Hitler’s art collection goes on show in Czech

As a former artist, Hitler was an art lover and collector. Countless
paintings, many done by major European painters, were seized by the Nazis
during the Second World War.

At one point, Hitler’s private collection, known as the “Linz Collection,”
included almost 5,000 works, and the Nazis had once planned to create a
museum for them in Linz, Austria.

In addition to the seven works identified at the convent, Kuchar found seven
more that Hitler had once owned at the northern Czech
chateau of Zakupy, and one each at the Military History Institute in
Prague and the Faculty of Law of Charles University in Prague.

Some contain obvious signs of Nazi propaganda, the author said.

During the occupation, it is believed that the 16 works were part of Hitler’s
collection of more than 70 pieces of contemporary German art that the Third
Reich stored at a monastery in the southern Czech town of Vyssi Brod,
together with larger collections of valuable paintings stolen from Jewish
families in Europe.

Christian Fuhrmeister of the German institute said Vyssi Brod was one of the
depots where such seized art works were relocated to prevent damage caused
by Allied air forces.

After the war, valuable paintings possessed by the Nazis were confiscated by
the U.S. Army and taken to the Munich Central Collection Point in an effort
to return them to their original owners. Many less valuable works were left
behind after the 1945 liberation of Czechoslovakia and ended up scattered
across the country.

Fourteen of the 16 works that Kuchar has identified as former Hitler
possessions are now owned by the Czech National Institute for the Protection
and Conservation of Monuments and Sites, and it doesn’t plan to sell them or
put them on public display.

“They will remain in the depositary,” said Ivana Chovancova, an
official at the institute.

Kuchar discovered the 16 works after investigating leads from the book “Hitler’s
Salon” by Swiss author Ines Schlenker, which listed Hitler’s art
purchases at the art exhibitions in Munich during the war.

Source: AP

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