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Army Wins Battle For Custody Of Hitler Paintings
Night Stalker
Member Posts: 11,967
London Times
November 30, 2004
US Army Wins Its Battle For Custody Of Hitler Paintings
By Tim Reid, in Washington
FOUR watercolours painted by Adolf Hitler and seized by the US Army after the Second World War are to remain the property of the US Government, America's highest court ruled yesterday.
The US Supreme Court let stand a ruling by a lower court last year that allows the US Army to keep the watercolours, ending a 20-year-fight by the family of Heinrich Hoffmann, Hitler's friend and personal photographer.
The heirs to the late Herr Hoffmann had sought the return of the paintings, all signed by Hitler, together with an archive of 2.5 million photographs dating back to 1860, some of which include glamorised pictures of the F?hrer. In lieu of their return, the family had sought millions of dollars in damages.
The watercolours include street scenes and landscapes painted by Hitler, an avid but famously unaccomplished artist, before and during the First World War. US forces discovered them in 1945, not long after Hitler committed suicide, in a German castle where Herr Hoffmann had stored them during the war.
Herr Hoffmann's family argued that the photographer was a victim of wartime art pillaging and that the seizure of the paintings, as well as the 2.5 million photographs, violated their constitutional rights.
The US Government countered that the photographs and paintings were Nazi art that was confiscated to "de-Nazify Germany".
The watercolours are held at the US Army Centre of Military History in Washington. The photographs are in the US National Archives.
The court's action appears to lay to rest a battle over almost 20 years involving the US Government, Herr Hoffmann's heirs and Billy F. Price, a Texas art investor, who bought rights to the works. He joined the Hoffmann family to file the original lawsuit in 1983.
Herr Hoffmann was given the paintings as a present by Hitler in 1936. The two were such good friends that the F?hrer is reputed to have met his lover, Eva Braun, at Herr Hoffmann's Berlin studio.
Like the rest of Hitler's art work, the pictures themselves are amateurish and of little artistic merit, but virtually priceless with the addition of one of the 20th century's most notorious signatures: "A Hitler".
After the paintings and photographs were discovered by victorious US troops in 1945 at Herr Hoffmann's castle, some of the photographs were used as evidence at the Nuremberg trials. Hoffmann was convicted of wartime profiteering.
After he died in 1957, his son decided to seek their return, first through informal efforts, and then later through the US courts.
In 1993, a Texas judge ordered the US Government to pay $10 million (?5.6m) in damages for refusing to return the items. That ruling was later overturned by a federal appeals court.
Lost artist
*Hitler left his hometown of Linz for Vienna at 18 to pursue a career as an artist
*In Mein Kampf, he wrote that the rector of the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts told him his work showed his "unfitness for painting"
*He painted up to 3,000 pieces, according to the US Government
*In 1935, he ordered the Nazi party to recover as many of his paintings as possible
*In 1945, US soldiers found the recovered paintings in bunkers. They were later confiscated by the US
*The Uffizi in Florence has some of Hitler's watercolours, after Italy retrieved artworks stolen during the war
*A painting by Hitler found by a British soldier in Hamburg in 1945 sold for ?2,500 at a Lincolnshire auction in 1996
NSDQ!
"The Lord knows the way I take, and when He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold" JOB 23:10
November 30, 2004
US Army Wins Its Battle For Custody Of Hitler Paintings
By Tim Reid, in Washington
FOUR watercolours painted by Adolf Hitler and seized by the US Army after the Second World War are to remain the property of the US Government, America's highest court ruled yesterday.
The US Supreme Court let stand a ruling by a lower court last year that allows the US Army to keep the watercolours, ending a 20-year-fight by the family of Heinrich Hoffmann, Hitler's friend and personal photographer.
The heirs to the late Herr Hoffmann had sought the return of the paintings, all signed by Hitler, together with an archive of 2.5 million photographs dating back to 1860, some of which include glamorised pictures of the F?hrer. In lieu of their return, the family had sought millions of dollars in damages.
The watercolours include street scenes and landscapes painted by Hitler, an avid but famously unaccomplished artist, before and during the First World War. US forces discovered them in 1945, not long after Hitler committed suicide, in a German castle where Herr Hoffmann had stored them during the war.
Herr Hoffmann's family argued that the photographer was a victim of wartime art pillaging and that the seizure of the paintings, as well as the 2.5 million photographs, violated their constitutional rights.
The US Government countered that the photographs and paintings were Nazi art that was confiscated to "de-Nazify Germany".
The watercolours are held at the US Army Centre of Military History in Washington. The photographs are in the US National Archives.
The court's action appears to lay to rest a battle over almost 20 years involving the US Government, Herr Hoffmann's heirs and Billy F. Price, a Texas art investor, who bought rights to the works. He joined the Hoffmann family to file the original lawsuit in 1983.
Herr Hoffmann was given the paintings as a present by Hitler in 1936. The two were such good friends that the F?hrer is reputed to have met his lover, Eva Braun, at Herr Hoffmann's Berlin studio.
Like the rest of Hitler's art work, the pictures themselves are amateurish and of little artistic merit, but virtually priceless with the addition of one of the 20th century's most notorious signatures: "A Hitler".
After the paintings and photographs were discovered by victorious US troops in 1945 at Herr Hoffmann's castle, some of the photographs were used as evidence at the Nuremberg trials. Hoffmann was convicted of wartime profiteering.
After he died in 1957, his son decided to seek their return, first through informal efforts, and then later through the US courts.
In 1993, a Texas judge ordered the US Government to pay $10 million (?5.6m) in damages for refusing to return the items. That ruling was later overturned by a federal appeals court.
Lost artist
*Hitler left his hometown of Linz for Vienna at 18 to pursue a career as an artist
*In Mein Kampf, he wrote that the rector of the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts told him his work showed his "unfitness for painting"
*He painted up to 3,000 pieces, according to the US Government
*In 1935, he ordered the Nazi party to recover as many of his paintings as possible
*In 1945, US soldiers found the recovered paintings in bunkers. They were later confiscated by the US
*The Uffizi in Florence has some of Hitler's watercolours, after Italy retrieved artworks stolen during the war
*A painting by Hitler found by a British soldier in Hamburg in 1945 sold for ?2,500 at a Lincolnshire auction in 1996
NSDQ!
"The Lord knows the way I take, and when He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold" JOB 23:10
Comments
Don't assume malice for what stupidity can explain.
volenti non fit injuria