07/08/2024

On July 27, 2024, Prof. Strasser gave a lecture at the 8th International Conference on Culture and History (2024 8th ICCH) in Vienna on the topic of The other side of the coin: How can controversial aspects of cultural heritage be exhibited? Reflections on approaches in the European Capital of Culture 2024 Salzkammergut / Bad Ischl.

In 2023 and especially on the occasion of the “European Capital of Culture 2024 Salzkammergut / Bad Ischl”, some Austrian museums ventured to tackle a challenging topic: Nazi-looted art, its commercialization and storage, rescue and (non-)restitution were to be conveyed to visitors. The challenge was that the exhibitions should not only present “haptic”, tangible objects, but also immaterial aspects such as (in)law and values. In addition, the exhibitions should not only be aimed at the local public, but also at all those who are concerned about human rights, the rule of law and justice.

Exhibitions on the protection of cultural property are not new to Austria; as early as 1985, the Federal Monuments Office organized a series of travelling exhibitions with the NGO “Austrian Society for the Protection of Cultural Property”, which dealt with spiritual national defence, disaster protection and the 40th anniversary of the rescue of the art treasures in the salt mines of Altaussee.

In 2023, the storage and protection of cultural assets was finally considered in a broader context: Countless works of art (but also folkloristic objects) were not simply “suddenly there” in collections (and later in the salvage tunnels) during the Nazi era, but had previously - euphemistically - made a “journey” whose “ticket” can be traced back to the Nazi system of injustice: Expropriations of art collections from Jews, looting of museums and churches in conquered territories as well as removal goods from Jewish emigrants, which were then not sent to their owners by the Nazi bureaucracy, constituted the inventory that was stored in the salt mines in Altaussee from 1943 onwards - in addition to art treasures from museums in the German Reich itself, which required bomb-proof storage. However, the reference to injustice was not limited to the expropriation and looting during the Nazi era. Without wishing to equate post-war practice in Austria with Nazi arbitrariness, after 1945 the victims had a difficult time obtaining their rights in Austria, i.e. their former possessions. Export licenses had to be purchased, for example, with “compensation deals” (i.e. valuable objects had to remain in Austria / in the domestic collections in order for a collection to be exported).

The Austrian Museum of Folklore in Vienna set a good example in 2023: With the title: Collected at any price! Why objects came to the museum through National Socialism and how we deal with them, the complex topic of restitution in the context of the Nazi regime of injustice was developed and communicated for the first time in an exhibition to mark the 25th anniversary of the Art Restitution Act in 1998. The rather abstract exhibition section on (un)legal provisions and administrative procedures was placed in a realistic context by the approximately 600 exhibited artifacts from the “Konrad Mautner Collection”: the folkloristically valuable collection was “purchased” by the Folklore Museum from the collector's widow, Anna Mautner, in 1938 at far below its true value. It was only after 2015 that the collection was restituted by the museum to the heirs, who in turn gave it back to the museum as a sign of reconciliation.

Current exhibitions about the collector couple Anna and Konrad Mautner take us to the European Capital of Culture Salzkammergut: Until August 31, the “Cultural Working Group Grundlsee” is showing the exhibition “Konrad & Anna Mautner - two extraordinary lives between Vienna and Gößl” in the “imperial stable” in Grundlsee and in the Museum of the City of Bad Ischl, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Konrad Mautner's death, photos of the Salzkammergut from his collection are presented under the title “The other life” (until December 15, 2024).

The exhibition “The Journey of Images” is running at the Lentos Museum in Linz until September 28, 2024. However, the subtitle makes it clear that this title has nothing to do with tourism: “Hitler's cultural policy, art trade and storage in the Salzkammergut during the Nazi era”. The exhibition conveys the thoroughness of the art theft committed: the works of art “stolen” from all over Europe (be it from museums, churches or confiscated collections - primarily of Jewish provenance) were to serve as the basis for the planned “Führer Museum” in that city under the code name Sonderauftrag Linz. At the end of the war, this art treasure of enormous importance was located in the Steinberg tunnels in Altaussee before being restituted as far as possible with the help of the American military.

At the end of the war, the Salzkammergut was not only home to the largest European repository of cultural assets at the time in the salt mines above Altaussee, but also served as a retreat for people with “Nazi affinities” during the war.

Wolfgang Gurlitt (1888-1965), who was initially active in Berlin as a collector and art dealer (including for confiscated and “degenerate” art) and settled with his family (including his Jewish partner Lilly Christansen-Agoston) in Bad Aussee as a result of the bombing, also belonged to this group of people. After the war and after acquiring Austrian citizenship, he handed over his art collection to the then “Neue Galerie der Stadt Linz, Wolfgang-Gurlitt-Museum” (now Lentos Kunstmuseum) and became the gallery's artistic director in 1946. He held this position until 1956, when the unclean separation of director and art dealer became his undoing. He was able to prevent an attempt by the city of Linz to remove his name from the museum's name around 1960 by taking legal action. The Kammerhofmuseum in Bad Aussee is showing the exhibition Wolfgang Gurlitt - Art Dealer and Profiteer in Bad Aussee until November 3, 2024.

As mentioned, the tunnels for the Altaussee salt mine served as a salvage site for cultural assets during the Second World War. This collection of cultural assets, the largest in Europe at the time (6500 paintings and countless other works of art from all over Europe were stored in the eight disused facilities - with an estimated value of around 3.5 billion US dollars at the time), was documented on film by George Clooney in The Monuments Men in 2014. The planned demolition of the tunnels at the end of the war was prevented. How should we now deal with this unjustly charged site? On the occasion of the European Capital of Culture 2024, the graphic novel “Hidden in the Rock” by artist Simon Schwartz will be presented in the exhibition rooms of the Steinberghaus: A comic now conveys the special significance of this place. In this way, the art looting in Europe, the storage as well as the rescue and restitution of the cultural assets are also conveyed to young people in a memorable way.

While the exhibitions in Vienna, Linz, Bad Aussee and the salt mine deal with the theft of art during the Nazi era and how this injustice was later dealt with, the exhibition at the Altes Marktrichterhaus in Lauffen near Bad Ischl, also curated by the Lentos Museum as part of the European Capital of Culture, also includes references to acquisitions in a colonial context, restitution efforts and the “cultural genocide” of the present day through the systematic destruction and looting of cultural heritage during acts of war. The location of this exhibition, which runs until September 1, 2024, was not chosen at random: From the end of 1944 until the end of the war, the holdings of Vienna's museums were stored bombproof in the salt mine there.

Contemporary artists have their say here. The exhibition catalog comments: “As creators of works, artists are essentially connected to objects and their contexts of meaning and sensitized to their (mis)relationships. [...] In this way, [they] also provide impulses for new strategies for how museums and collections can deal with this burdened heritage and fulfill their responsibility between restitution and preservation of the cultural heritage of mankind.” (Catalog “The Life of Things”, p. 5)

There is nothing to add to this claim.

 

Peter Strasser

Further reading:

  • Die Reise der Bilder : Hitlers Kulturpolitik, Kunsthandel und Einlagerungen in der NS-Zeit im Salzkammergut. München: Hirmer 2024, ISBN 978-3-7774-4307-2
  • Simon Schwartz: Verborgen im Fels : Der Berg, das Salz und die Kunst. Berlin: avant 2024, ISBN 978-3-96445-111-8
  • Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz: Das Leben der Dinge : Geraubt – verschleppt – gerettet. (Saalheft). Linz 2024
  • Kathrin Pallestrang, Magdalena Puchberger, Maria Raid (Hg.): Gesammelt um jeden Preis! Warum Objekte durch den Nationalsozialismus ins Museum kamen und wie wir damit umgehen. Wien: Österreichisches Museum für Volkskunde 2023, 175 S., zahlreiche Abb. (= Kataloge des Österreichischen Museums für Volkskunde, Bd. 108)
  • Peter Strasser: Buch- und Ausstellungsbesprechung über die Publikation von Pallestrang / Puchberger 2023, in: Österreichische Zeitschrift für Volkskunde, Bd. LXXVIII (neue Serie) / Gesamtserie Bd. 127, H. 1 (2024), S. 173-178

 

 

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Univ.-Prof. Mag. Mag. Dr. Dr. Peter Strasser, LL.M.

Center for Architectural Heritage and Infrastructure

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