Adolf Weinmüller’s galleries and auction houses in Munich and Vienna 1936–1945

Within the framework of a public–private partnership, the research project is investigating the history of the Adolf Weinmüller auction house in Munich for the first time. The auction house was the predecessor institution of the present-day Neumeister art auction house in Munich.
The main focus is on the role that Adolf Weinmüller played in the National Socialist art trade. Weinmüller began business as an art dealer in 1921 and joined the NSDAP in 1931. After the Jewish art dealer Hugo Helbing was forced to close his long-established auction house in Munich in 1936 following changes in the law, Weinmüller opened the Adolf Weinmüller art auction house in Palais Leuchtenberg on Odeonsplatz, Munich. He had virtually no competition in the years that followed. Weinmüller’s customers included high-ranking officials such as Martin Bormann and also influential colleagues in the art trade like the gallery owner Maria Almas-Dietrich, who targeted artworks for “Sonderauftrag Linz” (Linz Special Mission). In 1939, Weinmüller was made “Reich Propaganda Ministry art expert” by Munich Foreign Exchange Office.
After the annexation of Austria in 1938, Adolf Weinmüller aryanized the long-established business belonging to the Kende family, who were Jewish art dealers, at Rotenturmstraße 14 in Vienna. Art historian Dr. Franz Kieslinger (1891–1955), a leading expert in the Austrian art market, became the managing director of the Adolf Weinmüller art auction house in Vienna. From 1941, Kieslinger worked as an expert for the “Dienststelle Kajetan Mühlmann” in The Hague.
Categorized as a “Mitläufer” (follower) in the denazification process, Weinmüller continued in his profession from 1948 up until his death in 1958. Rudolf Neumeister took over the auction house in July 1958 after Weinmüller died.
The project funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media complements the work of the ZI, which focuses on the Munich art scene of the 1930s and 1940s.