‘In May 1941, the municipality of Amsterdam provided the German occupiers with an accurate overview of Jewish homes in the city. Dots were used to indicate how many Jews lived on each Amsterdam street. One dot equalled ten Jews, so the map was also known as the “dots map”. At that time, 80,000 of the 140,000 Dutch Jews lived in Amsterdam.’
Before and during World War II, Amsterdam was one of Europe’s most important centres of the international art trade. As well as world-class art dealers and galleries, the city boasted several auction houses, including Frederik Muller & Co. and Mak van Waay. Collectors and dealers travelled from around the world to attend auctions and to buy modern art and Old Master paintings at the galleries in Amsterdam.
As in other occupied countries with established art markets, such as France and Belgium, the invasion of the Netherlands by Germany in May 1940 triggered a vertiginous boom in the Dutch art market. While it was riskier to invest in foreign currencies or bonds, for instance, tangible assets such as paintings, sculptures and works on paper (the enormous amount of fakes in circulation aside) were a much safer bet, at least in the shorter term.
‘The competition among the top Nazis to acquire the best pieces, with Hitler and Göring leading the way, provided a strong stimulus, and … the Dutch art trade profited with gratitude.’
Some of the art dealers and collectors in and around Amsterdam were, of course, Jewish, and their world of art history, scholarship, connoisseurship and privilege was shattered almost overnight after the invasion of the Netherlands. One of the first actions of the Nazi regime in any occupied country was to identify and seize Jewish-owned art collections and gallery stock to enrich the holdings of leaders such as Hermann Göring, Adolf Hitler and the ideologue Alfred Rosenberg (for the planned ‘high school’ to educate the Nazi elite), for Germany’s museums or to sell for the much-needed currency to fuel the regime and the war effort against the Allies.
In Lost Amsterdam, Christie’s Restitution team presents eight stories of Jewish collectors and dealers — both natives of the Netherlands and refugees from Germany — who lost works of art, and often their very lives, after the German invasion. Before then, the Netherlands had been a safe haven for Jews from Germany, and thousands of others, either intending to settle in the country permanently or to make their way to North America or elsewhere in Europe. These individuals and families included the Hirschlands, the Heppner-Krämers, the Larsens, the Semmels, and Grete Ring and Walter Feilchenfeldt. In May 1940, what was once a refuge became a trap.
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‘The greatest looting in Dutch history took place during the Second World War.’
The main actors in the looting, forced sale and sale under duress of Jewish-owned property in the occupied Netherlands often competed for the choicest objects and collections. The Dienststelle Mühlmann (Mühlmann Agency), based in The Hague, was led by the Austrian-born art historian and early Nazi Party member Kajetan Mühlmann (1889–1958). Mühlmann had first honed his looting skills in occupied Poland from 1938 before being asked by the Reichskommissar (Reich Commissioner) of the occupied Netherlands, Arthur Seyss-Inquart (1892–1946), himself formerly active in Poland where he had first encountered Mühlmann, to turn his attentions to the Netherlands. The notorious art historian and appraiser of looted art Franz Kieslinger (1891–1955) also worked for the organisation.
While less active in the occupied Netherlands than in occupied France, the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce, ERR), named after Alfred Rosenberg, was led in the Netherlands first by architect and former Reichstag member August Schirmer (1905–1948) and then from April 1941 by SS Sturmbannführer Alfred Schmidt-Stähler. The ERR was in direct competition for objects to loot with the Dienststelle Mühlmann and also with the Feindvermögensverwaltung (Enemy Property Agency).
In August 1941, the Liro Bank was founded on Sarphatistraat by the Nazis, taking over the name and operation of a much-respected Jewish-owned bank, Lippmann-Rosenthal & Co., on nearby Nieuwe Spiegelstraat. The now-Nazified Liro Bank became a major depot and sale bureau for tangible and intangible assets looted from Jews in the Netherlands and it operated under the direct control of Seyss-Inquart himself. Its main function was the ‘liquidation’, or the monetisation, of these assets.
‘The Nazi looting machine was notoriously efficient during the Second World War. In the Netherlands, 8.5 million citizens suffered losses estimated at 3.6 billion guilders. Approximately one-third of these losses were borne by Jews, who comprised only 1.6% of the total population. In today's terms, the German occupiers stripped the Jewish population of assets worth $7 billion.’
Other key figures in the pantheon of looters, hedgers and plunderers of Jewish property in the Netherlands were Myrtil Frank (1893–1968), a German of Jewish background who fled to the Netherlands in 1933 and later became an unofficial agent for the Dienststelle Mühlmann; Walter Andreas Hofer (1893–1975) [Fig. 6], an art dealer from Berlin who ran his Jewish brother-in-law Kurt Walter Bachstitz’s gallery in The Hague and acquired works in the occupied Netherlands for Hermann Göring’s vast art collection at Carinhall, his country seat; the art historian and dealer Eduard Plietszch (1886–1961) who worked for Kajetan Mühlmann in The Hague; and the curator Hans Posse (1879–1942), who from 1939 until his death acted as HItler’s ‘special envoy’ for the Führermuseum, as well as for other museum collections. Posse sourced art looted in the Netherlands through the art historian, noted Beckmann scholar and Nazi agent Erhard Göpel (1906–1966) [Fig. 7], who later worked for Posse’s successor Hermann Voss (1884–1969).
Looting extended beyond fine art and exquisite objects: from the summer of 1943 onwards, as more and more Dutch Jews had been deported to labour, concentration and extermination camps, vast quantities of household items were sent to bombed German cities for reuse, organised by the Sammelverwaltung feindlicher Haushaltsgeräte (SfH, the Collective Administration of Enemy Household Appliances).
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‘The greatest looting in Dutch history took place during the Second World War.’
The main actors in the looting, forced sale and sale under duress of Jewish-owned property in the occupied Netherlands often competed for the choicest objects and collections. The Dienststelle Mühlmann (Mühlmann Agency), based in The Hague, was led by the Austrian-born art historian and early Nazi Party member Kajetan Mühlmann (1889–1958). Mühlmann had first honed his looting skills in occupied Poland from 1938 before being asked by the Reichskommissar (Reich Commissioner) of the occupied Netherlands, Arthur Seyss-Inquart (1892–1946), himself formerly active in Poland where he had first encountered Mühlmann, to turn his attentions to the Netherlands. The notorious art historian and appraiser of looted art Franz Kieslinger (1891–1955) also worked for the organisation.
While less active in the occupied Netherlands than in occupied France, the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce, ERR), named after Alfred Rosenberg, was led in the Netherlands first by architect and former Reichstag member August Schirmer (1905–1948) and then from April 1941 by SS Sturmbannführer Alfred Schmidt-Stähler. The ERR was in direct competition for objects to loot with the Dienststelle Mühlmann and also with the Feindvermögensverwaltung (Enemy Property Agency).
In August 1941, the Liro Bank was founded on Sarphatistraat by the Nazis, taking over the name and operation of a much-respected Jewish-owned bank, Lippmann-Rosenthal & Co., on nearby Nieuwe Spiegelstraat. The now-Nazified Liro Bank became a major depot and sale bureau for tangible and intangible assets looted from Jews in the Netherlands and it operated under the direct control of Seyss-Inquart himself. Its main function was the ‘liquidation’, or the monetisation, of these assets.
‘The Nazi looting machine was notoriously efficient during the Second World War. In the Netherlands, 8.5 million citizens suffered losses estimated at 3.6 billion guilders. Approximately one-third of these losses were borne by Jews, who comprised only 1.6% of the total population. In today's terms, the German occupiers stripped the Jewish population of assets worth $7 billion.’
Other key figures in the pantheon of looters, hedgers and plunderers of Jewish property in the Netherlands were Myrtil Frank (1893–1968), a German of Jewish background who fled to the Netherlands in 1933 and later became an unofficial agent for the Dienststelle Mühlmann; Walter Andreas Hofer (1893–1975) [Fig. 6], an art dealer from Berlin who ran his Jewish brother-in-law Kurt Walter Bachstitz’s gallery in The Hague and acquired works in the occupied Netherlands for Hermann Göring’s vast art collection at Carinhall, his country seat; the art historian and dealer Eduard Plietszch (1886–1961) who worked for Kajetan Mühlmann in The Hague; and the curator Hans Posse (1879–1942), who from 1939 until his death acted as HItler’s ‘special envoy’ for the Führermuseum, as well as for other museum collections. Posse sourced art looted in the Netherlands through the art historian, noted Beckmann scholar and Nazi agent Erhard Göpel (1906–1966) [Fig. 7], who later worked for Posse’s successor Hermann Voss (1884–1969).
Looting extended beyond fine art and exquisite objects: from the summer of 1943 onwards, as more and more Dutch Jews had been deported to labour, concentration and extermination camps, vast quantities of household items were sent to bombed German cities for reuse, organised by the Sammelverwaltung feindlicher Haushaltsgeräte (SfH, the Collective Administration of Enemy Household Appliances).
‘The Germans confiscated the property left behind by deported Jews. In 1942 alone the contents of nearly 10,000 apartments in Amsterdam were expropriated by the Germans and shipped to Germany. Some 25,000 Jews, including at least 4,500 children, went into hiding to evade deportation. About one-third of those in hiding were discovered, arrested, and deported. In all, at least 80 percent of the prewar Dutch Jewish community perished.’
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The Allied Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Section Unit (MFAA) located, recovered and returned caches of looted art to the countries from which they had been taken. It was then up to each individual country to seek out surviving family members and to restitute those works to them where it was possible to establish beyond reasonable doubt that they had been looted from, or sold under duress by, a Jewish collector or dealer. This was where the system frequently broke down, however: in the Netherlands the burden of proof fell on the former owners or their descendants, and because of the understandable absence of documentation, either written or photographic, thousands of artworks went unclaimed.
Various state bodies were set up at the end of World War II to address the very issues of return and restitution. The Opsporings- en Inlichtingendienst Vijandelijk Vermogen (Enemy Property Investigation and Intelligence Service) was responsible for tracking down the looted property of Dutch Jews, while until 1951 the Stichting Nederlandsch Kunstbezit (SNK, Netherlands Art Property Foundation) [Figs. 8 and 10] led the work of tracing and restituting cultural property lost by Jews in the Netherlands during the Occupation and recuperated by the MFAA. The Nederlandsch Kunstbezit-collectie (Netherlands Art Property Collection) held in the custody of the Dutch state thousands of works that were looted or sold under duress in the occupied Netherlands and recovered by the MFAA but whose former owners could not be traced. Many were deemed ‘heirless’ and sold at public auctions by the Dutch state between the late 1940s and the early 1950s.
In 1998, Herkomst Gezocht (Origins Unknown), chaired by Professor Rudi Ekkart, was established to galvanize systematic provenance research into ‘heirless’ works that still formed part of the Netherlands Art Property Foundation. Origins Unknown’s activities continued until 2007. The Restitutiecommissie (Restitutions Committee) was founded in 2001 to examine Nazi-era restitution claims to works in Dutch collections and that work continues to this day.
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