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Hitler's Last Hostages
Looted Art and the Soul of the Third Reich
The riveting story of Hitler’s obsession with art, how it fueled his vision of a purified Nazi state, and the fate of the artwork that was hidden, stolen, or destroyed to “cleanse” German culture
Nazism ascended not by brute force but by cultural tyranny. Weimar Germany was a society in turmoil, and Hitler’s rise to power was achieved not only by harnessing the military but also by restricting artistic expression. Hitler, an artist himself, promised the dejected citizens of post-war Germany a purified Reich, purged of “degenerate” influences.
When Hitler came to power in 1933, he removed so-called “degenerate” art from German society and promoted artists whom he considered the embodiment of the “Aryan ideal.” Artists who had weaponized culture to resist inequality and oppression fled the country. The government purged museums. Thousands of great artworks disappeared-and only a fraction of them were rediscovered by the Allied Monuments Men after World War II.
In 2013, the German government confiscated roughly 1,300 works by Henri Matisse, George Grosz, Claude Monet, and other masters from the apartment of Cornelius Gurlitt, the reclusive son of one of Hitler’s primary art dealers. For two years, the government kept the discovery a secret. This is the definitive story of those works of art, their theft, and their long, agonizing restitution: the last hostages of Hitler.
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Nazism ascended not by brute force but by cultural tyranny. Weimar Germany was a society in turmoil, and Hitler’s rise to power was achieved not only by harnessing the military but also by restricting artistic expression. Hitler, an artist himself, promised the dejected citizens of post-war Germany a purified Reich, purged of “degenerate” influences.
When Hitler came to power in 1933, he removed so-called “degenerate” art from German society and promoted artists whom he considered the embodiment of the “Aryan ideal.” Artists who had weaponized culture to resist inequality and oppression fled the country. The government purged museums. Thousands of great artworks disappeared-and only a fraction of them were rediscovered by the Allied Monuments Men after World War II.
In 2013, the German government confiscated roughly 1,300 works by Henri Matisse, George Grosz, Claude Monet, and other masters from the apartment of Cornelius Gurlitt, the reclusive son of one of Hitler’s primary art dealers. For two years, the government kept the discovery a secret. This is the definitive story of those works of art, their theft, and their long, agonizing restitution: the last hostages of Hitler.
Praise
"The
revelatory saga of a monumental Nazi art theft and all the perpetrators, from
Hitler to the modern museum directors who ignored the glaring signs of looted
art. This riveting unraveling of one of the most outrageous and monumental
chapters in stolen art is a must-read art crime chronicle."—Anne-Marie O'Connor,
author of The Lady in Gold
"Mary M. Lane
skillfully chronicles the saga of a huge trove of art that had seemingly
disappeared during World War II and the Holocaust. It's a gripping tale
punctuated by plunder, profiteering, and self-serving rationalizations. Most
chillingly, the outright deceptions continued long after the collapse of Hitler's
Third Reich."—Andrew Nagorski,
author of 1941: The Year Germany Lost the War and Hitlerland
"In this valuable
study of an important piece of history, Mary M. Lane tells a shocking
story of theft, horror, and lack of redemption."—Laurence Rees, author
of Auschwitz and The Holocaust: A New History
"Lane engagingly
recounts how dealers who formerly represented avant-garde artists quickly
adapted and dumped their 'degenerate' modernist clientele, except for purchases
at knock-down prices for their private collection[s]. . . . A gripping,
original contribution to a still-unresolved Nazi crime."—Kirkus Reviews, starred
