Provision of archival sources from German, French and English-language archives for German and international provenance research into Kunstschutz/“art protection” (and art theft) during the Second World War

The estate of Franziskus Count Wolff Metternich (1893-1978), Commissioner for the Protection of Art at the Army High Command (OKH) from 1940 to 1943, forms part of the family archive of the Count Wolff Metternich zur Gracht and is to be found at Ehreshoven Castle in the archive depot of the Vereinigte Adelsarchive im Rheinland e.V. In addition to Wolff Metternich’s personal estate (and fragments of the estate of Bernhard von Tieschowitz (1902-1968), Wolff Metternich’s colleague and deputy in the Kunstschutz or “art protection” unit), the estate also contains working files of the Kunstschutz unit which were sent from Paris to the Rhineland Office for the Preservation of Monuments in Bonn in 1943 and 1944 in close consultation with the Kunstschutz unit.

The main aim of the project was to compile an archival inventory of the main archival material relating to Kunstschutz during the Second World War based on this hitherto unavailable central archive collection, showing the supplementary archival sources in German, French, Belgian and English-language archives relating to the central Wolff Metternich estate. The following work was done:

– the material inventory was drawn up of surviving Kunstschutz records from German, French and English-language archives;

– in order to improve the verifiability of Kunstschutz work processes and activities under Wolff Metternich and Tieschowitz, the original file holdings were combined virtually in a database;

– the networks and structures of Kunstschutz during the Second World War were described;

– in the context of provenance research, an analysis was carried out of the source value of the existing lists of French art repositories and lists of works of art from Jewish collections in Paris contained in the NLWM.

© Vereinigte Adelsarchive im Rheinland e.V. Pulheim