A compelling exploration of the many issues surrounding the restoration and restitution of Nazi-stolen art at the end of World War II At the end of World War II, the US Office of Military Government for Germany and Bavaria, through its Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives division, was responsible for the repatriation of most of the tens of thousands of artwork looted by the Nazis in the countries they had occupied. With the help of the US Army’s Monuments Men—the name given to a hand-picked group of art historians and museum professionals commissioned for this important duty—massive numbers of objects were retrieved from their wartime hiding places and inventoried for repatriation. Iris Lauterbach’s fascinating history documents the story of the Allies’ Central Collecting Point (CCP), set up in the former Nazi Party headquarters at Königsplatz in Munich, where the confiscated works were transported to be identified and sorted for restitution. This book presents her archival research on the events, people, new facts, and intrigue, with meticulous attention to the official systems, frameworks, and logistical and bureaucratic enterprise of the Munich CCP in the years from 1945 to 1949. She uncovers the stories of the people who worked there at a time of lingering political suspicions; narrates the research, conservation, and restitution process; and investigates how the works of art were managed and returned to their owners.

In Bibliophiles and Bibliothieves, Opritsa Popa has documented what might justifiably be described as the most celebrated case of looting of two German cultural treasures by a member of the U.S. Army at the end of World War II and their subsequent odyssey across both an ocean and a continent: the pilfering from a cellar in Bad Wildungen of the ninth-century Liber Sapientiae, containing the two leaves of the oldest extant German heroic poem, the Old High German Hildebrandslied, along with the fourteenth-century illuminated Willehalm codex, both of which had been removed from the State Library in Kassel for protection from bombing raids.

"Findings and recommendations of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Holocaust Assets in the United States and Staff report."--T.p.

Der größte Teil der aus vielen Ländern Europas stammenden nationalsozialistischen Raubkunst befand sich bei Kriegsende 1945 in Depots in der amerikanischen Besatzungszone. Die Sicherstellung und Rückführung dieser Kunstwerke sowie ausgelagerter deutscher Museumsbestände lag in Händen der 'Monuments, Fine Arts & Archives Section' der amerikanischen Militärregierung. Das reich bebilderte Buch behandelt die Geschichte der größten amerikanischen Kunstsammelstelle, des in den ehemaligen NSDAP-Gebäuden am Königsplatz in München eingerichteten Central Collecting Point. Ausländische Raubkunst wurde hauptsächlich von hier aus restituiert. Im Mittelpunkt stehen Standort, Einrichtung, Mitarbeiter und Arbeit der Institution in den Jahren 1945 bis 1949. Einzelne Restitutionsvorgänge werden exemplarisch untersucht. Die Geschichte des aus dem Collecting Point hervorgegangenen Zentralinstituts für Kunstgeschichte und die Ausstellungspolitik des Amerika-Hauses werden im Rahmen der 'Re-Education' und des Wiederaufbaus der Münchner und westdeutschen Kunst- und Kulturszene nach 1945 beleuchtet.