Kunst voor Das Reich: Op zoek naar Nazi roofkunst uit België
Geert Sels
Lannoo, 2022
€40,00
During the Second World War, an immense art theft took place. The Nazis dragged art from the occupied territories to Germany to set up ambitious collections. This story is being told for Belgium for the first time. How could paintings by Memling, Van der Weyden, Brueghel, Jordaens and Cranach just leave the country? The Nazis emptied homes, looted art, forced owners to sell and spent millions of Reichsmarks on the art market.
After 8 years of research, Geert Sels puts together the puzzle pieces that he found in archives in Paris, The Hague, Koblenz and the largest Belgian cities. With extensive detective work, he maps out the routes along which the art was removed. He notes that collectors, dealers and auction houses went along with the art acquisition of the Nazis without much restraint.
After the war, paintings from Belgium found their way to the Louvre, Tate Britain, the Getty Museum or the Yale Art Gallery. The Netherlands, France, Germany and even Russia still appear to have art that should have returned to Belgium. That makes the Belgian story an international one. Other works did return and now hang in Belgian museums, but without the rightful owners being traced.
Why didn’t that happen? Unlike other countries, Belgium has remained painfully passive when it comes to Nazi looted art. Art for das Reich conveys an inconvenient truth and is a stress test for government policy. Forgotten files are exposed and the dark side of paintings in our museums is exposed. IN DUTCH!
ISBN: 9789401428743
