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| Hermann Goering Collection | |
|---|---|
| Name | Hermann Goering Collection |
| Established | 1930s–1945 |
| Founder | Hermann Göring |
| Location | Multinational (Central Europe, United States, United Kingdom, France) |
| Type | Looted art collection |
| Notable | Paintings, drawings, sculptures, manuscripts, tapestries |
Hermann Goering Collection
The Hermann Goering Collection was the private assemblage of art amassed by Hermann Göring during the Nazi era, comprising thousands of paintings, drawings, sculptures, and antiquities taken from collectors across Europe. The collection intersected with key events and institutions such as the Nazi Party, the Reichsmarschall office, the SS, the Gestapo, Hitler's Berghof, and the cultural policies shaped at venues like the Fuhrerbau and the Neue Reichskanzlei. After 1945, the collection became central to Allied operations including the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program and trials at the Nuremberg Trials, involving figures such as Allied Control Council, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Harald Mors, and Martin Bormann.
Göring began collecting in the aftermath of World War I and accelerated acquisitions during the Nazi seizure of power and the Anschluss of Austria, the Occupation of France, and the Invasion of Poland, exploiting laws, decrees, and seizures implemented by institutions like the Reichskulturkammer, Hermann Wilhelm Göring, and agencies tied to Alfred Rosenberg and Joseph Goebbels. His methods intersected with actions by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg, the Reichsleiter, and officials connected to the Foreign Office, seizing works from collectors including Alfred Flechtheim, Paul Rosenberg, Jacques Goudstikker, and Jewish proprietors dispossessed under the Nuremberg Laws. Göring employed art dealers such as Hermann Voss, Karl Haberstock, Bernhard Schulz, and intermediaries who negotiated with auction houses like Galerie Fischer and museums including the Alte Nationalgalerie.
The holdings reportedly contained Old Masters, Northern Renaissance works, Baroque paintings, and modern works by artists such as Rembrandt van Rijn, Albrecht Dürer, Peter Paul Rubens, Titian, Jan van Eyck, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Raphael, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Antoine Watteau, Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Paul Klee, Max Liebermann, Camille Pissarro, Eugène Delacroix, Gustave Courbet, Frans Hals, Jacopo Tintoretto, Diego Velázquez, Goya, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Sandro Botticelli, Masaccio, Hieronymus Bosch, Anton Raphael Mengs, Hans Holbein the Younger, Caspar David Friedrich, and Nicolas Poussin. The collection also included manuscripts and prints tied to collectors like Isabella Stewart Gardner and items similar in profile to pieces referenced at institutions such as the Louvre, the Rijksmuseum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the British Museum.
Following the defeat of Nazi Germany, Allied forces, notably personnel from the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program and military units from the United States Army, British Army, French Army, and Soviet Army, located substantial caches tied to Göring at sites including Schloss Kogl, the Carinhall complex, and storage depots in Neuschwanstein Castle-type sites, repositories like the Mühlberg and Hauptmannsgraben-style depots. Investigations involved interrogations during the Nuremberg Trials and documentation efforts by investigators such as Allan R. Millett, Rose Valland, Monroe S. Miller, and S. Lane Faison Jr., and coordination with the London Conference and the Allied Control Council. Allied records cataloged provenance, cross-referenced inventories from the Commission for the Protection and Restitution of Cultural Property, and worked with national claims offices including those of Poland, Netherlands, Belgium, France, and Greece.
After cataloging, many objects were restituted to prewar owners or heirs such as the families of Jacques Goudstikker, Paul Rosenberg, Alfred Flechtheim, and claimants from Vienna, Paris, Amsterdam, and Warsaw. Other works entered national collections at institutions including the National Gallery (London), the Musée du Louvre, the Rijksmuseum, the Prado Museum, the Nationalmuseum Stockholm, and the Smithsonian Institution. Disputed items led to protracted claims resolved by bodies like the Washington Conference on Holocaust-Era Assets processes and national restitution committees in the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Netherlands, and France. High-profile restitutions involved legal actions appearing before tribunals in The Hague, New York City courts, and administrative processes in Berlin, Vienna, and Amsterdam.
Debates over the collection raised legal questions concerning looted cultural property, sovereign immunity, statutes of limitations, good faith acquisition, and provenance research, engaging legal frameworks such as the Hague Convention of 1907, the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, and postwar treaties administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Claimants invoked precedents from cases in United States v. von Neumann-type litigation and decisions by courts in Germany, Austria, and France, while scholars and ethicists at institutions like Yale University, Harvard University, Oxford University, University of Cambridge, and Hebrew University of Jerusalem debated restitution norms. Museums and provenance researchers, including teams at the Frick Collection, the National Archives (United States), and the Bundesarchiv, implemented due diligence procedures and published catalogues raisonnés and findings in collaboration with agencies such as the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research.
The legacy of Göring's collection influenced museum acquisition policies, provenance scholarship, and international law, informing exhibitions and publications at the Imperial War Museum, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Jewish Museum (New York), the Deutsches Historisches Museum, and the Austrian Gallery Belvedere. High-profile restitution cases remained touchstones in debates at forums like the Washington Conference and inspired cultural projects, documentaries, and scholarship featuring figures such as Simon Wiesenthal, Sophie Scholl-era studies, and historians including Christopher Browning, Ian Kershaw, Richard J. Evans, Omer Bartov, and Timothy Snyder. The case continues to shape public understanding in cities such as Berlin, Vienna, Amsterdam, Paris, Warsaw, London, and New York City, influencing museum cataloguing standards, national restitution policies, and the work of provenance researchers worldwide.
Category:Art collections Category:Nazi-looted art