Twenty years ago, on 3 December 1998, the Principles of the Washington Conference<\/em>, also known as the Washington Declaration<\/em>, were adopted. This international agreement formed the basis for dealing with Nazi-confiscated art. It first made possible the restitution, in the year 2000, of the painting Borussia<\/em>, which is currently the focus of the intervention „<\/a><\/strong>REVEALED BY THE REVERSE. The Hidden History of a Painting by Adolph Menzel“<\/strong>. Why was the painting returned to its rightful owners so late, although its forced sale during the National Socialist period was clearly documented? In a further contribution to our series on provenance research at the Deutsches Historisches Museum, the curators of the intervention, Susan Gei\u00dfler and Darja Jesse, examine this question.<\/strong><\/p>\n For the first time in post-war history, the Washington Principles<\/em> appealed to the moral obligation of cultural institutions to re-examine their collections for possible Nazi-looted assets. The Principles were adopted during the \u201cWashington Conference on Holocaust-Era Assets Confiscated by the Nazis during the Holocaust\u201d. The demands were formulated in eleven articles, the so-called Washington Principles<\/u><\/em>. The first of these principles \u2013 \u201cArt that had been confiscated by the Nazis and not subsequently restituted should be identified\u201d \u2013 implies the obligation of the institutions that hold cultural assets to actively review their stocks in search of confiscated artworks.<\/p>\n After identifying such works \u2013 as it says in article 8 of the Washington Principles<\/em> \u2013 \u201csteps should be taken expeditiously to achieve a just and fair solution, recognizing this may vary according to the facts and circumstances surrounding a specific case.\u201d<\/p>\n The Federal Republic of Germany was among the signatory states in Washington, D.C. and reacted on 9 December 1999 with a Joint Declaration as well as a recommendation for its implantation. The complete title \u2013 Joint Declaration of the Federal Government, the L\u00e4nder and the national associations of local authorities regarding the tracing and return of Nazi-looted art, especially Jewish property<\/em> \u2013 makes it clear that not only artworks, but in fact cultural property in general should be made the object of research. This is an immense expansion of the Washington model. It is not, however, a legally binding obligation, nor does it provide the basis for individual restitution claims of those affected.<\/p>\n In our case the Washington Declaration<\/em>, and therefore also the Joint Declaration<\/em>, first made it possible to return Adolf Menzel\u2019s Borussia<\/em> to the heirs of the Mendelssohn family. The painting had been held among the family\u2019s belongings from 1868 to 1937.<\/a> As a direct result of the Nazi racial ideology the Mendelssohns had to sell large parts of their assets. In April 1937 the gallery owner Karl Haberstock acquired the painting for 19,000 Reichsmarks and sold it three years later for 48,000 RM to the so-called Special Mission Linz<\/em>. This mission refers to the extensive art collection that Adolf Hitler had brought together for a planned museum in Linz. After the war most of the objects were returned to their former owners.<\/p>\n The largest part of the cultural assets that had been confiscated by the Nazis was located in the American Occupation Zone. The military administration of the United States proved in its restitution policy to be a trailblazer in returning the looted goods. Thousands of cultural assets retrieved by the American occupation forces were at first brought together in so-called Central Collecting Points<\/em> (CCP<\/em>) and sorted out there. In October 1945 Menzel\u2019s Borussia<\/em> arrived in the Munich CCP<\/em>. Like all cultural goods that were collected there the Borussia<\/em> received a consecutive number, in this case No. 8877.<\/p>\nA turning point in the provenance research<\/h3>\n
Central Collecting Points \u2013 Precursors of the restitutions<\/h3>\n