Numismatics

Dworschak, Fritz

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:37:58 +0000

Dworschak, Fritz

Susanne Hehenberger Fri, 11/13/2020 - 08:18

Fritz Dworschak

27 February 1890 Krems – 10 September 1974 Krems

also Friedrich Dworschak

The numismatist Fritz Dworschak took advantage of the Nazi era to assume central functions in the Vienna museum scene. After obtaining his doctorate in 1913 from the University of Vienna and passing the State Examination the same year at the Institut für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung (Institute of Austrian Historical Research), he worked as an intern at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna and was employed there from 1915. Apart from being a curator at the museum, he was also the Dorotheum's expert in coins and medals from 1924 to 1939. In March 1938 he became provisional director of the Kunsthistorisches Museum and was its First Director from 1941 until he was removed from office on 26 April 1945. In July 1938, referring to his "pan-German attitude" and because he had "always felt associated with the Hitler movement", he applied for membership of the NSDAP. This was initially rejected, but in October 1940 he became member number 9,020.874. Supported by the weapons expert Leopold Ruprecht, who had been an active member of the NSDAP since 1932, he managed the Zentraldepot für beschlagnahmte Sammlungen (Central Depot for Seized Collections) in the Neue Burg, which was set up in autumn 1938. From summer 1939, he coordinated the storage of items from Viennese state museums, which was supervised from summer 1942 by Ludwig Berg from the Generalreferat für Kunstförderung, Staatstheater, Museen und Volksbildung (General Office for the Advancement of Art, State Theatre, Museums and Culture). Apart from these functions, in August 1941 Dworschak became an assessor for the Reichskammer der bildenden Künste (Reich Chamber of Fine Arts) art and culture purchasing department. From August 1942 he also headed the "Sonderauftrag Münzen" (special coin project) and played a central role in the acquisition of coins and medals for the planned "Führer Museum" in Linz. In October 1943 he married Elfriede Höbarth, recruited for this special project in June 1943 as a coin specialist. At his trial by the Volksgericht in 1946 he denied his NSDAP membership. He was retired from the civil service in March 1947 but a few months later was recruited as a consultant for the city of Krems, where he remained until he retired in 1958. He was awarded the title "Hofrat" in 1960 for his "exceptional service".

Keywords

"Sonderauftrag Linz"

"Sonderauftrag Münzen"

Nazi art and culture policy

6 January 2019

Publications about the person / institution

N. N., Dworschak, Fritz, in: aeiou, Österreich-Lexikon, URL: www.aeiou.at/aeiou.encyclop.d/d997647.htm (3.12.2020).

Lee Sorensen, Dworschak, Fritz, in: Dictionary of Art Historians, URL: arthistorians.info/dworschakf (3.12.2020).

Jüdisches Museum Berlin, Raub und Restitution, Glossar, Fritz Dwoschark, URL: jmberlin.de/raub-und-restitution/de/glossar_d.php (3.12.2020).

Harry Kühnel, Dr. Fritz Dworschak. Versuch einer Würdigung, in: Mitteilungen des Kremser Stadtarchivs 23/24/25 (1985), 265-281.

Emanuele Sbardella, Die dritte Seite der Medaille. Dworschak als Sonderbeauftragter Hitlers für den Aufbau eines Münzkabinettes im sog. Führermuseum. Masterarbeit, TU Berlin, eingereicht am 30. April 2015.

Publications by the person / institution

zahlreiche numismatische Publikationen

Führer durch das Erzbischöfliche Dom- und Diözesanmuseum in Wien, bearbeitet von Fritz Dworschak und Justus Schmidt, Wien 1933 (mehrere Auflagen).

Fritz Dworschak (Hg.), Kataloge der stiftlichen Kunstsammlungen in Klosterneuburg, Klosterneuburg 1937–1943.
Fritz Dworschak, Der Maler Martin Johann Schmidt, genannt "Der Kremser Schmidt", 1718-1801, Wien 1955.
Fritz Dworschak, Krems und Stein, Wachau: Niederösterreich (= Kleine Kunstführer 652), München 1957.
Fritz Dworschak, Wachau und Nibelungengau (= Große Kunstführer 34), München 1961.

Ludwig Baldass, Fritz Dworschak, Die Gotik in Niederösterreich. Kunst, Kultur und Geschichte eines Landes im Spätmittelalter, Wien 1963.

Archives

DASP, Trauungsbuch Dürnstein 1891–1924, fol. 115, Trauung von Friedrich Dworschak und Maria Dum, 19.9.1916, URL: data.matricula-online.eu/de/oesterreich/st-poelten/duernstein/02-04/?pg=132 (3.12.2020).

KHM-Archiv, IV 95, NL Fritz Dworschak; 1/KL/1938 (Ernennung zum Kommissarischen Leiter, Anmeldung bei Reichskammer); 3/KL/1938, 93/KL/1939 (Bezüge und Aufwandsentschädigungen); 119/KL/1939 (Ausstellungseröffnung Berlin); 130/KL/1939 (Studienreisen); 149/KL/1939 (Dienstreise Böhmen, Schlesien); 53/KL/1941 (KHM Eigentum in den verschiedenen Gauen, Korrespondenz); 63/KL/1941 (Korrespondenzen, Anstellung Gassauer); 138/KL/1941 (Vortrag in Rom); 144/KL/1941 (Urlaub pro 1941); 205/KL/1941 (Dienstreise nach Linz); 206/KL/1941 (Ernennung zum Sachverständigen der Reichskammer der bildenden Künste); 259/KL/1941 (Ernennung zum ersten Direktor des KHM); 52/ED/1942 (Betrauung mit der Leitung des Münzkabinetts); 124/ED/1942 (Berufung in den Fachbeirat); 153/ED/1942 (Urlaub); 9/ED/1943 (UK-Stellung); 25/ED/1943 (Urlaub); 44/ED/1943 (Dienstreise mit Höbarth nach München); 72/ED/1943 (Erkrankung); 18/ED/1944 (Reisen und Abwesenheiten); 2/ED/1945 (Bericht über Bergungsmaßnahmen); 16/ED/1945 (Reisen u.a.); 46/ED/1945 (Maßnahmen gg. NationalsozialistInnen auf Grund des Verfassungsgesetzes v. 8.5.1945); 33/ED/1945 (Sonderauftrag); I 31, Dworschak an Dorotheum, 19.12.1939 (Niederlegung der Expertentätigkeit); 248/VK/43, Verehelichung mit Elfriede Höbarth.

OeStA/AdR, UWK, BMU, Personalakten, K. 3/28, Friedrich Dworschak.
OeStA/AdR, ZNsZ, Gauakt 562, Fritz Dworschak.

WStLA, LG für Strafsachen, A11, Vr-Strafakten, VgVr 1929/46 Ludwig Berg, Fritz Dworschak.
WStLA, Gauakten, A1-'Gauakten', Personalakten des Gaues Wien, 315.283, Fritz Dworschak.
WStLA, Historische Wiener Meldeunterlagen, Meldeauskunft Fritz Dworschak.

GND: 136589162

VIAF: 80907734

Wikidata: Q17417910

Fürst, Leo

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:41:09 +0000

Fürst, Leo Leonhard Weidinger Sat, 02/27/2021 - 17:47

Leo Fürst

22 July 1873 Baden near Vienna – January 1941 Nice

In 1938, Leo Fürst, who lived at Maria-Theresien-Straße 16/4 in Vienna's 1st district, was director of the Evidenzbüro österreichischer Mineralölfirmen. After the annexation of Austria to the German Reich, unknown persons – according to the testimony of his nephew it was members of the SA – broke into his apartment and stole some of his art collection, including two etchings by Ferdinand Schmutzer and Isidor Kaufmann. Fürst himself was arrested by the Gestapo in June 1938 and detained in the prison at Rossauerlände, because he wanted to press charges for the theft. After his release, he fled in July 1938 first to Opatija, while his assets were expropriated by the German Reich. The Gestapo gave his coin collection (mostly coins of Austrian rulers), which were "reserved by the Führer" as objects of artistic or cultural value, in June 1938 to the Kunsthistorisches Museum (KHM) in Vienna for safekeeping and cataloguing. In 1941, the KHM Coin Collection requested the entire collection of 873 objects from the "special representative" Hans Posse, who distributed 401 of the gold coins and 237 silver coins as a "Führer donation" to the coin collections in Graz, Salzburg, Klagenfurt and Innsbruck. The 235 non-precious-metal coins were all given to the Vienna Coin Collection, 227 of which are deemed to have been lost in the war. In a letter of 24 March 1941 to Fritz Dworschak, First Director of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Posse mentioned eighteen gold coins from the Fürst collection, which were earmarked for the "Sonderauftrag". The transaction was never completed, however, and the coins remained in the KHM. At Dworschak's suggestion in 1941, the rest of the Fürst collection was to be given the Kress company in Munich for auctioning, the proceeds being used to cover the cost of setting up the Zentraldepot. There is no documentary evidence of this, however. In the same year, Fürst died in Nice, where he had fled from Opatija.

In 1986, his nephew applied to have the coin collection returned. According to the 2. Kunst- und Kulturgutbereinigungsgesetz (Second Art and Cultural Property Settlement Act), the owners of "heirless" art and cultural assets or their successors could assert their claims with the Austrian Ministry of Finance. The application was refused because at the time it was not known that a large part of the collection was in the KHM. Based on the provenance research by Herbert Haupt, in October 2000 the Art Restitution Advisory Board recommended the restitution of 386 coins, 234 silver coins and one coin made of non-precious metal from the KHM Coin Collection to Leo Fürst's heirs. The 621 coins – not 624 has erroneously stated in the Advisory Board decision – were returned in summer 2002. In that year the Ferdinandeum Innsbruck restituted four coins and the Kärntner Landesmuseum three gold coins, and in 2004 the Joanneum Graz returned on gold ducat. The coins transferred to Salzburg are deemed to have been lost since 1945.

Keywords

"Sonderauftrag Münzen"

9 June 2020

Publications about the person / institution

Beschluss des Kunstrückgabebeirats, Leo Fürst, 10.10.2000, URL: www.provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Fuerst_Leo_2000-10-10.pdf (3.12.2020).

Tiroler Landesmuseen, Provenienzforschung, Restitution, URL: www.tiroler-landesmuseen.at/?download=10729&ref=10677 (3.12.2020).

Universalmuseum Joanneum, Münzkabinett Schloss Eggenberg, Restituierte Objekte, An die Erben nach Leo Fürst, URL: www.museum-joanneum.at/muenzkabinett/ueber-uns/restitution/restituierte-objekte/an-die-erben-nach-leo-fuerst (3.12.2020).

N. N. (Redaktion), Münzsammlung Leo Fürst restituiert, in: Der Standard, 16.7.2002, URL: www.derstandard.at/story/1012222/muenzsammlung-leo-fuerst-restituiert (3.12.2020).

Karl Peitler, Zu den Restitutionen des Münzkabinetts am Universalmuseum Joanneum, in: Karin Leitner-Ruhe/Gudrun Danzer/Monika Binder-Krieglstein (Hg.), Restitutionsbericht 1999–2010 Universalmuseum Joanneum, Graz 2010, 213–214, URL: www.museum-joanneum.at/fileadmin//user_upload/Presse/Aktuelle_Projekte/Archiv/2010/praesentation-des-re/Restitutionsbericht_01.pdf (3.12.2020).

Online-Edition der Karteien zum sogenannten Zentraldepot für beschlagnahmte Sammlungen in Wien, Sammlung L. F. im Katalog der Beschlagnahmungen, URL: www.zdk-online.org/c/171/ (3.12.2020).

Archives

BDA-Archiv, Restitutionsmaterialien, K. 35, M.1, PM Leo Fürst.

KHM-Archiv, 52/KL/1941, 105/KL/1941; XII 163; XIII 55.

OeStA/AdR, E-uReang, FLD, Zl. 10338, Leo Fürst.

Heymann, Leo

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:41:12 +0000

Heymann, Leo Leonhard Weidinger Sat, 02/27/2021 - 18:24

Leo Heymann

21 July 1889 Schwersenz / Swarzędz – 29 October 1964 Freiburg im Breisgau

The coin collector Leo Heymann, born in the town of Schwersenz, which with its large Jewish community was until 1918 part of the German district of Posen-Ost and in 1919 became part of Poland under the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles, moved first to Dusseldorf and then to Vienna. It is not known precisely when the moves took place. In 1924 he became Prokurist (authorized signatory) for the Gerngross department store in Mariahilferstraße and in the same year joined the Numismatische Gesellschaft (Numismatic Society) in Vienna. In 1934 he was elected to the board of administrators of Wiener Ziegelwerke AG. Even though he left the Jewish community in 1927, he was considered a Jew by the Nazis. He was able to escape persecution in March 1938, emigrating via Rotterdam to New York, where he arrived on 9 September 1938 on the SS Nieuw Amsterdam. Because he escaped early enough, he did not have to submit an asset declaration. The details of the expropriation of his assets are unknown. In July 1941 the First Director of the Kunsthistorisches Museum (KHM) in Vienna, Fritz Dworschak, contacted Otto Kolb from Department II E of the Vienna Gestapo responsible for seizures and confiscation of assets. In the letter Dworschak requested a pre-emptive right to acquire the seized coin collection, which was stored with the Gestapo and was earmarked for auction in the Dorotheum. The owner of the collection was indicated by hand as "Leo Heymann". Thereafter, twenty-six medieval and modern coins from the Heymann collection were acquired by the KHM Coin Collection. The inventory does not indicate a purchase price and it is not therefore clear whether the coins were purchased from the Gestapo or allocated to the museum.

After the war, Heymann made an application in April 1946 to the US Allied Commission for Austria. By this time he was a US citizen and lived in Miami, Florida. He claimed the loss of his apartment at Jacquingasse 13 and the pictures, carpets, library and coins in it, as well as his shares in Wiener Ziegelwerke Aktiengesellschaft in Leopoldsdorf near Vienna. Heymann moved to Locarno, Switzerland, and died in Freiburg im Breisgau on 29 October 1964. It was not until the systematic provenance research in the KHM that it was determined that the twenty-six coins in the Coin Collection came from the Heymann collection. The Vugesta ledgers list a net profit of 1,940 Reichsmark. It has been impossible to determine whether this sum referred only to the coins or to other artworks as well. It is also unclear whether Heymann's coin collection was originally larger than the twenty-six coins acquired by the KHM. At its meeting of 3 December 2002, the Art Restitution Advisory Board recommended the restitution of the coin collection to Heymann's legal successors. The heirs have not yet been identified, and the whereabouts of the remaining assets are not known.

Keywords

6 July 2020

Publications about the person / institution

Beschluss des Kunstrückgabebeirats, Leo Heymann, 3.12.2002, URL: www.provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Heymann_Leo_2002-12-03.pdf (3.12.2020).

Archives

KHM-Archiv, XII 4, 21/1941.

NARA, Holocaust-Era Assets, USACA - Property Control Branch, Cases and Reports Pertaining to Property Administered by the Vienna Area Command (VAC), compiled 1945-1950, PC/V/III/52 Leo Heymann, URL: www.fold3.com/image/306558657 (3.12.2020).

OeStA/AdR, E-uReang, Abwicklungsstelle der Vermögensverkehrsstelle, Vugesta-Kartei und 9 Bände Vugesta-Geschäftsbücher, Buch 7.
OeStA/AdR, E-uReang, FLD, Zl. 3237, Leo Heymann, Arthur Wohl.

Holzmair, Eduard

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:41:12 +0000

Holzmair, Eduard

Leonhard Weidinger Sat, 02/27/2021 - 18:28

Eduard Holzmair

4 October 1902 Vienna – 23 December 1971 Vienna

After leaving school in 1920, Eduard Holzmair worked for several years at the Anglo-Austrian Bank in Vienna, before studying German, history and art history at the University of Vienna. He completed his doctorate in 1931 with a thesis entitled "Eckehart and Tauler: a comparison", and in the same year passed the State Examination at the Institut für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung (Institute of Austrian Historical Research). He was an intern from 1929 in the Coin Collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum (KHM) in Vienna and in 1936 he was promoted to assistant. After August Loehr left the museum and Fritz Dworschak was appointed provisional director following the annexation in March 1938, Holzmair headed the Coin Collection and was appointed curator in 1942. He never joined the NSDAP but was a member of various affiliated organizations such as the Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt (National Socialist People's Welfare), the Reichskolonialbund (Reich Colonial League) and the Reichsluftschutzbund (Reich Air Raid Protection League). During the Nazi era he was involved in drawing up lists of Polish cultural items in the Generalgouvernement, which were then to be expropriated. In his memoirs, which were published in 1971, he himself wrote that he "kept a record of the major Polish coin collections in Kraków and Warsaw as part of the general record of Polish art assets". Because of his involvement in the "Sonderauftrag Coins", he was exempt from military service for a long time and was not therefore enlisted into the Wehrmacht. The seized coin collections from several Austrian abbeys, including Klosterneuburg, Heiligenkreuz and St. Florian, earmarked for the "Führermuseum" Linz, were stored in Stift Kremsmünster. They were processed by Holzmair and Fritz Dworschak. As a curator, he had access to the KHM depot in central Vienna. In autumn 1944 he was finally enlisted in the air force, where he was in an anti-aircraft unit and for a short time in US captivity.

After the war, he was involved in negotiations for the restitution of coin collections acquired by the Coin Collection under the Nazis. In the case of Alfred Menzile's collection, he persuaded the heirs to "donate" some selected items to the Coin Collection, in return helping to obtain export authorization for the remainder of the collection. In 1949 he worked in the Central Collecting Point in Munich investigating the remaining coin collections of Austrian provenance destined for Linz. That year he became head of the Bundessammlung für Medaillen, Münzen und Geldzeichen (Federal Collection of Medals, Coins and Monetary Tokens), as the KHM Coin Cabinet was called at the time, and habilitated in numismatics and the medieval and early modern history of money. In 1952 he became director of the Federal Collection and in 1959 extraordinary university professor. In 1966 he was appointed First Director of the KHM, until his retirement a year later. For many years he was a member of the board of the Österreichische Numismatische Gesellschaft and was its vice-president from 1950 to 1968.

Keywords

"Sonderauftrag Münzen"

28 June 2020

Publications about the person / institution

Bernhard Koch, Univ.-Prof. HR Dr. Eduard Holzmair, in: Numismatische Zeitschrift 87 (1971), 3–4.

Isabel Röskau-Rydel, NS-Kunst- und Kulturpolitik in Krakau unter deutscher Besatzung am Beispiel von Museen und Ausstellungen, in: Tanja Baensch/Kristina Kratz-Kessemeier/Dorothee Wimmer (Hg.), Museen im Nationalsozialismus: Akteure – Orte – Politik, Köln-Weimar-Wien 2016, 191–202.

Publications by the person / institution

Eduard Holzmair, Eckehart und Tauler: ein Vergleich, Dissertation Universität Wien 1931.
Eduard Holzmair, Medicina in nummis: Katalog der Sammlung Dr. Josef Brettauer, Wien 1937.
Eduard Holzmair, Münzkunst in Österreich, Wien 1948.
Eduard Holzmair, Das wiedergefundene Inventar der Münzsammlung Ferdinands I, Wien 1961.
Eduard Holzmair, Meine Tätigkeit in der Bundessammlung von Medaillen, Münzen und Geldzeichen in den Jahren 1929–1967, in: Numismatische Zeitschrift 87 (1971), 8–15.

Archives

KHM-Archiv, Direktionsakten: 9-30/KL/1941, 28/KL/1941, 44/ED/1943, 33/ED/1945; 61/KORR/1939_40, 117/KORR/1939_40, 203/KORR/1939_40, 238/KORR/1939_40, 39/KORR/1944, 40/KORR/1944, 1/KORR/1943_44, 2/KORR/1943_44, 3/KORR/1943_44, 6/KORR/1943_44, 7/KORR/1943_44, 28/KORR/1945; Personalakten: III 1841, PA Eduard Holzmair; III 2089, Parte; III 2295, Biographie Holzmair.

OeStA/AdR, UWK, BMU, Personalakten, K. 03/063 Eduard Holzmair.
OeStA/AdR, ZNsZ, Gauakt 213.984, Eduard Holzmair.

GND: 1065211457

VIAF: 66592081

Wikidata: Q1288771

Loehr, August Octavian

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:41:12 +0000

Loehr, August Octavian

Leonhard Weidinger Thu, 04/01/2021 - 15:49

August Loehr

31 March 1882 Vienna – 11 July 1965 Vienna

August Loehr studied history and geography at the universities of Vienna and Heidelberg, obtaining his doctorate in 1905 with a work on Danube shipping until the end of the fourteenth century. That same year he became an ordinary member and librarian in the Institut für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung (Institute of Austrian Historical Research) and an ordinary member of the Österreichisches Institut (Austria Institute) in Rome. In 1906 he obtained a position as a researcher in the imperial coin collection in Vienna and became head of the collection in 1913. Apart from his work in the k. k. Kunsthistorisches Hofmuseum he was an expert in coin finds in monument preservation and studied in the Faculty of Law in Vienna, obtaining a doctorate in law in 1911. In 1929 he was awarded an honorary professorship in numismatics and the history of money at the University of Vienna. In summer 1938, as a "Mischling 2nd class" according to the Nazi definition he asked to retire as had been suggested to him by the authorities. He was no longer allowed to work as an honorary professor but was able to continue to carry out research and to publish and, from 1943, to use his office at the Kunsthistorisches Museum (KHM) again.

Immediately after the liberation of Vienna, he was appointed First Director of the KHM on 16 April 1945. In 1946 he founded the Museum österreichischer Kultur (Museum of Austrian Culture) as a department of the KHM in the Neue Burg and also taught museology at the University of Vienna. As a victim of Nazi persecution, in 1945 Loehr was appointed chairman of the Special Commission to Examine the Political Past of Public Servants of the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Senate No. 7 at the Staatsamt für Volksaufklärung, Unterricht und Erziehung und für Kultusangelegenheiten (State Office for Popular Enlightenment, Schools, Education and Cultural Affairs)) and vice-chairman of Senate No. 9 responsible for denazification in the Albertina, Österreichische Galerie, Museum für Volkskunde (Museum of Folk Life and Folk Art) and Museum für Völkerkunde (Museum of Ethnology). Under the Prohibition Act of 8 May 1945, 118 of the 343 employees of the museum – seven women and 111 men – were required to register on account of the Nazi past. In many cases the Special Commission recommended their continued employment because they had not been politically involved and their work was required for reconstruction. As First Director, Loehr was also responsible for the designation of objects subject to registration under the Vermögensentziehungsanmeldeverordnung (Asset Expropriation Registration Regulation). Although he gave a written assurance to the Ministry of Education that the KHM would register all objects subject to restitution and return them as quickly as possible, many objects were not registered, including the assets of the Teutonic Order or a fortepiano belonging to Frida Gerngross and her daughter Maria Gerngross, both of whom were murdered during the Shoah. He also suggested that in some cases the former owners now living abroad should "donate" some of their collections to the museum in return for export authorization from the Federal Monuments Authority for their remaining artworks. In 1949 he was appointed director general of the kulturhistorische Sammlungen des Bundes (Federal Cultural History Collections) before retiring at the end of that year, although he continued to lecture in numismatics and the history of money at the University of Vienna until 1954.

Keywords

24 June 2020

Publications about the person / institution

Erwin M. Auer, DDr. August O. Loehr (31. März 1882 – 11. Juli 1965), Wien 1982.

Erwin M. Auer, Loehr, August Ritter von, in: Neue Deutsche Biographie 15, Berlin 1987, 44–45.

Fritz Fellner/Doris A. Corradini, Österreichische Geschichtswissenschaft im 20. Jahrhundert. Ein biographisch-bibliographisches Lexikon, Wien-Köln-Weimar 2006.

Eduard Holzmair, Nachruf auf August Loehr, in: Numismatische Zeitschrift 81 (1965), 68–75.

Andreas Huber, Rückkehr erwünscht. Im Nationalsozialismus aus "politischen" Gründen vertriebene Lehrende der Universität Wien, Wien 2016.

N. N., August Loehr, kMI 1933, wM 1945, in: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften (Hg.), Gedenkbuch für die Opfer des Nationalsozialismus an der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, URL: www.oeaw.ac.at/gedenkbuch/personen/i-p/august-loehr/ (3.12.2020).

Publications by the person / institution

August Loehr, Beiträge zur Geschichte des mittelalterlichen Donauhandels, in: Oberbayrisches Archiv 60 (1916), 155–262.
August Loehr, Die Münzen- und Medaillensammlungen des Erzherzogs Franz Ferdinand von Österreich-Este, Wien 1918.
August Loehr, Geldwesen, Wien 1920/1923.
August Loehr, Die niederländische Medaille des 17. Jahrhunderts, Wien 1921.
August Loehr, Die Medaille in Österreich, Wien 1933.
August Loehr, Führer durch die Ausstellung der Bundessammlung von Medaillen, Münzen und Geldzeichen, Wien 1935.
August Loehr, Frühe Formen von Wertpapieren, Wien 1937.
August Loehr, Numismatik und Geldgeschichte, Wien 1944.
August Loehr, Österreichische Geldgeschichte, Wien 1946.
August Loehr, Entwicklung von Wertpapieren und Geldzeichen, Wien 1952.
August Loehr, Musealprobleme, Wien 1954.
August Loehr, Mitteilung der Weistümer-Kommission, Wien 1955.
August Loehr, Geschichte und Aufgabe der österreichischen Museen, Wien 1957.

Archives

KHM-Archiv, Direktionsakten: 84/ED/1943, 58/ED/1944, 27/ED/1945, 5/ED/1947; Personalia: III 1031, Nachtr. PA Loehr; III 2302, Biographie Loehr; III 2115 Parte Loehr.

OeStA/AdR, UWK, BMU, Personalakt August Loehr.

GND: 118728792

VIAF: 67493511

Wikidata: Q765124

Nadler, Richard

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:38:06 +0000

Nadler, Richard Leonhard Weidinger Thu, 04/01/2021 - 15:56

Richard Nadler

1910 Großgerungs, Lower Austria – date and place of death unknown

Apart from studying at the University of Vienna to be a teacher of Greek and Latin, Richard Nadler worked part-time as a research assistant in the Coin Collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. After passing the first teaching examination in Latin in autumn 1938, he applied to the Vienna School Board for a position as a teacher. He was employed from October to December 1938 in the Staatliches Erziehungsheim (state approved school) Hacking before returning to the museum, where he worked as a researcher in the Coin Collection and was involved with the salvaging of art and cultural objects. In September 1940 he was enlisted as non-commissioned clerk in the Wehrmacht. He was captured by the British but released in October 1945. He was officially dismissed from the museum on 8 August 1945 as an "illegal Nazi". In a letter to the Austrian government in autumn 1945 he asked to be removed from the registered list of former Nazis, stating that he had been a member of the SA only for two weeks in 1933 and had registered for the SA again and sought membership of the NSDAP after the annexation only in order to obtain a position as a teacher; he had never been a member of the Party. In 1946, Sonderkommission 1. Instanz, Senat 7, allowed Nadler's claim that he had never been an "illegal". As he had taken the teaching examination during his time in the museum without obtaining a doctorate or conducting research, however, he was dismissed with effect from the end of February 1946. He lived later in Krems an der Donau, where he was a contracted teacher at the Bundesgymnasium.

Keywords

6 January 2019

Archives

KHM-Archiv, III 1178, PA Nadler.

OeStA/AdR, UWK, BMU, Personalakten, Richard Nadler.
OeStA/AdR, ZNsZ, Gauakt 89434, Richard Nadler.

WStLA, Gauakten, A1-'Gauakten', Personalakten des Gaues Wien, Richard Nadler.

Rothschild, Louis Nathaniel

Susanne Hehenberger — Mon, 17 Oct 2022 13:17:53 +0000

Rothschild, Louis Nathaniel

Susanne Hehenberger Mon, 10/31/2022 - 13:12

Louis Nathaniel (Freiherr von) Rothschild

5 March 1882 Vienna – 15 January 1955 Montego Bay, Jamaica

Louis Nathaniel von Rothschild was born in 1882, the third of seven children of Albert Salomon and Bettina Caroline von Rothschild. After completing his schooling at the Theresianum in Vienna, he trained as a bank clerk in Hamburg and New York. He started studying law in Munich, but in keeping with his diverse interests also attended lectures in aesthetics, experimental physics, anthropology and the history of art and culture. In 1907 he joined the board of administrators of the Salomon M. Rothschild bank, founded by his great-grandfather, at Rennstraße 3 in Vienna's 1st district. He was also a member of the board of administrators of the Austrian Creditanstalt für Handel und Gewerbe and from 1922 sat on the General Council of the Austrian National Bank. In 1911, after the death of Albert Rothschild, at his father's request he became sole manager of the family's Vienna bank house and also took over the shares in the Creditanstalt für Handel und Gewerbe in Vienna and the Ungarische Allgemeine Kreditbank in Budapest. His unshakable calmness is frequently mentioned in the literature, and this could well be the reason he was designated as head of the Vienna Rothschild family. The Rothschild bank was linked in addition with industrial concerns such as the Kammgarnfabrik in Vöslau, the Mineralöl-Raffinerie AG in Budapest, the Škoda group and Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino. Louis was also chairman of the board of the ironworks in Witkowitz (Vítkovice) and sole representative for the family mining shares. In 1911 he took over the residence built from 1876 to 1884 by his father at Heugasse 24–26, renamed Prince-Eugen-Straße 20–22 in Vienna's 4th district, together with the extensive art collection. The objects were not displayed in a museum setting like as they were by his brother Alphonse, who in 1905 inherited the residence at Theresianumgasse 16–18 in the 4th district along with Nathaniel Rothschild's art collection. A report in the Neues Wiener Journal on 1 November 1930 described the artworks owned by Louis Rothschild as the "largest private collection of eighteenth-century art" in Vienna, with paintings by Jean-Honoré Fragonard, François Boucher, Thomas Gainsborough and George Romney. The collection consisted of over one thousand items, also including miniatures, watercolours, drawings, furniture, porcelain, clocks and watches, chandeliers, old weapons, sculptures, tapestries and medals from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. Louis was also known to be a passionate polo player, outstanding horseman and enthusiastic hunter. He passed the balloon pilot examination and also had a pilot's licence. For a long time he must have been one of the most eligible but also one of the most confirmed bachelors in Viennese high society.

On 12 March 1938, the date of the annexation of Austria to the Nazi German Reich, Louis managed to organize the escape of his nieces Bettina (1924–2012) and Gwendoline (1927–1972). He himself did not escape persecution. He was arrested at Aspern airfield by two SA men and escorted to his residence. The following day he was imprisoned by the Gestapo at the police prison at Rossauer Lände 7–9 and then on the fifth floor of the Gestapo headquarters in Hotel Metropol on Morzinplatz, where he was locked up for fourteen months. On 14 March 1938, the Gestapo sealed both Rothschild residences, leaving the seized art collections in place for the time being. In August of that year, the Central Office for Jewish Emigration moved into the residence on Prinz-Eugen-Straße and from 1942 the Deutsche Reichspost. The S. M. von Rothschild private bank was put under provisional directorship on 26 March 1938. On 8 July it was put in the charge of Merck, Fink & Co, a private bank in Munich. The family bank was later expropriated and ultimately taken over the E. v. Nicolai & Co. bank in Vienna. After Fritz Dworschak, provisional director of the Kunsthistorisches Museum (KHM), was appointed to take charge of the Rothschild art assets in May 1938 and was subsequently commissioned as well to establish the Central Depot for Seized Collections, KHM employees transported Louis Rothschild's art collection on 3 October 1938 to the first floor of the Neue Burg on Heldenplatz in Vienna. The Central Depot catalogue for 1938/39 listed 919 objects (later increased to 964). There was a separate list of 189 medals. File cards probably written later included a further 159 not clearly identifiable items with the abbreviation AALR (Alphonse or Louis Rothschild) and 11 with the abbreviation LR_NB (Louis Rothschild Neue Burg). While a good number of the art objects were reserved for Hitler's planned art museum in Linz, the furnishings were assigned for the most part to the Neue Burg and Palais Pallavicini in Vienna. The remainder was to be distributed successively to other museums, which from late 1938 onwards had submitted extensive wish lists. The family had finally to relinquish title to all remaining assets in return for the Louis Rothschild's release by the Gestapo on 11 May 1939. The official contract of sale of the Witkowitzer Eisenwerke was signed on 13 July 1939 but never implemented, because the majority of the shares had already been transferred before the annexation to Alliance Assurance Ltd., a British trust in London.

After escaping from Europe, Louis Rothschild applied in October 1940 in Buenos Aires for a stateless passport, but did not initially obtain a visa for the USA and was unable to travel to New York until February 1941. He became a US citizen in 1946, married Hilda Auersberg, who had also emigrated from Vienna, and lived with her on a large farm in East Barnard, Vermont. After the war, Czechoslovakia nationalized the ironworks in Vítkovice and in 1953 paid Rothschild a million pounds in compensation. Rothschild ceded his real estate properties in Austria to the State in return for a contractual assurance that it would pay the pensions of all former employees. Not all of the artworks in Louis Rothschild's collection were listed and distributed to museums, as a police investigation from 1947 concerning a former Rothschild employee responsible for the inventory in Prinz-Eugen-Straße demonstrates. He had transferred furniture, pictures and carpets without inventory numbers to his apartment and that of his parents-in-law before the residence was sealed. As was discovered after his suicide, he had attempted to sell the tapestries at least on the art market. The restitution of art objects administered by the State after 1945 was less a matter of chance. In July 1946 with the agreement of the Rothschild family and in preparation for the actual restitutions, the Federal Monuments Authority (BDA) organized the transfer to Palais Springer at Metternichgasse 8 in Vienna's 3rd district of the objects from the Rothschild collections in storage in the Neue Burg and in Steyersberg and Thürnthal. In August 1947 the Federal Ministry for Securing Property and Economic Planning agreed to the release of those objects from the former Linz art museum still stored in the salt mine in Altaussee but ordered the retention of some objects selected for "donation". In September 1947, in return for authorization to export the restituted objects to the USA, Louis Rothschild (and his sister-in-law Clarice) had to give some of his art objects to Austrian museums. The KHM demanded four paintings, sixteen medals and ten old weapons, the Albertina Graphic Art Collection fifteen miniatures, drawings, watercolours and engravings, the Austrian Museum of Applied Arts two small tables and a carpet, the Österreichische Galerie seven paintings, and the Clock Museum three clocks. By virtue of a decision of the Provincial Tax Office for Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland (FLD) of 23 September 1947, all objects from Louis Rothschild's collection held by the BDA were to be restituted. The list of objects handed to the trustee Trauttmansdorff on 23 October 1947 was twenty-two pages long, with some corrections and one supplementary page. Around one third of the objects listed by the BDA had no LR number, however, and in view of the sketchy description of these objects it will be almost impossible to identify them for certain. In November 1947, Rothschild's legal representative applied for and received authorization from the BDA to export 186 items to New York, mainly applied art objects along with some paintings and prints, with an estimated total value of 648,300 schillings. A decision on 10 May 1948 by the Federal Ministry for Securing Assets and Economic Planning authorized the release of fourteen items from the Louis Rothschild collection that had been secured in late 1947 and stored in the pan house of the Altaussee salt mine. Further restitutions were authorized by the FLD on 4 June 1948 (nine items from the depot in the Salzburg Residence) and on 3 September that year (forty-four items from the Kunsthistorisches Museum Weapons Collection, stored in the depot at Metternichgasse 8). Restitution decisions were passed on 31 January 1949 for objects from both Rothschild collections from the BDA depots in Altaussee, Kremsmünster and the Salzburg Residence (thirty items to Louis, ten to Clarice Rothschild). On 13 September 1949 the FLD decided that a further six items from the depots at Palais Springer and in the Salzburg Residence should be restituted. Finally, on 12 March 1952 two dragon-head door handles also found in the Salzburg Residence were returned to Rothschild. Further research is required to determine how many objects from Louis Rothschild's collection were returned to him before his untimely death on 15 January 1955 while on holiday in Jamaica, and which of them he kept or sold.

Starting in 1998, seven provenance research dossiers have been established to investigate a total of sixty objects from Louis Rothschild's collection in Austrian federal museums, which were subsequently recommended for restitution. In 2013, the Art Restitution Advisory Board also recommended the return of parts of the Rothschild family archive that had been "donated" to the Austrian State Archives by the Soviet Union in 1960. Thirty-three of the forty-five objects listed in the Art Restitution Advisory Board decision of 11 February 1999 and subsequently restituted were auctioned in July 1999 at Christie's in London. Restitution decisions for Louis Rothschild's descendants were also passed in the provinces. In 1999, the Lower Austria Provincial Museum (now Museum Niederösterreich) restituted a pen drawing by Martin Johann, The Sacrifice of Iphigenia, which had been "donated" to the museum in 1949. A painting, three books and five drawings obtained by the Reichsgaumuseum Niederdonau in 1940 from Louis Rothschild's collections and in storage at the depot in Altenburg Abbey had been designated in 1945 as "lost art", and two pairs of Chinese vases were returned in 1949. In 1999, Museen der Stadt Wien restituted eleven objects to the descendants of Alphonse and Louis Rothschild. In 2000, the Universalmuseum Joanneum in Graz returned A Landscape Study by Herbert Boeckel. In 2008, the Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum returned a Portrait of the Senator Adam Rzyszewski by Johann Baptist Lampi the Elder given to it in 1947. In 2019, the board of Salzburg Museum decided to return a round shield given to it in 1941. As the accessibility of important source material has improved in recent years, it is possible that systematic and networked provenance research in Austria will reveal further art objects from the Louis Rothschild collection in the years to come.

Keywords

7 August 2022

Publications about the person / institution

Beiratsbeschluss Clarice und Louis Rothschild, 11.2.1999, URL: provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Rothschild_Clarice_Louis_1999-02-11.pdf (19.7.2022).
Beiratsbeschluss Louis Rothschild, 18.8.2000, URL: provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Rothschild_Louis_2000-08-18.pdf (19.7.2022).
Beiratsbeschluss Louis Rothschild, 10.4.2002, URL: provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Rothschild_Louis_2002-04-10.pdf (19.7.2022).
Beiratsbeschluss Louis Rothschild, 28.6.2006, URL: provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Rothschild_Louis_2006-06-28.pdf (19.7.2022).
Beiratsbeschluss Louis Rothschild, 24.6.2009, URL: provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Rothschild_Louis_2009-06-24.pdf (19.7.2022).
Beiratsbeschluss Louis Rothschild, 11.9.2009, URL: provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Rothschild_Louis_2009-09-11.pdf (19.7.2022).
Beiratsbeschluss Louis Rothschild, 15.6.2018, URL: provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Rothschild_Louis_2018-06-15.pdf (19.7.2022).

Historisches Museum der Stadt Wien/Wiener Stadt- und Landesbibliothek (Hg.), Die Restitution von Kunst- und Kulturgegenständen im Bereich der Stadt Wien 1998–2001, Wien 2002.

Landessammlungen Niederösterreich, Peter Zawrel, Objekte aus den Sammlungen Alphonse und Louis Rothschild im Niederösterreichischen Landesmuseum, unveröffentlichter Sachverhalt, 15.3.1999.

Karin Leitner-Ruhe/Gudrun Danzer/Monika Binder-Krieglstein (Hg.), Landesmuseum Joanneum Restitutionsbericht 1999–2010, Graz 2010.

Restitution des Tiroler Landesmuseums Ferdinandeum, November 2021, URL: www.tiroler-landesmuseen.at/?download=29729&ref=10677 (5.7.2022).

Christie's, Kingstreet, London, Works of Art from The Collection of The Barons Nathaniel and Albert von Rothschild, 8 July 1999.

Felicitas Heimann-Jelinek, Von Arisierungen und Restituierungen. Zum Schicksal der Rothschild’schen Kunst- und sonstigen Besitztümer in Wien, in: Theodor Brückler (Hg.), Kunstraub, Kunstbergung und Restitution in Österreich 1938 bis heute, Wien-Köln-Weimar 1999, 76–90.

Gabriele Kohlbauer-Fritz/Tom Juncker (Hg.), Die Wiener Rothschilds. Ein Krimi/The Vienna Rothschilds. A Thriller, Wien 2021.

Felicitas Kunth, Die Rothschild'schen Gemäldesammlungen in Wien, Wien-Köln-Weimar 2006.

Sophie Lillie, Was einmal war. Handbuch der enteigneten Kunstsammlungen Wiens, Wien 2003.

Frederic Morton, Die Rothschilds. Porträt einer Dynastie, Wien 1992 (erste Auflage 1961).

N. N., Erster Besuch in der Wiener Rothschild-Galerie. Die größte Privatsammlung des Dixhuitième, in: Neues Wiener Journal, 1.11.1930, 13, URL: anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?aid=nwj&datum=19301101&seite=13 (6.4.2022).

N. N., Rothschild, Louis Nathaniel Freiherr von, URL: www.parlament.gv.at/WWER/PARL/J1848/Rothschild_1.shtml (6.4.2022).

N. N., Louis Nathaniel Rothschild, URL: www.geschichtewiki.wien.gv.at/Louis_Nathaniel_Rothschild (6.4.2022).

N. N., Louis Nathaniel von Rothschild (1882–1955), URL: family.rothschildarchive.org/people/97-louis-nathaniel-von-rothschild-1882-1955 (26.7.2022).

Andreas Nierhaus, Vor-Bild Frankreich. Die Paläste der Familie Rothschild im Wiener Belvedere-Viertel, in: Österreichische Zeitschrift für Kunst und Denkmalpflege LXII (2008) 1, 74–86.

Ilse Reiter-Zatloukal/Gerhard Baumgartner/Oliver Rathkolb/Roman Sandgruiber/Ulrike Zimmerl, Geschichte der Nathaniel Freiherr von Rothschild’schen Stiftung für Nervenkranke von ihrer Errichtung bis zu ihrer Reorganisation in der Nachkriegszeit. Erstellt im Auftrag der Geschäftsgruppen Soziales, Gesundheit und Sport (Stadtrat Peter Hacker) sowie Kultur und Wissenschaft (Stadträtin Veronica Kaup-Hasler), Wien 2021, URL: www.wien.gv.at/kultur/archiv/pdf/rothschildkommission-bericht.pdf (23.11.2021).

Roman Sandgruber, Rothschild. Glanz und Untergang des Wiener Welthauses, Wien 2018.

Birgit Schwarz, Hitlers Sonderauftrag Ostmark. Kunstraub und Museumspolitik im Nationalsozialismus (= Schriftenreihe der Kommission für Provenienzforschung 7), Wien 2018, URL: doi.org/10.7767/9783205206965.

Thomas Trenkler, Der Fall Rothschild. Chronik einer Enteignung (= Bibliothek des Raubes 2), Wien 1999.

Ulrike Zimmerl, Die letzten Wiener Rothschilds, in: Lucille Dreidemy/Richard Hufschmied/Agnes Meisinger/Berthold Molden/Eugen Pfister/Katharina Prager/Elisabeth Röhrlich/Florian Wenninger/Maria Wirth (Hg.), Bananen, Cola, Zeitgeschichte. Oliver Rathkolb und das lange 20. Jahrhundert, Wien-Köln-Weimar 2015, 296–306.

Archives

BDA-Archiv, Restitutionsmaterialien, K. 51, M. 1, Zl. 2141/1938; M. 5a, Zl. 02351/1946, Zl. 7310/1947; M. 6a, Zl. 2271/1949.
BDA-Archiv, Restitutionsmaterialien, K. 52-1, M. 1, Zl. 5738/1947; M. 2, Zl. 4758/1948, Zl. 7582/1948, Zl. 9054/1948; M. 3, Zl. 7005/1949, Zl. 9625/1951; M. 7, Zl. 5786/1947;
BDA-Archiv, Restitutionsmaterialien, K. 52, PM Louis Rothschild; M. 2; M. 3, Inventar; M. 12.

KHM-Archiv, Direktionsakten: 25/KL/1940; Beschlagnahmeunterlagen: XIII 1, XIII 2, XIII, 3, XIII 4, XIII 5, XIII 85.

OeStA/AdR, E-uReang, FLD, Zl. 18917, Alphonse, Eugen und Louis Rothschild.

Online-Edition der Karteien zum sogenannten Zentraldepot für beschlagnahmte Sammlungen in Wien, Karteikarten zur beschlagnahmten Sammlung Louis Rothschild (Kürzel LR), 1–964, Medaillen (LR_Med) 1–189, Louis Rothschild Neue Burg (LR_NB), Ausstattungsgegenstände Alphonse oder Louis Rothschild (AALR) 1–159, URL: www.zdk-online.org (6.7.2022).

WStLA, M.Abt. 119, A16, Vermögensverfall aufgrund des Verbotsgesetzes, 146/1949, Rudolf Mann.

GND: 139295364

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Wikidata: Q87392