Person
Ernst Buchner
Ernst Buchner
- Life dates
- 1892 - 1962
- Active
-
Alte Pinakothek, Munich
- Occupation
- Nazi Party member, museum director, art historian
Buchner joined the Nazi party in 1933. He served as director of the Bavarian State Painting Collections. After the 1938 November pogroms (Reichskristallnacht) Buchner used the museum to store artworks seized from Jews by the Gestapo. He also purchased directly from the Gestapo confiscated art for the museum collections, including pieces by Eugène Delacroix. He took advantage of the Aryanization of Jewish businesses by convincing Jews to sell artworks to him at bargain prices. Buchner was a major figure in the recycling of looted Jewish cultural objects in the Munich area. Although Buchner was not an official agent for the Sonderauftrag Linz, he was often consulted as an expert, as in the case of the Schloss collection.
On 20 August 1943, Buchner intervened to appease Hitler after the latter learned that the Louvre had secured the right of first refusal (pre-emption) on paintings from the confiscated Schloss collection. Buchner reassured Hitler that the bulk of the collection was still of considerable value and importance. After the confiscated Schloss paintings arrived from Paris at the Führerbau on 2 December 1943, Buchner examined the 262 paintings in detail. It is unclear if he or Dr. Robert Oertel prepared an inventory of the Schloss paintings. In February 1944, Buchner himself acquired a Schloss painting – Schloss 261 by Duyster– from Munich art dealer Maria Almas-Dietrich who had purchased the painting in January 1944 from Victor Mandl, a Paris-based middleman for art dealers in close contact with Bruno Lohse. On 27 May 1946, the Americans recovered the painting from the Alte Pinakothek of Munich where it was stored.
In May 1945, Buchner was removed from the leadership of Bavaria’s state museums and was forced to undergo a denazification process. On 18 June 1945, the Americans arrested and interrogated Buchner. At his 1948 trial he was deemed a "Mitläufer” (bystander) of the Nazi Party and was able to resume his professional life. On 1 April 1953, he regained his post as director of Bavaria’s State Painting Collections but was encouraged to retire in September 1957 after his wartime activities were disclosed and he faced public scrutiny for his wartime acts.
Source:
Petropolous, Jonathan. The Faustian Bargain. The Art World in Nazi Germany. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 22 ff.
Schleusener, Jan. Raub von Kulturgut. Der Zugriff des NS-Staats auf jüdischen Kunstbesitz in München und seine Nachgeschichte. Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2016.
M1782-OSS Art Looting Investigation Unit Reports, 1945-46. Consolidated Interrogation Reports (CIR). Report: Linz: Hitler's Museum And Library. https://www.fold3.com/image/232002735?terms=buchner. Accessed 14 June 2021.
M1782-OSS Art Looting Investigation Unit Reports, 1945-46. Detailed Interrogation Report No. 2. Subject: Ernst Buchner. https://www.fold3.com/image/231995559. Accessed 14 June 2021.