The
Restitution of Nazi Theft:
The Spotlight
Should Move Now to Austria
By JONATHAN
POWER
LONDON - "Austria to Start Returning Artwork Looted by
the Nazis" was a headline last week in The International
Herald Tribune, exactly 53 years and 7 months after the
defeat of the Nazi Reich. And close on 90% of those who
should benefit from restitution, whose homes and businesses
were looted and whose precious artifacts transported either
to German and Austrian museums or often to the homes of Nazi
leaders, are now dead. Even if you were a Rothschild your
name and influence in all these post-war years may not have
been sufficient to regain what was stolen. If you were
Jewish in Austria it was as if the state in all its
successive plumages since the war, socialists, centrists or
coalition was not going to pull its finger out on your
behalf. Even the promise made in the Austrian parliament
earlier last month on the belated return of works of art is
so circumscribed as to raise serious doubts whether many
pictures will ever find their rightful owners or their
heirs.
It wasn't only art and treasure that got short shrift, it
was people too. After the war Austria made the most
desultory efforts to woo back its Jewish emigres who had
fled to the U.S., Canada and Britain, the likes of Nobel
science winners Wolfgang Pauli and Erwin Schroedinger
working in the U.S., and philosopher Karl Popper and
economist Friedrich Hayek teaching in London.
Austria, as John Kenneth Galbraith has long maintained,
has arguably been post war western society's most successful
economy, producing not only handsome growth but equitably
distributed well-being. Nevertheless, politically and
morally, it has been seriously schizophrenic: it has buried
its head in the sand about its Nazi past, even to the point
of electing as president in 1986 Kurt Waldheim, despite the
evidence, that had then recently surfaced, that he had
concealed parts of a dishonourable war record when he
successfully saught and occupied the office of
secretary-general of the United Nations.
If 1998 was the year of exposure of Swiss banks when they
were compelled by a combination of Jewish activism and
American congressional and governmental pressure to make
their financial peace with the Jewish community, it looks
like there could well be the makings of a repeat performance
for Austria in 1999.
A book to be published in Vienna in the spring, "The
Extinction" could be the catalyst. As one might expect from
the author, Hubertus Czernin, whose previous books exposed
Kurt Waldheim and the disgraced Cardinal of Vienna, Hans
Hermann Groer, accused of homosexual offenses, he recounts a
tale of scandalous proportions. The book's subject is the
Nazi looting of Austrian art. One chapter already being
passed around is a story of the late banker Alphonse
Thorsch. This week, his great grand-daughter, Countess
Marie-Therese Gudenus, has been in Washington in an attempt
to bring the book's findings before the U.S. government's
four day conference on the Holocaust that began on
Monday.
Alphonse Thorsch died in exile in Canada in 1945. The
struggle of his heirs for the restitution of his property
proves the point, says Mr Czernin, that "the more important
the cases were, the more aggressive and careless the
attitude of the Austrian government and bureaucracy
became".
Thorsch was enormously rich, the owner of a private bank
second only to the Rothschild's. His house was a palace of
60 rooms and his desk was that of former First Minister
Metternich. In March, 1938 the National Socialists stormed
in, turfed out the occupants and confiscated the house, the
paintings, carpets, jewels and most important, the bank.
(Interestingly, the desk turned up in the office of the
Austrian vice-chancellor in 1967.)
Nineteen pictures were restored to the family in 1949;
one more followed in 1952. But most have not been. The trust
established by Thorsch in his will, in the name of his
grandchildren, has saught time and time again to win the
return of the looted property, but to no avail. Since the
family couldn't say where the art was or where the capital
was transferred to, the government has maintained that the
family "is not in a legal position to demand restitution".
Nor did the state offer to help with the search.
In 1970, Marie-Therese's mother, Angela, renewed the
family effort. Again the government rebuffed her, arguing
that she was not capable of taking over the management of a
bank. Even when her cousin, the internationally well-known
Hamburg banker, Max Warburg, became involved the government
refused to act. (His bank, also confiscated, was speedily
returned shortly after the war by the German authorities,
which have a good record in such matters.)
Austria fifty three years on still lives the lie that it
was a victim of Hitler itself. (A street witticism: The
Austrians like to pretend Hitler was German and Beethoven
Austrian.) Successive governments have acted as if they
believed that if they did nothing or, at least, very little,
the problem would go away and solve itself. Three
generations on it hasn't. And why should it?
Note for editor 1) dateline Vienna. 2) I can be reached
by phone on +44 385 351172 or by e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
Copyright © 1998 By JONATHAN POWER
Note: I can be reached by phone +44 385 351172 and
e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
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