Landesamt für Denkmalpflege Sachsen

Soviet Occupation Zone & GDR: Basics and Overview

In what ways was the expropriation of cultural property carried out after 1945 in the Soviet Occupation Zone and in the GDR? See here for historical background and information on basic research and literature recommendations.

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German Lost Art Foundation

Humboldtstr. 12
39112 Magdeburg

Germany
Phone:  +49 (0) 391 727 763 0
E-mail:  kontakt@kulturgutverluste.de
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German Lost Art Foundation Berlin Branch Office

Seydelstr. 18
10117 Berlin

Berlin
Phone: +49 (0) 391 727 763 0
E-mail: kontakt@kulturgutverluste.de

The Help Desk offers advice and assistance to victims of the Nazi regime and their descendants on questions relating to Nazi theft of cultural property. Serving as a central and initial low-threshold point of contact in Germany, it is aimed in particular at people whose place of residence is outside Germany and who are unfamiliar with German procedures, especially in connection with cultural federalism. The Help Desk seeks to provide support in taking initial steps as well as providing further contacts and information. We will also be happy to help initiate discussions with museums and other institutions.

German Lost Art Foundation, Branch Office
Dr. Susanne Meyer-Abich
Head of Help Desk

Seydelstr. 18
10117 Berlin

Germany
Phone: +49 (0) 391 727 763 0
E-mail: helpdesk@kulturgutverluste.de

Historical Background

The aim of the political, economic and social transformations that began in the Soviet Occupation Zone on 8 May 1945 and were continued by the GDR state from 7 October 1949 was to follow the model of the Soviet Union (USSR). This objective was not arrived at through the free will of the population as expressed in democratic elections but was established under the protection of the occupying power in that key positions were filled with communist cadres and opposition efforts were deliberately weakened.

After the merger of the KPD and the SPD in 1946, the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) regarded itself as the sole bearer of social progress. Its self-image as the “party of the German working class” gave rise to its all-embracing claim to leadership at all levels in the “socialist workers’ and peasants’ state”. Throughout the period of its rule through to 1989 (the “dictatorship of the proletariat”), the consolidation of this claim always included the expropriation of private property without compensation in favour of the state (“Volkseigentum” – “people’s property”).

Expropriation was not only carried out based on relevant laws but also by bending and abusing the law and by other unfair means such as the involvement of the Ministry for State Security (MfS or “Stasi”). Private property expropriated from the socialist state served, among other things, to obtain urgently needed foreign currency in that it was sold to the “non-socialist economic area” (NSW).

It was characteristic of expropriations in the Soviet Occupation Zone that there was sweeping criminalisation of arbitrarily defined groups without establishing individual guilt (“land-owning aristocrats”, “war profiteers”). One typical feature of expropriations in the GDR was the criminalisation of individuals based on constructed or distorted accusations of guilt (“economic criminals”, “deserters from the republic”, “speculators”).

Unresolved property issues were excluded from the Basic Treaty drawn up between the two German states in 1972 and reserved for a later agreement. Retransfers of expropriated private property were regulated by federal law from 1990 onwards (under the Property Act – “Vermögensgesetz”, VermG) and from 1994 (under the Compensation Act – “Entschädigungs- und Ausgleichsleistungsgesetz”, EALG).

Key Events

1945

End of the war

8 May 1945: End of the Second World War in Europe – With the signing of the surrender document by the Dönitz government, the National Socialist dictatorship and the war it had unleashed came to an end with effect from 8 May 1945. On 5 June, the four victorious powers take over supreme governmental power in Germany (Allied Control Council). In the Soviet Occupation Zone, the three states of Thuringia, Saxony and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and the two Prussian provinces of Saxony (later Saxony-Anhalt) and Brandenburg were formed as administrative units in June 1945.

1945

Start of the land reform

3 September 1945 to 1 June 1948: Land reform in the Soviet Occupation Zone – On the instructions of the KPD and the Soviet occupying power, the state or provincial administrations expropriate landed property of over 100 hectares (including all “livestock and deadstock”) without compensation to the benefit of a state land fund. Assets belonging to “war criminals and Nazi activists” are expropriated regardless of their magnitude. The same fate befalls persons named on special lists by the Soviet occupying power. The resulting cultural property is taken into state possession and either salvaged, sold or handed over to subsequent users for their private use.

1949

Foundation of the GDR

7 October 1949: Foundation of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Its first and only president is Wilhelm Pieck (until 7 September 1960).

1953

Uprising of 17 June

17 June 1953: Workers’ or people’s uprising in all cities and industrial towns in the GDR, which is bloodily put down by the GDR security forces, the “Kasernierte Volkspolizei”, with the support of the Soviet army.

1958

Profiling of museums

1 April 1958: The beginning of the profiling of museums: inspired by the organisation of the state museum system in Poland, a process of hierarchical-centralist restructuring is carried out in the GDR, too, with the establishment of the first district museum in Potsdam. Ranking above district, local and town/city museums, regional museums are designated as lead museums responsible for providing the other museums with subject-specific and methodological support. This is the beginning of the so-called profiling of museum collections, involving the reorganisation, consolidation and disposal of historically established holdings (profile adjustment) and the blurring of original ownership status.

1961

Building of the Wall

13 August 1961: Start of the construction of the Berlin Wall

1962

„Aktion Licht“

3 January 1962 to 20 February 1962: “Aktion Licht” – In all GDR regions simultaneously, locked strong rooms, safe deposit boxes, safes, cellars and other secret installations are opened under the direction of the Stasi and their mostly private contents are expropriated. The first stage (6-7 January) targets GDR financial institutions. The second stage (11-16 January) includes the land and buildings of the Deutsche Post, Deutsche Reichsbahn, former department stores, large companies, villas, castles and museums. The third stage (end of January to 20 February) includes tunnels of former mines and other underground facilities. The looted items are valued by appraisers, recorded in lists and handed over to the Ministry of Finance for exploitation in connection with the state budget. Only in isolated cases are expropriated cultural objects transferred to institutions that hold collections.

1966

Foundation of KoKo

01 April 1966: Order 61/66 issued by the Chairman of the Council of Ministers Willi Stoph (confidential classified information) with the founding decision for the “Bereich Kommerzielle Koordinierung” (“Commercial Coordination Division” – BKK or “KoKo”) of the GDR as of 1 October 1966. The task of this secret unit is to generate foreign currency outside the state plan by legal and illegal means. In terms of personnel and structure, it is closely linked to the MfS. From its foundation until its dissolution in 1990 it is headed by MfS Colonel Alexander Shalck-Golodkovsky.

1973

Foundation of Kunst & Antiquitäten GmbH

18 January 1973: Order 4/73 issued by the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Willi Stoph, requiring art from the state museum holdings (with a total value of 55 million “Valuta marks”) to be screened out for sale – 5 million marks of this sum are earmarked for the purchase of works on the international market. “Kunst & Antiquitäten GmbH” (KuA/K&A) was founded on 20 February 1973, and on 10 December 1973 this foreign trade company was granted the sole right to export and import “antiques, fine and applied art, folk art and second-hand goods of a cultural nature”. Due to resistance on the part of renowned museums and the fact that this plan became known in the Federal Republic, the KuA relied on other sources from 1974 onwards such as newspaper advertisements, but also on the purchasing network of Pirna Antiques (a dealership that was nationalised with the help of the MfS) or by taking over private collections, which were expropriated from at least 221 collectors by means of engineered criminal tax proceedings in cooperation with the MfS and the tax authorities.

1989

Beginning of the Monday demonstrations

04 September 1989: First Monday Demonstration for democracy in Leipzig, free elections, freedom of travel and expression

1989

Destruction of files in the MfS

6 November 1989: Minister Erich Mielke issues the order for “file reduction”, i.e. the destruction of some of the files of the MfS and the outsourcing of others. For this reason, all extant documents of HA VII/13 (the department set up to combat speculative transactions and tasked with observing GDR collectors, art and antique dealers) have remained lost to date.

1989

Fall of the Wall

9 November 1989: Opening of the Berlin Wall

1989

Dissolution of the KuA

22 November 1989: Export ban imposed on Kunst und Antiquitäten GmbH (KuA/K&A) for antiques and cultural second-hand goods – on 30 January 1990, the company is dissolved by a decision of the Council of Ministers. In the spring of 1990, museums in the GDR purchased a large number of objects from the KuA’s liquidation assets.

October 2013 until October 2017: Coalition agreement between CDU, CSU and SPD of the 18th legislative period

„Die Restitution von Kunst- und Kulturgut, das von Behörden in der ehemaligen sowjetischen Besatzungszone / DDR den rechtmäßigen Eigentümern entzogen wurde, ist eine noch nicht abgeschlossene Aufgabe. Zur Klärung der Ansprüche früherer Eigentümer muss auch in diesen Fällen die Provenienzforschung verstärkt werden.“

citation from: Deutschlands Zukunft gestalten, p. 131

January 2015 until January 2016: Development of a funding basis for research into the expropriation of cultural assets in the Soviet occupation zone and the GDR

On 22 January 2015, the Foundation Board decided to commission the Executive Chairman, with the participation of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the federal states of Berlin, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia, to draft the first basic guidelines for a funding concept for research into cultural property expropriated or lost in connection with persecution and arbitrary measures in the Soviet occupation zone and in the GDR.

As a result of a brainstorming session hosted by the Foundation in Berlin on 28 October 2015, a working group was formed under the leadership of the Foundation to prepare these basic guidelines and to collate ideas for a conference on the subject of the expropriation of cultural property in the Soviet occupation zone and the GDR on 21 November 2016 in Berlin.

This showed that more than 25 years after the end of the GDR, there are fundamental desiderata with regard to systematic research into the historical processes, structures and methods, the authorities, institutions involved and actors involved, and in particular the victims or aggrieved parties of the state-operated expropriation of art and cultural property between 1945 and 1989.

There is a lack of both case studies and overviews on a number of topics, for example the aspect of “palace salvage”, i.e. the “emptying” of stately homes and castles in connection with the land reform in the Soviet occupation zone.

There are more extensive deficits in research into the history of the cultural, economic and social policy of the GDR, which ultimately led to the social exclusion and disdain for private collecting of art and cultural property on the one hand, while also resulting in the arbitrary and unlawful expropriation of collection items for export to non-socialist foreign countries and to the Federal Republic for the purpose of earning foreign currency. Studies are needed here that go beyond the existing publications on the practices of criminalising art dealers and collectors in the GDR and the sale of expropriated objects by the Bereich Kommerzielle Koordinierung (KoKo) and specifically the art-dealing company Kunst- und Antiquitäten GmbH (KuA).

Fundamental research is needed to retrace the organisational and procedural structures involved in the expropriation and exploitation of art and cultural property in the GDR, covering the central, regional and district level: which party or state leadership had which decision-making powers, which “state organ” carried out the expropriations, which state enterprise was entrusted with the sale and management of the proceeds, and what was the role of experts in the museum, library and university sectors?

Against this background, the first measures envisaged are as follows:

Basic research: As representative examples, investigations will be carried out into the 1962 operation Aktion Licht carried out by the GDR’s Ministry of State Security (opening of safes, securities accounts and safe deposit boxes in almost all banks in the GDR for which there were generally no identifiable owners) and the history of the safe deposit administration of the GDR’s Ministry of Finance, with particular reference to its role in the allocation of expropriated, confiscated cultural property or that which was deemed “ownerless”. Here, consideration is being given to a research project in cooperation with the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation and the Dresden State Art Collections together with a contemporary history research institute. The structures and mechanisms are to be examined in this context on an exemplary basis. Only when the latter are known will it be possible to put individual cases into context.
Research into the history of collections at public institutions with a focus on reviewing acquisitions and allocations between 1945 and 1989: pilot projects with selected museums and libraries to produce a representative study on the nature and extent of acquisitions and allocations during the period under review. The pilot projects are intended to shed light on whether the acquisitions and allocations between 1945 and 1989 are to be regarded as potentially or factually unlawful from today’s legal and moral-ethical point of view.
Archives: Continuation of cooperation between the Foundation, the Working Group “Cultural Property Losses – Soviet Occupation Zone/GDR” and the Federal Archives with regard to expert dialogue dedicated to indexing the file holdings of the Bereich Kommerzielle Koordinierung (KoKo) and especially those of Kunst– und Antiquitäten GmbH (KuA). The requirements and the experience of provenance research will be taken into account when creating inventories and other finding aids for these holdings in the Federal Archives (degree of in-depth indexing).

In cooperation with the Stasi Records Agency (BStU), indexing of the holdings in the BStU archive is being carried out based on the existing information on the expropriation of art and cultural property in connection with measures of political persecution in the GDR. The aim is to create finding aids here as well in order to establish the structural and organisational conditions required for provenance research to be pursued at museums, libraries and other public institutions.

Only when these prerequisites have been fulfilled and findings on the structural and procedural organisation of the state-organised unlawful expropriation of art and cultural property in the GDR are available does project funding for the investigation of holdings at public institutions appear to be sensible and promising.

since March 2025: Coalition agreement between CDU, CSU and SPD of the 21st legislative period

„Unser Bewusstsein für den Wert von Freiheit und Demokratie beruht auch auf unserer Erinnerungskultur. In ihrem Mittelpunkt steht die Auseinandersetzung mit der nationalsozialistischen Verbrechensherrschaft und der Singularität der Shoah. Zudem stärken wir die Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur, einschließlich des Kulturgutentzugs in Sowjetischer Besatzungszone (SBZ) und DDR.“

citation from: Verantwortung für Deutschland, p. 121

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Literature

Anne Bahlmann, Falco Hübner, Bernd Isphording & Stefanie Klüh (eds.): Betriebe des Bereichs Kommerzielle Koordinierung. Teilbestand Kunst und Antiquitäten GmbH (1974-2002), Bestand DL 210. [Findbucheinleitung] Bundesarchiv: Berlin 2017. (= series: Findbücher zu den Beständen des Bundesarchivs) – Online unter https://www.bundesarchiv.de/DE/Content/Downloads/Meldungen/20180601-kua-findbucheinleitung.pdf (letzter Zugriff 27.03.2023)
Anne Bahlmann, Falco Hübner, Bernd Isphording & Stefanie Klüh (eds.): Staatlicher Kunsthandel der DDR “VEH Bildende Kunst und Antiquitäten” (1974-2002), Bestand DR 144. [Findbucheinleitung] Bundesarchiv: Berlin 2017. (= Reihe: Findbücher zu den Beständen des Bundesarchivs) – Online at https://www.bundesarchiv.de/DE/Content/Downloads/Meldungen/20180601-skh-findbucheinleitung.pdf (last accessed 27.03.2023)
Klaus Behling: Auf den Spuren der Alten Meister. Kunsthandel und Kunstraub in der DDR. Berlin 2018
Ulf Bischof: Die Kunst und Antiquitäten GmbH im Bereich Kommerzielle Koordinierung. Berlin 2003. (= series: Schriften zum Kulturgüterschutz, Cultural Property Studies. Edited by Wilfried Fiedler, Erik Jayme & Kurt Siehr)
Dirk Blübaum, Bernhard Maaz & Katja Schneider (eds.): Museumsgut und Eigentumsfragen. Die Nachkriegszeit und ihre heutige Relevanz in der Rechtspraxis der Museen in den neuen Bundesländern. Halle (Saale) [2012]
Ralf Blum, Helge Heidemeyer & Arno Polzin (eds.): Auf der Suche nach Kulturgutverlusten. Ein Spezialinventar zu den Stasi-Unterlagen. (2nd, expanded edition) BStU: Berlin 2021. – Online at https://www.stasi-unterlagen-archiv.de/assets/bstu/de/Publikationen/EV_Kulturgutverluste_Auflage_02_barrierefrei.pdf (last accessed 27.03.2023)
Günter Blutke: Obskure Geschäfte mit Kunst und Antiquitäten. Ein Kriminalreport. (2nd, modified edition) Berlin 1994
Konrad Breitenborn, Rüdiger Fikentscher & Boje Schmuhl (eds.): Die Bodenreform in Sachsen-Anhalt. Durchführung, Zeitzeugen, Folgen. Hall a.S. 1999
Mathias Deinert, Uwe Hartmann & Gilbert Lupfer (eds.): Enteignet, entzogen, verkauft. Zur Aufarbeitung der Kulturgutverluste in SBZ und DDR. Berlin 2022. (= volume 3 of the series Provenire, edited by the German Lost Art Foundation, Magdeburg)
Deutscher Bundestag, Wissenschaftliche Dienste: Restitution von Kunst- und Kulturgut, das von Behörden der ehemaligen sowjetischen Besatzungszone / DDR entzogen wurde. Historischer Hintergrund und Überblick der gegenwärtigen Problemlagen. Berlin 2015. – Online at https://www.bundestag.de/resource/blob/410162/.../wd-10-010-15-pdf-data.pdf (last accessed 27.03.2023)
Thomas Finkenauer & Jan Thiessen: Kunstraub für den Sozialismus. Zur rechtlichen Beurteilung von Kulturgutentziehungen in SBZ und DDR. Berlin 2023. (In the series Provenire, edited by the German Lost Art Foundation, Magdeburg)
German Lost Art Foundation (ed.): Provenance & Research, issue 01/2019. Dresden 2019.
Weddig Fricke & Klaus Märker: Enteignetes Vermögen in der Ex-DDR. (2nd, substantially revised edition) Munich 2002.
Gilbert Lupfer, Uwe Hartmann & Mathias Deinert: Operation Ausverkauf, in: Daniel Deckers (ed.): Facetten der Gegenwart. 52 F.A.Z.-Essays aus dem Epochenjahr 2022. Paderborn 2023, pp. 202-210.
Gilbert Lupfer & Thomas Rudert: Die “Schlossbergung” in Sachsen als Teil der Bodenreform 1945/46 und die Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden in Dresdener Kunstblätter. Vierteljahresschrift der Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden, 02-2012, p.114-122.
Katja Margarethe Mieth (ed.): Stichwort Provenienz. Museums- und Sammlungspolitik in der DDR. Chemnitz 2011.
Christopher Nehring: Millionär in der DDR. Die deutsch-deutsche Geschichte des Kunstmillionärs Siegfried Kath. Marburg 2018.
Hartmut Pätzke: Der Staatliche Kunsthandel in der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik in: Kritische Berichte. Zeitschrift für Kunst- und Kulturwissenschaft (3/1993), S. 65–73. – Online at https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/kb/article/download/11180/5031/17578 (last accessed 27.03.2023)
Alexander Sachse: Schlossbergung, Republikflucht, Kommerzielle Koordinierung. Kritische Provenienzen aus der Zeit der SBZ und DDR in: Museumsblätter. Mitteilungen des Museumsverbandes Brandenburg, issue 35 (December 2019), pp. 18-37. – Online at https://www.museen-brandenburg.de/fileadmin/Museumsblaetter/MB_35_web2.pdf (last accessed 27.03.2023)
Jan Scheunemann: Kunst- und Kulturgutenteignungen im Zuge der Bodenreform. Das Beispiel Sachsen-Anhalt in: Museumsblätter. Mitteilungen des Museumsverbandes Brandenburg, issue 35 (December 2019), pp. 38-43. – Online at https://www.museen-brandenburg.de/fileadmin/Museumsblaetter/MB_35_web2.pdf (last accessed 27.03.2023)
Heike Schroll: Ost-West-Aktionen im Berlin der 1950er Jahre. Potentiale und Grenzen behördlicher Überlieferungen zum Kunsthandel in der Viersektorenstadt und in der jungen Hauptstadt der DDR. Berlin 2018. (= vol. 20 of the series published by Landesarchiv Berlin. Ed. by Uwe Schaper)
Bruno J. Sobotka (ed.): Wiedergutmachungsverbot? Die Enteignungen in der ehemaligen SBZ zwischen 1945 und 1949. Mainz 1998.

For more literature on the topic, see our research database Proveana.

Research Options

Find further research options in our research database Proveana.

Contact persons in the Department for Cultural Property Losses in Europe in the 20th Century

Dr. Uwe Hartmann
Head
Tel: +49 (0) 391 727 763 14
E-Mail: uwe.hartmann@kulturgutverluste.de

Mathias Deinert
Research Advisor – Confiscation of Cultural Assets in the Soviet Occupation Zone/GDR
Tel: +49 (0) 391 727 763 32
E-mail: mathias.deinert@kulturgutverluste.de

Sabine Kramer
Project Management and Documentation – Soviet Occupation Zone/GDR
Tel: +49 (0) 391 727 763 43
E-mail: sabine.kramer@kulturgutverluste.de

Further Content

Museum Association of the State of Brandenburg, photo: Lorenz Kienzle

Funding

More information on the funding of basic research in the area “Soviet Occupation Zone and GDR”

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German Lost Art Foundation

Materials

Publications, events and exhibitions relating to the expropriation of cultural assets in the area “Soviet Occupation Zone and GDR”

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Charlen Christoph

Retransfers

The approach to retransfers of cultural property expropriated in the Soviet Occupation Zone and the GDR

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