Initial check in five museums in Saxony-Anhalt ends – results presented

Last week, the par­tic­i­pants in the project “Ini­tial check in five mu­se­ums in Sax­ony-An­halt” gath­ered in Magde­burg to eval­u­ate the re­sults of their suc­cess­ful re­search ef­forts and ex­plore the next steps based on this re­search. The Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion fi­nan­cial­ly sup­port­ed the project with a grant over a pe­ri­od of five months.

The aim of the project led by the mu­se­um as­so­ci­a­tion Mu­se­umsver­band Sach­sen-An­halt e. V. was to car­ry out an ini­tial check in five se­lect­ed mu­se­ums in Sax­ony-An­halt to es­tab­lish whether there was any sus­pi­cion that the col­lec­tion hold­ings con­tained cul­tur­al as­sets seized through Nazi per­se­cu­tion (Nazi-con­fis­cat­ed prop­er­ty). This type of ini­tial check can sub­se­quent­ly de­ter­mine whether or not there is a need for fur­ther, long-term prove­nance re­search.

The prove­nance re­searcher ap­point­ed by the Mu­se­umsver­band for the ini­tial checks, Math­ias Dein­ert, re­port­ed that there was a sus­pi­cion of Nazi-con­fis­cat­ed prop­er­ty at all of the par­tic­i­pat­ing in­sti­tu­tions and on this ba­sis he rec­om­mend­ed car­ry­ing out in-depth prove­nance re­search at all five lo­ca­tions. He said the start­ing po­si­tion with re­gard to sources for in-depth re­search in­to Nazi-con­fis­cat­ed prop­er­ty was par­tic­u­lar­ly promis­ing at all lo­ca­tions. The mu­se­ums tak­ing part in the ini­tial check in Sax­ony-An­halt were the Alt­märkische Mu­se­um in Sten­dal, the Dan­neil-Mu­se­um in Salzwedel, the Gleimhaus in Hal­ber­stadt, the Mu­se­um As­ch­er­sleben and the Mu­se­um Schloss Moritzburg Zeitz.

So­phie Leschik, who is re­spon­si­ble for ad­vis­ing pub­lic ap­pli­cants at the Foun­da­tion, then ad­vised the mu­se­um di­rec­tors on the op­por­tu­ni­ties for sub­mit­ting an ap­pli­ca­tion for long-term re­search.

Kristin Ot­to, chair of the Mu­se­umsver­band Sach­sen-An­halt mu­se­um as­so­ci­a­tion, sum­ma­rized the re­sults of the project as fol­lows: “A start has been made and we have sharp­ened our per­spec­tive on the his­to­ry of the hold­ings and the role of mu­se­um stake­hold­ers in the Nazi pe­ri­od. The project has made it clear that there are re­search gaps re­gard­ing the role of the Cen­tral Ger­man art and an­tiques trade be­fore and af­ter 1945.”

Sylvia Lau­mann, rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Städte- und Gemein­de­bund Sach­sen-An­halt (SGSA) as­so­ci­a­tion, pro­vid­ed pro­fes­sion­al as­sis­tance to the project from the be­gin­ning and act­ed as a dis­sem­i­na­tor of in­for­ma­tion: “Our as­so­ci­a­tion will now make the case at fed­er­al lev­el for fur­ther, com­pa­ra­ble projects dur­ing talks with the Sax­ony-An­halt Min­istry of Cul­ture and with the na­tion­al as­so­ci­a­tions of lo­cal au­thor­i­ties,” said Lau­mann. She al­so point­ed out that the SGSA sup­port­ed the Lan­desver­band Sach­sen-An­halt in the Deutsche Bib­lio­theksver­band e.V. for the project “Ini­tial check in se­lect­ed pub­lic li­braries in Sax­ony-An­halt”. Tak­ing part in this project, which is al­so fund­ed by the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion, are Rosen­bib­lio­thek Sanger­hausen, Stadt­bib­lio­thek Magde­burg, Bib­lio­thek des Fran­cis­ceum Zerb­st, Bib­lio­thek der Stadt Wernigerode and An­haltische Lan­des­bücherei Dessau-Roßlau. It is the first project car­ried out by a li­brary as­so­ci­a­tion in the Fed­er­al Re­pub­lic of Ger­many.

Project de­scrip­tion

Mu­se­umsver­band des Lan­des Sach­sen-An­halt e. V.

Städte- und Gemein­de­bund Sach­sen-An­halt (SGSA) (on­ly Ger­man ver­sion)

Teilnehmende der Auswertung des Projekts "Erst-Check in fünf Museen Sachsen-Anhalts" im Deutschen Zentrum Kulturgutverluste