650,000 works, a spy, and a salt mine: the story of Europe's largest art looting
During the Weimar Republic , Germany was a cultural hotbed, with figures like Bertolt Brecht, Thomas Mann, and Fritz Lang. But with the rise of the Nazis to power, everything changed. The first victims were books: literary purges were organized in universities and libraries. Works by Jewish authors or those considered ideologically dangerous, such as Franz Kafka and Stefan Zweig, were burned .
The attack also extended to the art world. In 1937, the "Degenerate Art" exhibition opened, organized to ridicule the avant-garde. Works by Kandinsky, Klee, and Chagall were displayed with offensive comments. However, this exhibition was a public success. Many of these pieces, although vilified by the regime, were sold abroad to fund the Nazis.
Listen alsoHitler, rejected in his youth by the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, dreamed of building a grand museum in Linz, the Führermuseum, that would house the finest European art in his own right. To fill its halls, the regime needed entire collections, which were obtained through looting.
After the annexation of Austria, plundering became institutionalized. With the invasion of Europe, systematic looting was organized through the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR), a unit active in the numerous countries affected by this occupation. Paris was one of the main targets. The Louvre Museum managed to evacuate key works such as the Mona Lisa thanks to the foresight of its director, Jacques Jaujard. However, many other pieces were stored in the Jeu de Paume, where Göring personally selected what he wanted for his private collection.
Read also The Great Nazi Plunder of Jewish Art Ana Echeverría Arístegui
Rose Valland, curator of the Jeu de Paume, discreetly spied on the Nazis and recorded every movement of stolen art. Her work led to the recovery of up to 60,000 works after the war. Many were found by the Monuments Men, an Allied expert group tasked with protecting and rescuing heritage. The largest cache was discovered in the Altausee salt mine , saved in the nick of time by Austrian miners who sabotaged the Nazi plans to destroy it.
One of the most unusual stories was that of the Dutch forger Han van Meegeren , who managed to deceive Hermann Göring with a supposed Vermeer work. Arrested for treason after the war, he escaped the death penalty by proving that the work was a fake… and that he was the author. He became famous, and today his forgeries are even highly valued.
Han van Meegeren painting 'Jesus among the Doctors' in 1945
Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty ImagesMany works remain missing today. In 2009, the Terezín Declaration reaffirmed European countries' commitment to restitution. Spain has had a law guaranteeing this since 2017. There has been no shortage of recent returns, such as the return of two works to the Czartoryski heirs in 2020. The Nazi plunder still has echoes in the present.
To delve deeper into the subject, Isabel Margarit, director of Historia y Vida , and journalist Ana Echeverría Arístegui recommend El expolio nazi , by Miguel Martorell (Galaxia Gutenberg, 2020), a comprehensive portrait of the looting organized by the Third Reich. We can also enjoy The Monuments Men , the 2014 film directed by George Clooney about the famous art rescue team.
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