The Rape of Europa (24 page)

Metternich’s success in preventing the removal of objects from the main French repositories did not extend to the private collections of Jews and other undesirables. The same policies which had already gone into effect in Holland were immediately implemented in France by the various specialized agencies. Gestapo teams began removing objects from abandoned Jewish shops and houses. Those who had remained in residence were required to register with the authorities. Most, thinking it would merely be a matter of money and time, did so.

The Devisenschutzkommando (Currency Control Unit) was soon opening the private bank vaults to which so many had entrusted their treasures. The owner of the vault was required to be present. Not all the early investigators, whose principal interests were gold and foreign currency, knew what they were seeing. Picasso so befuddled the soldiers sent to inspect his vault, literally crammed with his own works and those of other artists, that they left in confusion, taking nothing. In the course of the inspection, he managed to convince them that a neighboring vault, which belonged to Braque, was also his, and contained nothing of value. Henri Vever’s sister said not a word when officers sifting through the hundreds of Rembrandt etchings he had stored away decided that they must be reproductions as there were so many, and quickly closed his vault up again.
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The first fruits of these depredations were brought to Abetz at the German embassy.

The same official who had so carefully arranged Hitler’s tour of Paris had been given, on July 4, 1940, the names and addresses of the fifteen leading Jewish art dealers in Paris. He and von Kunsberg were to remove whatever was to be found on their premises. This time transport was no obstacle: Kunsberg simply ordered the French police to provide vans. Soon the unevacuated stocks of the Wildenstein, Seligmann, Paul Rosenberg, and Bernheim-Jeune galleries began to fill up the embassy; next came the contents of a Rothschild residence in the rue Saint-Honoré.

A Dr. Meier, especially sent by von Ribbentrop from the Berlin Museums, set about cataloguing the works and deciding which would be most suitable for dispatch to Germany. Packing began. In the no-nonsense Nazi style exemplified by Mühlmann, dealers were immediately called in to look at lesser works which had not made the cut. Certain “degenerate” items were set aside for later exploitation. But if Metternich could not prevent the seizure of this material, he could and did protest to his commanders that its removal from France would violate the Wehrmacht decree freezing everything in place, as well as Article 46 of The Hague Convention, which specifically forbade the removal of private property. The Army command stayed solidly behind him. Again Abetz and his associates were stymied, for without military conveyance they could not move anything out of Paris.

As the resistance of the Wehrmacht in France to the confiscation systems already operating so smoothly in the occupied countries under “civilian” administrations increased, the Nazi inner circle, seeking a way to circumvent these inconvenient scruples, produced one of its marvelous compromises. On September 17 Hitler directed the Army to extend all possible assistance to the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) in its work, adding that Rosenberg was “entitled to transport to Germany cultural goods which appear valuable to him and to safeguard them there.”
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So far these had included few works of art, but that could always be changed. Meanwhile, the military command had ordered that all confiscated works of art be taken to the empty Louvre instead of the embassy for storage. This had required the permission of the French. Metternich prevailed upon Jaujard to accept the arrangement, hoping by this means at least to keep the works in France. Several hundred items, packed and ready to ship, were brought from the embassy.

Abetz defiantly held back three groups of paintings. Seventy-four had been “placed in the inventory of the Embassy and therefore had become Reich property.” Twenty-one, surprisingly including works by Utrillo, Monet, Degas, Bonnard, and Braque, were reserved “for decoration of the house and offices of the Foreign Minister.” The third group was made up of twenty-six “Jewish owned works of degenerate art… with undefined
titles”: fourteen Braques, seven Picassos, four Légers, and a Rouault. These were to be used for “trading for artistically valuable works.”
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Meanwhile, von Kunsberg, his collecting activities restricted, devoted himself to compiling a top secret list of works of art in British castles and repositories in preparation for the invasion which all thought to be imminent.
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The new French government in Vichy, which had come into being on July 10, had meanwhile been passing suitably restrictive measures which would soon put it right in line with Germany and create a New Order à la française. Pétain, who had never bothered to read
Mein Kampf
, naively expected to return his government to Paris, where he would deal as an equal with the Führer in negotiating peace. Never did it occur to him or to his Prime Minister, Laval, that there would be no negotiations, and that they would remain sealed off in Vichy for four years.

Among the new decrees passed was a law stating that French nationals who had fled the country between May 10 and June 30 were no longer citizens, and that their property could be seized and liquidated for the benefit of the French “Secours National.” The Vichy government, still believing itself independent, had complained that a similar law passed by the Germans a week earlier in the Occupied Zone was a violation of The Hague Convention, which forbids an occupying power to interfere with the civil laws of a conquered nation.
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Basic to both measures were sections requiring the registration and Aryanization of Jewish businesses. The removal of private property was another bone of contention, and the Pétain government protested Ambassador Abetz’s undertakings in late October. But nothing could now stop the German agencies, who merely pointed out that the possessions of the Rothschilds and so many others who had fled were no business of the French, who had themselves declared that they were no longer citizens.

Indeed, by the end of October so much material had accumulated at the Louvre that it was decided to find a more suitable space. Metternich and Jaujard chose the Jeu de Paume, the small museum used at that time by the Louvre for temporary foreign and modern exhibitions. They were then informed that the ERR would also use the premises. It was agreed that French curators, working alongside the Germans, would be allowed to inventory whatever arrived at the new depot, and Vichy was so informed. To carry out these duties five Louvre employees were sent to the Jeu de Paume to help Mlle Rose Valland, the curator who had been left in charge of the empty building.

The transfer of objects to the new location began at once. Accompanied, oddly enough, by a Luftwaffe guard, more than four hundred cases were
brought in on October 30. The next day they were unpacked with tremendous speed by the Air Force men, and works were stacked up in every gallery. Mlle Valland was prepared to start her inventory, but was surprised to find that she had no German counterpart, and that no system of registration was being organized in the frenzied scene surrounding her. Wanting to show that the French were as competent as any German, she determinedly set to work on her own. Around noon Dr. Bunjes, one of Metternich’s assistants, found her at work. Glancing at her notebook, he reached down and closed it firmly: there was to be no French record. The five other employees were sent away and told not to return; only Mlle Valland, technically in charge of the building itself, and a few workmen were allowed to remain.
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More German officers soon arrived, among them Baron Kurt von Behr, chief of the ERR in France, wearing such a spectacular and unusual uniform that even the skeptical Mlle Valland was dazzled. The uniform was that of the German Red Cross, of which the Baron was an important official. He had, in fact, no military rank at all. Politely he agreed that the French curator should stay on. All afternoon rushed activity continued as a group of Germans sorted through the paintings, picking out the best, and hanging them as if there were to be an exhibition.

And indeed there was to be one. Exhausted and angered by his lack of success in the Battle of Britain, Goering was coming to town. All through the summer he had been making little visits to Paris from his headquarters near the Channel coast. He would lodge at the Ritz and be attended by the Luftwaffe commandant for Paris, General Hanesse. His art agents Hofer and Angerer had meanwhile been scouting the acquisition possibilities. Despite Metternich’s resistance, the two agents, escorted by an official supplied by the military administration, had been given tours of certain collections which were about to be confiscated. They had ordered items they liked to be taken to the Jeu de Paume, care of the ERR. The official, adhering to the Wehrmacht decree, emphasized that it would not be possible to remove these items from France.

Goering arrived at the Jeu de Paume on November 3 to find it done up as if a major opening were in the offing. The floors were adorned with beautiful rugs and the galleries crammed with furniture and decorative arts carefully coordinated with the pictures. There were potted palms and champagne. The whole was further set off by the snappy full-dress uniforms of the German officers, who were all aware of the Reichsmarschall’s love of such display. But for once Goering appeared in rather rumpled civilian clothes, looking oddly out of place in his long overcoat and soft hat.

Goering in mufti at the Jeu de Paume

The selection presented to him was staggering, eclipsing anything he had seen in Holland. He spent the entire day at the museum. But there was much more in storage, and Goering delayed his departure while the remaining works were brought out. On November 5 he again spent the day among the treasures, talking excitedly, picking up and putting down one picture after another. He chose twenty-seven for himself, mostly Dutch and French works from the collections of Edouard de Rothschild and the Wildensteins, among them Rembrandt’s
Boy with a Red Beret
and a magnificent van Dyck
Portrait of a Lady.
There were four depictions of Venus and two of Diana, plus a good number of hunting scenes
and fêtes chompêtres.
Among the former possessions of various members of the Seligmann family he found much to enhance Carinhall: five stained glass windows, four tapestries, three sculptures of angels and shepherds, and a nice eighteenth-century sofa with six matching chairs.

After his experiences in Austria, Goering was too smart to try to take the famous Rothschild Vermeer known as
The Astronomer
, which glowed seductively from the wall. That would go to his Führer. Goering made no attempt to remove this selection and for the time being satisfied himself with a large album of photographs, of which Hitler also received a copy. But to make quite clear what was what, he issued an order that same afternoon declaring that the objects “saved” by the Army and the ERR would be divided into several categories. The Führer’s choice was first. Second were “objects which can be used to complete the collections of the Reichsmarschall.” Third came items “useful” to Nazi ideologue Rosenberg for his anti-Semitic think tank. A fourth group was reserved for the German museums. The leftovers could be given to the French museums or put on the market. Everything was supposed to be appraised and paid for,
with all profits going to French war orphans. The first four categories were to be packed and sent to Germany by the Luftwaffe—so much for the Army’s refusal to provide transport. In a little note at the end of the order Goering promised that he would immediately get Hitler’s approval for all this. Meanwhile, the ERR, put in charge of the Jeu de Paume, was to keep up its good work.
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In Paris the confiscations poured in so fast that more art historians had to be brought to the Jeu de Paume to cope. The ERR teams had begun to range farther afield. Subsidiary operations were carried on in Belgium. Helpful informants led them, and other agencies, to collections hidden all over the countryside. A certain “Count Lestang” and a Paris dealer by the name of Yves Perdoux agreed to reveal the whereabouts of Paul Rosenberg’s pictures at Floirac to German embassy officials in return for 10 percent of the value of the collection. This they rather excessively put at RM 100 million, or FFr 2 billion. After some time had passed with no response from the Germans, Lestang and Perdoux appeared at the embassy and announced that they knew of a second, more valuable collection, but that if their terms were not met on the first one, they would not reveal its whereabouts. They then added that “a very high German official” had heard of the second collection too, and was seeking its location. When pressed, they admitted that they meant Goering. The embassy, suspecting a bluff, had Luftwaffe General Hanesse make inquiries.