Nazi-looted cultural property

Moses Mendelssohn Akademie Halberstadt investigates the Ernst Wolff book collection

At Moses Mendelssohn Akademie Halberstadt, a team under the academic direction of Nora M. Kißling has been working on a research project devoted to the Ernst Wolff book collection since December 2022.

6. April 2023

Contact

Do you have any questions?

Do feel free to get in touch with us directly – whether at the Foundation’s headquarters in Magdeburg or at our branch office in Berlin.
See here for answers to frequently asked questions (FAQ)

German Lost Art Foundation

Humboldtstr. 12
39112 Magdeburg

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

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

The project is funded by the German Lost Art Foundation and the Moses Mendelssohn Foundation. The aim is to systematically record and review the collection of more than 3,000 volumes.

The collection came into the possession of the film entrepreneur Ernst Wolff (1903-1963) – who survived the Shoa in a hiding place in Berlin – during the work on the reopening of the synagogue on Fränkelufer in Berlin-Kreuzberg in 1945. Part of the synagogue building had been misused from 1942 onwards by the art and antiques dealer Rudolf Sobczyk as a warehouse for housing furnishings belonging to deported Berlin Jews and others. After Ernst Wolff’s death, his heir Manfred Wolff took possession of the book collection, which was stored in Wehrmacht ammunition boxes, and handed it over to Moses Mendelssohn Akademie Halberstadt in 2018 for scholarly analysis. The holdings will first be inventoried in the library and archives; provenance features will be digitally secured in the databases Looted Cultural Assets and Lost Art. In addition, the study focuses on contextual research into the history of the collection relating to Ernst Wolff’s own biography, along with biographical-genealogical research into the former owners.

To the project

To Moses-Mendelssohn-Akademie