»Besitzen Sie Gemälde,…?«

Nazi Art Looting in the Records of the Vermögensverwertungsstelle Berlin

Black-and-white photograph of a representative building in the Prussian historicist style. Swastika flags are flying at half-mast on the roof.

The Brandenburg Main State Archive now holds one of the largest collections of documents relating to the systematic expropriation of persecuted individuals by the Nazi regime. Researchers specializing in provenance research have systematically searched through and analyzed the files. Here, they present six biographies in the context of persecution, looting, and restitution.

42.000
Files

Take a look at the 6 biographies

Story

„Besitzen Sie Gemälde …?“

Black-and-white photography: A large crowd is standing in line in front of the entrance to the Hans W. Lange auction house

Before an auction by Hans W. Lange, after 1937. Private collection, from Gute Geschäfte: Kunsthandel in Berlin 1933–1945, published by Aktives Museum Faschismus und Widerstand in Berlin, Berlin 2011, p. 64

With the Nazi regime between 1933 and 1945 came the biggest plunder in German history. Since the “Machtübertragung” (Transfer of Power) in 1933, the Nazi state seized the assets of all those the new rulers considered “Volks- und Staatsfeinde” (enemies of the people and the state). The Reich’s financial administration was a central and willing instrument in plundering those persecuted by the regime. In addition to monetary assets, people were also deprived of their material possessions, from clothing to home furnishings – including works of art.

„Besitzen Sie Gemälde …?“

Excerpt of a preprinted document with pencil markings
Excerpt from the asset declaration form, details regarding art holdings, handwritten by Hugo Loewy. BLHA, Rep. 36A (II) no. 24446, fol. 7

In an act of characteristic cynicism, the Nazi bureaucracy asked Berlin's Jewish residents – prior to their deportation from March 1942 – to fill out a form from the Vermögensverwertungsstelle at the Oberfinanzpräsident Berlin-Brandenburg (Senior Finance President, OFP). The form asked them, in seemingly polite terms, to list the art and cultural assets still in their possession. After years of systematic disenfranchisement, persecution, and economic plundering, most of them had hardly anything left at the time of their deportation to the extermination camps and ghettos.

So what role did the financial administration play in looting art and cultural property? How do the files of the Vermögensverwertungsstelle (Asset Realisation Office) help reconstruct the histories of this persecution and these objects? And what significance do these documents have for the restitution of artworks to victims of Nazi persecution and their descendants?

Approx. 42,000 files

Today, approximately 42,000 files from the Vermögensverwertungsstelle of the OFP Berlin-Brandenburg office are still held in the Brandenburg Main State Archive. They have since been digitised and can now largely be viewed online.

150,000 index cards

The OFP Berlin-Brandenburg was tasked with keeping records of all confiscated assets throughout the Reich. Today, approximately 150,000 index cards remain, referring to stolen assets throughout Germany.

70,000 names

Approx. 70,000 names of people persecuted in Berlin whose property was plundered by the Vermögensverwertungsstelle have been identified. Users can find information about these individuals and the theft of their property online via the Brandenburg Main State Archive database.

4 billion euros

Approx. 70,000 names of people persecuted in Berlin whose property was plundered by the Vermögensverwertungsstelle have been identified. Users can find information about these individuals and the theft of their property online via the Brandenburg Main State Archive database.

Provenance research in search of art

Since 2021, provenance researchers studying the provenance of art objects at the Brandenburg Main State Archive systematically evaluate the files of the Vermögensverwertungsstelle. The aim is to find clues to the current locations of art objects looted by the Nazis. The research is intended to support the institutions that own the art – mostly museums and libraries, as well as other public institutions – in finding “fair and just solutions” in accordance with the Washington Principles, together with the descendants of those who were persecuted and whose property was expropriated.

This exhibition highlights the research and its findings. It not only focuses on the search for works of art but also foregrounds the forgotten stories of the people from whom they were taken. At the same time, it aims to make the methods of provenance research understandable to the public. For example, the exhibition makes clear that it is primarily gaps in provenance – i.e., uncertainties in the history of an object – with which the researchers in the OFP project must contend.

Colour photograph of a corridor with shelves full of grey boxes labelled with numbers; in the background, a hallway with more storage shelves behind it.
View into the stacks of the Brandenburg Main State Archive with the OFP files in acid-free boxes, 2025. BLHA-Magazin © BLHA

A focus on the Jewish population

The largest group targeted by state plunder was Germany’s Jewish population. Through increasingly radical anti-Jewish laws, occupational bans, and the establishment of compulsory levies, they were systematically marginalised and robbed of their livelihoods from 1933 onwards.

By 1941, the aim was to force them to emigrate – but not without first handing over most of their assets to the German state. With the onset of mass deportations to the extermination camps in October 1941, the focus of the plunder shifted to the belongings left behind by those deported.

Black-and-white photograph of a street scene featuring a large shipping container into which people are loading furniture and packages.
The household goods of Jewish emigrants are being loaded into a lift van, Berlin 1939
Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-E03468 / photographer: unkown

Approx. 525,000

More than half a million people in Germany alone were persecuted as Jews under National Socialism. In 1935, the Nürnberger Gesetze (Nuremberg Laws) established the criteria for who was considered Jewish according to Nazi ideology.

Approx. 335,000 people who were persecuted were able to flee

Two-thirds of those persecuted as Jews in Germany left the country before the outbreak of war in 1939. Before they fled, the Nazi state systematically deprived them of their livelihoods. In 1939, approximately 84,000 persons persecuted as Jews were living in Berlin.

Starting in 1941, mass deportations

People from all over the Reich were deported to ghettos and extermination camps, including more than 50,000 of the 66,000 Jews who were still living in Berlin at that time. Only one in ten survived the Nazi genocide.

Black-and-white photograph of a crowd seen from behind, streaming into a gateway
Public auction of Jewish household goods in Lörrach. Stadtarchiv Lörrach, Bild StaLö2.43.4

Art and cultural assets as loot

Among the possessions of those robbed were furnishings and household goods such as furniture, crockery, clothing and carpets, and in some cases also art objects.

High-quality works of art could only be afforded by people with substantial financial means, so the work in the OFP project mostly focuses on the possessions of wealthy people.

Provenance research follows the traces left by tax officials, appraisers, auctioneers, and buyers in the records of the Vermögensverwertungsstelle.

Information about art

Locating a work of art today and returning it to the descendants of those from whom it was stolen requires that it be clearly identified. In cases where experts commissioned at the time assessed the work as valuable, a great deal of information is often available. By providing details such as the title, artist, year of creation or dimensions, it is possible to identify an art object.

Value and price information

The files contain both estimates of the value of the objects and their actual sale prices. Depending on their value, the objects either ended up in museums or were auctioned off by auction houses and the Berlin tax authorities. Regardless of which path their artworks and other goods took, the original owners did not receive a single reichspfennig of the proceeds.

Names of buyers

Auction records and sales negotiations contain the names of numerous buyers of art and cultural assets. They range from directors of Berlin museums to Wehrmacht officers and private individuals. In some cases, the individuals can be clearly identified, but often the research ends with a common surname such as Müller.

Systematic robbery

The gigantic robbery was an orderly process in which the tax authorities worked closely with the police, party offices, the private sector, and various Reich ministries. A well-coordinated system of comprehensive surveillance of German Jews by the police and tax authorities formed the basis for targeted access to their property. Supported by a multitude of regulations and laws enacted specifically for this purpose, the Nazi state appropriated the stolen assets or distributed them to the German population.

The plundering of people’s property was referred to as “Verwertung” (liquidation) and the authorities set up special departments tasked with implementing this plan.

Until 1942, the Finanzamt Moabit-West (Moabit-West Tax Office) in Berlin played a particularly important role in this, and later the Vermögensverwertungsstelle at the Oberfinanzpräsidenten Berlin-Brandenburg (Senior Finance President).

With proverbial German thoroughness, tax officials documented the confiscation of bank accounts, household goods, works of art, and literally everything the deportees owned. The files and index cards that still exist today make it possible to reconstruct the comprehensive expropriation of Berlin’s Jews, as well as Sinti and Roma, in addition to forced labourers and politically persecuted persons during the Nazi era.

Oblique photograph of a wooden cabinet with drawers, metal fittings, and nameplates.Schrägaufnahme eines Holzschranks mit Schubladen, Metallbeschlag und Namensschildern
Index card cabinet of the Vermögensverwertungsstelle, 2025. BLHA-Magazin © BLHA

Chronicle

When was that again?

1933
The Nazi Party organises a nationwide boycott of shops owned by Jewish proprietors. Party members position themselves in front of the shops and harass or attack owners and customers. A shop in Berlin on the day of the boycott © Yad Vashem Photo Archive, 5703/3
1938
The Verordnung über die Anmeldung des Vermögens von Juden (Ordinance on the Registration of Jewish Property) obliges Jewish individuals to submit a detailed declaration of their assets to their local tax office.
21
1941
8 July 1941 A decree of the Reichsfinanzministeriums (Reich Ministry of Finance) allows the household goods of Jewish refugees to be auctioned even without completed denaturalisation. Liftvans im Bremer Freihafen. Liftvans in the free port of Bremen. Such crates were used to pack the removal goods of people who had fled Germany. StAB 10. B‑FN‑9‑71 12

This is just a small excerpt. You can find more information in the timeline.

View the entire chronicle