譯文連載[附英文原文]：邪魔畫商 （一）

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    2010年9月22日晚九點左右，由蘇黎世前往慕尼黑的高鐵途經邊境站林道，巴伐利亞海關人員上車進行例行檢查。很多在瑞士銀行有額外存款的德國人就是在這個邊境小站帶“黑錢”過關的，邊檢人員對此了如指掌，在這裏抽查可疑旅客已成慣例。
    根據《鏡報》的報道，一位執勤的海關人員在機車的走道裏看到一位衣著整齊、滿頭銀發的孱弱老人，於是要求他出示證件。老人掏出一本奧地利護照。他叫羅夫·尼可拉斯·康納利斯·葛利，1932年生於德國漢堡。報道說他告訴海關人員，此行是出差前往柏恩的一間畫廊。由於葛利表現得異乎尋常地緊張，這位執勤人員決定帶他去車上的洗手間進行搜身，結果搜出一個信封，裏麵裝著嶄新的九千歐元鈔票（合一萬二千美元）。
    盡管老人家攜帶的款項並未超過法定的一萬歐元款限，他緊張的舉止和嶄新的鈔票還是引起了這位海關人員的懷疑。他把護照和錢款還給了老人，讓他回到原位就座。他設定對葛利進行進一步調查。從此，觸發一場曆時百年的神秘悲劇的爆炸式結局。

 一、不堪家史[A Dark Legacy]

  康納利斯·葛利是個幽魂人物。他告訴那個海關官員他住在慕尼黑的一所公寓裏，而他繳交房產稅的地址卻在邵茲堡。根據《鏡報》的報道，無跡可查。根據那位海關官員的建議，海關和稅務調查員無法查到任何退休金、健康保險、銀行存款、稅務或雇傭記錄－葛利從未工作過－慕尼黑的電話簿上也沒他的名字。葛利是個不折不扣的隱形人。
  他們繼續追查，發現葛利居然在慕尼黑的高尚住宅區史瓦濱的一間百萬公寓裏住了半個世紀。然後就是他的姓：葛利。熟悉希特勒當權期的德國藝術史，特別是從事搜尋“劫掠品”（被納粹強掠的藝術品）的人，葛利這個姓氏舉足輕重。希德布蘭·葛利當時任職於一間博物館，擁有四分之一猶太血統，根據納粹法律屬於“二等雜種”。雖然如此，他成為納粹批準的畫商之一。第三帝國期間，他收集到大量的劫掠品，許多是從猶太畫商或收藏家手中得來。調查人員由此展開聯想：此葛利與彼葛利，兩者是否有關聯？康納利斯在火車上提到前往畫廊，那他是不是靠暗中賣畫維生？
  調查人員開始琢磨：位於阿瑟街1號第5單元的公寓裏到底有何蹊蹺？也許警員們從慕尼黑的藝術圈兒裏聽到了什麽風聲。“圈子裏個個人都知道葛利手頭有大把劫掠品，”一位現代畫廊老板的丈夫告訴我。但是調查人員決定小心行事。德國有嚴格的私人財產法，侵犯隱私法以及其它一些法律顧忌，首當其衝的，就是德國並沒有法律規定私人或機構不得擁有掠奪品。直到2011年九月，法官才以懷疑逃稅和貪汙為由下發了搜查令。這時距車廂搜身一事已經整整一年了。不過當局仍對執行搜查舉棋不定。
  而三個月之後，康納利斯通過科隆的萊泊茲拍賣行出售了麥克斯·貝克曼的傑作《馴獅人》，售價為864,000歐元（合117萬美元）。更有意思的是，根據《鏡報》的報道，康納利斯將所得六四分成，付給了猶太畫商阿爾弗萊德·弗萊克海姆的後裔。 弗萊克海姆在二十年代的德國各地和維也納擁有多間現代派畫廊。1933年， 弗萊克海姆拋下畫業逃亡巴黎，之後淪落倫敦， 1937年於貧困交加中死去。他的家人多年來一直在追討他當年丟棄的畫作，其中包括這幅《馴獅人》。
   據弗萊克海姆的家族律師說，康納利斯與其後裔有約在先，康納利斯承認弗萊克海姆於1934年被迫將這幅畫出賣給自己的父親海德布蘭。這顆重磅炸彈激起了當局對康納利斯公寓內有更多藏品的進一步懷疑。
   2012年2月28日，搜查令終於啟動。當警察、海關和稅務人員進入葛利1076呎（約107平米）的公寓時，他們被搜查的結果驚呆了:　121幅鑲框畫作，1285幅未裱畫作，作品出自畢加索、馬蒂斯、雷諾、夏加爾、麥克斯·利伯曼、奧托·迪克斯、弗郎茲·馬爾克、埃米爾·諾爾德、奧斯卡·科科施卡、恩斯特·基什內爾、德拉克洛瓦、杜米埃、庫爾貝，還有一幅丟勒，還有卡納萊托，等等等等，價值不下十億。
   根據《鏡報》的報道，整整三天，康納利斯遵令就座，靜靜地看著工作人員將一幅幅畫打包運走，被存放在距慕尼黑以北１０哩嘉清市的一個聯邦海關倉庫裏。總檢察長辦公室並未對此事發表任何公開講話，在守口如瓶的同時，他們在商討著權宜之計。藏畫的消息一旦走漏，定將引起軒然大波。德國會被追討聲和政治壓力所圍攻。麵對這個史無前例的案局，似乎所有人都不知所措。這會揭起那從未愈合也永遠不會平複的舊創傷和文化斷層。
  接下來的幾天，康納利斯就那麽失魂落魄地坐在空蕩蕩的公寓裏。當局安排了心理輔導員來看望他。與此同時，沒人知道該怎麽處置那些保存在嘉清倉庫裏的畫作，直到有人向德國的新聞周報《焦點》透露了風聲。這個報信人可能是2012年入室的警員或者裝運工，因為該人提供了公寓室內情形的描述。2013年11月4日，《焦點》周刊以頭條整版報道，七十年來最大的納粹掠奪品窩藏案，在慕尼黑郊外一位獨居幾十年的老人的公寓裏被發現。此時距畫作沒收已有20個月，而從車廂奇遇算起已是三年的時間了。
  《焦點》報道既出，媒體旋即包圍康納利斯的居所大樓，他隱士般的日子從此一去不返。

圖１,２:故事的主人公康納利斯·葛利
  

圖3中:康納利斯的父親希德布蘭·葛利



圖4: 禍起蕭牆:麥克斯·貝克曼的傑作《馴獅人》



 The Devil and The Art Dealer     by Alex Shoumatoff

At about nine P.M. on September 22, 2010, the high-speed train from Zurich to Munich passed the Lindau border, and Bavarian customs officers came aboard for a routine check of passengers. A lot of “black” money—off-the-books cash—is taken back and forth at this crossing by Germans with Swiss bank accounts, and officers are trained to be on the lookout for suspicious travelers.

As reported by the German newsweekly Der Spiegel, while making his way down the aisle, one of the officers came upon a frail, well-dressed, white-haired man traveling alone and asked for his papers. The old man produced an Austrian passport that said he was Rolf Nikolaus Cornelius Gurlitt, born in Hamburg in 1932. He reportedly told the officer that the purpose of his trip was for business, at an art gallery in Bern. Gurlitt was behaving so nervously that the officer decided to take him into the bathroom to search him, and he found on his person an envelope containing 9,000 euros ($12,000) in crisp new bills.

Though he had done nothing illegal—amounts under 10,000 euros don’t need to be declared—the old man’s behavior and the money aroused the officer’s suspicion. He gave back Gurlitt’s papers and money and let him return to his seat, but the customs officer flagged Cornelius Gurlitt for further investigation, and this would put into motion the explosive dénouement of a tragic mystery more than a hundred years in the making.

A Dark Legacy

Cornelius Gurlitt was a ghost. He had told the officer that he had an apartment in Munich, although his residence—where he pays taxes—was in Salzburg. But, according to newspaper reports, there was little record of his existence in Munich or anywhere in Germany. The customs and tax investigators, following up on the officer’s recommendation, discovered no state pension, no health insurance, no tax or employment records, no bank accounts—Gurlitt had apparently never had a job—and he wasn’t even listed in the Munich phone book. This was truly an invisible man.

And yet with a little more digging they discovered that he had been living in Schwabing, one of Munich’s nicer neighborhoods, in a million-dollar-plus apartment for half a century. Then there was that name. Gurlitt. To those with knowledge of Germany’s art world during Hitler’s reign, and especially those now in the business of searching for Raubkunst—art looted by the Nazis—the name Gurlitt is significant: Hildebrand Gurlitt was a museum curator who, despite being a second-degree Mischling, a quarter Jewish, according to Nazi law, became one of the Nazis’ approved art dealers. During the Third Reich, he had amassed a large collection of Raubkunst,much of it from Jewish dealers and collectors. The investigators began to wonder: Was there a connection between Hildebrand Gurlitt and Cornelius Gurlitt? Cornelius had mentioned the art gallery on the train. Could he have been living off the quiet sale of artworks?

The investigators became curious as to what was in apartment No. 5 at 1 Artur-Kutscher-Platz. Perhaps they picked up on the rumors in Munich’s art world. “Everyone in the know had heard that Gurlitt had a big collection of looted art,” the husband of a modern-art-gallery owner told me. But they proceeded cautiously. There were strict private-property-rights, invasion-of-privacy, and other legal issues, starting with the fact that Germany has no law preventing an individual or an institution from owning looted art. It took till September 2011, a full year after the incident on the train, for a judge to issue a search warrant for Gurlitt’s apartment, on the grounds of suspected tax evasion and embezzlement. But still, the authorities seemed hesitant to execute it.

Then, three months later, in December 2011, Cornelius sold a painting, a masterpiece by Max Beckmann titled The Lion Tamer, through the Lempertz auction house, in Cologne, for a total of 864,000 euros ($1.17 million). Even more interesting, according to Der Spiegel, the money from the sale was split roughly 60–40 with the heirs of Jewish art dealer Alfred Flechtheim, who had had modern-art galleries in several German cities and Vienna in the 1920s. In 1933, Flechtheim had fled to Paris and then London, leaving behind his collection of art. He died impoverished in 1937. His family has been trying to reclaim the collection, including The Lion Tamer, for years.

As part of his settlement with the Flechtheim estate, according to an attorney for the heirs, Cornelius Gurlitt acknowledged that the Beckmann had been sold under duress by Flechtheim in 1934 to his father, Hildebrand Gurlitt. This bombshell gave traction to the government’s suspicion that there might be more art in Gurlitt’s apartment.

But it took until February 28, 2012, for the warrant to finally be executed. When the police and customs and tax officials entered Gurlitt’s 1,076-square-foot apartment, they found an astonishing trove of 121 framed and 1,285 unframed artworks, including pieces by Picasso, Matisse, Renoir, Chagall, Max Liebermann, Otto Dix, Franz Marc, Emil Nolde, Oskar Kokoschka, Ernst Kirchner, Delacroix, Daumier, and Courbet. There was a Dürer. A Canaletto. The collection could be worth more than a billion dollars.

As reported in Der Spiegel, over a period of three days, Gurlitt was instructed to sit and watch quietly as officials packed the pictures and took them all away. The trove was taken to a federal customs warehouse in Garching, about 10 miles north of Munich. The chief prosecutor’s office made no public announcement of the seizure and kept the whole matter under tight wraps while it debated how to proceed. Once the artworks’ existence became known, all hell was going to break loose. Germany would be besieged by claims and diplomatic pressure. In this unprecedented case, no one seemed to know what to do. It would open old wounds, fault lines in the culture, that hadn’t healed and never will.

In the days that followed, Cornelius sat bereft in his empty apartment. A psychological counselor from a government agency was sent to check up on him. Meanwhile, the collection remained in Garching, with no one the wiser, until word of its existence was leaked to Focus, a German newsweekly, possibly by someone who had been in Cornelius’s apartment, perhaps one of the police or the movers who were there in 2012, because he or she provided a description of its interior. On November 4, 2013—20 months after the seizure and more than three years after Cornelius’s interview on the train—the magazine splashed on its front page the news that what appeared to be the greatest trove of looted Nazi art in 70 years had been found in the apartment of an urban hermit in Munich who had been living with it for decades.

Soon after the Focus story broke, the media converged on No. 1 Artur-Kutscher-Platz, and Cornelius Gurlitt’s life as a recluse was over.