Art News

By Carolyn Yeager

THE BBC PUBLISHED THE ABOVE IMAGE AND AN ACCOMPANYING STORY under their “News From Elsewhere” heading without even a reporter's byline. It reads: 

By News from Elsewhere... ...as found by BBC Monitor                         10 March 2017

It seems this is a way for them to spread around news that makes those they don't like look bad without taking responsibility for it. But they're wrong if they think they can get away with that.

 By Carolyn Yeager

STAR ARCHITECT David Chipperfield’s plan to restore Munich’s Haus der Kunst to its original Nazi-era state has provoked blow-back amongst Jewish groups and the political left.

The 1937-era building sits at Prinzregentenstraße at the southern end of the English Garden and is scheduled to undergo the renovation work at the end of 2017. The Bavarian government has allocated €58 million to the project, with €20 million chipped in from the Federal government (totaling $83.7 million). Bavarian Culture Minister Ludwig Spaenle approved the plan, which has surprised many by being essentially a restoration of the exterior and surrounding grounds to its original Nazi-era state.

An alert reader, alecti, discovered an article in the Berliner Morgenpost dated January 13, 2014 about the Welfenschatz (Guelph Treasure) lawsuit brought by twe Jews, Gerald Stiebel and Alan Philipp, against the German government. The article is titled "Who really owns the Guelf Treasure?"

Translating the article using Google Translate is far from perfect, but does give some clear ideas that I will use in this post. Anyone out there who can provide me with a better translation into English - please feel free to do so!

First, the dispute is officially between two heirs of the original  Jewish art dealers and the SPK, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which oversees the museums in Berlin. The collection of medieval reliquaries, alters, and crucifixes was kept for centuries in Prussia's Brunswick Cathedral. In the 17th century, approximately 80 items were removed from the cathedral by John Frederick, Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg.

80 years ago, in 1935, some Jewish art dealers in Berlin sold a collection of medieval Christian relics, known as the Welfenschatz treasure, to one or more National Socialists “after they were unable to get a better offer.” The collection consists of dozens of gold and bejeweled relics that date to the Holy Roman Empire.

History of the collection according to Wikipedia

The next chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic has been chosen: He is Kirill Petrenko, a Jew born and raised until age 18 in Russia! [Strangely, or not, the announcement was made on June 22 (the date of the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941).] Isn't it wonderful, and so international as befits an “international city” like Berlin, yes? 

The problem for true Berliners, though, is that Petrenko was selected over a Berlin-born German who many expected to get that job: Christian Thielemann, currently chief conductor for the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden and former music director of the Munich (Bavarian) Philharmonic. Thielemann is 56 years old (born April 1, 1959), with a brilliant career in opera, being a regular conductor at Bayreuth and the Salzburg Festivals.

Some top-notch famous sculptures by Adolf Hitler's two favorite artists, for whom he built gigantic studios for their super-large works to be created for public buildings and public spaces, have been confiscated by the Berlin State Office of Criminal Investigation. It is the preliminary determination that the rightful owner of this artwork is the German State, or German government.

Among the masterpieces discovered and expropriated from their current owners are (click on images to enlarge):

"Die Wehrmacht," one of two sculptures created by Arno Breker for the main courtyard of Hitler's New Reich Chancellery in 1939 was discovered on a large estate near Kiel in northern Germany.

Image

This is the article from the Wall Street Journal that I didn't get to in today's program. I am posting the whole thing with my comments in red.

Lauder Urges Germany to Comb Museums for Nazi Loot

By Kelly Crow and Mary M. Lane  Updated Dec. 11, 2013 10:17 p.m. ET

The family of prominent Jewish art dealer Alfred Flechtheim is laying claim to Max Beckmann's 1927 "Still Life with Telescope," (above) estimated at $12 million and now in Munich's Modern Pinakothek (Picture Gallery).

Germany must create an international commission to scour its public museums for Nazi loot, cosmetics billionaire Ronald Lauder said Tuesday, adding a prominent voice to the growing cry for more transparency. 

Dec. 14, 2013

Carolyn reveals some sensitive, hitherto undisclosed information about White Nationalist personality Rodney Martin that just came to her attention. It addresses his fairly long professional association with American Indian affairs in Arizona and California, both as a Commissioner of Indian Affairs and as Tule River Tribal Council Administrator (see link at bottom), and the fact that his wife, and mother of his five children, is an “Eastern Cherokee” Native American. The Tule River Tribe owns a casino and deals in large amounts of money.  Rodney’s position was taken over by a Jew Sam Cohen in late 2009. Rodney was able to retire permanently at that time, before he was 40 years old.

Mike and Donn called in. Carolyn finished out the program addressing the stepped-up joint pressure by Jews and Israel to force Germany to “turn over” the contents of its art museums for looting by the Jews in the name of the despicable  “HoloCost victims.” 

Nov. 23, 2013

More of the art in the Cornelius Gurlitt collection has been put online, while a task-force, under Uwe Hartmann, has been set up to investigate the provenance of each one. Organized jewry is howling in protest because this could take a long time, and could prove much of their tale of “Nazi theft from Jews” to be wrong.  Cornelius will immediately get back over 300 of the artworks as rightly belonging to him, bringing more criticism from jews.

Also, the latest developments in the persecution of  Cornelius Gurlitt and the “Looted Nazi Art” scam and why it is a scam.

Nov. 18, 2013

How two United States ambassadors serving President Franklin Roosevelt worked to wreck feelings of trust between Poland’s Foreign Office under Josef Beck and the government of Adolf Hitler. German Historian Dr. Alfred Schickel’s paper “Germany and Poland in American secret documents” examines the secret memorandums and telegrams sent by Drexel Biddle, U.S. Ambassador to Poland, which contained secret conversations held by William C. Bullitt, U.S. Ambassador to France, with Joself Beck and other high-level Poles such as Marshall Ridz-Smigly. Some important points:

• Beck met three times with Ambassador to France Bullitt during his private visit to Warsaw in November 1937;
• The content of these and other conversations were contained in four “confidential memoranda” sent by Ambassador Biddle to Sec. of State Cordell Hull (and Roosevelt);
• Poland accepted Germany’s actions on behalf of the Sudetan Germans in Czechoslovakia in 1938, and the break-up of the Czech state, because through it she also gained autonomy for Poles in the Teschen region;
• Biddle’s secret telegram of March 29, 1939 revealed that the planned response by Beck to any specific suggestion from Berlin would now be a “dignified, polite but firm” no;
• The U.S. even deceived Poland about the “Secret Additional Protocol” signed by Ribbentrop and Molotov on Aug. 21, and so the British government signed the Anglo-Polish mutual assistance agreement on August 25, 1939.