Nazi-Looted Painting In London Museum
LONDON - We can report that a painting in the National Maritime Museum in London was looted by British troops from the Mьrwik 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). Mьrwik 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.
This Bergen seascape is now in the National Maritime Museum in London.
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 Mьrwik’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.
Hitler shot himself on 30 April, in Berlin, and in his will he appointed Fleet Admiral Karl Dцnitz as president. Dцnitz immediately moved to Mьrwik. Around one week later, in early May, Mьrwik was occupied by British troops. Initially Dцnitz’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 Mьrwik 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 Mьrwik, 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 Mьrwik Naval Academy that their painting is in Greenwich. Lieutenant Commander Rьdiger 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.”