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| Dr. Philipp Auerbach |
[Editor's note: This is the first of a four-part series on Dr. Philipp Auerbach and his efforts to resolve the problem of unclaimed Jewish cultural assets using controversial methods which ultimately caused his demise. Some recent published monographs were not available for consultation. Therefore the views expressed herein are guided by available primary and secondary sources.]
As the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) rose from the ashes of the Third Reich in 1949, there remained thousands of cultural objects including paintings, works on paper, furniture and decorative objects for which the US authorities which oversaw the Munich CCP could not establish an accurate point of origin. Since 1946, Jewish organizations had been designated as legitimate “successors” and were entitled to receive unclaimed objects from the Allied authorities and dispose of them as they saw fit in order to support the rehabilitation and relocation of Holocaust survivors stranded in refugee and displaced persons camps.
Munich was the nerve center of this activity as Jewish groups tangled with local authorities and Allied military and civilian officials to gain control of these unclaimed assets for the benefit of Jewish survivors.
Once word filtered out beyond Germany’s borders and reached the ears of American art dealers and collectors, the opportunity to gain access to these assets and sell them on the US market was too good to pass. American dealers became frequent visitors to Munich where they sought to strike some kind of arrangement by which they could gain access to these assets, convince the US authorities with the assistance of Jewish organizations and sell them on the US market, in New York mostly.
An unusual alliance took shape between Bavarian officials, representatives of Jewish successor and relief organizations and art dealers from the US, France and Germany, some with close ties to American museums. The goal of this alliance was to monetize unclaimed works of art as quickly as possible.
Dealers needed allies on the ground. Dr. Philipp Auerbach (1906-1952) proved to be the main ally of the art market, as the Bavarian official responsible for restitutions and compensation to Holocaust survivors. Auerbach was a survivor of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. He had lost most of his relatives in the Holocaust.
In 1946, Auerbach was appointed head of the Bavarian Office for reparations and restitution for persecuted people. In that capacity, Auerbach was responsible for overseeing this process on behalf of the Bavarian Finance Department. Hence, Auerbach found himself playing a central role in deciding the fate of unclaimed assets.
Auerbach, with a new sense of power, began to wield it. In one instance, he went to court to impose denazification proceedings against Johannes Müller, a philosopher and theologian with an ambiguous attitude towards Hitler, whom he had accused of glorifying Nazism. Müller owned a castle, Schloss Elmau, which had been used as a Nazi military vacation camp then as a military field hospital. In a show of petulance, Auerbach used his official position to take control of the castle without obtaining legal title to it. He then converted it into a sanatorium for Holocaust survivors and displaced people which operated from 1947 to 1951. Eventually, Auerbach lost control of the castle due to his brash and unorthodox business practices.
Auerbach’s cozy relationship with Jewish organizations involved in relief and rehabilitation in Munich laid the framework for a possible solution to the question of what to do with hundreds of millions of dollars of unclaimed cultural Jewish assets. Since Auerbach was the point man in the Bavarian administration for anything having to do with restitution matters, he wielded enormous influence on local administrative and judicial decisions affecting the status and disposition of these assets.
As the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) rose from the ashes of the Third Reich in 1949, there remained thousands of cultural objects including paintings, works on paper, furniture and decorative objects for which the US authorities which oversaw the Munich CCP could not establish an accurate point of origin. Since 1946, Jewish organizations had been designated as legitimate “successors” and were entitled to receive unclaimed objects from the Allied authorities and dispose of them as they saw fit in order to support the rehabilitation and relocation of Holocaust survivors stranded in refugee and displaced persons camps.
Munich was the nerve center of this activity as Jewish groups tangled with local authorities and Allied military and civilian officials to gain control of these unclaimed assets for the benefit of Jewish survivors.
Once word filtered out beyond Germany’s borders and reached the ears of American art dealers and collectors, the opportunity to gain access to these assets and sell them on the US market was too good to pass. American dealers became frequent visitors to Munich where they sought to strike some kind of arrangement by which they could gain access to these assets, convince the US authorities with the assistance of Jewish organizations and sell them on the US market, in New York mostly.
An unusual alliance took shape between Bavarian officials, representatives of Jewish successor and relief organizations and art dealers from the US, France and Germany, some with close ties to American museums. The goal of this alliance was to monetize unclaimed works of art as quickly as possible.
Dealers needed allies on the ground. Dr. Philipp Auerbach (1906-1952) proved to be the main ally of the art market, as the Bavarian official responsible for restitutions and compensation to Holocaust survivors. Auerbach was a survivor of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. He had lost most of his relatives in the Holocaust.
In 1946, Auerbach was appointed head of the Bavarian Office for reparations and restitution for persecuted people. In that capacity, Auerbach was responsible for overseeing this process on behalf of the Bavarian Finance Department. Hence, Auerbach found himself playing a central role in deciding the fate of unclaimed assets.
Auerbach, with a new sense of power, began to wield it. In one instance, he went to court to impose denazification proceedings against Johannes Müller, a philosopher and theologian with an ambiguous attitude towards Hitler, whom he had accused of glorifying Nazism. Müller owned a castle, Schloss Elmau, which had been used as a Nazi military vacation camp then as a military field hospital. In a show of petulance, Auerbach used his official position to take control of the castle without obtaining legal title to it. He then converted it into a sanatorium for Holocaust survivors and displaced people which operated from 1947 to 1951. Eventually, Auerbach lost control of the castle due to his brash and unorthodox business practices.
Auerbach’s cozy relationship with Jewish organizations involved in relief and rehabilitation in Munich laid the framework for a possible solution to the question of what to do with hundreds of millions of dollars of unclaimed cultural Jewish assets. Since Auerbach was the point man in the Bavarian administration for anything having to do with restitution matters, he wielded enormous influence on local administrative and judicial decisions affecting the status and disposition of these assets.
to be continued...
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