Electronic evaluation of the personal files of the Vermögensverwertungsstelle des Oberfinanzpräsident Berlin-Brandenburg (1933 to 1945) for the identification of art ownership and for the localization of Nazi looted art - Scientific indexing of a mass source to be digitized in the Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam

The Brandenburg State Archives in Potsdam hold the personal files of the Oberfinanzpräsident (Chief Finance President, short: OFP) Berlin-Brandenburg, which also include around 42,000 personal files of the "Vermögensverwertungsstelle". This was established as a separate office at the OFP Berlin-Brandenburg on 01.01.1942 in connection with the start of the mass deportations of Jews to ghettos, concentration and extermination camps. In addition to the files on the disposition of the last possessions of the deportees, the file group also includes files on the confiscated property of emigrants. Numerous documents relate to the confiscation and utilization of art and cultural property during National Socialism.
The research project (OFP project for short) systematically investigates the utilization of looted art objects for the benefit of the state treasury. Essential to the project are the references to auctions or other sales as well as selections of art and cultural property documented in the files, which were prescribed by National Socialist laws and decrees. They make it possible to identify public institutions and museums as sites of Nazi-confiscated cultural property.
In order to achieve this, the previously digitized files of the Vermögensverwertungsstelle are systematically evaluated by the provenance researchers with the help of a document management system (DMS). An automated text recognition system (Optical Character Recognition) enables a full text search of the typewritten part in the files. Based on this various classifications and keywords, which are based on intensive basic research in the files, allow a targeted computer-aided search for the profiteers of the National Socialist art theft. The individual cases identified in this way are subsequently evaluated, processed and, if necessary, researched in greater depth by the provenance researchers in the project. The DMS as an evaluation tool for provenance research was specially designed and implemented in the course of the project and will be further developed during the project period.
In the current project, the results of the provenance research are to be passed on to the legal successors of the victims of National Socialist persecution (as far as known) and to the public institutions and museums which, according to the files, have acquired art objects from former Jewish ownership, so that a restitution process can be initiated.
In compliance with the provisions of archival law and data protection law, the digital copies of the files of the Vermögensverwertungsstelle and the research results obtained in the project are to be made available for public and scientific re-use.
The OFP Project is being funded by the German Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media and the Ministry of Science, Research and Culture of the Bundesland Brandenburg.

© Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv