The disappearance of Raphael's Portrait of a Young Man

Portrait of a Young Man

by Marc Masurovsky

What happened to Raphael’s Portrait of a Young Man which belongs to the world-renown collection of the Krakow-based Czartoryski family? The now-iconic painting (the poster child for WWII plundered “treasures”) pulled off a world-class vanishing act in the early days of May 1945 as US troops closed in on the South Bavarian compound of Hans Frank, Governor-General of German-occupied Poland.

The Czartoryski family, one of the flowers of Polish nobility, owned palatial residences and estates in Krakow, Goluchów and Sieniawa (Poland). Since 1893, the Goluchów Castle served as a Museum of the Czartoryski collection. Many of the family’s artistic possessions were stored and displayed there. They included close to 5000 art objects and antiquities as well as several hundred Old Master paintings. The bulk of the collection was transferred to Sieniawa for protection. Soon after the Nazi invasion of Poland in September 1939, German troops reached the Czartoryski estates and seized their contents. To make matters worse, a local mason had betrayed the location of the hidden Czartoryski “treasury.”

 

Hans Frank

In October 1939, Kajetan Mühlmann, who had played a major role in the plunder of cultural treasures in German-occupied Poland, brought to Berlin choice pieces from the confiscated Czartoryski collection—works by Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci and Rembrandt. In late November, at Martin Bormann’s urging, Hans Posse, the director of Hitler’s Linz museum project, requested the transfer of the best pieces from the Czartoryski collection to the Linz museum. It fell on deaf ears. The paintings returned to Krakow only to be shipped back to Berlin in 1942, this time on orders from Field Marshal Hermann Goering. However, the Nazis, fearing for the safety of the works due to Allied bombardments, opted to send the works back to Krakow, where they were stored at the Wawel Castle. 

Wawel Castle, Krakow

From August 1944 to January 1945, in the face of an imminent offensive by the Soviet Red Army, a gradual evacuation began of Hans Frank’s Krakow HQ and the many plundered art objects and paintings under his control. The main evacuation point was the estate of Count Manfred von Richtofen in Seichau (Sichów), Silesia, which the Auswärtiges Amt [German Foreign Office] had requisitioned for use by Hans Frank, his staff and the German Army. At the outset, a small number of Frank’s aides had appeared at Seichau (Sichów). It was not until the surrender of Krakow that the largest contingents overtook von Richtofen’s castle. He confirmed that Frank and his top aides had remained in the main house for only a few days until their “sudden” departure on 23 January 1945. In other words, Frank did not reach Seichau (Sichów) until mid-January 1945. 

Seichau Castle, Silesia

A German official by the name of Gross indicated that in the months following the requisition of von Richtofen’s estate, there was a continual movement of “lorries” which carried ‘objets d’art’ as well as“foodstuffs and large quantities of alcohol.” He noted that, after the departure of the Frank party on 23 January 1945, the rooms that they had occupied at Seichau (Sichów) were in “complete chaos,” a statement confirmed by Fraulein Liselotte Freund of Seichau Castle. (Gross and Liselotte Freund supplied separate statements to an SS investigative officer on 2 February 1945).

Frau von Wietersheim’s Muhrau estate, 14 km from Seichau, served as a secondary evacuation point. Wilhelm Ernst von Palézieux, Hans Frank’s chief of the ‘Referat für Kunst’ (Art Section) and Eduard Kneisel, an Austrian-born restorer, were responsible for ensuring the safety of the plundered treasures from the Czartoryski and other noble Polish collections. They watched over the thousands of art works and objects in their custody at both estates.

It took the greater part of a month for the various convoys carrying Hans Frank and his many staff members to reach Neuhaus am Schliersee in southern Bavaria where Hans Frank had an estate. Neuhaus am Schliersee became the final destination for the Polish looted cultural treasures under Frank’s control, including those that belonged to the Czartoryskis. On 17 February 1945, Hans Frank informed Dr. Lammers, chief of the Reich Chancellery, that the last convoys had reached Neuhaus.

According to London-based Count Zamoyski, one of the heirs to the Czartoryski estate, the Portrait of a Young Man by Raphael was stored at a villa serving as a residence for Wilhelm Ernst von Palézieux in the immediate vicinity of Hans Frank’s compound. Eduard Kneisel confirmed this fact in subsequent years and testified that he had not conducted any restoration work on the painting but that it had been removed from its massive crate.

The “vanishing”

In the first week of May 1945, American military units converged on the Bavarian compound of Hans Frank at Neuhaus am Schliersee. They searched Frank’s office in the “Bergfrieden” chalet, which was near the “Schoberhof”, his main residence. According to an American miliary investigative report, the troops conducted only a superficial search of the “Schoberhof.” The MFAA took nearly a year to file a report on the circumstances surrounding Hans Frank’s capture and the disappearance of the Raphael. The report acknowledged that US troops had not conducted an extensive search of the “Schoberhof.”

On 4-5 May 1945, American troops located and arrested Hans Frank as he tried to escape with members of this retinue. Frank made a failed attempt at suicide on 6 May 1945. US troops recovered most of Hans Frank’s loot. However, the Portrait of a Young Man by Raphael vanished into thin air either right before the arrival of American troops or under their very noses while they were overtaking Neuhaus. It’s anyone’s guess where the painting is currently stashed. 

Primary sources:

Document 3614-PS, Evacuation of Cracow, UConn Archives and Special Collections
https://collections.ctdigitalarchive.org/islandora/object/20002%3A1503#page/8/mode/2up]

Frank to Lammers, Document 3614-PS, Office of US Chief Counsel, IMT

undated letter from Count von Richtofen to an Ortsgruppenleiter of the NSV [National Socialist Welfare Organization]

"The loot from Poland," unsigned summary. RG 59, Lot 62D-4, Ardelia Hall Collection, Box 9, NARA.

Ardelia Hall to Count Zamoyski, 15 December 1960, Lot 62D-4 Ardelia Hall Collection, Box 13, NARA.

Walther Bader interrogation by Edgar Breitenbach and Dr. Roethel, 24 June 1947, RG 260 Prop. Div., Ardelia Hall, MCCP, Box 479, NARA.

www.Fold3.com

RG 239 M1944 Reel 127 NARA. 

Photo credits

Hans Frank
https://cdn.britannica.com/44/133344-050-54791C79/Hans-Frank-1939.jpg

Kajetan Mühlmann
https://www.lexikon-provenienzforschung.org/en/muhlmann-kajetan

Wawel castle
https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photos-old-style-photo-royal-wawel-castle-cracow-image14871673

Reviewed and edited by Saida S. Hasanagic

A "Goering bible" with a provenance full of holes

by Marc Masurovsky

In April 2018, a Bible (Tanach) printed in the 1630s in Amsterdam by Menasseh ben Israel, including Torah, Nevi’im and Ketuvim, and containing 369 “leaves”, sold for 12,300 US dollars, as lot Nr. 133 at Kedem Auction House, in business in Jerusalem since 2008. That sale would be uneventful except for the fact that this particular Bible was removed from the home of Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering in the Bavarian Alps by French troops.

According to Kedem, this bible bears an inscription stamp inside it which tells us that the Second [French] Armored Division took possession of this artifact after some of its members “broke into” Goering’s compound near Berchtesgaden in early May 1945. The French inscription carries a date of removal, May 4, 1945. According to Kedem’s proud description of this unique item, Goering’s residence and nearby facilities were looted by Allied soldiers following the departure of the SS. No comment.

The provenance supplied by Kedem indicates the following list of owners:

Dr. J. N. Pellieux, Beaugency, France

Confiscated in 1940

Hermann Goering

With a French pastor attached to the Second Armored Division

Gift to Dr. Rosenfeld, London, by said pastor, 2005

The Israel National News edition of April 11, 2018, informs us that the said French pastor was an Army chaplain working with the Red Cross and that the bible in question had been discovered “in recent days.”

The French Jewish online emagazine, “Alliance,” repeated everything that the Israel National News had indicated about the bible but was kind enough to supply a photograph of the actual item.

According to an April 17, 2018, Times of Israel report on this “Goering Bible”, Dr. J. N. Pellieux was a Jewish doctor from whom the Bible in question was stolen. Unfortunately, the journalist for the Times of Israel dated the German invasion of France to 1945! A "fake news" fact which should have called into question the entire story, no?

It’s arduous to make sense of complex events like cultural plunder.  Nowadays, it goes without saying that journalists--and auctioneers looking for a bang for their buck!--do not spend enough time researching facts in order to help readers understand the twisted details surrounding a looted object’s tortured history which preceded its grateful discovery, in this case, through the art market.

A 60 minute "Google" search adventure yielded the following information:

city hall of Beaugency

1/ Beaugency is a small town in the French “département” of the Loiret which sits southwest of Orléans and 155 kilometers from Paris or a clean two hour drive from Beaugency to the French capital.

2/ How about Dr. J. N. Pellieux? According to a number of Israeli news outlets, Dr. Pellieux was a Jewish doctor. Can that be verified? A quick “Google” search creates more puzzlement than clarity. The Pellieux name is well-known in Beaugency. As far back as the late 18th century, a Mr. Pellieux, ainé, was the town historian. He was also referred to as “docteur Pellieux” being an accomplished medical doctor. Mr. Pellieux published in 1805 an “Essai historique sur la ville de Beaugency et ses environs” which was lauded as a thorough and incisive piece of research.

In fact, Dr. J. N. Pellieux was none other than Dr. Jacques-Nicolas Pellieux (1750-1832), who lived in Beaugency as a distinguished local scholar and notable. One of his achievements was to have partaken in the American War of Independence across the Atlantic Ocean. After the French revolution, Pellieux served for a time as deputy mayor of Beaugency.

In sum, the mystery of the “Goering Bible” remains whole. Dr. Pellieux was not a Jewish doctor. His bible meandered about and most likely ended up in a Jewish collection somewhere between Beaugency and Paris, where the most likely candidate to have plundered it would have been the specialized library looting units of the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR). There is no other way for Hermann Goering to have gained access to that 17th century bible unless it had come from the ERR.

Last but not least, the Israeli press was apparently unimpressed by the acts of plunder performed, in this instance, by French troops at Goering’s Bavarian dacha. Could it be that our Israeli friends condone plunder by military elements? Or is this another case of “rescue” by Allied forces?

“Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berri”—still missing?

The basic facts:

When the Nazis steal everything there is to steal from the dozen or so members of the French branch of the Rothschild family between the summer of 1940 and 1944, part of their haul includes rare—one of a kind—medieval manuscripts, including those manuscripts custom-made for French nobility like “Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berri.”

Labeled R 974 by the ERR, the manuscript is shipped out from the Jeu de Paume to the Reich. Nothing more can be said about where it went… until 1951.

R 974
Source: ERR Project via Bundesarchiv

Lane Faison, the last director of the Munich Central Collecting Point (MCCP) in what was the US zone of Occupation of Germany, wrote to a Dr. Haars about this rarest of books, wondering if the Gothic manuscript in question had ended up at the MCCP or at the Rare Book repository of Berchtesgaden or still sihpped by Goering on the so-called “Overing Train.”  There is only one location in Germany known as Overing; it is in the eastern suburbs of Bremen in northwestern Germany.

An equally appealing tidbit comes to us from Faison about Gisela Limberger, Goering’s former private secretary and unofficial curator of the Goering Collection who herself misappropriate 11 crates of silver and china from the Jeu de Paume. According to Faison, Limberger contacted Rose Valland, France’s Resistance hero who selflessly sacrificed four years of her young life in Nazi-occupied Paris at the Jeu de Paume recording movements of stolen works in and out of the museum. Or was it Valland who contacted Limberger? No matter, Limberger let out that the manuscript might have ended up at Berchtesgaden which prompted Faison to ask Haars about its present whereabouts.

R 974
Source: ERR Project via Bundesarchiv

Sadly, one can conclude that, unless the Rothschilds recovered the manuscript after 1951, it is still missing. This brief note is a wonderful example of how small strands of communication can provide numerous insights into the workings and dynamics of plunder and restitution.

However, the ERR card identifies the manuscript as both a "Tagebuch" and "Stundenbuch."  One question to raise is: if there are several versions of the manuscript, which is it since the most elaborate of the duc de Berry's manuscript lies at the Institut de France in Paris?

By the way, who was/is Dr. Haars? There is no indication of title, rank, organization with whom he was affiliated. One tantalizing clue: a Dietrich Haars and his wife acquired a book business in Winsen (south of Hamburg) in 1951.

R 974
Source: ERR Project via Bundesarchiv

Picasso at the Jeu de Paume

At least 86 works by Pablo Picasso fell into the hands of the Nazis' plundering units headed by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) and were taken to the Jeu de Paume for 'processing.'

Most of those Picasso paintings and works on paper came from the private collections of Alphonse Kann who lived in Saint-Germain-en-Laye and Paul Rosenberg whose gallery was on the rue de la Boetie. He had shipped hundreds of paintings for safekeeping to various storage units in southwestern France where the Germans inevitably found them as a result of denunciations and returned them to Paris.

You would think that Nazi doctrine pertaining to art and especially to 'degenerate' artists such as Picasso would have condemned the production of Guernica's master to the trash heap. Absolutely not! Only 5 of Picasso's works were 'slated for destruction' by the ERR's zealous staffers. No evidence that they were in fact destroyed... The rest? Some were incorporated into Goering's collection while a fair number were recycled into the art market through exchanges and the rest languished at the Jeu de Paume.

So much for Nazi Germany's Kulturkampf against 'degenerate' art!

For more details, go to www.errproject.org/jeudepaume. Type in Picasso and see what you get...