First check of provenance research on Nazi-looted property at Museum für Stadtgeschichte Dessau, Anhaltische Gemäldegalerie, Städtisches Museum Halberstadt, Museum Burg Ummendorf Bestand Kreismuseum Oschersleben, Kreismuseum Osterburg

The project involves a search for Nazi-looted property at five museums in Saxony-Anhalt. The following institutions are involved:

•bullet Museum für Stadtgeschichte Dessau (city history museum)

•bullet Anhaltische Gemäldegalerie Dessau-Roßlau (art gallery)

•bullet Städtisches Museum Halberstadt (municipal museum)

•bullet Museum Burg Ummendorf with the holdings of Kreismuseum Oschersleben and

•bullet Kreisheimatmuseum Osterburg (local history museum).

The museums to be analysed are financed by local authorities. They were founded before the Nazi era or emerged from institutions that already existed before the Nazi era. For this reason, it is within the realm of probability that Nazi-looted property might be identified in these museums.

The current first check follows on from the pilot project, which was carried out at five museums in Saxony-Anhalt in 2016/2017, and the 2018/2019 project in which 16 further museums were checked for the first time. This third round of first checks thus once again contributes to the systematic, comprehensive and sustainable search for Nazi-looted property and to bringing numerous new findings to light.

The aim of the project was to examine whether there are any objects in the museums that are suspected of having been unlawfully seized from their owners during the National Socialist era. Our assumption was that we would once again find some objects whose previous owners were Jewish, Freemasons or Socialists. The method of the first check is also a key indicator of objects from contexts of injustice in the GDR and the colonial era. In addition, the Saxony-Anhalt museum association Museumsverband Sachsen-Anhalt e. V. hoped to gain insights into the history of the museums and their collections as well as the personal links between the museum directors and the local protagonists during the National Socialist era.

There is very little evidence of Nazi-looted property in the Museum für Stadtgeschichte Dessau and in the holdings of Kreismuseum Oschersleben at Museum Burg Ummendorf. The finds at Kreismuseum Osterburg are probably not sufficient for a separate in-depth proposal. These were: four purchases through the art trade in 1937 and a doorstep find (a pair of women’s lace-up shoes and two pairs of wooden soles) which was discovered in the inventory register among the accessions in 1980 and came from the business premises of Kulp (shoe store)/from c. 1925 Less (Jewish shoe store). Further research was carried out on the depot find during the first check. The museum is still clarifying the suspected cases. Städtisches Museum Halberstadt is recommended to carry out closer research into 83 accessions because, for example, their entries in the inventory register indicate that they were consigned by the local NSDAP group “Roland” or by people with surnames that suggest they were Jewish residents of Halberstadt.

In addition, nine items of Judaica or Jewish artefacts were found: the authenticity and origin of these need to be investigated in more detail. Systematic provenance research is recommended for the Anhaltische Gemäldegalerie Dessau in Dessau, since the extensive holdings of paintings, prints and drawings were documented on a random basis and not at all in the case of the sculpture, porcelain/ceramics, arts and crafts and historical book collections. Firstly, in-depth research is to be carried out into two Judaica, 26 suspicious provenances originating from the Nazi era, 10 unclear provenances of accessions prior to 1945, and 14 unclear provenances involving ambiguous circumstances of acquisition.

A collection from colonial contexts is to be found in Städtisches Museum Halberstadt. All five of the museums involved possess objects where there are indications that they originated in the context of seizure in the Soviet occupation zone/GDR.

© Museumsverband Sachsen-Anhalt e.V. Bernburg