[MSN] Art Newspaper: Germans call for return of paintings seized by British troops. The National Maritime Museum in London has turned down two previous requests for restitution.

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Germans call for return of paintings seized by British troops

The National Maritime Museum in London has turned down two previous requests
for restitution


By Martin Bailey | Posted 05 April 2007 

MÜRWIK. Pressure is mounting for the return of paintings seized from Germany
in 1945 and now at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. 

In January, The Art Newspaper revealed that Claus Bergen’s Wreath in the
North Sea in Memory of the Battle of Jutland had been taken by British
troops from the Mürwik Naval Academy. The following month, we reported that
six additional German paintings had come to the museum as war trophies
(January 2007, pp 1,8 and February, pp 10,11). 

Professor Lars Scholl, director of the German Maritime Museum in Bremerhaven
and a Bergen specialist, last month called for the restitution of the
pictures: "It would be desirable to return them to Germany so that they
could play an important role in changing our views on the issue of war
propaganda and trophies. In Germany the paintings could be displayed in a
more relevant context than in England, showing the role of marine art under
the Nazis." 

In 1978, the Bremerhaven museum played a key role in securing the return of
ten Bergen paintings from America, which had been at the US Navy Memorial
Museum in Washington, DC and various naval bases. They had been seized by
American forces in Germany in 1945. 

The restitution of the Bergens required a special act of Congress but this
paved the way for the eventual return of 7,000 works of "Nazi art" from
America to Germany in 1986 (The Art Newspaper, February 2007, p 11). The ten
restituted Bergens are now owned by the German government. U Boat Commander
is on loan to the Bremerhaven museum and the remainder to the German
Historical Museum in Berlin. 

Another Bergen specialist, Jörg-Michael Hormann, is also calling for the
pictures at Greenwich to be returned to Germany. He believes the German
Historical Museum would be the most appropriate home, since it is the
"collection point" for art of the Nazi period. A further option might be the
Military History Museum in Dresden. 

There have already been two German claims for war trophies in the Greenwich
National Maritime Museum, in 1965 and 1989. The 1965 claim, which was for
ship models seized from Mürwik, was rejected, on the grounds of insufficient
evidence and the difficulties of deaccessioning. 

We have now established that there was a second claim, in January 1989, for
Carl Saltzmann’s painting German Fleet Manoeuvres on the High Seas. The
request from the German navy was submitted to the British naval attaché in
Bonn, who forwarded it to Lord Lewin, Admiral of the Fleet and chairman of
the National Maritime Museum. The Germans argued that the Saltzmann painting
was "an historically important document for the Mürwik Naval Academy and it
has left an irreplaceable gap in its collection". The Greenwich museum again
rejected the request. 

Since then, however, attitudes have changed considerably. In 1998, the UK
national museums approved a statement on spoliation, deploring the wrongful
taking of works of art during the Holocaust and World War II period. Two
years later the UK government set up the Spoliation Advisory Panel to
consider claims against national museums. 

In addition to Wreath in the North Sea, there are three other Bergen
paintings at the National Maritime Museum from Germany: The Commander (U
boats), Admiral Hipper’s Battle Cruiser at Jutland and The German Pocket
Battleship Admiral Von Scheer Bombarding the Spanish Coast. Other trophy
paintings are Saltzmann’s German Fleet Manoeuvres on the High Seas and two
works, possibly by Erhardt, Before the Hurricane at Apia (Samoa) and During
the Hurricane at Apia. Legally, the acquisition of trophy paintings appears
to breach the 1907 Hague Convention on the conduct of warfare, which states
that "all seizure of...works of art...is forbidden". 



Was Bergen a Nazi Artist? 

MÜRWIK. In our quest to investigate the issues raised by Britain’s seizure
of Wreath in the North Sea in Memory of the Battle of Jutland, The Art
Newspaper visited Mürwik Naval Academy. It is set in a soaring Neo-Gothic
building known as "The Red Castle by the Sea", on the Flensburg Fjord just
opposite the Danish coast. It was there that the Third Reich collapsed on 23
May 1945, when Hitler’s successor, Fleet Admiral Karl Dönitz, lost his
position as head of state and became a prisoner of war. 

It was probably a few days later that British troops removed Wreath in the
North Sea from its place of honour in the academy’s ceremonial hall. The
Bergen painting was brought back to the Britain and in 1946 it was allocated
by the UK Naval War Trophies Commission to the Greenwich museum where it is
currently in store. 

Claus Bergen (1885-1964) worked for the Nazis, and the wreath in the
painting is emblazoned with a swastika. It is therefore easy to understand
why British forces regarded it as a Nazi work, a view still maintained by
the National Maritime Museum. It points out that the presence of the
swastika on the wreath invites a political reading of the picture: "The
sun’s rays spread a golden glow over the surface of the water, perhaps
signifying either hope for the future or a new dawn under Nazi rule." 

However, the real story behind the picture is somewhat different. It is not
about Nazism, but is a tribute to the dead of World War I. In the mid 1930s,
Bergen had read newspaper reports that every year, on 31 May, the German
navy sent a warship to the spot where the Battle of Jutland (Skagerrak) had
been fought in 1916. A wreath was then thrown into the North Sea, and during
the Nazi period it was emblazoned with the swastika, which was then
incorporated in the naval flag. 

The swastika in Bergen’s painting is therefore not so much indicative of his
personal ideology, but more an accurate depiction of an event. Bergen
originally entitled the work In Memory of the Heroes of Skagerrak. Both
sides had claimed victory in the 1916 battle, but the human toll was heavy:
2,551 German and 6,094 British dead. 

Wreath in the North Sea was first exhibited in 1936 at the Kiel Kunsthalle.
Admiral Conrad Albrecht saw it there and decided that it should be bought
for the Mürwik Naval Academy. In a letter obtained by The Art Newspaper,
Mürwik’s commander, Herbert Schmundt, told the artist that the picture would
be hung in the ceremonial hall, "between the memorial boards" which honour
the Marine Officer Corps dead of 1914-18. 

By the late 1930s, Wreath in the North Sea had been moved from its prime
place, to be replaced by a portrait of Hitler (which disappeared in 1945).
The Bergen was hung close by, on the side wall, and a photograph confirms
that it was still there in March 1945. Within a few months it had been
removed by British troops. 

Was Bergen a Nazi artist? He was certainly a party member and he was happy
to sell work to the state. But whether he was just a card- carrying member
or a committed Nazi remains a matter of debate among art historians. Bergen
was also an Anglophile, and he regularly painted in Cornwall before World
War I. In 1963, he visited London to present the Admiralty with a picture of
Nelson’s Flagship Victory, which now hangs in one of the Ministry of
Defence’s principal meeting rooms in Whitehall. 

On our visit to Mürwik, we found that two other Bergen paintings have been
acquired. In the spot on the side wall where Wreath in the North Sea had
last hung, there is now U Boat on Enemy Patrol (1958), donated to the
academy in 1961. Close by is The Bismarck at the End of the Battle on 27 May
1941, bought from Bergen in 1963. 

Although the naval academy now has two Bergen paintings in its ceremonial
hall, the presence of the swastika in Wreath in the North Sea could create
problems if it was returned to Mürwik. Germany has a law banning the display
of the swastika, other than in an appropriate historical context, such as in
a museum. Mürwik does have a museum of naval history, primarily for naval
cadets, although it is open to the public one afternoon a week. 

But arguably the swastika in Wreath in the North Sea makes it a sensitive
painting for a military institution, even in a museum. The German
authorities might decide that the historical museums in Berlin or Dresden
would be a more appropriate home. 

http://www.theartnewspaper.com/