Foundation provides online access to research findings relating to Nazi-confiscated property and lays the foundation for a future research database

The Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion is pro­vid­ing access to the find­ings of prove­nance re­search projects sup­port­ed with pub­lic funds since 2008.

From to­day, the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion is pro­vid­ing ac­cess via an on­line por­tal to the find­ings of prove­nance re­search projects sup­port­ed with pub­lic funds since 2008. The projects have in­ves­ti­gat­ed the prove­nance of Nazi-con­fis­cat­ed prop­er­ty in Ger­man in­sti­tu­tions—pri­mar­i­ly mu­se­ums, li­braries and archives. These were made ac­ces­si­ble and search­able es­pe­cial­ly for the prove­nance re­search work.

“With the on­line por­tal, the Foun­da­tion has cre­at­ed an im­por­tant ba­sis for the planned ex­ten­sive and in­ter­con­nect­ed re­search database,” said Min­is­ter of State Moni­ka Grüt­ters, chair of the Foun­da­tion Board. “In do­ing so, the Foun­da­tion is not on­ly en­hanc­ing trans­paren­cy, but al­so hon­or­ing the claim to make avail­able the find­ings from al­most 10 years of pub­lic project fund­ing in the in­ter­ests of vic­tims of Nazi-loot­ed art and their heirs. This will al­so sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­in­force the re­search in­to cul­tur­al as­sets con­fis­cat­ed as a re­sult of Nazi per­se­cu­tion.”

Ac­cess to the on­line por­tal is avail­able now via the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion web­site. To mark the launch of the por­tal, 95 fi­nal re­ports can be ac­cessed. The bod­ies re­spon­si­ble for the projects have con­sent­ed to the pub­li­ca­tion of these re­ports. A tab­u­lar dis­play makes it eas­i­er to search through the projects and en­ables the con­tent of sev­er­al re­ports to be linked. There is al­so a da­ta sheet con­tain­ing ba­sic in­for­ma­tion for each project com­plet­ed to date (cur­rent­ly 145).

The con­tent of the por­tal is con­tin­u­al­ly ex­pand­ed and up­dat­ed. For da­ta pro­tec­tion rea­sons, ac­cess to the por­tal is re­strict­ed to users with a le­git­i­mate in­ter­est. These per­sons in­clude vic­tims of Nazi-loot­ed art, their de­scen­dants, their rep­re­sen­ta­tives, prove­nance re­searchers and oth­er aca­demics. In oth­er cas­es, de­ci­sions will be made on an in­di­vid­u­al ba­sis.

Learn more about the “Mod­ul Forschungsergeb­nisse” (Re­search Re­sults Mod­ule) in the Foun­da­tion’s on­line por­tal

Click here for the on­line por­tal