Provenance research on the art holdings of the Federal Republic of Germany
The Federal Republic of Germany has endorsed the “Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art” (Washington Principles) of 3 December 1998, which are applied in the “Common Statement by the Federal Government, the Länder and the national associations of local authorities on the tracing and return of Nazi-confiscated art, especially Jewish Property” (Common Statement) of 14 December 1999.
On the basis of this responsibility, the Federal Republic of Germany, represented by the Federal Art Administration under the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, continuously checks the provenance of all works of art in its possession on the basis of new sources.
Of particular interest is the so-called Remainder of the Central Collecting Point Munich (“Remainder CCP”), for which the suspicion of Nazi persecution-related confiscation has neither been confirmed nor excluded yet.
History of provenance research on the “Remainder CCP” Munich by the Federal Government
Since the end of the Second World War, the US Allies have been checking the provenance of the found Reich-owned works of art that had come into the CCP Munich, where they were inventoried, photographed and, if possible, their provenance (origin) researched. Each work of art or convolute was inventoried on a file card, the so-called Property Card. In autumn of the same year, the American art protection officers began to return the works of art to their rightful owners, their legal successors or countries of origin.
On 1 December 1948, the American military government transferred all art objects that had not already been restituted by then into the trust of the Bavarian Prime Minister. The “Treuhandverwaltung von Kulturgut” (TVK) [Trust Administration for Cultural Assets], which was set up in 1952 as a special department at the Federal Foreign Office, continued the investigation of the works' provenance. In the CCP Munich alone, works of art were collected from more than 600 depots, including the repositories of the Bavarian state collections. In the following years, restitutions were made within Germany and abroad. When the TVK was dissolved on 31 December 1962, it handed over the “Remainder CCP” to the Federal Ministry of the Treasury. At that time, it still comprised around 20,000 works of art, cultural assets, books and coins. Since 2000, this stock has again been systematically checked for provenance by the Federal Art Administration. The Federal Art Administration initially performed this task at the Regional Financial Directorate in Berlin, from 2004 at the Federal Office for the Settlement of Unresolved Property Issues, from January 2006 at the Federal Office for Central Services and Unresolved Property Issues, from June 2017 at the Federal Office of Administration, and since 1 February 2020 within the scope of business of the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.
History of the “Remainder CCP”
| After WWII | Transport of artworks from different Nazi repositories such as Alt-Aussee, Kremsmünster and Hohenfurth to the Munich Central Collecting Point |
| 12/1948–02/1952 | Trusteeship of the Bavarian Prime Minister |
02/1952–12/1962
| Federal Foreign Office Trust Administration for Cultural Assets |
| 01/1963–12/1968 | Federal Ministry of the Treasury Delegation of the tasks to the Regional Finance Directorate Munich |
| 01/1969 | Dissolution of the Federal Ministry of the Treasury |
| 01/1969–12/1997 | Federal Ministry of Finance Tasks remaining with the Regional Finance Directorate Munich |
| 01/1998–12/2003 | Federal Ministry of Finance Regional Finance Directorate Berlin |
| 01/2004–12/2005 | Federal Ministry of Finance Federal Office for the Settlement of Unresolved Property Issues |
| 01/2006–05/2017 | Federal Ministry of Finance Federal Office For Central Services and Unresolved Property Issues |
06/2017–01/2020
| Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community Federal Office of Administration |
| Since 02/2020 | Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media Federal Art Administration |
Provenance database “ProvenienzdatenbankBund”
This federally owned database contains all results of the systematic research of paintings, graphics, sculptures and craftwork or archaeological objects. All new findings are successively incorporated into the database ProvenienzdatenbankBund and can be researched by date of processing, artist, type of object, the inventory number of the CCP (Munich number) and via free text search.
In order to support affected persons in their search for their lost cultural property, all those works of art from the “Remainder CCP” that are still in federal possession and whose provenance is unknown are also published in the online database www.lostart.de as “Found-Objects”, which is maintained by the Deutsches Zentrum Kulturgutverluste [German Lost Art Foundation].
Further research databases
In addition to the federal provenance database ProvenienzdatenbankBund, the Federal Art Administration has further developed three databases in cooperation with the Deutsches Historisches Museum [German Historical Museum] and other institutions and published them online:
- Database “Collection of the Special Commission Linz”
- Database on the “Munich Central Collecting Point”
- The Hermann Göring Art Collection
All databases are free of charge and can be viewed without access restrictions.