Hidden for decades, the stolen Mauerbach works brought attention to Nazi-era art theft

A 3rd-century marble bust of Alexander the Great, Old Master paintings and drawings, 19th-century continental pictures, collections of antique coins and medals: they were the household treasures of Austria’s bourgeoisie, including many members of the country’s Jewish community. Then they were confiscated by Nazi stormtroopers.

For decades these possessions were hidden away in darkness, first in a salt mine near Salzburg and later in a monastery in Mauerbach, just outside Vienna. The Mauerbach loot, as it came to be known, emerged at the centre of one of the major art stories of the 20th century and would play a key role in the history of art restitution.

In 1995, following ongoing criticism of the insufficient efforts to return the works to their owners and under increasing pressure both within Austria and by the international community, the Austrian government unanimously voted to turn over the Mauerbach tranche to the Jewish Community of Austria. A year later, the more than 8,000 remaining looted works, deemed heirless, were sold in the first and only auction of its kind, in which objects of art that had been seized by the Nazis were auctioned for the benefit of the victims of the Holocaust.  

Conducted by Christie’s on a non-profit basis on behalf of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Austria, the Mauerbach benefit auction took place at the Museum of Applied Arts (MAK) Vienna on 29 and 30 October 1996. All proceeds went to survivors of the Holocaust and the families of victims. 

It was the first time many of these items had seen the light of day in more than fifty years. They represented only a fraction of the cultural objects across Europe that were confiscated by German forces during the Nazi regime.

‘I’ll never forget the chill I experienced walking into the exhibition,’ says Stephen Lash, Christie’s Chairman Emeritus, who was Vice Chairman of the auction house at the time of the Mauerbach sale. ‘I thought, If these objects could talk…’ Twenty-eight years later, the auction stands as a turning point in the global conversation about the legacy of Nazi-era art theft and dispossession.

The Mauerbach works were first found by American soldiers in a salt mine outside of Salzburg after the war. Nearly 10,000 of the items were returned to their owners during the Allied occupation of Austria, after which point, in 1955, the restitution of the remaining objects became the responsibility of the Austrian government.

The government made limited efforts to advertise these works to potential claimants. Many of the owners were amongst the more than 64,000 Austrian Jews who were killed in the Holocaust. It was only in 1959 that a full list of works with descriptions was published in an Austrian newspaper, and critics pointed out that there was little global outreach despite more than 117,000 Austrian Jews having fled the country between 1938 and 1940.

Moreover, often survivors of the Holocaust did not have the resources to pursue their claims, and those who did were frequently ignored or dismissed. Just several hundred of more than 8,000 remaining looted objects were returned to their owners from 1955 to 1969. The public was not permitted inside the Mauerbach monastery where the works were stored, and much of the world remained ignorant of their existence.

In 1984 ARTnews published ‘A Legacy of Shame: Nazi Art Loot in Austria’ by the American journalist Andrew Decker. The exposé brought international attention to the Nazi-confiscated property stored at Mauerbach and documented claimants’ frustrating attempts to prove their ownership and recover their families’ stolen works of art.

One of the most important art-related journalistic investigations of the post-war era, Decker’s report laid bare the ‘ineptness, neglect and questionable legal manoeuvres’ of the Austrian government’s desultory efforts to return the stolen Mauerbach property to its rightful owners. Over the next decade ARTnews journalists continued to report on the Austrian government’s handling of Nazi-era art theft, putting an international spotlight on the issue . Their journalism prompted the government to reopen the claims period and advertise the works more widely.

The Mauerbach works consisted primarily of family heirlooms and everyday items. ‘This was not a collection of great masterpieces. These were the possessions of a bourgeoisie that was exterminated,’ says Marc Porter, Chairman of Christie’s Americas. ‘It made the scale of the murders so apparent. These weren’t Vermeers and Klimts but what a cosmopolitan middle class lived with — their household furniture and everyday things.’ Porter was Senior Vice President of Estates and Appraisals at the time of the benefit sale.

When these items were passed from the Austrian government to the Jewish Community of Austria in 1995, it was a pivotal moment in the art world. With the globalization of the art market came questions of good title and the need for international standards and a shared view of title and ownership. Increasing awareness of looted art from the Nazi era brought this issue into stark relief.

Just one year earlier, in 1994, Lynn H. Nicholas had published The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War. The book, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction, traced the history of the Nazi plunder of occupied countries and bolstered a growing international movement to locate and return art and other property looted during World War II.

When Christie’s was asked by the Jewish Community of Austria to auction the Mauerbach works in a sale for the benefit of needy survivors and heirs, Project Manager Anke Adler-Slottke knew ‘the whole world would be watching.’ Currently a representative consultant to Christie’s in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, the multilingual Adler-Slottke served as one of the auctioneers of the Mauerbach sale.

‘We at Christie’s felt strongly this was the right thing to do,’ says Porter. ‘To shine light on these items that had been wrongly taken and to raise funds for a community in need.’  

In preparation for the sale, the auction house appraised every item and printed thousands of catalogues to circulate worldwide. It was the first time photographs of the works had been disseminated. Claims were encouraged and additional works were successfully restituted in the leadup to the auction.  

Adler-Slottke recalls that Christie's received a phone call from a man in Canada during the final preparations for the sale. The man said that he recognised two paintings from the catalogue. The sale was the following morning. He said that while he did not wish to claim the paintings, he would like them to be sold in memory of his parents, who had been killed in the Holocaust. ‘We confirmed the paintings had been owned by his parents, and at the sale, I announced it from the rostrum, which was very memorable.’ 

The response to the Mauerbach auction — which in addition to paintings ranging from Old Masters to modernist canvases also included miniatures, fine prints, and furniture and decorative arts — was overwhelming. The three auction rooms at the MAK overflowed with visitors. There was so much interest from bidders worldwide that the auction took much longer than anticipated, with the first day extending late into the evening. Over two days the sale welcomed more than 1,000 bidders in the room and via telephone.

The auction had far surpassed its estimate of $3.5 million, achieving a total of $14.5 million, all of which went directly to the needs of Holocaust survivors and the heirs of victims, including caring for the needy and elderly and tending to Jewish cemeteries. A number of the buyers donated items they purchased at the auction to synagogues and other Jewish institutions.

‘The objects exposed the shame of the truth of what happened to these people,’ says Porter. ‘It was a radical thing to have this sale, right in Vienna, in that political environment. It opened a conversation about the truth of the despoliation committed by the Nazis.’

In addition to raising funds for victims in need, the Mauerbach sale brought global attention to the legacy of Nazi plunder and the need to identify and return stolen works circulating in the art market. ‘It was a major turning point,’ says Lash. Christie’s was awarded the Medal of Extraordinary Achievement to the Jewish Community by the Federation of Jewish Communities in Austria for their conduct of the benefit sale.

Just two years later, in 1998, representatives from 44 countries together with participants from NGOs and observers from the art market gathered at a conference in Washington DC and established the Washington Principles. The set of 11 guidelines provided a framework for nations to respond to issues of unresolved restitution and to return Nazi-confiscated property.

Since then, the fight for the return of looted cultural property to its rightful owners continues. The Mauerbach sale was not without critics who asked why more wasn’t done to find the works’ original owners, many of whom have since been identified. These critical questions are essential to the ethical conversations and debates from which policy evolves. With the end of the Cold War, blocked avenues to research were opened. The Washington Principles established national policies that guided museums and public institutions to open archives, invest resources and identify lost works and their previous owners. New legislation and infrastructure, technological advancements and the digitisation of important archives have aided researchers, scholars and legal professionals in the field of art restitution and made it possible for more heirs to claim their families’ confiscated possessions.

Today, these advances continue to guide the efforts of Christie’s Restitution Department, the largest and most experienced restitution team at any international auction house. A re-examination of the historical record is an integral part of evaluating an object today, even if sold recently. Verifying sources, seeking new archival information, considering the context are at the heart of the team’s provenance research.

‘Pictures were not painted or sculpture made to languish in darkness,’ wrote Lynn H. Nicholas in her preface to the Mauerbach sale catalogue. ‘…The works to be sold today are not great masterpieces, but comfortable images which graced vanished worlds. With their re-introduction into the light a poignant chapter can be closed. May those who acquire them not forget their provenance.’