Führermuseum

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The Führermuseum (English, Leader's museum) was an unrealized museum complex planned

by Adolf Hitler for the Austrian city of Linz to display the collection of art plundered or stolen by
the Nazis throughout Europe during World War II.

Contents

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Design Edit
The plans for the Linz complex designed by Albert Speer and other architects included a monumental theatre, an
opera house and an Adolf Hitler Hotel, all surrounded by huge boulevards and a parade ground.[1] A library would
house at least 250,000 books; the museum itself would have a colonnaded façade about 500 feet (150 meters)
long, in the design paralleling that of the Haus der Deutsche Kunst already erected in Munich. It would stand on
the site of the Linz railroad station, which was to be moved four kilometers to the south.[2]

Collection Edit

Adolf Hitler
On 21 June 1939, Hitler set up the Sonderauftrag Linz (Special Commission: Linz) in Dresden and appointed
Dr Hans Posse, director of the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister (Dresden picture gallery), as special envoy.
The Sonderauftrag collected art for the Führermuseum, which Hitler wanted to build in Linz, his hometown in
Upper Austria, and for other museums in the German Reich, especially in the eastern territories. The artworks
would have been distributed to these museums after the war. The Sonderauftrag was located in Dresden and
consisted of art historians in service of the Dresden Gallery of Paintings, e.g. Robert Oertel and Gottfried Reimer.
Posse died in December 1942 of cancer. In March 1943, Hermann Voss, an art historian and director of the
Wiesbaden Gallery took over the Sonderauftrag Linz.[3] The methods of acquisition ranged from confiscation to
purchase and includes many cases of forced sale, using funds from sales of Hitler's book Mein Kampf and stamps
showing his portrait.[4][5] The purchases were mostly stored in the Führerbau (Hitler's office building) in
Munich; the confiscated artworks were stored in deposits in Upper Austria. Since February 1944, the art works
were moved to the salt mines of Altaussee to protect them from increased bombing.[2][4] Detailed records of the
collection were kept at Dresden and moved to Schloß Weesenstein at the end of the war, where they were
confiscated by the Russians.
In 2008, the German Historic Museum of Berlin published a database with paintings collected for
the Führermuseum and for other museums in the German Reich. But the most important historical and visual
sources relating to the gallery of the "Führermuseum" are photo albums, which were created by
the Sonderauftrag between autumn 1940 and autumn 1944. They were presented to Hitler every Christmas and on
his birthday, 20 April. Originally thirty-one volumes existed, but only nineteen have been preserved.[6] The album
are documents of the intended gallery holdings, the first 20 volumes show the gallery in a provisional state
finished. There is some debate about whether art for the Führermuseum was stolen or purchased. Hanns Christian
Löhr argues in "The Brown House of Art" that only a small portion of the collection – possibly 12 percent – came
from seizures or expropriation. Moreover, another 2.5% was derived from forced sales. However, Jonathan
Petropoulos, a historian at Loyola College in Baltimore and an expert in wartime looting, argues that most of the
purchases were not arms' length in nature.[7] Gerard Aalders, a Dutch historian, said those sales amounted
to technical looting, since the Netherlands and other occupied countries were forced to accept
German reichsmarks that ultimately proved worthless. Aalders argues that "If Hitler's or Goering's art agent stood
on your doorstep and offered $10,000 for the painting instead of the $100,000 it was really worth, it was pretty
hard to refuse". Aalders adds that Nazis who encountered reluctant sellers threatened to confiscate the art or arrest
the owner.[7] Birgit Schwarz, an expert on the Führermuseum, in her review of Löhr's book, pointed out that the
author focused on the purchases in the Führerbau in Munich and ignored the deposits of looted art in Upper
Austria (Thürntal, Kremsmünster and Hohenfurt/Vyssi Brod). Actually the author treats these deposits on the
pages 135 and 136 in his book [8] As the Allied troops approached the salt mine, August Eigruber, Gauleiter of
Upper Austria, gave orders to blow it up; Hitler countermanded the order, but after the "Führer's" death Eigruber
ignored this. Nevertheless his order was not carried out. Most of the collection was recovered, but some was not.
Some argue that stolen artwork is hanging in museums and collections around the world.[5] This is discussed in
the documentary The Rape of Europa.
Post-war Edit
After World War II, the American Art Looting Investigation Unit (ALIU) of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS)
made thirteen detailed reports on the Linz museum and the Nazi plundering of art.[9] These reports were
synthesised into four consolidated reports; the fourth of these was written by S. Lane Faison covering
the Führermuseum.[9] These reports focused on returning art to rightful owners.
In Eastern Europe, Soviet premier Joseph Stalin charged Mikhail Khrapchenko with taking many of
the Führermuseum artworks to stock Soviet art galleries.[2] Khrapchenko said "it would now be possible to turn
Moscow’s Pushkin Museum into one of the world’s great museums, like the British Museum, the Louvre, or
the Hermitage."[citation needed]
In 2010, an album that an American soldier looted from Hitler's home, Berghof, during the war that catalogued
artwork Hitler desired for the museum is to be returned to Germany.[10]
 Notes Edit
1. ↑ Bell, Bethany (3 November 2008). "Hitler’s Austrian ‘culture capital’". BBC
News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7705552.stm. Retrieved 13 December 2008.
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "Hitler’s Museum". http://www.intelligenttelevision.com/index.php/site/production/hitlers-museum/.
Retrieved 13 December 2008.
3. ↑ Birgit Schwarz:Sonderauftrag Linz und „Führermuseum“, in: Ausst.-Kat. Raub und Restitution, Jüdisches
Museum Berlin 2008
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Lohr, Hanns (20 November 2000). "No Looted Art in Hitler's Museum in Linz". http://www.museum-
security.org/00/201.html. Retrieved 13 December 2008.
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 DW Staff (24 August 2008). "The Mystery of Hitler's Lost Art Collection". Deutsche
Welle. http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,1564,1689856,00.html. Retrieved 13 December 2008.
6. ↑ Birgit Schwarz, Hitlers Museum. Die Fotoalben Gemäldegalerie Linz. Wien 2004; Birgit Schwarz, Hitler's
Museum, in: Vitalizing Memory. International Perspectives on Provenance Research, Washington 2005, S. 51-54
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Robinson, Walter (25 November 1997). "Sotheby's takes work tied to Nazis off". The Boston Globe.
Archived from the original on 18 April
2003. http://web.archive.org/web/20030418024422/http://www.boston.com/globe/nation/packages/paintings/1125
97.htm. Retrieved 13 December 2008.
8. ↑ Birgit Schwarz, Kampf der Zentauren daheim: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 17. Oct. 2005, p. 40
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Petropolous, Prof. Jonathan. "Linz: Hitler's Museum and Library: Consolidated Interrogation Report No.
4, 15 December 1945, The Reports of the Office of Strategic Services Art Looting Investigation
Unit". http://www.claremontmckenna.edu/hist/jpetropoulos/linz/linztable.html/. Retrieved 13 December 2008.
[dead link]
10.↑ "WWII veteran had Hitler's art book on bookshelf". Mercury News. 9 December
2009. http://www.mercurynews.com/celebrities/ci_13958761. Retrieved 9 December 2009.[dead link]
Further reading Edit
 Spotts, Frederic: Hitler and the power of aesthetics. Woodstock & New York 2003, pp. 188–220. ISBN 1-58567-
345-5.
 Schwarz, Birgit: Hitler's Museum. Die Fotoalben Gemäldegalerie Linz. Wien, Böhlau Verlag, 2004. ISBN 3-205-
77054-4.
 Schwarz, Birgit: Hitler's Museum, in: Vitalizing Memory. International Perspektives on Provenance Research.
Washington 2005, pp. 51–54.
 Schwarz, Birgit: Le Führermuseum de Hitler et la Mission spéciale Linz, in: André Gob, Des musées au-dessus de
tout soupcon, Paris 2007, pp. 164–176. ISBN 978-2-200-35099-4
 Löhr, Hanns Christian: Das Braune Haus der Kunst. Hitler und der "Sonderauftrag Linz". Berlin Akademie Verlag,
2005. ISBN 978-3-05-004156-8.
 Schwarz, Birgit: Sonderauftrag Linz und „Führermuseum“, in: Raub und Restitution, Jüdisches Museum Berlin
2008, pp. 127–133 ISBN 978-3-8353-0361-4
External links Edit
 2004 article from Die Welt (in German)
 OSS Report on Hitler's Museum (from Prof. Jonathan Petropolous)
 Presidential Advisory Commission on Holocaust Assets in the United States
 National Archives Announces Discovery of "Hitler Albums" Documenting Looted Art
 Online database of Linz Special Collection at The German Historical Museum covering 4747 works. "It shows
paintings, sculptures, furniture, porcelain, and tapestries that Adolf Hitler and his agents purchased or appropriated
from confiscated property between the end of the 1930s and 1945, primarily for a museum planned for Linz, but
also for other collections."
 History of Linz Collection at the German Historical Museum

https://military.wikia.org/wiki/F%C3%BChrermuseum

04/09/2020