Expert Opinion - Nazi Looted Art

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Interim summary of 1937 findings: Carl Hagemann, the Frankfurt art collector, used
the opportunity to acquire the “Berlin Street Scene” painting by Kirchner at the KKV.
The price is not known to date, nor is it known what happened to the funds used to
purchase the painting.
Thekla Hess had decided to have most of the collection in Switzerland sent back to
Germany. By having the free passes voided, she wanted to erase all traces of the
pictures left behind in Zurich. By doing so she evaded the accusation of having
violated German foreign exchange laws.
VI.
Situation in 1938 and Thereafter.
Thekla Hess spent the first half of 1938 in Germany and abroad. Her life and that of
her son was extremely tenuous. There is evidence that at least one watercolor by
Kokoschka was sold in Switzerland to Fritz Nathan, an art dealer who had emigrated
from Germany to St. Gallen, Switzerland.
Evidence: Correspondence Thekla Hess – Kunsthaus Zurich dated August 24,
26 and 31, 1938
When on November 10/11, 1938 the so-called "Reichskristallnacht" (night of the
broken glass) elevated the persecution of Jews to a new level and endangered their
lives, and after Thekla's brother Stefan Pauson was incarcerated in the Dachau
concentration camp, Thekla Hess prepared her emigration to her son in London. She
succeeded in early April 1939, taking a few pieces of art with her into exile.
On April 4, 1939, Thekla Hess, from the safety she found in exile outside Germany,
informed Director Wartmann in Zurich about her emigration. She thanked him for the
“friendliness that you have accorded me during the difficult times that weighed so
heavily on me. It is very comforting for me to have these beautiful things outside [of
Germany] because I was not able to rescue anything out of Germany – it is all I own
and I have to live from it.” Thekla asked Wartmann if he knew someone “who would
be interested in one or the other watercolor in order to realize at least a few Swiss
Francs.”
Evidence: Letter from Thekla Hess dated April 4, 1939 to Director Wartmann of
the Kunsthaus Zurich.
As she had written in 1939, Thekla Hess was not able to rescue anything from
Germany – neither the artworks left in Lichtenfels nor those deposited with the art
dealer Thannhauser or the KKV.
In the meantime the “Cologne list” of pictures from the Hess collection made the
rounds among German collectors of modern art. Budczies looked at it “with interest”.
Gosebruch, also looked at it and wrote to Hagemann: “I thought immediately of the
Hess collection in Erfurt where your wonderful Street Scene by Kirchner came from. I
called Heckel since a number of his paintings and watercolors are on the list. He
indicated immediately that they had to be the remains of the Hess collection.
Recently I learned from Schmitt-Rottluff that Mrs. Hess was intent on emigrating.”