The German Lost Art Foundation mourns the death of Norbert Zimmermann (1946-2021)

From 2008 un­til his re­tire­ment in 2011, Mr. Zim­mer­mann was the first chair­per­son of the Ad­vi­so­ry Board at the for­mer Magde­burg Co­or­di­na­tion Of­fice, which was found­ed in 2008 and merged with the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion in 2015. The Ad­vi­so­ry Board sup­port­ed the work of the Co­or­di­na­tion Of­fice and was chaired by Mr. Zim­mer­mann with great au­thor­i­ty. The Ad­vi­so­ry Board mem­bers and the staff of the Co­or­di­na­tion Of­fice were high­ly im­pressed with Mr. Zim­mer­mann’s out­stand­ing pro­fes­sion­al ex­per­tise, es­pe­cial­ly on the sub­ject of cul­tur­al prop­er­ty ex­pro­pri­at­ed as a re­sult of Nazi per­se­cu­tion. As chair­per­son, Mr. Zim­mer­mann not on­ly sup­port­ed many Co­or­di­na­tion Of­fice ini­tia­tives, in many cas­es he in­sti­gat­ed them him­self. It was dur­ing his time as chair­per­son that not on­ly the ap­praisal of the Co­or­di­na­tion Of­fice took place in 2008/2009 and its con­tin­u­a­tion from 2010 on­wards, but al­so the in­ter­na­tion­al con­fer­ence Ve­r­ant­wor­tung wahrnehmen (“Tak­ing Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty”) or­ga­nized in Berlin by the Co­or­di­na­tion Of­fice to­geth­er with the Prus­sian Cul­tur­al Her­itage Foun­da­tion in De­cem­ber 2008 to mark the 10th an­niver­sary of the Wash­ing­ton Prin­ci­ples. It is thanks to Mr. Zim­mer­mann that the Co­or­di­na­tion Of­fice went on to de­vel­op in­to a com­pe­tent in­sti­tu­tion dur­ing the pe­ri­od in which he chaired the Ad­vi­so­ry Board.
From 2008 to 2011, the Bu­reau for Prove­nance Re­search based at the In­sti­tute for Mu­se­um Re­search of the Na­tion­al Mu­se­ums in Berlin fell un­der his di­rect re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, and Nor­bert Zim­mer­mann ac­tive­ly and en­thu­si­as­ti­cal­ly con­tribut­ed his ex­pe­ri­ence and ex­per­tise as a mem­ber of the Ad­vi­so­ry Board of the Bu­reau.

The Ex­ec­u­tive Board of the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion and the staff mem­bers who came to know and ap­pre­ci­ate Nor­bert Zim­mer­mann in the course of work­ing with him will al­ways re­mem­ber his clar­i­ty and com­po­sure in analysing prob­lems and is­sues and in ar­riv­ing at de­ci­sions. With his ca­pac­i­ty to re­solve com­plex sit­u­a­tions and con­flict­ing po­si­tions by means of a sub­tle, am­i­ca­ble irony, he was able to pro­vide per­son­al sup­port for his col­lab­o­ra­tors and of­fer con­crete per­spec­tives. In do­ing so, he drew on a seem­ing­ly in­fi­nite reser­voir of anec­dotes re­lat­ing to the many events and en­coun­ters he had ex­pe­ri­enced in the course of his long ca­reer and the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties he had been en­trust­ed with.   

The Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion will com­mem­o­rate Nor­bert Zim­mer­mann by pay­ing trib­ute to his last­ing con­tri­bu­tion to a pro­found shift in fun­da­men­tal eth­i­cal at­ti­tudes to­wards the han­dling of cul­tur­al prop­er­ty and col­lec­tions that end­ed up in mu­se­ums, li­braries and archives as a re­sult of in­jus­tice, per­se­cu­tion and war in the 20th cen­tu­ry. His achieve­ments go be­yond the Prus­sian Cul­tur­al Her­itage Foun­da­tion and have a bear­ing on re­spon­si­bil­i­ties for cul­tur­al pol­i­cy through­out the en­tire Fed­er­al Re­pub­lic of Ger­many.