America and the Return of Nazi Contraband: The Recovery of Europe's Cultural Treasures (review)

Plundering the spoils of war has a long history, while principles regarding the wartime protection and postwar restitution of such artifacts are a more modern phenomenon. As Michael J. Kurtz painstakingly demonstrates, the impact on cultural heritage engendered by World War II exceeded all previous experiences of looting and restitution. Driven by racist ideology, the Nazi regime widely appropriated the property of its perceived enemies, and the "outbreak of war in 1939 dramatically expanded the arena for Nazi plundering" (19). Kurtz identifies four major individuals or organizations, as well as numerous lower-level operatives, leading the charge for control over European cultural heritage: (1) the Sonderauftrag Linz (the Linz special project), aimed at "transforming the Führer's boyhood home into the cultural mecca of Europe," with Vienna's Rothschild art collection as its core collection (20); (2) Reichsmarshall Hermann Göring, who, by war's end, "had eight residences packed with art, practically none of it German," acquired through confiscation and forced sales (21); (3) the SS under Heinrich Himmler, especially its Ahnenerbe ("legacy of ancestors"), a research body responsible for validating Nazi racial beliefs, and the Reich Main Security Office (Reichssicherheit-shauptamt or RSHA), "the single greatest looter of archives and libraries from Jews, Freemasons, and other enemies of the regime" (22); and (4) Reichsleiter Alfred Rosenberg's Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR), which was particularly active in seizing "ownerless" Jewish property in occupied France.

One irony of all this looting was the resultant preservation of Jewish cultural artifacts. But despite much early discussion among the Allied powers, little concrete plans for restitution following the cessation of hostilities emerged within political circles, though some efforts at preservation during the war were made, spurred on by arts organizations. This led to the creation in the United States of the Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historic Monuments in Europe, led by Supreme Court Justice Owen J. Roberts, which urged the War Department's Civil Affairs Division to establish a Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFA&A) branch in the fall of 1943. Kurtz concludes the first part of this book with an account of how American restitution policies were shaped by geopolitical clashes between the Great Powers during the last two years of the war, largely hindering the development of a coherent approach to restitution. Nonetheless, MFA&A officers followed closely upon D-Day operations to begin their work, quickly locating several remarkable stashes of looted objects, including some world masterpieces, and soon recognizing the enormous challenges of restitution in the war's final phases.

Part two of the book documents the early efforts at postwar restitution, greatly hampered by the lack of a "clear policy on how to govern the vanquished enemy" (81). The dispersion and sheer number of cultural objects presented additional challenges: About 15 million artifacts had been hidden in repositories, many of them salt mines, 25 percent of which were deemed "eligible for restitution" (88). Eventually, some clear patterns emerged, with the Americans taking the lead among the three Western powers in managing "factories"-central collection facilities-from which "clearly identifiable German property" was rapidly inventoried, catalogued, and returned "to the institutions or individuals who had title to the property." Meanwhile the Soviets pursued a policy of wholesale removal of cultural property to replenish Soviet institutions, with no attention paid to provenance (104). But many issues were never resolved by agreement of the four postwar powers, effectively resulting in four restitution programs.

Part three of the book addresses specifically American leadership in postwar restitution, the bulk of which occurred from spring 1945 through September 1949. The efforts were led by the understaffed MFA&A branch, and drew to a close when the "international climate made it clear that the end was in sight for military government" (143). Kurtz devotes a chapter here to "the disposition of Jewish property," much of...