Nazi raid:How Nazis plundered Jewish emigrants

Fleeing from the Nazi regime, Jews were not only robbed of their homeland, all of their belongings were also auctioned off in Hamburg, among other places. The Nazis made millions with it. Victims and descendants are still fighting for their property.

by Sophia Münder-Führing

Thousands of pages of documents help Kathrin Kleibl to come to terms with a chapter of German history that has long been veiled:a gigantic raid by the Nazis - the spoils of which have been lost to this day. The descendants of the Jewish victims are still looking for their belongings. Kleibl, archaeologist and provenance researcher at the German Maritime Museum in Bremerhaven, now wants to find the looted goods again.

"What motivates me most is that I can possibly return items to the families who have been harmed, because I keep finding that they no longer have any real connection to their family of origin," she says in the NDR documentary "The Looted Art Puzzle - The Search for Justice". . As a rule, those affected would not have wanted to tell much about their past in order not to have to discuss the terrible events further. "By reconstructing what happened to the removal goods, I might also help these families understand what happened at the time."

Reich flight tax and compulsory levies make leaving the country more difficult

The repression of the National Socialists forced Jews from all over the German Reich to emigrate. But emigration was subject to high fees:"It was their goal to use taxes, compulsory levies, the Jewish property tax, the Reich flight tax and the like to ensure that the owners were completely financially plundered," says historian Frank Bajohr about the Nazis' tactics. Only those who could somehow afford it emigrated with their belongings.

Jewish removal goods are confiscated and auctioned off

The belongings, packed in container-sized so-called lift vans, were to be forwarded to the Jewish emigrants with freight forwarders via the transshipment points in Bremen and Hamburg. But thousands of moving boxes never reached their original owners. With the beginning of the war in 1939, the cargo ships no longer left the port. The crates piled up in the ports - and the Gestapo had them confiscated. Between April 1940 and the end of 1942, the removal goods were auctioned off. "Something must have been going on every day," says Kleibl.

From the "Jewish box" to the "bailiff's office"

In Hamburg, the objects from the "Jewish boxes" came under the hammer in the "bailiff's office" and in 21 auction houses - household by household. Newspaper advertisements promoted the auctions. Everything went away, from silver spoons to underpants - a bargain hunt. "In no case was any normal market price paid for it. That was also not desired. It was also a socio-political measure, if you will," explains Bajohr.

Gestapo wants to make as much profit as possible with art

The items were to be "exploited," says Kleibl, and the profits were to be donated to the German Reich. "If there was special art in it, then they pulled it out of the lift vans and auctioned it off in a separate auction. They wanted to make as much profit as possible." In Hamburg, the auction house Carl F. Schlueter specializes in such art auctions.

Where is Emil Nolde's "Cord Poppy"?

The art collection of Lotte and Georg Koch from Wiesbaden, for example, was also among them. Lotte Koch emigrated to London - the removal goods were auctioned off in Hamburg. The descendants are now looking for works by Nolde, Jawlensky and Klee with the help of the Historical Research Institute Facts &Files. The path of the Nolde painting "Klatschrosen / Klatschmohn" could be painstakingly reconstructed in parts. Kleibl found out that it was auctioned off by auctioneer Max Notnagel. A northern German cattle dealer grabbed it, then it disappeared into a bank vault in Elmshorn. Until the Kiel gallery Negelein bought it and had its authenticity confirmed by the Nolde Foundation. With the help of a gallery in Austria, Negelin sold it to France. Then the trail is lost again. The art trade is not obliged to provide information. Historian Bajohr says the long time that has passed and the multiple changes in ownership make investigations difficult - and allow things to be obscured.

Buddha head finds its way back into the family

The heirs of the Berlin art collector Johanna Ploschitzki are also looking for a valuable collection with works by Pissarro, Liebermann and Beckmann via the Lost Art database, among other things. Around 1,500 of her objects were then sold at a three-day auction. Kathrin Kleibl managed to locate a marble Buddha head that Ploschitzki had once acquired in Paris. The object stood in the depot of the Museum am Rothenbaum (MARKK) for around 80 years. Now it is to be returned to the heirs. A first great joint research success with the MARKK.

Entire NS apparatus involved in household auctions

In addition to the valuable art, the inventory of around 3,000 households was auctioned off in Hamburg alone in the early 1940s, and around 1,000 in Bremen. Millions of objects went under the hammer. Jewish emigrants had also brought their removal goods via the ports of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Genoa, Trieste, Naples and Marseille, via Spain and Portugal, which were finally auctioned off. The entire state apparatus in Nazi Germany was set in motion for this, says Bajohr:the Gestapo, banks, freight forwarders, storage companies, administrative staff, tax officials - a number of large and small groups were involved. "An overall system that was based to a large extent on cooperation and division of labor and in which everyone participated accordingly."

This bureaucratic mechanism also helped to prevent any inhibitions from arising in the first place. "I'm only ever responsible for a small area and the other then takes over," says Bajohr, explaining the strategy. "And the action of the individual may not have much of an effect on the whole area, but in the sum of all these individual actions then form a completely 'perfect' and hermetic system."

Right of first refusal for bombed out and large families

Bombed out citizens, large families and museums initially had a right of first refusal. "You could take a look at things beforehand and secure the best pieces," says Kleibl. Dealers have also come from all over Germany, and public institutions such as the social administration have also taken action. According to historian Bajohr, "there was no segment of the population that could be said not to have participated."

"Voluntary" auctions:Nazi law makes robbery legal

It is now known that the Hamburger Kunsthalle, the (MARKK), the Altonaer Museum, the Museum of Hamburg History and the Museum of Arts and Crafts, among others, bought works at auctions of removal goods. Before each auction, the bailiff announced that it was "voluntary". According to a law of the so-called Eleventh Ordinance, everyone who left the country was no longer in possession of their belongings - and they were automatically "voluntarily" available for auction. "Of course, that was by no means voluntary," says Kleibl. "Of course the owners wanted their moving boxes back." Bajohr calls it "verbal cosmetics". Used to avoid scruples on the part of buyers.

Auctions bring millions into the coffers of the Nazis

According to Bajohr, the anonymity of the big city made the auction business particularly easy. "Because the buyers could of course no longer assign the individual things they bought to specific owners." The large crowd in which one found oneself at the auctions would have given moral absolution to one's behavior. No photos have survived from the auctions in Hamburg. However, recordings of auctions in the small town of Lörrach in Baden-Württemberg show people jostling to bid. A cheap "shopping pleasure" for the population - good business for the National Socialists. From the auctions in Hamburg alone, the Gestapo paid 7.2 million Reichsmarks into an account at the Deutsche Bank. In view of various blocked accounts, the total proceeds should have been significantly higher.

Jigsaw puzzles should bring goods and descendants together

As part of the LIFTProv research project, funded by the German Lost Art Foundation, Kathrin Kleibl now wants to find out who bought the items and return them to the rightful owners. With the help of stock lists, invoices and auction logs, she can trace the routes of the objects and see who bought what and when. However, only the files from the restitution proceedings, in which the victims demanded their belongings back after the Second World War, allow conclusions to be drawn about the original owners. Kleibl tries to compare their descriptions with the files. She records her results in a database that is to be published at the end of 2022 so that buyers and injured parties can search in it - a jigsaw puzzle. "I also see it in terms of reappraisal." With each individual case, she and her colleagues would work through a part of German history that had been veiled for a long time - also in order to "possibly straighten something out again" with the reconstruction.

What is provenance research?

Provenance researchers look for the provenance of art objects. With the Washington Declaration in 1998, Germany, among other things, undertook to clarify whether its museums owned works of art confiscated by the Nazis. If so, the museum must inform the heirs of the original owners.

Reparation becomes another fight for the victims

After the war, the victims fought lengthy procedures for reparation. In the 1960s, the historian Jürgen Lillteicher evaluated a number of files in the Office for Compensation. He was able to see how the young Federal Republic reacted to the Nazi past:"As if I had pricked society," he recalls. "It was not only important for the formerly persecuted to get their property back, but also for the German courts to say:'Yes, they were wronged.'" But that often didn't happen. It was difficult for the victims to prove what had been stolen from them. Very few had photos of the items. And before they emigrated, many had reduced the actual value of their belongings in order to save on customs duties. Now appraisers were used who had previous experience:They had worked for auction houses like Schlueter, who had conducted the auctions.

Buyers without a guilty conscience afterwards

Buyers who could be identified from auction records did not show any guilt for having bought looted property, says Kleibl. On the contrary, they questioned the documents:How could one conclude from them that they were actually physically present at the auction and had bought? They also had no more documents or they had fallen victim to bombs. "If I now find auction lists with the names of buyers," says Kleibl, "then the information is quite obvious. But in the post-war period, people simply didn't bother to follow these buyers."

The state solves the individual question of guilt with money

Finally, the Federal Republic jumped in as a debtor to relieve the courts. "It was striking to me that the individual guilt of private individuals was relieved by the state," says Lillteicher. "An argument that runs through the post-war period:the Nazi state is responsible for individual behavior and not the individual himself." That was politically wanted, so as not to allow any discussions to arise, says Bajohr. "Now you're supposed to build a democracy with a population that followed the Nazi system. And can I actually do that if I constantly hold things against them?"

Many reimbursement procedures ended after decades with settlements. "You get the impression that you just wanted to bring the whole thing to an end," says Lillteicher. "And then they bothered with a comparison sum, which of course did not correspond to the actual value of the goods to be moved."

Art and furniture still in German private households

A number of pieces of furniture and works of art that were acquired at Nazi auctions must still be in private households. You also have to approach private individuals, says Bajohr:"It's not acceptable for a process to be settled by a state paying the corresponding sums and exempting the buyers from doing so. There's still the moral problem that remains. " Provenance researcher Kleibl now sees the generation of grandchildren on the move:"Now it would be up to them to ask their parents and grandparents:Where did you get that from? Tell me the story behind this piece of furniture." Although the answer might be awkward:"Maybe this will shed some light."