Historical Background

Nazi Germany undertook the greatest art conspiracy in history from 1933 to 1945. As part of a top secret plan to build the world’s ultimate museum, Hitler and his minions looted at least a million art objects, mostly from their Jewish victims. The widespread and organized confiscations were conducted so efficiently that it was not until the end of the war that the Allies had any idea of the real scope of the looting. In 1945, the then Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Francis H. Taylor, reported that the Nazis had stolen European art treasures worth a total of $2 billion to $2.5 billion, between $24 billion and $30 billion today. The sum was more than the total value of all the artwork in the United States at the time.

After the war came to an end, Allied troops uncovered stashes of Nazi looted art, hidden high in mountain castles and deep underground in salt mines. A small section of the U.S. Army known as the Monuments Men was assigned the hugely overwhelming task of recovering and returning as many of the looted art objects as possible. Recruited from America’s top museums, galleries, universities and studios, the Monuments Men achieved incredible success against nearly impossible odds, with the help of representatives from nations across Europe. Of the 600,000 paintings estimated to have been looted by the Nazis, approximately 500,000 were located and returned to owners or heirs. Most of the restitutions were accomplished within five years of the end of the war.

But today, nearly sixty-five years later, many looted art objects remain missing, and have yet to be returned to a proper owner. An estimated 100,000 paintings alone have never been restituted. Restitution efforts, however, are still continuing. Museums scour their collections for objects with suspicious ownerships. Heirs carry on the search for an art object that belonged to a lost relative. Each year, looted drawings, prints, sculptures and paintings are still being identified and returned to a proper owner. Many more, however, are still waiting to be found.