[MSN] Revealed: Nazi painting in London's Maritime Museum looted by British.

[Museum Security Network Mailinglist]

Revealed: Nazi painting in London’s Maritime Museum looted by British


By Martin Bailey | Posted 03 January 2007 

   
 This Bergen seascape is now in the National Maritime Museum in London:
http://www.theartnewspaper.com/article01.asp?id=544 
 
 
LONDON. We can report that a painting in the National Maritime Museum in
London was looted by British troops from the Mürwik Naval Academy, in
Germany, and later presented to the Greenwich museum. We have tracked down a
1945 photograph, showing the picture hanging in the main hall of the academy
(right). Mürwik is near the port of Flensburg, on the Baltic coast, near the
Danish border. It became the temporary seat of the German government,
following Hitler’s suicide. 

The painting by Claus Bergen is a seascape, Wreath in the North Sea in
Memory of the Battle of Jutland. It is nearly 12 feet long and six feet
high. Dating from around 1936, it commemorates the German dead in the
largest naval engagement of World War I. There were heavy British and German
casualties, with both sides claiming victory. In Mürwik’s records, the
picture is simply entitled Skagerrak, the name of the strait north of the
Danish peninsula, where the battle was fought in 1916. 

Bergen (1885-1964) was a committed Nazi, and the painting reflects National
Socialist ideology. Floating in the otherwise empty sea is a wreath
decorated with the swastika (although the Nazi party had not been
established at the time of the battle). According to National Maritime
Museum curators, the sun’s rays spreading a golden glow may well signify “a
new dawn under Nazi rule”. 

The photograph of Mürwik’s ceremonial hall dates from March 1945, and was
taken as part of a set of images to document the academy, in case the
building and its contents were damaged or destroyed in the fighting. 

   
 The painting hanging in the Naval Academy:
http://www.theartnewspaper.com/article01.asp?id=544 
  

Hitler shot himself on 30 April, in Berlin, and in his will he appointed
Fleet Admiral Karl Dönitz as president. Dönitz immediately moved to Mürwik.
Around one week later, in early May, Mürwik was occupied by British troops.
Initially Dönitz’s rule was tolerated by the British occupying forces, but
on 23 May they arrested him, turning the head of state into a prisoner of
war, and finally ending the Third Reich. 

Nothing is known about how the Bergen painting was acquired, but it was
probably taken from the ceremonial hall in May 1945 by British troops. It
was taken to the UK, where it came under the control of the government’s
Naval War Trophies Committee. In early 1947 the committee allocated the
picture to the National Maritime Museum. Partly because of its size, it has
mainly been in store, where it is now. 

Although it was the British government which originally allocated the
painting to the museum, attitudes and policies have changed, and it would
now presumably be regarded as a spoliated work of art. Under the National
Museums’ 1998 statement of principles on spoliation, it would appear to have
been “wrongly taken”, enabling Mürwik to make a restitution claim. The
principles state that ”wrongful taking shall mean any act of theft or other
deprivation, the legality of which is open to reasonable challenge, and
which was committed during the Holocaust and World War II period.” 

The National Maritime Museum told The Art Newspaper that although it
suspected the picture might have come from Mürwik, it had no conclusive
evidence, and had not yet contacted the naval academy: “we are planning to
complete our research as far as possible before contacting any other
organisations.” The museum also said that its initial research on works of
art with an unclear provenance for the Nazi period had focussed on objects
“that had been misappropriated by Nazi Germany and its allies”—not by
British forces. 

Last month we told the Mürwik Naval Academy that their painting is in
Greenwich. Lieutenant Commander Rüdiger Schiel, who had no idea what had
happened to the picture, responded that “it’s good news to hear that there
is a chance of getting things back which were taken during the Second World
War.” 

http://www.theartnewspaper.com/