Databases for Provenance Research
For use in international provenance research, the Deutsches Historisches Museum offers three databases focusing on Nazi plunder.
The databases on the Munich Central Collecting Point, on the “Special Commission Linz” and on Hermann Göring’s art collection provide information on the movement and relocation of objects in the time between 1933 and 1945. The databases have different structures and offer different approaches for research.
The database on the Munich Central Collecting Point (Munich CCP) contains information on individual objects or sets of objects and is based on the historical file cards of the collecting point, which have been transcribed, scanned and evaluated. In this database, research can be conducted directly on objects, their relocation places and their provenances through the CCP archives.
Unlike the Munich CCP database, the databases on the “Special Commission Linz” and on Göring’s art collection bundle together information about individual objects from different sources. Here one can find, in particular, references to previous owners, to the circumstances in which the objects came to the collection, and on their possible location after 1945.
Database on the Munich Central Collecting Point (Munich CCP)
The database was set up in 2009 in cooperation with the Federal Office for Central Services and Unresolved Property Issues (BADV), the Federal Ministry of Finance, the German Federal Archive, and the Austrian Federal Monuments Office in Vienna.
The Munich CCP is the name of the collecting point for art objects that was set up at the end of the Second World War in the former headquarters of the NSDAP in Munich. The task of the collecting point was to form a central depot in Munich for all the art works that had been looted, confiscated or bought through art dealers in the German Reich or in the territories occupied by Nazi Germany in the time between 1933 and 1945, and had been housed in various collecting depots throughout Germany or the occupied territories. In the CCP, the art objects were inventoried so that they could then be restituted. The file cards of the CCP, which are now kept in the German Federal Archive, were scanned and transcribed so that information on the artists, depositors, relocation places, and former owners can be researched from the entries on the cards. The entries in the database correspond to what was transcribed or known when the information was placed online.
Database on the Munich Central Collecting Point (Munich CCP)
Database on the “Special Commission Linz”
The database was established in 2008 in cooperation with the Federal Office for Central Services and Unresolved Property Issues (BADV) and the historian Dr Hanns-Christian Löhr.
It shows pictures, 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 (Austria), but also for other collections. Many of these objects are also registered in the Munich Central Collecting Point. One can see where this information is available in the list of hits linked to the CCP.
Note on researching: When at least three letters of a search item are entered into one of the search fields Provenance, Title, Artist Name, or Location, a list of suggested items appears from which you can select an entry.
The entries in the database correspond to the knowledge available when the item was entered online.
Database on the "Collection Hermann Göring"
The database was developed in 2012 in cooperation with the Federal Office for Central Services and Unresolved Property Issues (BADV), the German Federal Archive, and the historian Dr Hanns-Christian Löhr.
Available for research are pictures, sculptures, furniture, tapestries and other applied art objects that Hermann Göring, Hitler’s Reichsmarschall and Deputy, purchased or appropriated from confiscated property between the end of the 1920s and 1945.
The entries in the database correspond to the knowledge available when the item was entered online.