译文连载[附英文原文]：邪魔画商 (三）

四、旷世画盗  [The Greatest Art Theft in History]

 

 根据《镜报》的报道，1940年法国沦陷后， 希德布兰将妻子海伦娜、八岁的儿子康纳利斯、六岁的女儿贝尼塔留在汉堡，自己则不断前往巴黎，有时住在泽西酒店，有时留宿在一个情妇那里。他从此开始了一段扑朔迷离、富贵险中求的生存游戏，他掩人耳目，以帮助犹太人逃亡或是拯救画作为名，骗过了所有人：他的妻子、纳粹、盟军、犹太艺术家、画商以及画作的拥有人。他所用的各式高风险高回报的买卖手段，就像是阿兰·德龙在1976年主演的电影《科林先生》中的巴黎富商。

希德布兰还登门入室，在被迫弃置逃亡的犹太收藏家家中，将画作用推车运走。其中一幅是马蒂斯的杰作《端坐的女人》(1921年)。1940年保罗·罗森堡逃亡美国时将这幅画保存在波尔多附近利柏恩的一间银行保险库里。 保罗·罗森堡当年是大画家毕加索、布莱克和马蒂斯的朋友兼经纪人。希德布兰还在巴黎的杜饶拍卖行的甩卖中捞到一些其它作品。

有了戈培尔开的绿灯，希德布兰可说是一帆风顺。他可能也是豁出去了，因为就像他后来所说的，要想活着就别无选择，而随着财物的逐渐积累，他又难以例外地走向贪途。也许更准确一点的说法是希德布兰过着双重生活：一面满足纳粹，同时拯救他深爱的画作和犹太同胞。或说是三重生活：因为他同时也饱了私囊。今人不难对这种在难以想像的毁灭和恐惧下的灵魂出卖进行谴责。

到了1943年，希德布兰成为希特勒在未来林兹博物馆展品的主要买家之一。其中符合元首品味的被运往德国，这其中除了画作，还包括绢帛和家私。希德布兰从每项交易中拿到5%的佣金。他手段冷酷身份神秘，在交易台上广受欢迎，因为戈培尔给他大笔款项任其调用。

从1941年三月到1944年七月，运往德国的艺术品有29批之多，4174只货箱装满了137部货车，艺术品总共达到21903件之多。总计起来，纳粹单是从法国犹太人手中抢到的艺术品就有十万件左右，整个二战期间纳粹的劫掠品总数达到六十五万件，这是历史上最大的艺术盗窃案。 

五、德式危机[A Very German Crisis]

《焦点》周刊爆出新闻的次日和两周后，奥格斯堡的总检察长，也是这次调查的负责人林哈德·奈米兹举行了记者招待会，匆匆发表了措辞严谨的声明。然而为时晚矣，外界反响激愤。德国总理安吉拉·默克尔的办公室被抱怨声充斥，但她拒绝对正在调查中的事件做出评价。德国瞬间陷入国际形象危机，似乎要吃大官司。德国政府怎么可以如此麻木无情，封锁消息长达一年半之久，而只在被《焦点》曝光的情况下才被迫吐露实情? 更过份的是，二战后七十年，德国仍然没有有关归还纳粹掠夺品的法律？

当年大屠杀受害者的后裔很想领回劫画，以弥补物质损失并给家人遭遇的不幸有一个交待。可问题是，犹太人对德征讨失物联会的研究部主管韦斯利•费舍尔说，“大部分人并不知道当年的收藏中到底那些东西不见了。”

化妆品巨子、亿万富翁罗纳德•兰黛、上述的韦斯利•费舍尔、总部设在伦敦的在欧劫掠品委员会的创办人安•韦伯、代表科特•格莱瑟家族的纽约律师大卫•罗兰德一致要求将没收的整批藏画立即予以公布。格莱瑟夫妇当年是魏玛时期艺术品的重要支持者、收藏者，极富影响的行家，也是马蒂斯和基什内尔的朋友。由于纳粹法律规定犹太人不得任公职，1933年科特•格莱瑟被排挤出普鲁士国家图书馆。他被迫散卖收藏品，先是流亡到瑞士，再到意大利，最后来到美国，于1943年死于纽约州的普莱西湖地区。兰黛先生说，“犹太人的失画是二战时期的最后战俘，要知道，每一幅失窃的画作都牵连着最少一条犹太人的性命。”

11月11日，当局把在康纳利斯家中发现的部分画作放在了网站上（lostart.de），访客量之大，一时令网站瘫痪。目前为止网站上已经登出了458幅作品，而其中从犹太人手中偷抢的作品数量也从原来估计的590幅调整到1280幅，完成追溯画主的工作遥遥无期。

德国有关退还二战劫掠品的法律非常复杂。事实上，1938年纳粹准许没收堕落派艺术品的法律并未废除。德国是1998年“华盛顿大会条约”有关纳粹劫掠艺术品条例的签署国。该公约指出：博物馆以及公立机构应该将洗劫艺术品交还原主或原主后裔。但是遵循这项条例是在自愿的基础上，所有签署国里几乎没有任何机构这样做过。即使有约如此，这项条例却并不包括目前在德国境内的堕落派艺术品，也不涉及像康纳利斯这样的个人。罗纳德·兰黛说，“德国的许多博物馆里存有大量的洗劫艺术品，只不过大部分都不摆出来罢了。”他号召全世界的专家们组成一个协会，专门走访德国的博物馆和政府机构。今年二月，德国政府宣布即将成立一个独立机构仔细审查各博物馆的馆藏。

至今为止，康纳利斯都没有被定罪，由此令人怀疑没收其收藏品的合法性，因为起初的搜查令里应该没有这项指控。不仅如此，法律规定认领失物的诉讼时效年限为三十年，康纳利斯拥有这批藏品已是四十余载。这些艺术品目前还了了无期地存在仓库里，不计其数的人前来申领那些已在官方网站登出的画作。官方是该将这些画物归原主，还是以不当没收或诉讼时效已过的理由归还给康纳利斯，目前还是一个未知数。

“在谎言里生活了这么多年，他一定很不快乐，” 谈到康纳利斯，娜娜·迪克斯对我说。她是堕落派艺术家奥托·迪克斯的孙女，自己也是一名画家，我们在她位于史瓦滨的画室里聊了三个小时，这里离康纳利斯的居所只有半英里。我们看着她祖父的复制画，聊着他的不凡的一生，聊他如何身临两次世界大战，淋漓尽致地描画出前线的历历惨状，他曾经被盖世太保禁画，甚至禁购颜料。迪克斯出身平凡（他父亲在格拉的一家铸铁坊做工），是二十世纪伟大却没有得到充分认可的艺术家之一。只有毕加索才是风格万变的巨匠：表现派、立体派、达达派、印象派、抽象派、怪异超现实派，无一不通。然而就像希德布兰·葛利描述到他手中收藏的奥托时所说，迪克斯作品中那“有力而灼痛的真实反映了人性的挣扎。”娜娜说目前迪克斯的200幅杰作仍然下落不明。


图1: 马蒂斯的杰作《端坐的女人》

图2: 奥托·迪克西之自画像

The Greatest Art Theft in History

As reported in Der Spiegel, after France fell, in 1940, Hildebrand went frequently to Paris, leaving his wife, Helene, and children—Cornelius, then eight, and his sister, Benita, who was two years younger—in Hamburg and taking up residence in the Hotel de Jersey or at the apartment of a mistress. He began a complicated and dangerous game of survival and self-enrichment in which he played everybody: his wife, the Nazis, the Allies, the Jewish artists, dealers, and owners of the paintings, all in the name of allegedly helping them escape and saving their work. He got involved in all kinds of high-risk, high-reward wheeling and dealing, like the wealthy dealer in Paris buying art from fleeing Jews whom Alain Delon played in the 1976 movie Monsieur Klein.

Hildebrand also entered the abandoned homes of rich Jewish collectors and carted off their pictures. He acquired one masterpiece—Matisse’s Seated Woman (1921)—that Paul Rosenberg, the friend and dealer of Picasso, Braque, and Matisse, had left in a bank vault in Libourne, near Bordeaux, before he fled to America, in 1940. Other works Hildebrand picked up at distress sales at the Drouot auction house, in Paris.

With carte blanche from Goebbels, Hildebrand was flying high. He may have agreed to his deal with the Devil because, as he later claimed, he had no choice if he wanted to stay alive, and then he was gradually corrupted by the money and the treasures he was accumulating—a common enough trajectory. But perhaps it is more accurate to say that he was leading a double life: giving the Nazis what they wanted, and doing what he could to save the art he loved and his fellow Jews. Or a triple life, because at the same time he was also amassing a fortune in artworks. It is easy for a modern person to condemn the sellouts in a world that was so inconceivably compromised and horrible.

In 1943, Hildebrand became one of the major buyers for Hitler’s future museum in Linz. The works that were suitable to the Führer’s taste were shipped to Germany. These included not only paintings but tapestries and furniture. Hildebrand got a 5 percent commission on each transaction. A shrewd, inscrutable man, he was always welcome at the table, because he had millions of reichsmarks from Goebbels to spend.

From March 1941 to July 1944, 29 large shipments including 137 freight cars filled with 4,174 crates containing 21,903 art objects of all kinds went to Germany. Altogether, about 100,000 works were looted by the Nazis from Jews in France alone. The total number of works plundered has been estimated at around 650,000. It was the greatest art theft in history.

A Very German Crisis

The day after the Focus story came out, Augsburg’s chief prosecutor, Reinhard Nemetz, who is in charge of the investigation, held a hasty press conference and issued a carefully worded press release, followed by another two weeks later. But the damage was done; the floodgates of outrage were open. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office was inundated with complaints and declined to make a statement about an ongoing investigation. Germany suddenly had an international image crisis on its hands and was looking at major litigation. How could the German government have been so callous as to withhold this information for a year and a half, and to divulge it only when forced to by the Focus story? How outrageous is it that, 70 years after the war, Germany still has no restitution law for art stolen by the Nazis?

There is a lot of interest among the descendants of Holocaust victims in getting back artworks that were looted by the Nazis, for getting at least some form of compensation and closure for the horrors visited upon their families. The problem, explains Wesley Fisher, director of research for the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, is that “a great many people don’t know what is missing from their collections.”

Cosmetics billionaire and longtime activist for the recovery of looted art Ronald Lauder called for the immediate release of the full inventory of the collection, as did Fisher, Anne Webber, founder and co-chair of the London-based Commission for Looted Art in Europe, and David Rowland, a New York lawyer representing the descendants of Curt Glaser. Glaser and his wife, Elsa, were major supporters, collectors, and influential cognoscenti of the art of the Weimar period, and friends with Matisse and Kirchner. Under Nazi laws forbidding Jews from holding civil-servant positions, Glaser was pushed out as director of the Prussian State Library in 1933. Forced to disperse his collection, he fled to Switzerland, then Italy, and finally America, where he died in Lake Placid, New York, in 1943. Lauder told me that “the artworks stolen from the Jews are the last prisoners of W.W. II. You have to be aware that every work stolen from a Jew involved at least one death.”

On November 11, the government started to put up some of Cornelius’s works on a Web site (lostart.de), and there were so many visits the site crashed. To date it has posted 458 works and announced that about 590 of the trove of what has been adjusted to 1,280—due to multiples and sets—may have been looted from Jewish owners. The provenance work is far from done.

German restitution laws that apply to looted art are highly complex. In fact, the 1938 Nazi law that allowed the government to confiscate Degenerate Art has still not been repealed. Germany is a signatory to the 1998 Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art, which say that museums and other public institutions with Raubkunst should return it to its rightful owners, or their heirs. But compliance is voluntary, and few institutions in any of the signatory countries have complied. Even so, the Principles don’t apply to Degenerate Art in Germany, nor do they apply to works possessed by individuals, such as Cornelius. Ronald Lauder told me that “there is a huge amount of looted art in the museums of Germany, most of it not on display.” He called for a commission of international experts to scour Germany’s museums and government institutions, and in February the German government announced that it would set up an independent center to begin looking closely at museums’ collections.

To this date, Cornelius has not been charged with any crime, bringing into question the legality of the seizure—which was probably not covered by the search warrant under which authorities entered his apartment. Furthermore, there is a 30-year statute of limitations on making claims on stolen property, and Cornelius has been in possession of the art for more than 40 years. The pieces are still in a warehouse in a sort of limbo. Numerous parties are making claims to the ones that have been posted on the government’s Web site. It is unclear whether the law requires or enables the government to return the art to its rightful owners, or whether it needs to be returned to Cornelius on the grounds of an illegal seizure or under the protection of the statute of limitations.

 

“He must not be a happy man, having lived a lie for so many years,” Nana Dix, the granddaughter of the Degenerate artist Otto Dix, said to me about Cornelius. Nana is herself an artist, and we spent three hours in her studio in Schwabing, about half a mile from Cornelius’s apartment, looking at reproductions of her grandfather’s work and tracing his remarkable career—how he had transcendently documented the horrors he had lived through on the front lines of both wars, at one point being forbidden by the Gestapo to paint or even buy art materials. Dix, who came from humble origins (his father worked in an iron foundry in Gera), was one of the great under-recognized artists of the 20th century. Only Picasso expressed himself as masterfully in so many styles: Expressionism, Cubism, Dadaism, Impressionism, abstract, grotesque hyper-realism. Dix’s powerful, searingly honest images reflect—as Hildebrand Gurlitt described the unsettling modern art he collected—“the struggle to come to terms with who we are.” According to Nana Dix, 200 of his major works are still missing.