User:Eli185/Robert Scholz (art historian)

Robert Scholz (* February 9, 1902 in Olmütz; † January 15, 1981 in Fürstenfeldbruck) was a Nazi art historian, art journalist, art journalist for the Völkischer Beobachter and head of the "Fine Arts" office in the DBFU department of the party ideologue Alfred Rosenberg. As head of the "Sonderstab Bildende Kunst" in the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg, he was involved in art theft during World War II.

Education and professional start

From 1920 Robert Scholz attended the Berlin Art Academy. His teachers were Erich Wolfsfeld and Erich Hofer. From 1924 to 1927 he was a master student of the painter Arthur Kampf in the art history department of the Prussian Academy of Arts. He then worked as an art critic for the Deutsche Tageszeitung and the Steglitzer Anzeiger. Even before 1933 he was a member of the Kampfbund für Deutsche Kultur (KfdK).

Nazi era activities

Nazi party propagandist

Scholz joined the Nazi party in January 1935 (membership number 3,296,458), but was active even earlier. From 1930, Scholz wrote as an art journalist for the Gauzeitung des Gaus Berlin, Der Angriff, and from 1933 as art editor for the Nazi Völkischer Beobachter. He also wrote for Deutsche Kulturwacht, the newspaper of the Kampfbund für Deutsche Kultur (KfdK), which was discontinued in 1933 just like his magazine in 1934.

On January 1, 1935, Scholz became head of the art department at the sub-organization Nazi-Kulturgemeinde (the successor organization to the KFK) and at the same time became the main editor of the Nazi-Kulturgemeinde's journal Die Völkische Kunst. At the same time, Scholz held a high office with the party organization DBFU (Beauftragter des Führers für die Überwachung der gesamten geistigen und weltanschaulichen Schulung und Erziehung der NSDAP) under the future Nazi war criminal Alfred Rosenberg, also known as "Amt Rosenberg." In 1940, he then became head of the Main Office for Fine Arts in the Amt Kunstpflege of the Rosenberg Office. In addition, Scholz was director of the Moritzburg Museum in Halle from 1938 to 1945.

As one of his best-known tasks, Scholz took over the editorship (main editorial direction) of the journal Die Kunst im Dritten Reich (publisher Der Beauftragte des Führers für die Überwachung der gesamten geistigen und weltanschaulichen Schulung und Erziehung der NSDAP Alfred Rosenberg), which was produced at Adolf Hitler's request; it appeared from 1939 under the title Die Kunst im Deutschen Reich.

Scholz was an opportunist who supported Expressionists before 1933 and opposed Modern Art in the Nazi era. This was publicly held against him by Dr. Walter Hansen, a Hamburg drawing teacher and journalist who fought against Modern Art and, along with the Göttingen painter Wolfgang Willrich, is considered the inventor of the Degenerate Art exhibition.

In 1939, at the instigation of Rosenberg and Goebbels, Scholz was to be awarded the title of 'professor'. Hitler initially refused this on the grounds that Scholz was not an artist.. Scholz finally received the title of professor in 1941, after he had earned further merit for the implementation of Nazi policy.

Nazi art looter

From the summer of 1940, Scholz also worked in the ERR's "Amt Westen" in Paris; he stayed mainly in Berlin. Formally, Scholz, head of the Main Office for Fine Arts in the Rosenberg Office, held the post of head of the Special Staff for Fine Arts from the fall of 1941. This meant that he was ex officio responsible for the art to be confiscated. However, Scholz was initially unable to hold his own against Kurt von Behr, who was sponsored by Hermann Göring and directed in Paris. Scholz was awarded the War Merit Cross II Class by Hitler on May 1, 1942, by Gerhard Utikal, the chief of staff. Under the threat of his resignation, Scholz was able to enforce Rosenberg's sole responsibility for the confiscated art at the end of 1942.In the course of the reorganization of the Special Art Staff, he appointed Lohse and Borchers as his deputies in Paris and remained in Berlin. Therefore, from January 1943 on, Lohse and Borchers were de facto heads of the activities of the Special Staff "Fine Arts" in Paris.

... der wesentlichste Teil des in Judenhänden gewesenen Kunstbesitzes in Frankreich ... [wurde] vom Einsatzstab sichergestellt ...

— Bericht von Robert Scholz vom 16. April 1943

Scholz was involved in looting Jewish "ownerless" property, that is the property seized from Jews.

In February 1944, Scholz received notification that Hitler's art objects were to be moved to the Austrian salt mine at Altaussee. The transports of these art objects continued until March 1945. At the end of World War II, Scholz was responsible for the ERR depot at Neuschwanstein Castle. In April 1945, Scholz intervened with Rosenberg to ensure that the cultural assets stored in Neuschwanstein Castle were not destroyed. Previously, there had been considerations to blow up the castle together with the cultural assets in order to prevent the works of art from falling into enemy hands. He also participated in the salvage of Hitler's art collection in the Altaussee salt mine. In this case, too, Scholz, together with others, succeeded in delaying a blasting of the mine and thus saving the works of art stored there.

Postwar

Scholz was investigated by the OSS Art Looting Investigation Unit for his involvement in Nazi art looting. A Detailed Interrogation Report (Number 3) was issued by the Allied investigators concerning specificaly his activities. He was arrested in Buxheimtand taken into American custody In 1950, a trial against the art robbers of the ERR was held before a military court in Paris. On the one hand, it was directed against Scholz, Gerhard Utikal - the overall head of the ERR - and Walter Hofer - Göring's main art buyer. The other defendants were Arthur Pfannstiel, a German Nazi art looter based in France, Georg Ebert - the first head of the ERR France in office until the beginning of 1941 - and Bruno Lohse, who had been in prison for five years. The proceedings against Utikal were severed. The proceedings against Scholz and Hofer were conducted in contumaciam. They were each sentenced to ten years in prison. Scholz never entered prison. Georg Ebert, who lived in Paris, received one year in prison, Artur Pfannstiel three years. Lohse was acquitted with credit for pre-trial detention.

In the Soviet occupation zone, works by Scholz were added to the list of literature to be eliminated in 1946 as components of Nazi propaganda. Later he was active as an author.

Publications

Publications during Nazi era

• Die kunstpolitische Lage. Bericht des Leiters der Abt. Bildende Kunst in der DBFU, von Robert Scholz, 1934 Archivportal, Bundesarchiv (Deutschland), Schriftwechsel mit Rosenberg als Hauptschriftleiter des VB
• Kollektiv-Ausstellung: [Berlin] 4. März bis 4. April 1935: Josef Thorak, Plastiken, Zeichnungen; Ferdinand Spiegel, Bergbauern; Albert Leo Schlageter-Ehrenmal und Haus der Hitler-Jugend. Vorrede Robert Scholz, NS-Kulturgemeinde, Berlin 1935
• Lebensfragen der bildenden Kunst. Eher-Verlag, München 1937
• Tierkunst-Ausstellung. 5. Mai bis 5. Juni 1937. Vorrede Robert Scholz. NS-Kulturgemeinde, Berlin 1937
• Der nordische Gedanke in der Kunst. Vortrag, gehalten am 21. Okt. 1938 anlässlich der Nordischen Woche. Kontor der Nordischen Gesellschaft, Hamburg 1938
• Ausstellung Fritz Klimsch. Katalog, Städtisches Moritzburg-Museum, Halle 1939
• Fritz Klimsch: Kollektiv-Ausstellung Juni-Juli 1941. Ehemalige Secession, Wien. Hrsg. Beauftragter des Führers für die Überwachung der gesamten geistigen und weltanschaulichen Erziehung der NSDAP, Berlin 1941
• Vom Höchstwert der deutschen Kunst. Zum 50. Geburtstag Alfred Rosenbergs, in: Die Kunst im Deutschen Reich, 7. Jg. Nr. 1, Eher-Verlag, München 1943, S. 7f.

Publications after 1945

• Vom Eros der Kunst. Türmer-Verlag, München 1970
• Dürers lebendiges Werk. Türmer-Verlag, München 1971
• Meister der Form und Farbe. Lebensbeschreibungen europäischer Künstler. Türmer-Verlag, München 1973
• Architektur und bildende Kunst 1933–1945. Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft DVG, Preussisch-Oldendorf 1977
• Grosse deutsche Baudenkmäler. Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft DVG, Rosenheim 1979. Mit Imprint: "Für Mitglieder des Buchkreises der Deutschen Wochenzeitung DWZ"
• Volk, Nation, Geschichte: deutsche historische Kunst im 19. Jh. Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft DVG, Rosenheim 1980. – "Für Mitglieder des Buchkreises der DWZ".

Literature

• Detailed Interrogation Report Nr. 3, Subject: Robert Scholz, 15. August 1945 in NARA Microfilm Publication [M] 1782, Washington, 1999
• Consolidated Interrogation report Nr. 1 - 15. August 1945: Activity of the Einsatzstab Rosenberg in France
• Reinhard Bollmus: Das Amt Rosenberg und seine Gegner. Studien zum Machtkampf im nationalsozialistischen Herrschaftssystem. Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Stuttgart 1970, 2. Auflage Oldenbourg, München 2006, ISBN 3-486-54501-9.
• Jonathan Petropoulos: The Faustian bargain. The art world in Nazi Germany. Oxford University Press, New York NY 2000, ISBN 0-19-512964-4, S. ?.
• Andreas Hüneke: Der Fall Robert Scholz – Kunstberichte unterm Hakenkreuz (= Schriften zur Kunstkritik Band 11). Köln 2001, ISBN 3-9805962-9-X.
• Ernst Klee: Das Kulturlexikon zum Dritten Reich. Wer war was vor und nach 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5, S. 490.
• Hanns Christian Löhr: Kunst als Waffe – Der Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg. Ideologie und Kunstraub im „Dritten Reich“, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-7861-2806-9.
• Günther Haase: Kunstraub und Kunstschutz, Band 1, Books on Demand (Eigenverlag) Norderstedt 2008, ISBN 978-3-8334-8975-4, S. 146f.

References

[[Category:1981 deaths]] [[Category:1902 births]] [[Category:Militant League for German Culture members]] [[Category:Nazi Party members]] [[Category:Art crime]] [[Category:Museum directors]] [[Category:Art historians]]