2023-09-21 15:39:00
Pablo Picasso – this name is usually enough to attract attention in the art world. It is therefore not surprising that Picasso has now become almost synonymous with Germany’s handling of Nazi-looted art. We are talking about the painting “Portrait of Madame Soler” from 1903, which is part of the so-called “blue period” of the artist, when muted colors and a limited palette of blues and blue-green shades dominated his paintings. This work is exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art – Pinakothek Moderne in Munich. The Bavarian state collections of paintings would like it to remain there.
Historian Julius H. Schoeps sees it quite differently. The painting, he claimed, belonged to his great-uncle: the German-Jewish banker and art collector Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy. Schöps himself, a retired professor of modern history at the University of Potsdam, spent years researching archives around the world and wrote a book about it called “Who owns Picasso’s Portrait of Madame Soler?” The book was published in Germany in 2022. For the historian and Knight of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, one thing is clear: the painting was put up for sale in 1935 as a consequence of the persecution of Jews since Hitler came to power in 1933. “What Bavaria claims is that there was no persecution before 1935 year, contradicts history,” he said without hiding his indignation in an interview with DW. Bavarian authorities believe that in the case of “Portrait of Madame Soler” we are “not talking about cultural property confiscated as a result of persecution by the National Socialists.”
The commission cannot take action on the painting case
This controversy seems tailor-made for advisory commission for the return of cultural property confiscated as a result of persecution by National Socialismwhich in the German media is often referred to simply as the Limbach Commission, in honor of its first chairman, the former President of the German Constitutional Court Jutta Limbach.
The Commission was created 20 years ago to provide advice in complex cases of restitution disputes. However, the problem is that it can only begin work if both parties to the dispute agree to it.
“In the case of the Portrait of Madame Soler, the heir families have been fighting for almost ten years to get the commission to take up this matter,” criticizes its current chairman, Hans-Jürgen Papier. “But Bayern categorically refuses. And we can’t do anything,” he says.
Reform demands
On the occasion of the commission’s 20th anniversary in 2023, leader Hans-Jürgen Papier is calling for a fundamental reform: parties should be able to seek help unilaterally – that is, so that victims of Nazi persecution can do so. Without the consent of museums. And the recommendations of the commission must be mandatory. “For now we are operating in a legal vacuum. If museums return paintings, then these are voluntary, at best morally justified actions. The victims have no rights,” explains the chairman of the commission.
Chairman of the Advisory Commission Hans-Jürgen PapierPhoto: Jürgen Heinrich/IMAGO
Germany signed an agreement on the so-called “Washington Principles” in 1998. 43 states pledged to identify “works of art confiscated as a result of Nazi persecution” and find “just and fair solutions” to their owners or heirs. Germany does not adhere to these agreements, says historian Julius H. Schöps.
“Germany committed these crimes (crimes of National Socialism. – Ord.). And this is where heirs often despair about how they are being treated,” he says. Unless things change in the end, Germany’s international reputation will be damaged.
Schöps recalls that the community of Mendelssohn-Bartholdy heirs has already achieved settlement agreements with museums outside Germany, including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Guggenheim in New York.
Is a new restitution law needed?
German State Minister for Culture and Media Claudia Roth, who took part in a gala event to mark the anniversary of the commission at the Jewish Museum in Berlin, promised that reforms would follow. In October of this year, consultations will be held with the federal states, whose consent is necessary for reforms. A decision must also be made on the possibility of a unilateral appeal to the commission.
According to Chairman Hans-Jürgen Papier, this is not enough. He calls for a restitution law. Otherwise, according to the former President of the German Federal Constitutional Court, a unilateral appeal will be impossible. The Advisory Commission on Nazi Looted Property made only 23 recommendations in its 20 years of existence. “This is not enough, even if some of its recommendations were innovative,” Papier concludes.
Return of two paintings by Canaletto
The commission managed, for example, to resolve a dispute over two paintings by the Italian master Bernardo Bellotto, known as Canaletto. The dispute dragged on for 15 years. The paintings once belonged to department store magnate and philanthropist Max Emden. During National Socialism, due to his Jewish origins, he was forced to sell them through intermediaries for the private collection of Adolf Hitler – at a price, according to lawyers for the Emden family, far below their real market value.
Canaletto’s painting “View of the Zwingergraben in Dresden”Photo: Andre Held/akg-images/picture alliance
After the war, American soldiers found these paintings, which ended up in the art warehouse of the Federal Ministry of Finance. For some time they even hung in the official residence of the federal president, and later in the Military History Museum of Dresden.
German officials were convinced that at the time of the sale of the paintings, Max Emden was already safe in Switzerland. The heirs had to prove that Emden was forced to sell Canaletto’s paintings “due to loss of assets due to persecution.” Maeva Emden, Max Emden’s great-granddaughter, who grew up in Chile, remembers the many bureaucratic hurdles her family had to overcome. As a result, the Advisory Commission recommended the return of two paintings by Canaletto. In 2020 they were auctioned at Sotheby’s. The work “View of the Zwingergraben in Dresden” alone went under the hammer for six million euros.
Max Emden (1874–1940) was an art collectorPhoto: Creative Commons-Lizenz
“The costs of lawyers and legal services over the years have led to the need to sell these paintings,” emphasizes Maeva Emden. She would prefer to place Canaletto’s works at the disposal of a museum in Hamburg, the former hometown of art patron Max Emden. Above all, the heiress would like recognition “of what Max Emden did for Hamburg and Germany. There are many Jewish families whose memories were erased because these families were destroyed.”
Restitution is not “compensation”
Another case also contributed to the return of a famous painting to its rightful owners on the recommendation of a German commission: in 2017, the watercolor “Swamp Landscape with a Red Wind Turbine” by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff was returned to the Reynolds family. It belonged to Jewish businessman and art collector Max Rudenberg. Vernon Reynolds, now 87, is his grandson.
Vernon Reynolds (far right) returning the painting “Swamp Landscape with Red Wind Turbine” that belonged to his grandfatherPhoto: Silas Stein/dpa/picture alliance
“What are paintings?” – Vernon Reynolds asks in an interview with DW. He would rather talk about people than about the restitution of works of art. “You can return works of art, but not people,” he emphasizes. “I lost my father, grandparents on both sides. Uncles, aunts – all lost forever.”
Vernon Reynolds, born in Berlin in 1935, survived with his mother thanks to his grandfather’s art collection. Max Rudenberg and his wife Greta sold everything to get their family out of the country. Vernon’s brother and sister were sent to England. The mother also managed to escape with Vernon, who was three years old at the time. However, Max and Greta Rydenberg remained in Germany and were killed in the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Vernon’s father Reynolds died in Auschwitz.
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