Interim result: 30 suspected cases of Nazi-confiscated property in Görlitz Collections
In a project funded by the German Lost Art Foundation in Magdeburg, the Görlitzer Sammlungen für Geschichte und Kultur (Görlitz Collections of History and Culture) have discovered around 30 suspect objects during their investigation of their own holdings for Nazi-confiscated property. The suspect items are paintings, prints and works of applied art. The research turned up 300 suspect objects in total; however, the majority are classified as items lost during wartime and are no longer part of the collections.
The project has been running since July 2016 and aims to systematically examine all new acquisitions made between 1933 and 1945 for Nazi-confiscated property. The results of the research project will be published in the Lost Art Database operated by the German Lost Art Foundation.
Evidence had already been found in the 1990s that a number of items in the Görlitz Collections had been acquired in unlawful circumstances during the National Socialist period. Several years ago, individual artworks – including two paintings by Lovis Corinth and Max Slevogt – were returned to the rightful heirs of the collector to whom they had once belonged.
Historisches Inventarbuch der früheren Städtischen Kunstsammlungen Görlitz aus dem Jahr 1937
Source: Görlitzer Sammlungen für Geschichte und Kultur