science, Education and National Culture, who was responsible for the museums, announced a “cleansing” of the museums at the opening speech of an academy exhibition, but never carried it out.

Early in 1937 Wolfgang Willrich’s book Säuberung des Kunsttempels. Eine kunstpolitische Kampfschrift zur Gesundung deutscher Kunst im Geiste nordischer Art (Cleansing of the Temples of Art. An Art-Political Polemic for the Recovery of German Art in the Spirit of Nordic Style) was published.  Reading this book inspired the Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels to organize a central exhibition of “degenerate art.” He commissioned the President of the Academy for Fine Arts, Adolf Ziegler, with the creation of this exhibition. Ziegler organized a commission, and in the first half of July 1937 some 1,100 artworks from 30 museums were chosen and ordered to Munich. There from July 10, roughly 600 of these works were denounced in the exhibition “Degenerate Art.” Initially seizure or confiscation was not even mentioned.

Because Goebbels presented a decree from Hitler for this initiative, Rust could not react against the encroachment on his domain. He wanted the actual “cleansing” of the works to take place under his direction and therefore invited the museum directors to a conference in Berlin on August 1. There he announced a decree from Hermann Görings, according to which museum directors were to photographically report the “decayed art” remaining in their collections. Thereafter, Rust sought to preside over subsequent proceedings. As Göring was only responsible for culture in his role as Prussian Prime Minister, the decree applied only to Prussia, however it was understood that the decree should be carried out correspondingly in other federal states. For orientation, the directors provided a list of artists represented in the “Entartete Kunst” exhibition in Munich, which was published in the Deutsche Allgemeinen Zeitung. However, this “list of exhibited” only counted 66 of the 125 artists that were shown in reality. Rust’s subsequently planned activities were relatively restricted – in the end, apart from the few lists and photos that were sent, Göring’s decree was entirely inconsequential.

Goebbels already had Hitler’s decree from the 27th of July, in which Ziegler was commissioned “to confiscate from all states of the Third Reich, federal states, and municipal-owned museums, galleries and collections the existing products of the era of ‘decayed work.’” at his disposal. The delegation composed by Ziegler travelled from August 6 to circa 100 museums and confiscated 20,000 works by more than 1,400 artists, including the Munich exhibition pieces. Most museums were visited by mid-November. Afterwards they were occasionally revisited through the beginning of March 1938. Only a few modern artworks remained concealed from the commission. In individual cases, works on paper could be held back by museums, despite their condemnation. Aside from these exceptions the confiscated works were transported to Berlin and stored in the Victoria warehouse on Köpenicker Strasse. There the works of Rolf Hetsch were inventoried. Subsequently he travelled to Munich and inventoried the works in the “Entartete Kunst” exhibition.

On May 31, 1938 the “Law on Confiscation of Products of Degenerate Art” was decreed: “The products of degenerate art, which have been seized in museums and publically accessible collections before the passing of this law and have been identified by authorities appointed by the Führer and Reich Chancellor can be seized without compensation on behalf of the Reich provided that they were guaranteed to be owned by nationals or domestic legal entities.” With this the conditions to sell the confiscated works were created. In June 1938 Göring, in order to benefit his collection of ancient art, pulled 13 outstanding works to sell. In August the works, which they were hoping to sell abroad, were stored in the Schönhausen Palace. After art dealers had again take consignments from the warehouse on Köpenicker Strasse, the “unusable remains” were burned in the yard of Berlin’s main fire station.

At the beginning of this “liquidation” individual works were sold to the art dealers Wolfgang Gurlitt and Karl Haberstock in Berlin, Fritz Carl Valentien in Stuttgart, Aage Vilstrup in Hellerup and to the Galerie Zak in Paris. On June 30, 1939 Galerie Theodor Fischer in Luzern organized the auction “Gemälde und Plastiken moderner Meister aus deutschen Museen” (Paintings and Sculptures of Modern Masters from German Museums), there 125 top works were offered. In three exchange contracts from 1939, in a trade for 25 works of German-Roman paintings, painter Emanuel Fohn, then living in Rome, received about 450 works of “degenerate art.” The remaining purchase and exchange transactions – including sales to the Kunstmuseum Basel, and the release of the Munich holdings to auctioneer Harald H. Halvorsen in Oslo –from late 1938 until the end of the “liquidation” in the summer of 1941, were only handled by four authorized art dealers: Karl Buchholz and

Ferdinand Möller in Berlin, Hildebrand Gurlitt in Hamburg and Bernhard A. Böhmer in Güstrow. They were obliged to sell the works abroad, but they also gave some to dealers and collectors within Germany or kept the works themselves. In each case they had to raise the foreign currency for the works. This was only preventable through exchange contracts, similar to that given to Fohn.

The 244 works which came from foreigners, belonged to foreigners, were loaned from private collection or were classified as borderline were returned by the National Socialists to the owners or artists. Some of the museums affected by the confiscation of the works, kept the ancient artworks that were traded, and some were also compensated with a small sum.

Those that were neither destroyed, returned or sold as remainders were stored in the basement of the Ministry of Propaganda in 1941. Large parts of this lot were transferred for storage to Böhmer in Güstrow as the war progressed. Their whereabouts are only traceable in some cases. There is no record of the destruction cause by the war or postwar vandalism.

For example, in the private sector the Third Reich's Imperial Chamber of Fine Arts demanded individual works for inspection, but they were never returned. Even seizures – usually by the Gestapo – from galleries, auction houses and artists’ studios are acknowledged. Considering this, however, only scattered concrete evidence known to date. These cases are not included in the database.