Federal government restitutes Nazi-looted art

The Federal Arts Administration has returned Waldmüller’s Hansl’s erste Ausfahrt (Heimkehrende Kinder) [Hansl’s first outing (Children returning home)] to the heirs of Grete Klein, an Austrian businesswoman. The painting was confiscated from her as a result of Nazi persecution, probably in connection with the annexation of Austria between March and December 1938 (the so-called Anschluss). The oil painting is thought to have belonged to the Klein collection from around 1918 onwards.

Grete Klein (née Fischer, 1884–1962) lived in Mödling and Vienna. She and her husband Karl Klein (1879–1955) were among those persecuted by the Nazi regime after the Anschluss in March 1938, undoubtedly owing to their Jewish background. On 5 January 1939 the Nazi state closed Grete Klein’s baby-shoe factory in Vienna and sold it to a non-Jewish employee. The couple were forced by law to sell their jewellery and silver below value to a public purchasing office in February 1939. In December that year they fled to Palestine. Their remaining assets in Austria, including their villa in Mödling, were seized by the National Socialists. According to family accounts, some 35 additional paintings were in the confiscated villa, among them works by Friedrich Gauermann and other artists, as well as a large collection of Bohemian cut glass and pewter plates with Judaica motifs. All these items are still missing today.

Provenance research conducted by Gregor Derntl with the collaboration of Dr. Jakob Eisler and the Federal Arts Administration established that Waldmüller’s Hansl’s erste Ausfahrt was among those items seized from Grete Klein as a result of Nazi persecution. The painting entered Adolf Hitler’s Sonderauftrag Linz collection no later than December 1938 through art dealer Maria Almas-Dietrich, who profited greatly from Nazi antisemitic persecution policies. She was particularly active in Austria after the Anschluss. Although it was not possible to reconstruct the precise circumstances of the painting’s loss in full, the evidence points to confiscation as a result of persecution between March and December 1938.

Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller (1793–1865) was an Austrian genre and landscape painter. More than 60 of his works were acquired for Sonderauftrag Linz, an organisation tasked by Hitler with collecting works of art during the Second World War.

After the war, American armed forces secured the painting in the Altaussee salt mine, transferring it to the Munich Central Collecting Point on 27 July 1945, where it was inventoried under number 1740. Based on Article 134 of the Basic Law, the painting became part of the federal art collection in 1960 as former Reich property. Most recently, the painting was on loan to Museum Wiesbaden, where on 10 July 2025 it was formally handed over in person by the Federal Arts Administration to the heirs of Grete Klein.

For the detailed results of the provenance research on the Waldmüller painting, see the federal provenance database at www.provenienzdatenbank.bund.de.