譯文連載[附英文原文]：邪魔畫商 (三）

四、曠世畫盜  [The Greatest Art Theft in History]

 

 根據《鏡報》的報道，1940年法國淪陷後， 希德布蘭將妻子海倫娜、八歲的兒子康納利斯、六歲的女兒貝尼塔留在漢堡，自己則不斷前往巴黎，有時住在澤西酒店，有時留宿在一個情婦那裏。他從此開始了一段撲朔迷離、富貴險中求的生存遊戲，他掩人耳目，以幫助猶太人逃亡或是拯救畫作為名，騙過了所有人：他的妻子、納粹、盟軍、猶太藝術家、畫商以及畫作的擁有人。他所用的各式高風險高回報的買賣手段，就像是阿蘭·德龍在1976年主演的電影《科林先生》中的巴黎富商。

希德布蘭還登門入室，在被迫棄置逃亡的猶太收藏家家中，將畫作用推車運走。其中一幅是馬蒂斯的傑作《端坐的女人》(1921年)。1940年保羅·羅森堡逃亡美國時將這幅畫保存在波爾多附近利柏恩的一間銀行保險庫裏。 保羅·羅森堡當年是大畫家畢加索、布萊克和馬蒂斯的朋友兼經紀人。希德布蘭還在巴黎的杜饒拍賣行的甩賣中撈到一些其它作品。

有了戈培爾開的綠燈，希德布蘭可說是一帆風順。他可能也是豁出去了，因為就像他後來所說的，要想活著就別無選擇，而隨著財物的逐漸積累，他又難以例外地走向貪途。也許更準確一點的說法是希德布蘭過著雙重生活：一麵滿足納粹，同時拯救他深愛的畫作和猶太同胞。或說是三重生活：因為他同時也飽了私囊。今人不難對這種在難以想像的毀滅和恐懼下的靈魂出賣進行譴責。

到了1943年，希德布蘭成為希特勒在未來林茲博物館展品的主要買家之一。其中符合元首品味的被運往德國，這其中除了畫作，還包括絹帛和家私。希德布蘭從每項交易中拿到5%的傭金。他手段冷酷身份神秘，在交易台上廣受歡迎，因為戈培爾給他大筆款項任其調用。

從1941年三月到1944年七月，運往德國的藝術品有29批之多，4174隻貨箱裝滿了137部貨車，藝術品總共達到21903件之多。總計起來，納粹單是從法國猶太人手中搶到的藝術品就有十萬件左右，整個二戰期間納粹的劫掠品總數達到六十五萬件，這是曆史上最大的藝術盜竊案。 

五、德式危機[A Very German Crisis]

《焦點》周刊爆出新聞的次日和兩周後，奧格斯堡的總檢察長，也是這次調查的負責人林哈德·奈米茲舉行了記者招待會，匆匆發表了措辭嚴謹的聲明。然而為時晚矣，外界反響激憤。德國總理安吉拉·默克爾的辦公室被抱怨聲充斥，但她拒絕對正在調查中的事件做出評價。德國瞬間陷入國際形象危機，似乎要吃大官司。德國政府怎麽可以如此麻木無情，封鎖消息長達一年半之久，而隻在被《焦點》曝光的情況下才被迫吐露實情? 更過份的是，二戰後七十年，德國仍然沒有有關歸還納粹掠奪品的法律？

當年大屠殺受害者的後裔很想領回劫畫，以彌補物質損失並給家人遭遇的不幸有一個交待。可問題是，猶太人對德征討失物聯會的研究部主管韋斯利•費舍爾說，“大部分人並不知道當年的收藏中到底那些東西不見了。”

化妝品巨子、億萬富翁羅納德•蘭黛、上述的韋斯利•費舍爾、總部設在倫敦的在歐劫掠品委員會的創辦人安•韋伯、代表科特•格萊瑟家族的紐約律師大衛•羅蘭德一致要求將沒收的整批藏畫立即予以公布。格萊瑟夫婦當年是魏瑪時期藝術品的重要支持者、收藏者，極富影響的行家，也是馬蒂斯和基什內爾的朋友。由於納粹法律規定猶太人不得任公職，1933年科特•格萊瑟被排擠出普魯士國家圖書館。他被迫散賣收藏品，先是流亡到瑞士，再到意大利，最後來到美國，於1943年死於紐約州的普萊西湖地區。蘭黛先生說，“猶太人的失畫是二戰時期的最後戰俘，要知道，每一幅失竊的畫作都牽連著最少一條猶太人的性命。”

11月11日，當局把在康納利斯家中發現的部分畫作放在了網站上（lostart.de），訪客量之大，一時令網站癱瘓。目前為止網站上已經登出了458幅作品，而其中從猶太人手中偷搶的作品數量也從原來估計的590幅調整到1280幅，完成追溯畫主的工作遙遙無期。

德國有關退還二戰劫掠品的法律非常複雜。事實上，1938年納粹準許沒收墮落派藝術品的法律並未廢除。德國是1998年“華盛頓大會條約”有關納粹劫掠藝術品條例的簽署國。該公約指出：博物館以及公立機構應該將洗劫藝術品交還原主或原主後裔。但是遵循這項條例是在自願的基礎上，所有簽署國裏幾乎沒有任何機構這樣做過。即使有約如此，這項條例卻並不包括目前在德國境內的墮落派藝術品，也不涉及像康納利斯這樣的個人。羅納德·蘭黛說，“德國的許多博物館裏存有大量的洗劫藝術品，隻不過大部分都不擺出來罷了。”他號召全世界的專家們組成一個協會，專門走訪德國的博物館和政府機構。今年二月，德國政府宣布即將成立一個獨立機構仔細審查各博物館的館藏。

至今為止，康納利斯都沒有被定罪，由此令人懷疑沒收其收藏品的合法性，因為起初的搜查令裏應該沒有這項指控。不僅如此，法律規定認領失物的訴訟時效年限為三十年，康納利斯擁有這批藏品已是四十餘載。這些藝術品目前還了了無期地存在倉庫裏，不計其數的人前來申領那些已在官方網站登出的畫作。官方是該將這些畫物歸原主，還是以不當沒收或訴訟時效已過的理由歸還給康納利斯，目前還是一個未知數。

“在謊言裏生活了這麽多年，他一定很不快樂，” 談到康納利斯，娜娜·迪克斯對我說。她是墮落派藝術家奧托·迪克斯的孫女，自己也是一名畫家，我們在她位於史瓦濱的畫室裏聊了三個小時，這裏離康納利斯的居所隻有半英裏。我們看著她祖父的複製畫，聊著他的不凡的一生，聊他如何身臨兩次世界大戰，淋漓盡致地描畫出前線的曆曆慘狀，他曾經被蓋世太保禁畫，甚至禁購顏料。迪克斯出身平凡（他父親在格拉的一家鑄鐵坊做工），是二十世紀偉大卻沒有得到充分認可的藝術家之一。隻有畢加索才是風格萬變的巨匠：表現派、立體派、達達派、印象派、抽象派、怪異超現實派，無一不通。然而就像希德布蘭·葛利描述到他手中收藏的奧托時所說，迪克斯作品中那“有力而灼痛的真實反映了人性的掙紮。”娜娜說目前迪克斯的200幅傑作仍然下落不明。


圖1: 馬蒂斯的傑作《端坐的女人》

圖2: 奧托·迪克西之自畫像

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.