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Project “Nazi Looted Assets in the Special Collections”
From 2018 to 2024, the German Lost Art Foundation funded a research project that complemented the ongoing research of the Department of Provenance Research/Nazi Looted Assets. Instead of the general collections investigated earlier, the focus here was on the library’s special collections. Historian Anneke de Rudder systematically examined autographs, maps, letters, materials from estates, rare books, historic prints, etc. In 2020 and again in 2022, the German Lost Art Foundation approved an extension of the project so that it could be continued until 2024.
Between 1933 and 1945, a large number of items, some of them valuable, came into the library, mainly through purchases from antiquarian bookshops and auction houses. Among them were various suspected or already proven cases of Nazi looted assets. Many of these pieces are unique, often of a private nature, and might have a high emotional value for the families of Nazi persecutees. The special character of these objects and their sometimes incomplete indexing required extensive research.
The project aimed to identify Nazi looted assets in the special collections, to report found items to the Lost Art Database, to identify heirs and legal successors, and finally, as far as possible, to restitute the items or to find a just and fair solution in accordance with the Washington Principles. In 2019, the project led to the restitution of books to the heiress of Hans Sternheim, who was a godson of the eminent 19th-century German writer Theodor Fontane. In 2022, more than 250 autographs were restituted to the heirs of literary scholar and author Heinrich Spiero. More restitutions are planned.
Further links (texts in German):
https://blog.sub.uni-hamburg.de/?p=28225
https://blog.sub.uni-hamburg.de/?p=34533&
Contact:
Anneke de Rudder / Dr. Wiebke von Deylen
E-Mail:
afenhothg(at)fho.hav-unzohet.qr
Telefon:
+49 40/42838-3348 / -2225
Telefax:
+49 40/42838-3352