2 UCICKY’S BOSS, COUNT SASCHA, BECAME OBSESSED: Ibid.
3 “SPONSORING MEMBER OF THE SS”: Czernin, Die Falschung, p. 210.
4 IN 1934, UCICKY’S REFUGEES WAS AWARDED: David Welch, Propaganda and the German Cinema, 1933–1945 (London: Tauris, 2001), p. 108.
5 HIS NEXT FILM, MORGENROT: Brigid Haines, Stephen Parker, and Colin Riordan, Aesthetics and Politics in Modern German Culture (Oxford and New York: Peter Lang, 2010), p. 80.
6 “FOR ME, THE AIR STINKS”: Andreas Hutter and Klaus Kamolz, Billy Wilder: Eine europäische Karriere (Vienna: Bohlau, 1998). “Die Luft stinkt fur mich mit einmen Nazi im Zimmer” (p. 199).
7 RICHARD STRAUSS’S OPERA FRIEDENSTAG: Time magazine, June 19, 1939.
8 “DO YOU SUPPOSE MOZART”: Bryan Randolph Gilliam, The Life of Richard Strauss (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 149.
9 HE WAVED OVER OPERA SINGER HANS HOTTER: Hans Hotter, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Zubin Mehta, and Donald Arthur, Hans Hotter: Memoirs (Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England, 2006), p. 101.
10 “A HANDFUL OF GERMAN PEOPLE”: Welch, Propaganda, p. 110.
11 “THE WORST PROPAGANDA FEATURE”: Heidi M. Schlipphacke, Nostalgia After Nazism: History, Home, and Affect in German and Austrian Literature and Film (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 2010), p. 83.
FÜHRER
1 THE FATE OF THE BLOCH-BAUER KLIMTS: Czernin, Die Falschung, p. 153.
2 FÜHRER WOULD COMPILE A DISTINGUISHED ROSTER: Ibid., p. 143. See also Lillie and Gaugusch, Portrait, p. 76; Lillie reports that Führer’s clients included the banker Louis Rothschild, Sigmund Freud’s brother Alexander Freud, and four sisters of Freud who were deported and murdered.
3 THEY MAY NOT HAVE BEEN AWARE: Czernin, Die Falschung, pp. 153, 154; Lillie and Gaugusch, Portrait, p. 72.
4 “UGLY JEW”: Czernin, Die Falschung, p. 185.
5 FERDINAND HAD DONATED: Petropoulos, “Report of Professor Jonathan Petropoulos,” p. 10.
6 NAZI-APPOINTED “REPRESENTATIVE”: Austria arbitration decision, January 2006, p. 41.
7 “AWE-INSPIRING PORTRAIT”: Pirchan, Gustav Klimt, pp. 65, 66. Belvedere provenance researcher Monika Mayer and Klimt expert Alice Strobl confirm that this passage celebrates the acquisition of the gold portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer.
8 DAME IN GOLD: Ibid., illustration 105.
9 “HEIL KLIMT THE HERO!”: Ibid., p. 99.
NAZIS IN THE FAMILY
1 THE BACHOFEN-ECHT BROTHERS: Marianne Kirstein-Jacobs, interviews with Stanislaus Bachofen-Echt.
2 ELISABETH LEFT THE ISRAELITE COMMUNITY: Natter and Frodl, Klimt’s Women, p. 134.
3 “WOLFGANG DID NOT MARRY”: Rinesch, memoir.
4 “INSANE FEAR”: Rinesch, memoir.
5 IT COULD HARDLY HAVE BEEN REASSURING: SS file of Eberhard Bachofen-Echt, the National Archives, College Park, MD. Bachofen-Echt applied in March 1938. His qualifications included membership in the Nazi Party in 1933, joining the SA brownshirts in 1934, and a lengthy investigation of his Aryan pedigree, completed Dec. 1, 1938. On Feb. 23, 1939, his file declared that there were “no obstacles” to his membership.
6 “THE STRICKEN MOTHER REFUSED”: Rinesch, memoir.
7 ON AUGUST 17, HE UNILATERALLY DIVORCED: Lillie, Was einmal, p. 145; Natter and Frodl, Klimt’s Women, p. 134.
8 WOLFGANG MAY HAVE KEPT A SECRET: Lillie, Was einmal, p. 145.
“ABOVE THE MOB”
1 “MY MEMORIES OF GUSTAV KLIMT”: All quotations from Elisabeth Bachofen-Echt in this chapter come from her memoir, dated April 1939.
2 ACCORDING TO A PERHAPS APOCRYPHAL ACCOUNT: Rinesch, memoir.
3 “JEWISH CHARACTERISTICS”: Report of the Reichstelle for Genealogical Research, signed by Paul Schultze-Naumburg, Mar. 18, 1940.
4 HER JEWELRY WAS TAKEN AND SOLD: Lillie, Was einmal, p. 145.
5 “WHY MUST IT BE THE PAINTINGS?”: Ibid., p. 662.
6 IN MARCH 1940, ELISABETH FINALLY OBTAINED: Certificate signed by Schultze-Naumburg for the Reichsstelle for Genealogical Research.
7 ELISABETH WAS DECLARED A MISCHLING: Schultze-Naumburg, certificate. Copy provided courtesy of Marianne Kirstein-Jacobs.
THE VIENNESE CASSANDRA
1 IN JUNE 1940, AS THE GERMAN ARMY APPROACHED PARIS: Firsthand account of Emile Zuckerkandl, June 24, 2006, and subsequent telephone interviews.
2 “WHY DON’T YOU GIVE UP”: Emile Zuckerkandl, interviews.
3 THE CAPTAIN WAS: Emile Zuckerkandl, interviews. Similar accounts appear in Arnold Geier, Heroes of the Holocaust (New York: Berkley Books, 1998), p. 257.
4 THERE WAS A SMALL CANNON: Emile Zuckerkandl, interviews.
5 THE REFUGEES BEGAN TO SING THE “MARSEILLAISE”: Emile Zuckerkandl, interviews, 2006–2011.
6 THE ELEGANT FRENCH WRITER ARRIVED: Emile Zuckerkandl, interviews.
FERDINAND IN EXILE
1 “DEAR FRIEND AND PROFESSOR”: Letter from Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer to Oskar Kokoschka, Apr. 2, 1941, in the holdings of the Zentralbibliotek Zürich Nachlass O. Kokoschka (English translation from Randol Schoenberg’s lawsuit, p. 13).
THE GUTMANNS
1 A BRITISH INTELLIGENCE OFFICER: Interviews with Rudy Gelse, a cousin of Nelly Auersperg, whose family shared the Gutmann manor in Belisce from Feb. 22, 2007, to 2011, by telephone.
2 IN MAY, AN USTASHA GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL: Baron Viktor Gutmann: His Trial and Death (a “translation of a paper written by Baron Gutmann in a Zagreb prison after he had been condemned to death”), family archives. Courtesy of Nelly Auersperg.
3 “TO SETTLE THE MATTER OF THE SHARES”: Ibid.
4 THEY SUMMONED VIKTOR AND ERNO: Ibid.
5 A FEW HOURS LATER: Ibid. Also, interviews with Maria Altmann and Dr. Edward Auersperg.
THE “BLONDE BEAST”
1 HEYDRICH MARRIED LINA VON OSTEN: Gerald Reitlinger, The Alibi of a Nation, 1922–1945 (New York: Da Capo Press, 1989), p. 34.
2 LINA AND HER BROTHER HAD BEEN: Callum MacDonald, The Killing of Reinhard Heydrich: The SS “Butcher of Prague” (New York: Da Capo Press, 1998), p. 14.
3 HEYDRICH, A CAROUSING PHILANDERER: Joachim Fest, The Face of the Third Reich (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1970), p. 337.
4 HE WAS EXPELLED BY THE NAVY: Ibid. See also Anthony Read, The Devil’s Disciples: Hitler’s Inner Circle (New York: W. W. Norton, 2004), p. 310.
5 IN JUNE 1931, HEYDRICH FOUND HIMSELF: MacDonald, The Killing of Reinhard Heydrich, p. 18.
6 HIS RIVALS BELIEVED: Reitlinger, The Alibi, p. 33.
7 THEY BADLY BOTCHED: Ibid., p. 32.
8 PEOPLE WHISPERED ABOUT: Ibid., p. 33.
9 EVEN HEYDRICH’S FELLOW OFFICERS: Steven Lehrer, Wannsee House and the Holocaust (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2000), p. 55.
10 ON MAY 27, HEYDRICH OPENED: MacDonald, The Killing of Reinhard Heydrich, p. 170.
11 “GET THAT BASTARD!” Ibid., p. 172.
12 HEYDRICH DIED OF INFECTION: Ibid., p. 178.
13 REVENGE WAS SWIFT: Callum MacDonald and Jan Kaplan, Prague in the Shadow of the Swastika (Prague: Melantich, 1995), p. 132.
14 THE SURVIVING WOULD-BE ASSASSINS: William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1960), p. 196.
15 THE NAZIS ROUNDED UP: Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich at War (New York: Penguin, 2009), p. 278.
16 FERDINAND CONTACTED AN OLD FRIEND: Ruth Pleyer, interviews, April 2007.
17 THE DEAL SOURED SOMEWHAT: MacDonald, The Killing of Reinhard Heydrich, p. 198.
LOVE LETTERS FROM A MURDERER
1 “AFTER A SLEEPLESS NIGHT”: Omer Bartov, Holocaust: Origins, Implementation, Aftermath (London: Routledge, 2000), p. 187.
2 “SHOOTING EXERCISES”: Ibid., p. 202.
3 HE WOULD IDLY LOOK OUT: Ficowski, Regions of the Great Heresy, p. 164.
4 “FINE, SO I’LL JUST PLAY”: Irena Steinfeldt, How Was It Humanly Possible?: A Study of Perpetrators and Bystanders During the Holocaust, vol. 1 (Jerusalem: International
School for Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem; Laxton, Newark, Nottinghamshire, UK: Beth Shalom Holocaust Memorial Centre, 2002), p. 63.
5 “THERE WERE ROWS OF JEWS”: Bartov, Holocaust, p. 189.
6 “THE THOUGHT OF YOU”: Ficowski, Regions of the Great Heresy, p. 135.
7 BUT ANNA AND HER HUSBAND WERE SEIZED: Ibid.
8 HE TOLD AN ACQUAINTANCE: Ibid., pp. 136–37.
9 IN NOVEMBER 1942: Ibid., p. 137.
10 “YOU KILLED MY JEW”: Ibid., p. 138.
FERDINAND’S LEGACY
1 “IT USED TO BE CALLED PLUNDERING”: Petropoulos, Art as Politics in the Third Reich, p. 195.
2 FERDINAND BEGAN TO REWRITE: Petropoulos, “Report of Professor Jonathan Petropoulos,” p. 20.
3 “IN AN ILLEGAL MANNER”: Claims Resolution Tribunal, Certified Award Re: Account of Österreichische Zuckerindustry AG Syndicate, Apr. 13, 2005, p. 23.
4 “THE SITUATION HAS CHANGED”: Melissa Müller and Monika Tatzkow, Lost Lives, Lost Art: Jewish Collectors, Nazi Art Theft, and the Quest for Justice (New York: Vendome, 2010).
5 IN FEBRUARY, ZWEIG HAD LEFT: Leo Spitzer, Lives In Between: Assimilation and Marginality in Austria, Brazil, and West Africa, 1780–1945 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 171.
6 “THE WORLD OF MY OWN LANGUAGE”: Zweig, World of Yesterday, p. 437.
7 THEN ZWEIG AND HIS WIFE: Ibid.
THE USES OF ART
1 “THIS GENIUS GRAZING THE STARS”: Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, p. 253.
2 SCHIRACH HAD SPONSORED AN EXHIBITION: Petropoulos, Faustian Bargain, p. 126.
3 LIKE OTHER TOP NAZIS: Ibid.
4 SCHIRACH BOUGHT WORKS DIRECTLY: Ibid., p. 195.
5 AS THE SHOW OPENED, CARL MOLL: Alice Strobl, interviews, Nov. 3, 2006.
6 “VERY SAD, THAT YOU STAYED”: Czernin, Die Falschung, p. 405. The titles of the paintings are listed in the guide to the show: Gustav Klimt, Ausstellung 7. Februar bis 7 Marz 1943, at the Ausstellungshaus Friedrichstrasse Ehemalige Secession, by the Veranstalter: Der Reichsstatthalter in Wien. The text of the catalogue was written by Fritz Novotny. A copy of the exhibition catalogue provided courtesy of the Belvedere.
7 “OWNERS OF THE KLIMT WORKS”: Exhibition catalogue.
8 “MY FÜHRER, I REPORT TO YOU”: Ivar Oxaal, Michael Pollak, and Gerhard Botz, Jews, Antisemitism, and Culture in Vienna (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987), p. 238.
9 IT HUNG NEAR: Petropoulos, “Report of Professor Jonathan Petropoulos,” p. 10.
NELLY
1 IN MAY 1942, CROATIAN JEWS: Slavcho Zagorov, The Agricultural Economy of the Danubian Countries, 1935–45 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1955), p. 337.
2 AMONG THE FEW EXCEPTIONS: Ibid.; Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (New York: Penguin, 2006), pp. 183–84.
3 SOME WERE FORCED TO PLEDGE: Philip J. Cohen, Serbia’s Secret War: Propaganda and the Deceit of History (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1996), p. 91.
4 AUTHORITIES WERE GROWING IMPATIENT: Viktor Gutmann, memoir.
5 TENJE: The Third Reich and Yugoslavia, 1933–1945, vol. 1973 (Institute for Contemporary History, 1977), p. 668.
6 AT THE GYPSY VILLAGE: Nelly Auersperg, interviews, Aug. 2006.
7 ONE NIGHT IN EARLY MAY 1943: Gutmann, His Trial and Death.
8 THEY WERE TOLD TO KEEP: Nelly Auersperg, interview, Aug. 2006.
9 A FRIEND OF LUISE’S: Maria Altmann, interviews, 2006.
10 “I WILL HELP YOUR FRIEND”: Maria Altmann, interviews; “Whose Art Is It, Anyway?” Los Angeles Times Magazine, Dec. 16, 2011.
11 HERE LUISE WAS EXPECTED TO WAIT: Maria Altmann, interviews, 2001–2011.
12 ONE DAY SHE HAD OPENED: Telephone interviews with Eddy Auersperg, Jan. 24, 2007, and Maria Altmann, 2001–2008.
THE IMMENDORF CASTLE
1 IT WAS A WARM, BLUSTERY DAY: Document for Storage of the “Sammlung S. Lederer,” or Serena Lederer collection, listing the Klimt paintings transferred from the Belvedere to the Schloss Immendorf; signed by Baron Freudenthal, dated Mar. 3, 1943. A copy of the document provided courtesy of the Belvedere.
2 “WAS VERY HUMAN”: Anna Lenji, “The Testimony of Anna Lenji on Labour in an Estate,” Shoah Resource Center, Yad Vashem, p. 1.
3 “WHICH I THOUGHT WAS HORRIBLE”: Ibid.
4 THE AUSTRIAN GALLERY’S FRITZ NOVOTNY SENT: The Belvedere inventory of important paintings signed by Fritz Novotny on Aug. 1, 1944, included works by Kokoschka. A copy of original document provided courtesy of the Belvedere.
5 THEIR FATHER HAD WARNED THEM: Johannes Freudenthal, telephone interview, Jan. 20, 2007.
THE CHILD IN THE CHAPEL
1 FOR NELLY, NOW FOURTEEN: Nelly Auersperg, interviews Vancouver, Aug. 2006.
2 INSTEAD, THEY ARRESTED HIM: Nelly Auersperg, interviews Aug. 2006.
3 THE SIGHT OF THE SUFFERING CHILD: Nelly Auersperg, interviews Aug. 2006.
THE CASTLE OF THE FIRST REICHSMARSCHALL
1 WOLFGANG WAS ALSO LISTED: Lillie, Was einmal, p. 662.
2 CONSTRUCTION CREWS THAT WERE EXCAVATING: Hans and Gertrude Aurenhammer, Das Belvedere in Wien (Vienna: Verlag Anton Schroll, 1971), p. 36.
3 HER NEIGHBOR, A LITTLE BOY NAMED HANS HOLLEIN: Hans Hollein, interview.
4 THE COMPOSER RICHARD STRAUSS: Kennedy, Richard Strauss, pp. 101, 108. See also Mark-Daniel Schmid, The Richard Strauss Companion (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003), p. 53; and Del Mar, Richard Strauss, vol. 3, p. 400.
5 HE SPENT THE LAST HOURS: Magnin-Haberditzl, Familien-Chronik, p. 17.
6 “THINK, DEAR FRIEND”: Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, trans. Joan M. Burnham (Novato, CA: New World Library, 2000), p. 51.
7 “YOU COME AND KEEP”: Rainer Maria Rilke, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, trans. Burton Pike (Champaign, IL: Dalkey Archive Press, 2008), p. 56.
8 THE MASSIVE FORTIFIED BUNKER: Aurenhammer and Aurenhammer, Das Belvedere, p. 36.
9 “CASTLE OF THE FIRST REICHSMARSCHALL”: Ibid.
10 BY THEN DEPORTEES WERE DRIVEN AWAY: Bukey, Hitler’s Austria, p. 164.
11 THE MAN RIA HAD KILLED HERSELF FOR: Christie’s press release, May 28, 2010. See also Comini, Gustav Klimt, p. 29, citing a 1975 letter from Erich Lederer identifying Munk as the fiancée of Hans Heinz Ewers.
12 HE EARNED THE FÜHRER’S APPROVAL: Max Beloff, On the Track of Tyranny (Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1971), pp. 58–59.
13 MORGENSTERN WROTE HITLER: Hamann, Hitler’s Vienna, pp. 357–59.
14 SHE MADE A FINAL FORAY: Stanislaus Bachofen-Echt, interviews.
15 “DIED OF A BROKEN HEART”: Rinesch, memoir.
THE PARTISANS
1 SOME PARTISANS BEFRIENDED: Nelly Auersperg, interviews.
2 THE CROATIAN NO LONGER FELT OBLIGATED: Nelly Auersperg, interviews. Nelly also tells this story in a private family memoir.
3 THEN, ONE DAY, THE FAMILY: Nelly Auersperg, interviews.
THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES
1 THAT SEPTEMBER, ERICH FÜHRER: Sultano and Werkner, Oskar Kokoschka, p. 56.
2 “DEGENERATE ART”: Ibid.
3 “HERR PRESIDENT, HERE IS YOUR PAINTING”: Ibid.
4 “WILL IT BE OF ANY INTEREST”: Ibid., p. 155.
5 BUT ARCHIVES THAT SURFACED: Czernin, Die Falschung, p. 154.
6 AND THAT FÜHRER MADE: Ibid., p. 141.
THE NERO DECREE
1 BY THEN, HITLER’S ARMY HAD STOLEN: Greg Bradsher, National Archive and Records Assistant Chief Administration, “Documenting Nazi Plunder of European Art.”
2 “MY PICTURES”: The Private and Political Testaments of Hitler, Apr. 29, 1945, Office of United States Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality.
3 THEN, ACCORDING TO A POLICE REPORT: A belated police report on the incident, dated May 20, 1946, was provided and translated at the Leopold Museum. In a Mar. 28, 2011, article titled “Burned to the Ground,” grandson Rudolf Freudenthal told t
he Niederösterreichische Nachrichten newspaper that the SS used timed fuses to ignite the fire.
4 THIS WAS BELIEVED TO HAVE BEEN: The precise number of paintings burned at Schloss Immendorf is unknown. An inventory signed by Baron Rudolf Freudenthal lists ten paintings from the Lederer collection. Belvedere researchers add an eleventh, Medicine, which Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer helped the Belvedere to acquire. But in the book Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele und die Familie Lederer, by Klimt expert Christian Nebehay (Vienna: Verlag Galerie Kornfeld Bern, 1987), p. 17, there is a list of thirteen Lederer Klimts sent to the Immendorf. With Medicine, that would bring the total to fourteen.
5 THE COUNTESS MARGIT BATTHYANY, NÉE THYSSEN-BORNEMISZA: David R. L. Litchfield, The Thyssen Art Macabre: The History of the Thyssens (London: Quartet Books, 2006), p. 181.
6 “ORDINARY PEOPLE BORE WITNESS”: Bukey, Hitler’s Austria, p. 224.
7 IN THE PRETTY IRON-MINING MOUNTAIN VILLAGE: Ibid., p. 225.
8 IN WIENER NEUDORF: Ibid.
9 FIVE-HUNDRED-POUND BOMBS: Nicholas, Rape of Europa, pp. 316–17.
10 ON MAY 5, THE MINES: Ibid., p. 317.
11 “LATEST HORDE OF BARBARIANS”: Marie Vassiltchikov, Berlin Diaries, 1940–1945 (New York: Vintage, 1988), p. 270.
12 HE HAD POSTERS PUT UP: Ibid., p. 266.
13 “THESE DAMAGES COULD HAVE BEEN”: “Der Zeit ihre Kunst, der Kunst ihre Freiheit: Wiederaufbau und Neugestaltung der Secession,” Arbeiter-Zeitung, July 20, 1951, provided and translated by the architect, author, and Secession historian Otto Kapfinger.
14 “IN ORDER NOT TO LEAVE”: Ibid.
15 “A VERY PRECIOUS BUILDING”: Ibid.
16 SHE SURVIVED THE GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG: Monika Mayer, Provenance Researcher at the Belvedere. A Belvedere inventory lists the second portrait of Adele in wartime storage at the Weinern Castle: July 31, 1944, memo from Fritz Novotny, on Direktion der Österreichen Galerie stationery. The second portrait of Adele was listed as “Frau Bl. Bauer.” In addition to the account of the Secession fire in the Arbeiter-Zeitung, see also Andreas Lehne, “Die Katastrophe von Immendorf, nach dem Archivmaterial des Bundesdenkalamtes,” in Belvedere: Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst (Vienna: Sonderband Gustav Klimt, 2007), p. 54.
The Lady in Gold Page 39