Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist movement came to power in Germany on 30 January 1933. The subsequent Nazi era lasted until May 9, 1945, when the National Socialist Third Reich signed an unconditional surrender to the combined Allied military forces which brought an end to a six-year global military conflict known as the Second World War (1939-1945).
In the winter of 1933, there were at least 400 American companies and businesses operating inside Nazi Germany, most of which were subsidiaries of American-based corporations. There were also American-based banks and financial firms as well as businesses displaying, buying and selling art objects. For Americans, Hitler’s coming to power was but a hiccup, for otherwise it was business as usual. For the Jews of Germany and for American Jews, Hitler’s arrival was cause for concern and rightly so.
America’s borders remained open as well as Germany’s. Therefore trade relations between the US and Germany were maintained even if the political checkerboard had changed radically and Germany’s priorities were rooted in a deeply racialist, white supremacist and antisemitic ideology.
The first expropriations of Jewish property began several months after the Nazis took power. The first forced sales accompanied these expropriations in the form of auctions taking place across Germany. Items sold included everything that one could find in a Jewish household, including art objects, precious metals like gold and silver, furniture and decorative objects.
Tourists continued to flock into Germany, despite the economic depression that was engulfing the US, but those who had deeper pockets than the average working person could still afford to “have a good time” in Germany. Tourists usually bring back souvenirs so it’s no surprise if some of the more enterprising ones attended auctions where Jewish property was being sold willy-nilly.
Art collections were being sold under duress. Their owners were persecuted for being Jewish, deprived of an income and therefore forced to sell their belongings in order to fund their exit from Nazi Germany. Their property was dispersed among the local population but it was also acquired by foreign visitors who had a special interest in the art objects and the decorative pieces offered for sale. This illegal outflow of Jewish property reverberated inevitably into the countries of origin of these foreign buyers who returned home with their acquisitions.
As a growing number of Jewish collectors and dealers were being forced out of their professions and obliged to sell their inventories, gallerists and dealers in neighboring countries and the United States saw their demise as a business opportunity for them to acquire at depressed prices items of value which could then be resold for a hefty profit in due course.
Likewise, German art dealers, collectors, museum curators and art historians who had established productive relationships with their counterparts in the US crossed the Atlantic in search of good deals, especially Old Master paintings, on behalf of their wealthy clients. The lines were continually blurred between American and German art world personalities owing to their symbiotic business and scholarly relationships. The same can be said about American university professors and researchers who continued to exchange data and research with their German colleagues and even fostered exchange programs that saw American students and professors spending time on German university campuses after Hitler’s rise to power.
As the years progressed and the ensuing repression intensified against Jews in Germany, an exponential mass of high-value tangible assets changed hands from Jewish to non-Jewish ownership through a pseudo-legal process known as “Aryanization,” a direct result of anti-Jewish laws being enforced to the letter by Nazi administrators. Corporate boards were purged of their Jewish members, while business continued to flow between American subsidiaries, their German clients and the Nazi State. Profit before people. A well-known adage that witnessed a perverse application in the antisemitic German world.
By the late 1930s, Germany had brazenly announced its true colors: territorial expansion and elimination of Jews from all walks of life. Genocide was around the corner. Faced with an appeasement-oriented world that wanted to keep Hitler at bay without antagonizing him, Nazi Germany took it as an invitation and absorbed its neighbor, Austria, in an “Anschluss” in early March 1938, followed a year later by a so-called “police action” against Czechoslovakia which resulted in the disappearance of that country and its replacement with a "Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia." Similarly, Austria became Germany’s new province of Ostmark.
If one surveys the New York auction world as of the mid-1930s, one is likely to read about objects coming out of privately-owned Jewish collections which were subjected to seizure and forced sales. German dealers and collectors, specializing mostly in 20th century art, emigrated to the United States bringing with them parts of their inventories which, if scrutinized properly, would have revealed the presence of objects acquired from Jewish collectors and artists who were subjected to duress and forced to sell, or that they had acquired at “Jew auctions.” These objects in turn were displayed in New York galleries and other American cities with few questions asked about provenance. We call it willful ignorance.
By the late 1930s, Germany had brazenly announced its true colors: territorial expansion and elimination of Jews from all walks of life. Genocide was around the corner. Faced with an appeasement-oriented world that wanted to keep Hitler at bay without antagonizing him, Nazi Germany took it as an invitation and absorbed its neighbor, Austria, in an “Anschluss” in early March 1938, followed a year later by a so-called “police action” against Czechoslovakia which resulted in the disappearance of that country and its replacement with a "Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia." Similarly, Austria became Germany’s new province of Ostmark.
If one surveys the New York auction world as of the mid-1930s, one is likely to read about objects coming out of privately-owned Jewish collections which were subjected to seizure and forced sales. German dealers and collectors, specializing mostly in 20th century art, emigrated to the United States bringing with them parts of their inventories which, if scrutinized properly, would have revealed the presence of objects acquired from Jewish collectors and artists who were subjected to duress and forced to sell, or that they had acquired at “Jew auctions.” These objects in turn were displayed in New York galleries and other American cities with few questions asked about provenance. We call it willful ignorance.
Lastly, American businessmen were accustomed to travel to European art fairs and pick up merchandise for their businesses back home and they would sign trade agreements with local European partners including German ones. The Leipzig trade fair, for instance, was flagged by the US Treasury Department as an international event which was suspected of offering for sale expropriated Jewish household goods, including textiles (rugs and wall hangings). This is just one of many instances of how easy it was for foreign businessmen to acquire property displaced from Jewish owners without their consent.
Jewelry was the easiest commodity to move from one border to the next due to its small size. As Jewish jewelers and precious stone brokers were put out of business, their inventories were cast wide on the market and often ended up across the ocean. Although extremely difficult to trace back to original owners, these luxury items were dispersed in urban centers along the East Coast of the US.
In summary, art, decorative objects, jewelry and textiles were some of the many categories of objects which made their way to the United States in the 1930s, unbeknownst to the buyers who had no idea that they had once belonged to a Jewish owner suffering under the Nazi yoke and forced to sell them in order to stay alive. But for how long?
Jewelry was the easiest commodity to move from one border to the next due to its small size. As Jewish jewelers and precious stone brokers were put out of business, their inventories were cast wide on the market and often ended up across the ocean. Although extremely difficult to trace back to original owners, these luxury items were dispersed in urban centers along the East Coast of the US.
In summary, art, decorative objects, jewelry and textiles were some of the many categories of objects which made their way to the United States in the 1930s, unbeknownst to the buyers who had no idea that they had once belonged to a Jewish owner suffering under the Nazi yoke and forced to sell them in order to stay alive. But for how long?