I’ve read that the Hitler and his regime stole Countless pieces of art from all over Europe. Was most of it recovered? Did any famous pieces go missing? What impact did it have on the art community?
Many pieces of artwork were found by the allies invasion into Germany but a number of pieces are believed to have been burned or destroyed or even were sold, the Nazis even made a 'Degenerate art exhibition' where the MoMa says around 740 paintings were put on display and it's believed they removed around 20,000 paintings from state owned museums alone. [1] Degenerate art was supposedly defined as "insult German feeling, or destroy or confuse natural form or simply reveal an absence of adequate manual and artistic skill "[2] they were portrayed in a negative manner and crammed on walls to make look almost worthless after such events some paintings were then sent for auctions and sold, taken for personal private use by Nazis Hermann Goring had a vast collection consisting of over 2,000 pieces of art. Any artwork that could not be sold was often destroyed.
“ Pieces the Reich deemed unsellable were consigned to the fire. Some 5,000 works are believed to have been burned in 1939 “as a fire department training exercise” for the Berlin central fire station. But the Nazis needed money, and the rest were sold to foreign buyers to fund the Third Reich " [3]
Some 1,500 pieces was discovered in 2012 belonging to Cornelius Gurlitt who's father was Hildebrand Gurlitt, Hildebrand this was known as the Munich art hoard, most pieces weren't always robbed but the owners felt so pressured to sell that it was almost daylight robbery the prices they were putting the artwork for. "Gurlitt took advantage of the vulnerable position of Jewish collectors forced to sell work to finance punitive Nazi fines or the cost of emigration." [4] Some of the pieces in this collection included Picasso and even a famous piece from Monet. In 2014 his son Cornelius agreed to assist with the authorities in finding out what artwork was stolen and hopefully return such pieces.
Many more pieces were stolen by the Nazis from the Jewish people and many others in the occupied countries, a large collection belonging to Jewish art dealer Paul Rosenberg who was forced to flee his home in France, he manged to send some of it with him but a lot of this was also stolen according to the BBC arts around 400 pieces being taken.[5] In the Munich art hoard as mentioned above one of the pieces was actually a painting by Matisse which was returned to Rosenbergs heirs in 2015. Many more pieces were inevitably stolen the majority being taken from the Jewish people.
At the end of the war the U.S government returned around 700,000 to the original countries they were taken from to be these government were then supposed to track down the original owners, thousands of pieces were never returned to there owners or the owners could not be tracked down. Although art was returned a lot has still to this day never been returned and you occasionally here a story where someone has been tracked down Philip Saunders editor of Trace, the stolen art register has said "there are at least 100,000 works of art still missing from the Nazi occupation." [6]
To answer your point on if anything famous was destroyed went missing there were a few pieces that were destroyed such as 'Painter on his way home' by Vincent Van Gogh which was believed to have burnt due to an allied bomb attack. Multiple paintings by Gustav Klimpt were also destroyed and many more were either destroyed or are still missing. To cover your point on the impact on the art community it is stated that " 20% of the art of Europe was looted by the Nazis " [7] and obviously a lot still has not been returned to this day, it had a huge impact as artists and collectors were forced into selling work, fleeing and stopped form creating art. Artists such as Max Beckmann who was called a "cultural bolshevik." [8] was dismissed from his position as an Art teacher in Frankfurt many of his pieces of work was also displayed in the degenerate art exhibition soon after he then fled the country and located in the Netherlands. Many other artists did the same thing and fled the country to avoid the Nazis at all costs, As stated occasionally you hear of stories where art has finally been returned to people such as this one from only a few months ago https://www.history.com/news/nazi-stolen-art-identified which was found in the Munich hoard once belonging to Hildebrand Gurlitt, a lot of archives and non profit databases are set up to find the original owners with art lost or found such as the German lost art database and foundation.
I hope this covers most of what you asked and gives some insight into what you were asking :)
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Thank you so much! What an amazing informative answer! You are a knowledgeable kind soul!
This blew me away, such a staggering number of art pieces