Provenance research on Nazi looted property at the Museum am Rothenbaum: Collections acquired between 1933 and 1952
The project aims to provide a systematic examination and review of objects acquired between 1933 and 1945, as well as acquisitions from the post-war period up to 1952.
As the collection department of the museum is organized according to global regions, the objects and collections relevant to the project are located in distinct collection areas within the museum, so the Project can be classified as a cross-collection project.
The project involves a systematic and structured documentation of previous owners and sellers during the period under investigation, as well as the circumstances of acquisition based on the registered incoming objects. The MARKK has a central, database-based collection documentation system which, at the start of the project, recorded a total of 1,418 project-relevant bundles of varying sizes as entries in the object collections from February 1933 up to and including 1952. In the course of the project to date, 188 of these bundles have been investigated as concrete suspected cases.
The investigation does not consider the holdings covered by the first provenance research project on Nazi-looted objects at the MARKK from 2021 to 2023, nor does it include the collections of the Prehistory and Prehistoric Department and the Anthropology Department, which have since been transferred to other institutions. Also so-called workshop productions (models and object replicas from the museum’s own workshop) are non-included in the ongoing research. In the 1970s, the prehistory and prehistoric Department was largely transferred to the newly founded Helms Museum in Hamburg, while the Anthropology Department was transferred to the University of Göttingen, both with expanded documentation.
To enable analysis and verification of cultural property seized as a result of Nazi persecution the data on the previous owners or sellers of objects in connection with the respective collections is structured as follows: Acquisitions from private individuals, holdings received from public organisations and institutions as well as from associations between 1933 and 1945, and object trade.
At the time of the project application, it has already been possible to define corresponding collection clusters for a more in-depth investigation. This includes items from private individuals who were known to have been persecuted by the National Socialists, as well as ethnographic dealers, such as the family of the Hamburg ethnographic dealer Julius Konietzko (1886-1952) and their circle. The majority of the items to be assigned here originate from the Konietzko trade and collections.
As a result of the first Nazi-looted property project, which was completed in 2023, findings have emerged regarding the access status ‘on loan’ that necessitate an investigation of these holdings: On the one hand, individuals were no longer able to reclaim their holdings from the museum due to persecution; on the other hand, it is assumed that individual object holdings may have been handed over to the museum for safekeeping or deposited as loans by persecuted persons. Individual objects may also have remained in the museum when collections were returned.
Entries that have been recorded as ‘old stock’ or with unclear information are also reviewed. ‘Old stock’ refers to objects and groups of objects that entered the collections at an unspecified earlier date but can no longer be clearly assigned or have changed their status.
The research of all selected holdings includes clarification of acquisition and ownership status as well as an investigation of the collection’s history. For individual objects, documentation and research into specific provenance characteristics such as collection and auction numbers, stamps and stickers are carried out, which can help to reconstruct the objects’ changing ownership history.
During the systematic examination of all entries relevant to the period under investigation, further suspected cases were identified which require additional in-depth review. This is why an extension of the provenance research project on Nazi-looted property at MARKK was requested and approved. Currently, a further 44 collections from eight different entities are being examined. Their examination corresponds to the procedure used in the project to date.
Duration of project: 1 October 2023 to 30 November 2026
Contact:
Jana C. Reimer
fon +49(0)40/428 879–551
mail janacaroline.reimer@markk-hamburg.de
Julianne de Sousa
fon +49(0)40/428 879–586
mail julianne.desousa@markk-hamburg.de
Student Assistant: Annika Hüther
