by Susan Ronald
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McKay, and later on, Monuments Man interrogator James S. Plaut saw Gurlitt’s tax returns, which showed a remarkable rise in his declared income from the time of the Anschluss:
RM 20,789 in 1938
RM 15,253 in 1939
RM 25,358 in 1940
RM 44,452 in 1941
RM 41,001 in 1942
RM 176,855 in 1943
RM 159,999 in 1944
and zero in 1945.16
His bonds and deposits with the banking firm of Ree in Hamburg showed only a portion of his wealth. Gurlitt’s Dresden bank account had an additional RM 40,000 in cash. Then there were the artworks—“which are here in this castle”—worth between RM 40,000 and RM 80,000.17 His interrogators also knew that Dresdner Bank had been the primary conduit for all transfers from the Reich Chancellery.
Given that the Sonderauftrag Linz had paid Gurlitt in excess of RM 22 million from the end of 1942 to 1944 in France alone, even with a meager 5 percent commission, Gurlitt ought to have been declaring at least RM 1 million in income in the years 1943–4.18 That, of course, doesn’t take into account paintings he sold to industrialists like Kirchbach, Thyssen, and Reemtsma. Evidently, the money was never deposited in a German bank account—nor was anything like his real income declared on his German tax returns. In other words, Hildebrand Gurlitt had defrauded Hitler, not only of works of art, but also of tax revenue. McKay and all the Monuments Men were in good company when Gurlitt duped them. The question remains: Where did he stash the cash and art?
* * *
Unaware of the tax fraud, McKay soldiered on interrogating Gurlitt. He next asked where Gurlitt had been at the outbreak of the war. “In 1939, I was in Switzerland, then Paris,”19 Gurlitt replied. McKay’s eyebrows may have metaphorically risen at this point, but first he needed a declaration by Gurlitt about belonging to the Nazi Party: “Since 1919, I have never been a soldier. My wife and I [were] never a member of the party or any other Nazi institution (except like all other art dealers in the Reichskammer der bildenden Künste). No connection whatsoever to any party official, as an art dealer only cooperation with my former colleagues, the directors of Museums, never sworn in on the Fuhrer [sic]. Never voted for the Nazis, likewise not my wife. Was never in a position to denounce my fre [sic] opinion.”20
McKay knew Gurlitt was lying, but had no evidence—at least yet—to prove it. So McKay asked, “Tell me about your trips to Paris.”21
The reply was not immediately forthcoming. Gurlitt insisted that he “knew nothing” (the rehearsed refrain that rang out time and again from many collaborators). He had told McKay all he could remember. Gurlitt signed a sworn statement that his first trip to Paris was in 1941, where previously he had stated that he went to Paris in 1939. When called out on this by McKay, Gurlitt replied that the 1941 trip was not for himself but for the German museums—the first of ten business trips between 1941 and 1944 undertaken for Dr. Hans Posse, and then, on Posse’s death, for Professor Hermann Voss.22
McKay had the admission he wanted. This tied Gurlitt directly to the primary safeguarding campaign wielded to fill Hitler’s Linz museum. McKay extracted a testimony that was far short of the truth, but nonetheless quite revealing: “I was paid by transfers through the clearinghouse. Up to 1942 they were unrestricted for my use.” Gurlitt made purchases for private clients and then “later only for the Führermuseum” through different dealers, but only very rarely “from private persons. In total I acquired about two hundred paintings in France and have given them to museums. I have sold little to private persons.”23 Given? As previously stated, he exported a minimum of 526 paintings, fifty-five drawings, two pastels, nine sculptures, and twenty-six tapestries in that period through Knauer, according to the Musées Nationaux.
McKay noted down the contradictions, querying them with a question mark in the margin. He had, of course, no access to the information that littered the Archives Nationales de France’s AJ 40 files on the spoliation of France by German art dealers. For his part, McKay hoped, however, that Gurlitt would become talkative about his acquisitions for Voss and the Führermuseum from France. The outcome would determine if Gurlitt could be classed as a “war criminal.”
“I was sent to Paris on the endorsements of former colleagues … Directors [sic] of great museums,” Gurlitt explained. “This I liked very much, because on account of the bombs and the always increasing Nazi-terror.… There was furthermore the danger that I, as quarter Jew, should have been forced to work for the Organization Todt.”24 Though McKay had been in the job of interrogating art looters for only a month, he was already well versed in the story. Still, had his prisoner dealt in looted art? Gurlitt blatantly lied, Never. Never? Never, came the reply again.
Had Gurlitt somehow kidded himself? Had he forgotten about Two Horses on the Beach by Max Liebermann, stolen from David Friedmann and sold to him through Hans W. Lange? Or what about the Chinese tapestries from the Goldschmidt-Rothschild collection? Or his newly acquired Matisse from the Paul Rosenberg collection, which now resided in a bank vault? Of course not.
Interestingly, until this point, Gurlitt hadn’t painted any pictures of the bonfires of books and artworks, nor had he expressed the predicament of the artists. Later interrogations claiming that this had been the impetus behind his actions crumble when his first transcript is read. Gurlitt stressed in the main that he had been compelled to become an art dealer and only dealt in works of art with a good provenance.
* * *
Even more bizarre was Gurlitt’s statement under oath that Hermann Voss—not Hans Posse—was responsible for his role as one of the four official art dealers to empty German museums of their modern art. This was natural enough, he explained, since the Gurlitt name was well respected in art and architecture circles.25 Again, this was pure invention by Gurlitt. At the time that Voss allegedly recommended him to Goebbels, Voss had applied to immigrate to Britain. Since Voss had not requested political asylum, his application was refused. Voss had no alternative but to return to work in Germany in 1935 and keep quiet about his personal views. It was only his vast knowledge of German baroque and Italian Renaissance art (he had worked at the German Institute in Florence during the 1914–18 war) that kept him in employment.26
Still, McKay was no art expert and simply noted everything down. Gurlitt skipped over the years 1941–42, claiming that he had “never spoken to any superior officials of Voss, nor ever written to them.”27 His friendship with Albert Speer, or buying and selling art for Hitler, Goebbels, Göring, and Ribbentrop was never mentioned. Nor was how Hitler treated his personal and Linz collections as one and the same.
Gurlitt claimed that the way it worked was simple. Voss instructed Gurlitt where to go to acquire art and Gurlitt obeyed. “I did not have closer insights to the office of Reichsleiter Bormann,” Gurlitt lied fancifully. “Payments were made from the Reichskanzlei over to Bankhaus Schickler, Delbruk [sic] in Berlin. My bills were made out to Professor Voss, commissioner for the Museum Linz.”28
Was Gurlitt aware of what the führer bought? McKay asked. Gurlitt said he was aware that Dietrich, the photographer Hoffmann, and others were active in this regard. “For these purchases there was no laid-out plan, while Professor Voss wished to have a museum collection put on a scientific and historic base.”29 Here Gurlitt was referring to the 1939 mammoth project undertaken by Dr. Otto Kümmel, then director of the Berlin Museums.30
McKay zeroed in on the main question that troubled the Allies, asking Gurlitt how it worked with the pictures from the Jewish collections. Gurlitt of course had “no personal knowledge.” He had only heard rumors of sequestrations and forced sales. As expected, McKay’s concerns related to the unremitting violations of article 46 of the 1907 Hague Convention. Gurlitt admitted to having heard that “Jewish-owned art treasures in France were seized by a law,” then went on to claim that he hadn’t ever “seen [it] with my eyes.”
Immediately contradicting himself, Gurlitt stated, “I
know that the German Ambassador used a Baroque Writing [sic] desk, which came from the Rothschild collection. I also saw marvelous French drawings from the 18th century in the room of the German embassy, which were said to come from the same source.” Though Gurlitt had been told of a “rich palace” in Paris where Jewish art was collected and divided among different Nazi officials, he “never went to this building.”31 Pointing the finger at Bruno Lohse, Gurlitt claimed that he’d heard that Lohse was rapacious. Yet Gurlitt claimed he “always avoided to meet high Nazi Officials in Paris.”
Perhaps McKay raised a metaphorical eyebrow again here. Gurlitt certainly felt he’d been caught in a lie and clarified: “I was only once to [sic] a large reception in the embassy together with hundreds of people.” It was there that he heard the Gestapo bought paintings from private collectors or dealers “under pressure … which I heard very often, but I never could prove it or even get reliable information, as I otherwise should have gone after such an accusation and would have informed Professor Voss privately. I did notice … that I was not shown many pictures, which were reserved for other dealers.”32 Was this a poor translation, or was Gurlitt squirming?
* * *
After three days of questioning, a weary McKay realized that he’d barely scratched the surface and filed his report. His final task was to secure Gurlitt’s formal signature on the statement and indicate which works of art were his. This marked the beginning of the arduous task for Allied art experts to determine what had been legitimately acquired and what had been safeguarded or stolen. At no point in the process did Hildebrand Gurlitt indicate that he was safeguarding his collection for posterity or that he had “rescued” the modern art in his possession or indeed that he was warehousing it for others.
Later, while viewing his art collection at the Neue Residenz in Bamberg, Gurlitt seemed more relaxed as he identified a number of his grandfather’s landscapes, a painting by Beckmann, and the Otto Dix self-portrait.33 Max Liebermann’s Wagon on Sand Dunes, Marc Chagall’s Allegorical Scene, Max Beckmann’s The Lion Tamer, Max Liebermann’s Two Riders on the Beach, Edgar Degas’s Nude Woman Washing Herself, Pablo Picasso’s Woman’s Head—all elicited equal joy. Some 115 paintings, nineteen drawings, and seventy-two various objets d’art were again sworn by Gurlitt to be his entire surviving collection—the rest had been destroyed during the firebombing of Dresden. Even his records were gone.34 No one seemed to note that, miraculously, his tapestries and furniture had survived.
Nor did they find out that Gurlitt had sold two of the four most expensive paintings bought at the Viau auction in December 1942 to Hermann Reemtsma of Hamburg. Reemtsma acquired the Corot landscape and the Pissarro, having refused to take the FF 5 million Cézanne Vallée de l’Arc de la Montagne—St Victoire, as Reemtsma believed that it, and the Daumier, were fakes.*
* * *
McKay’s investigation was as complete as possible in the absence of corroborative testimony. Whether to prosecute Gurlitt or not depended on the outcome of the art experts’ evaluations. Yet these would be mired in red tape for years. As early as 1944, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., the US secretary of the treasury under Roosevelt, had devised his plan to handle the daunting task ahead. Unofficially called the “Morgenthau Plan,” it was signed into law by President Truman as JCS 1067 on May 10, 1945. Among its many functions, JCS 1067 provided for the denazification of Germany as an integral part of rebuilding the country.35
By August 1945, “Morgenthau’s Boys” were on the case of the looted art, too. These men were expert treasury investigators loaned to the US Army of Occupation to sniff out the looters and return stolen works to their rightful owners or heirs. It was Morgenthau’s Boys who made the horrific connection between looting and the concentration camps. Yet they would be withdrawn from their forensic searches by more political wrangling in the months ahead, since their work overlapped with the work of Project Safehaven, headed by Allen Dulles from Bern.
As for First Lieutenant Dwight McKay, he was transferred to Nuremberg in September to work on the prosecution of the biggest Nazi war criminals—perhaps wearing a sly smile when thinking of Gurlitt and the grilling he should face for years to come.
* * *
Decades later, S. Lane Faison, the noted Monuments Man and naval officer, remarked in a radio interview that he had the complex remit from the Roberts Commission to write the “official history, as far as we could put it together, of how Adolf Hitler’s art collection was formed.”36 He worked in a three-man team with Lieutenants James S. Plaut and Theodore Rousseau, Jr., to achieve that end, in a short period and with great aplomb.37 These three men interviewed Haberstock, Gurlitt, Pölnitz, Voss, Lohse, Georg Büchner (head of the Bavarian galleries), Dietrich, Carl Buemming, and Herbst among the vast array of dealers and functionaries.
While the Monuments Men were gathering intelligence and writing up their reports, the United States Military Detachment to Bamberg G-222 issued an evacuation order, on November 21, 1945. Signed by Property Control Officer Wallace W. Johns, it read:
To Whom It May Concern:
Mr. Chaim Krut has been appointed custodian of the castle of Aschbach and all the properties belonging to it.
The owner, Baron v. Poelnitz and family are hereby ordered to vacate the premises immediately. No furniture of any kind or equipment may be removed from the castle or the grounds. Anything which has been removed must be returned at once.
This is an order of the Military Government.38
A political decision had been made to use the castle as a recuperation and recovery unit for concentration-camp victims. Baroness Pölnitz was apoplectic with rage, accusing “these people” of ruining her fine antiques. She would have to bear the ignominy until such time as the valuables could be removed to another location.
Meanwhile, Monuments Men declared that the Schloss had been used as a major depot for the museums in Nuremberg, Bamberg, and Kassel and that Pölnitz was in custody. Private individuals like General Fütterer and the German ambassador in Budapest had also housed their art collections there. “In residence is Herr Karl Haberstock from Berlin, the personal art dealer of Adolf Hitler and Herr Hildebrand Gurlitt from Hamburg and Dresden, another art dealer of the führer. Both of these collectors have great collections of works of art on the premises.”39 The wives, though not mentioned, were assuredly there as well.
As a result of the evacuation order, Gurlitt and his family were forced to move across the road to the less salubrious accommodation at 13a High Street, overlooking the scenic lake that dominates the tiny village. Haberstock had been taken into custody and questioned in Munich as a material witness in the main war-crimes trials. Gurlitt remained under house arrest.
* * *
Meanwhile, Lane Faison retreated to the London desk to write his great tome—Consolidated Interrogation Report no. 4—regarding Hitler’s museum and library. It was dated December 15, 1945. Yet even Faison recognized that they hadn’t all the facts at their disposal. A shorter, supplementary report was created after Faison was shown a mere eleven files from the office of Hans-Heinrich Lammers, chief of the Reich Chancellery. It was Lammers who personally questioned Gurlitt’s acquisitions in the closing days of the war and also approved vast advances of cash on Gurlitt’s rescue missions.
The Monuments Men had performed a vital piece of the investigative work in extremely difficult circumstances, and nothing should detract from their efforts. They were, save young Harry Ettlinger, all museum men and women—all highly trained—with a tremendous knowledge of the visual arts. None of them were, however, trained investigators. None were policemen or investment bankers. They learned their craft as art-looting investigators “on the job,” interviewing their German counterparts effectively as fellow art historians.40
* * *
Early in 2014, Jonathan Searle, formerly of Scotland Yard’s Art Squad and the arresting officer of the twentieth century’s greatest art fraudster/provenance forger, John Drewe, and the talented artist/forger John M
yatt, reviewed the Gurlitt interrogations. His comments were illuminating. Most significantly, in addition to highlighting the numerous repetitions in Dwight McKay’s report (“the list of paintings from pages 12 to 33, frequently repeat the same information e.g., Degas Nude Woman Washing herself pp. 16, 29, and his Two Nudes pp. 16, 26; Fragonard’s Anne & the Holy Family pp. 16, 23; Guardi’s Entry to a Monastery pp. 15, 23, 29; Prud’hon’s Adam and Eve pp. 18, 25, 32; David Teniers’ Landscape with skittles pp. 16,30,49 etc. etc.”), Searle pointed out that the interpreter Paul Bauer’s poor command of English would have hampered McKay’s investigation. McKay’s own lack of knowledge of the art market, Searle observed, was also a hindrance.41
The use of double negatives, the clumsy translation of Gurlitt’s intentions in seeking refuge with Pölnitz, and, above all, the lack of financial due diligence to back up the interrogation leave much to be desired. Indeed, Searle points out, “The financial investigation side of this statement is negligible. Gurlitt makes a few estimates on his financial deals and then whines ‘I was told, that I was a poor man before the Nazis came and that I now have money and a whole truck-load of paintings. To that I have to reply…’ (p. 8). But he gives no figures.” Searle rightly states that “there is no inventory or ledger anywhere for the purchase and sale of paintings, which is standard for any archive, and this team included the word Archives in its name ‘Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Section’ (MFAA).”