Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Raymond J. Dowd
Partner – Dunnington Bartholow & Miller LLP
New York NY
Amici Curiae
{ Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat, Professor Jennifer Kreder,
Professor Edward Gaffney
{ Bernard Beliak, Michael Berenbaum, Judy Chicago,
Donald Woodman, Hedi Epstein, Eugene J. Fisher,
Hector Feliciano, Irving Greenberg, Douglas and Marjorie
Kinsey, Franklin and Marcia Littell, Hubert G. Locke,
Brendan Pittaway, Carol Rittner, Daniel Roberts, John
Roth and William L. Shulman
{ Nuremberg Decision
{ Nuremberg Trial Materials
{ James G. McDonald Letter of Resignation
December 27, 1935
{ Nazi decrees (Germany and Austria)
{ New York Times articles, Aufbau
{ Holzer v. Reichsbahn (NY Court Appeals
1936)
{ Nov. 18 1938 Nazi Decree on Jewish
Property
{ Post-war German and Austrian laws on
evidentiary presumptions from transfers of
persecutee’s property
3
Proving the Property Aspect of the
Holocaust – Source Materials II
{ Secondary Sources
z Dean, Martin Robbing the Jews
z Petropoulos, Jonathan Art as Politics in the Third
Reich, The Faustian Bargain
z Aly, Goetz, Hitler’s Beneficiaries
{ Schenker Co. business history
{ Pre- and Post-war art catalogs
{ Provenances published by museums
{ Documents in museum files (public and non-
public)
{ Probate files, Jewish property declarations
{ Letters, Invoices, art dealer records
{ Expert testimony (Dr. Jonathan Petropoulos)
{ Testimony (Eberhard Kornfeld, Jane Kallir)
4
The Drawing – Egon Schiele’s Seated
Woman With Bent Left Leg (“Torso”) – K
51/ JK 1974 5
Bakalar v. Vavra Allegations
The Drawing has an established and
documented provenance. It originally
belonged to the collection of Fritz
Grunbaum, a well-known Viennese
cabaret performer. In 1938, the Nazis
confiscated Grunbaum's residence
and inventoried the contents of his art
collection. Grunbaum was deported to
Dachau, where he died in
1941...(Complaint ¶ 5)
6
Bakalar v. Vavra Allegations
Aside from the Drawing, there are a number of
works from the Fritz Grunbaum collection that
were part of the 1956 selling exhibition at
Gutekunst & Klipstein which are now in museums
around the world including at least one work in
each of the following institutions: Leopold
Foundation, Vienna; Albertina Museum, Vienna;
Museum of Modem Art, New York; Allen Memorial
Museum, Oberlin College, Ohio; Coninx Museum,
Zurich; Santa Barbara (California) Museum of Art;
Art Institute of Chicago; and the Carnegie Institute
Museum of Art, Pittsburgh... (Complaint ¶ 40).
7
Bakalar v.Vavra, 2008 WL 4067335
(S.D.N.Y. Sept. 2, 2008)
Pablo Picasso
Le Moulin de la Galette, autumn 1900
Pablo Picasso
Boy Leading a Horse, 1906
MoMA and Guggenheim v.
Schoeps
• Declaratory judgment action by two
museums against one defendant
• Judge Rakoff denied Rule 56 summary
judgment motion finding triable issues of
fact
• Case settled on the eve of trial
• Court criticized Jewish heirs for keeping
financial settlement confidential. 603 F.
Supp.2d 273 (S.D.N.Y. 2009)
12
Egon Schiele’s Portrait of Wally – 1998 Morgenthau Seizure
from MOMA as stolen --- with Fritz Grunbaum’s Dead City
13
1999 Seizure Quashed, U.S.
Attorney Seizes Portrait of Wally
• Rita and Tim Reif assert claims in New York to
Fritz Grunbaum’s artworks, D.A. Morgenthau
seizure at MoMA
• New York Court of Appeals quashes D.A.
Morgenthau’s subpoena of Portrait of Wally and
Dead City
• Orders MoMA to return artworks to Austria
• Next day, U.S. Attorney seizes only Portrait of Wally
• Missing heirs for Grunbaum’s Dead City – returned
to Austria, now at Leopold Museum in Vienna
• Portrait of Wally case still pending 11 years later
before C.J. Preska in SDNY – on September 24,
2009, ordered Rudolph Leopold to stand trial –
pretrial order due 2/10/2010
14
1999 Morgenthau Seizure
• Tremendous international scandal
• Led to Austria opening archives to return Jewish
property to comply with 1955 Austrian State Treaty
• Austria reformed laws to permit claims to stolen art
in museums only
• Led to Washington Conference on stolen art
• Museums agreed to “Washington Principles” –
research their collections, favorable evidentiary
burdens, encouraging heirs to come forward
• Museums promised to publish all provenance
research, welcome heirs
• www.lootedartcommission.com/Washington-
principles
15
Washington Conference Principles
on Nazi-Confiscated Art–12/3/1998
In developing a consensus on non-binding principles to assist in resolving issues
relating to Nazi-confiscated art, the Conference recognizes that among participating
nations there are differing legal systems and that countries act within the context of
their own laws.
I. Art that had been confiscated by the Nazis and not subsequently restituted should
be identified.
II. Relevant records and archives should be open and accessible to researchers, in
accordance with the guidelines of the International Council on Archives.
III. Resources and personnel should be made available to facilitate the identification of
all art that had been confiscated by the Nazis and not subsequently restituted.
IV. In establishing that a work of art had been confiscated by the Nazis and not
subsequently restituted, consideration should be given to unavoidable gaps or
ambiguities in the provenance in light of the passage of time and the circumstances of
the Holocaust era.
V. Every effort should be made to publicize art that is found to have been confiscated
by the Nazis and not subsequently restituted in order to locate its pre-War owners or
their heirs.
Washington Conference Principles
on Nazi-Confiscated Art–12/3/1998
VI. Efforts should be made to establish a central registry of such information.
VII. Pre-War owners and their heirs should be encouraged to come forward and
make known their claims to art that was confiscated by the Nazis and not
subsequently restituted.
VIII. If the pre-War owners of art that is found to have been confiscated by the Nazis
and not subsequently restituted, or their heirs, can be identified, steps should be taken
expeditiously to achieve a just and fair solution, recognizing this may vary according
to the facts and circumstances surrounding a specific case.
IX. If the pre-War owners of art that is found to have been confiscated by the Nazis, or
their heirs, can not be identified, steps should be taken expeditiously to achieve a just
and fair solution.
22
Scope of current Nazi-art
problem
• “the amount of research to be undertaken
on the tens of thousands of works of art
that, by definition, may have Nazi-era
provenance problems is significant,
requiring large allocations of staff time and
money, allocations U.S. art museums have
made and will make until the job is done.”
25
1933-1945 – Jews Stripped of
Artworks
• 25% Reich Flight Tax (started 1931 – pre-Hitler)
• From 20% to 96% Confiscatory foreign
exchange rate for Jews (1934-39) [Dean,
Robbing the Jews] (1935 – 80% loss)
• 25% Atonement Tax
• Blocked bank accounts
• Sham transactions
• Wholesale confiscations Jewish property
• Tens of thousands of artworks left Germany
and entered the U.S. directly and through
Switzerland
• Snapped up by U.S. museums and wealthy
collectors
26
Fritz Grunbaum
Born April 7, 1880, Brno, Moravia
27
Died January 14, 1941, Dachau Concentration Camp
www.imdb.com
29
Fritz at Dachau – Arrested
3/22/1938 – Died in Captivity
Performances were
supported by the Nazis and
scheduled on the same day
as trains taking prisoners
30 to
death camps.
Minsk
31
Heirs’ Claim to Title: Heirs of
Fritz Grunbaum
• Austrian co-heirs under 2003 Estate
Assignment Certificate (Probate Decree)
• Fritz predeceased wife, no issue
• Fritz and Elizabeth (“Lily”) had separate
property
Under Austrian law:
• Fritz’s heirs take 50% of Fritz’s property
• Elizabeth’s (“Lily”) heirs take 50% of Fritz’s
property
• Austrian law governs question of title
32
Jewish Property Declarations
• April 26, 1938 Law -
penalty of
imprisonment/confiscation
• Required for Jews with over
5,000 RM
• Filed every three months
until property gone or left
Reich
• Systematically liquidated
through Aryan trustees
• Art Collection Category IV
“Other Property”
33
Fritz Grunbaum Jewish
Property Declarations
• Found in Austrian probate files
• Austria’s probate system predated Nazis,
Kafkaesque bureaucracy persisted
• Filed by Lily under power of attorney, pain of
imprisonment
• Six declarations filed July, 1938 through June
30, 1939
• Contained art collection Franz Kieslinger
appraisal at 5,791 RM
• Last time art collection declared was June 30,
1939
34
Grunbaum Assets1938-1942
(Per Jewish Property Declarations)
35
Kieslinger Inventory
• Annexed to July 1938 Fritz Grunbaum
property declaration
• Fritz was at Dachau since March 1938
• Lists 449 artworks belonging to Fritz
• 81 Schieles
• 5 Schiele oils by name – Dead City, Town on
the Blue River
• 76 Drawings and watercolors (untitled)
36
The Kieslinger Inventory
“Large drawing by Schiele, 55
works colored, 20 drawings
and 1 print by Schiele”
Dead City
37
Who were Kajetan Muhlmann
and Franz Kieslinger?
• Muhlmann based Nazi operations
in Holland to oversee laundering of
title to artworks looted throughout
the Reich.
• Franz Kieslinger was Muhlmann’s
Muhlmann henchman
described as
“arguably the • In July, 1938 Kieslinger
single most inventoried Fritz Grunbaum’s art
prodigious art
plunderer in the collection
history of human
civilization”*
* Petropoulos, Jonathan, The Faustian Bargain (Oxford
University Press 1990) at 170-204). 38
Kieslinger Inventory
• Establishes unequivocally that Dead City
stolen from Fritz Grunbaum’s Vienna
apartment
• Fritz died penniless in Dachau in January
1941
• Artworks never restituted to him or his
family
• Shows that major Nazi art plunderer had
personal knowledge of Grunbaum’s
collection
39
Vienna’s Dorotheum – Sales Outlet for
Stolen Jewish Property
• According to Sotheby’s
Lucien Simmons “a
clearinghouse for the
Gestapo”
• Franz Kieslinger was a
Dorotheum expert
• Following inventory of FG
collection Kieslinger went
on to become a notorious
Nazi art looter
• Managing director of
Aryanized Weinmuller
Auction house in late 1938
• Shows corruption,
opportunity, motive and 40
probability
November 18, 1938 Nazi Finance
Ministry Decree on Jewish Property
41
11/18/1938 Nazi Finance Ministry
Report
“Other Property” Refers to Category
IV in Jewish Property
Declarations
1. Shows Nazis considered Jewish
art collections “available to the
Reich” and liquid assets
2. Shows Nazis liquidating Jewish
art collections to finance war
machine as of November 18, 1938
42
At least nine percent of the Nazi total
government budget in 1938-39 was
stolen from Jews (approximately 1.5
billion Reichsmarks).
43
Evidence Fritz’s Art Collection
Stolen
• Art collection
Category IV (“Other
Property”)
• “Gesperrt” stamp in
Category IV
• “Erledigt” stamp in
Category IV
• Shows Nazis
considered
Grunbaum “case
closed”
44
Grunbaum’s Aryan Trustee –
Ludwig Rochlitzer
• By Nazi law of December 3, 1938, Aryan
trustees were empowered to transfer and
sell Jewish assets and to render proceeds to
the Reich to finance the Nazi war machine
(DBM 5806-5812)
• By letter dated January 31, 1939,
Rochlitzer informs Lily he is in charge of her
property and demands extortionate fees
• Rochlitzer’s fee and expenses = 6,500 RM
• Jews lacked legal capacity to make
transfers, Adolph Eichmann’s “Vienna
Model” of profitable murder, later exported 45
Letter dated January 31, 1939
Establishes Lily and Fritz lost legal
control of assets practical ability to
transfer any assets as of January
31, 1939
46
Powers of Attorney
47
Grunbaum’s Dachau Power of
Attorney
21 Oil Paintings
15 Water Colors
2 Pastel s
6 Miniatures
2 Oil Miniatures
10 Drawings
278 Drawings (some
in color)
7 graphics
3 envelopes with
misc. graphics
66 graphic prints
1 collage
51
Edmund Veesenmayer: Board
of Directors of Schenker
55
Egon Schiele’s Dead City
Now in Leopold Museum in Vienna 56
What is the Leopold Museum?
• Created as “private foundation” by Austria
to purchase Rudolph Leopold’s collection of
art looted from Jewish victims
• Austria pretends that this “private
foundation” (owned by Austrian
government) is exempt from ban on Austria
owning looted Jewish art
• Austria owns major portion of museum
during Rudolph Leopold’s lifetime, will
inherit upon Leopold’s death
• Austria currently investigating Leopold
Collection for stolen artworks – to issue a
report in 2010 – or maybe 2012
57
Who is Rudoph Leopold?
• Protégé of Franz Kieslinger
• Kieslinger convinced Leopold to collect Schieles at
a Dorotheum auction
• Chief Judge Preska in S.D.N.Y. ordered Leopold to
stand trial in Portrait of Wally case
58
How Did Leopold Get Dead City?
59
Dead City’s Journey Through Austrian
Corruption
Egon Schiele
Arthur Roessler
61
62
Nazi Reich Laundered Artworks
Through FIDES
• FIDES – Treuhand of Zurich
• Established 1910
• Subsidiary of Credit Suisse
• Offered 30% discounts to Americans and
British
• Laundered sales of Nazi art
• Attempted to buy all degenerate art from Nazis
• Never investigated by the Swiss
• Visit www.fides.ch
• Bergier Report mentioning FIDES laundering
www.uek.ch (best information in Vol. 1 not
online) 63
Kornfeld 1956
Schiele Catalog
64
Eberhard Kornfeld
66
Significance of 81 Schieles in Weighing
the Evidence
• Rare and exotic collection
• Each artwork unique
• JK identifies only 76 Schiele
collectors and dealers who
knew the artist
• JK Identifies only 26 Major
collectors and dealers after
Schiele’s death (including
Grunbaum)
• Small competitive group of
collectors who knew each
other
• Provenance paperwork
critical to establish value of
these artworks
• Rare stolen works cannot
be sold while witnesses are
Egon Schiele’s “Dead City” 1911 alive 67
Pre-War Publications Showing Fritz
Grunbaum’s Schiele Collection Known
to Kornfeld and Kallir
P. Ex. 120 at
DBM 2400
71
Kornfeld’s Sworn Deposition
• Kornfeld later swore his gallery has all
documentation since 1919
72
Evidence Kornfeld Forged
Lukacs’ Signatures
• After lawsuit commenced, Kornfeld
produced alleged “Lukacs” documents
• Lukacs misspelled own name
• Handwriting expert expressed “massive
doubts” writings came from same hand
• Kornfeld blocked access of heirs to
handwriting expert for inspection of
original signatures
• Artworks mentioned in correspondence
don’t match up
73
Dead City Entry in Kornfeld
Inventory
74
5/22/56 Bound
Inventory
Volume
75
Pencil Receipt for Two
Deliveries
76
Receipt dated April 24, 1956
Excluded notation
77
Purported Acquisition of Dead City
April 24, 1956
• 4/24/1956 – Kornfeld claims he paid cash for
Dead City and 45 other Schieles
• Receipt signed in pencil
• Receipt was payment for “4/24/1956 Invoice”
(Kornfeld refused to provide this document)
• Payment was for 2/7/1956 delivery of 20
Schieles and 25 additional Schieles including
Dead City entered in EK inventory on
5/22/1956 with 23 other Schieles
• Seller’s name not recorded
78
• “Lukacs” added later in pencil by Kornfeld
Evidence of Kornfeld’s Bad
Faith
• Warned not to acquire art from Nazi-occupied
Austria by Swiss government
• Swiss art dealers are a profession requiring due
diligence under Swiss law
• Schiele’s works (Austrian artist whose collectors
murdered) a “red flag” to Kornfeld
• Kornfeld knew of Grunbaum provenance of Dead
City and was on notice of contents of 1925 Wurthle
catalog showing other ’56 sale items as
Grunbaum’s
• No Austrian export license
• No Swiss import documents
• Failed to record seller’s name in ink in business
records
• Lukacs had no ownership documents
• Concealment of Lukacs name until late 1990’s 79
until Lukacs conveniently dead
Otto Kallir
82
Otto Kallir’s Direct Knowledge Dead City and
Other Artworks Were Grunbaum’s
83
Kallir/Kornfeld Connection
• Kallir Moved to New York in 1939
• Tried to do business with Nazis 1939
• 1955 Kallir co-published Kollwitz
catalogue raisonnée with Kornfeld
• 1956 Kallir bought 20 Schieles from
1956 Kornfeld catalog including Dead
City
• Not an arm’s-length transaction
84
U.S. Museums Falsifying
Provenance - Example
85
Kornfeld 1956
Schiele Catalog
#14 – Girl With Black Hair
86
87
Litt, Steven: Paintings In Oberlin Linked to
War Looting
The Plain Dealer, March 1, 1998
“The Schiele drawing, which depicts a young
woman nude from the waist up, may have
been looted by the Nazis from the collection
of Fritz Grunbaum, who died in Dachau in
1940”
89
1925 Wurthle and 1928 Hagenbund
Provenances of Girl with Black Hair
91
Evidence FG Owned Oberlin Girl
• Rudolph Leopold claim Grunbaum owned
• Jane Kallir testimony Grunbaum owned
• Eberhard Kornfeld writings and testimony
• claiming he acquired 78 Grunbaum Schieles
• including Girl With Black Hair
• Jewish Property Declaration showing FG owned
• 81 Schieles as of June 30, 1939
• Two pre-War catalogs listing Girl with Black Hair by
name
• Independent historians ALR, journalists and
scholars
• including Jewish Community (“IKG”) Research
• concluding Grunbaum ownership
• Expert report of Dr. Jonathan Petropoulos 92
Jane Kallir Testimony
Grunbaum owned Girl
Q. Move to Girl with Black Hair, JK 861. Ms. Kallir, do you believe that
this was once owned by Fritz Grunbaum?
A. Again, based on Kornfeld's statement and, you know, as indicated
before, yes.
Q. And the references in the Wurthle and the Hagenbund
catalog?
A. You know, if you want me to check those references, I'm going to have to do that each time. I'm
not going to – you know, that is going to slow things down. I will do what I'm told.
A. OK. I think that your Hagenbund identification here seems probable. I think that your Wurthle
identification is fairly speculative.
Q. OK. But otherwise you believe that this was once Grunbaum's?
A. Again, based on the evidence that we now have at hand, yes.
7/16/08 Trial
93
Tr. at 401:1-17
Austria’s Reaction To This
Terrible Scandal?
94
2008 Birthday Party/Exhibition of
Kornfeld Private Collection at Albertina
ROUTES THROUGH MODERN ART. FROM
THE COLLECTION OF EBERHARD W. KORNFELD
7 November 2008 - 8 February 2009
In honour of the 85th birthday of Swiss art dealer
Eberhard W. Kornfeld, some 200 works from his
remarkable private art collection are on exhibit at
the Albertina. The auction house owner and art
publisher is a distinguished expert on prints and
the author of catalogues raisonnés on Ernst
Ludwig Kirchner, Paul Klee, Marc Chagall, Käthe
Kollwitz and numerous other artists. Like the
collection as a whole, the exhibition focuses on
multifaceted selections of their works, as well as
works by the collector’s close friends Pablo Picasso,
Sam Francis and Alberto Giacometti.
95
Grunbaum Works in
the United States
Chief Inspector Benesch and His
Son Otto
• JK 1403/1305
• Harvard University
Art Museum
97
Kneeling Nude, Front View
• JK 1556
• Last seen at the
Arkansas Art
Center
98
Embrace
• JK 1674
• Currently at the
Morgan Library
(bequest of Fred
Ebb)
99
Self Portrait
• JK 686
• Currently at the
Morgan Library
(bequest of Fred
Ebb)
100
Girl Putting on Shoe
• JK 475
• Currently at the
Museum of Modern
Art in New York
101
Town on the Blue River
• JK 742
• Whereabouts
unknown (formerly
on permanent loan
to MoMA), possibly
with Gerstl family
102
Girl with Black Hair
• JK 861
• Currently at the
Allen Memorial Art
Museum at Oberlin
College in Ohio
103
I Love Antitheses
• JK 1187
• Estee Lauder Trust
104
Sleeping Girl
• JK 769
• Currently at the
Galerie St. Etienne
in New York
105
Standing Woman (Prostitute)
• JK 1045
• Currently at the
Museum of Modern
Art in New York
106
Portrait of the Artist's Wife
• JK 1711
• Formerly Santa
Barbara Museum of
Art, whereabouts
unknown
107
Russian Prisoner of War
• JK 1839/1449
• Currently at the Art
Institute of Chicago
108
Portrait of a Man
• JK 2081
• Currently at the
Carnegie Museum
of Art in Pittsburgh
109
Grunbaum Works in
Austria
Currently at the Leopold
Museum in Vienna...
112
Leopold Museum in Vienna
113
Leopold Museum in Vienna
JK 705, Grimacing Man
JK 511/513, Three
Female Nudes and
Backside Female
Nude
114
Leopold Museum in Vienna
Penitent Nudes
Currently in the Leopold
Collection...
117
Leopold Museum in Vienna
JK 1394, Red Blouse