Nazi-looted cultural property

Museum Foundation Post and Telecommunications hands over book to Jewish Museum Frankfurt

As part of a project funded by the German Lost Art Foundation, the Museum Foundation Post and Telecommunication has discovered a book formerly owned by Frankfurt judicial councilor Dr Ludwig Heilbrunn. After its history has been processed, the book was handed over to the Jewish Museum Frankfurt, which has an extensive collection on the Heilbrunn family.

On Tues­day, April 20, at 7 p.m., the of­fi­cial han­dover event with a talk will now take place.
Since 2015, the Mu­se­um Foun­da­tion Post and Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion has been con­duct­ing prove­nance re­search in its col­lec­tion hold­ings. From 2018 to 2020, prove­nance re­searcher Pe­ter Hirschmiller ex­am­ined the col­lec­tion for cul­tur­al prop­er­ty seized as a re­sult of Nazi per­se­cu­tion. In the pro­cess, he came across the "Hand­lungs-Ad­dreß-Kalen­der von Frank­furt (Main) auf das Jahr 1807." This in­cludes not on­ly the ad­dress­es of the var­i­ous Frank­furt trad­ing com­pa­nies, but al­so in­for­ma­tion about mar­ket times and Jew­ish hol­i­days, postal and couri­er routes or postage prices. An elab­o­rate book­plate on the in­side cov­er iden­ti­fied the book as be­long­ing to the Jew­ish Frank­furt ju­di­cial coun­cilor Dr Lud­wig Heil­brunn. Heil­brunn was al­so a politi­cian, au­thor, and pa­tron of the arts, and played an im­por­tant role in Frank­furt's so­cial life.

Af­ter the Novem­ber pogrom in 1938, he had man­aged to es­cape to Great Britain at the age of al­most 70, where he lived iso­lat­ed and im­pov­er­ished. The fam­i­ly's re­al es­tate was forcibly sold in 1938/39, and parts of Lud­wig Heil­brunn's valu­able pri­vate li­brary were al­so lost. "I my­self live as a beg­gar in Lon­don," Heil­brunn wrote to his son Rudolf in 1945. He re­turned to Ger­many in 1949, but did not move back to Frank­furt un­til the end of his life in 1951.

Dur­ing ef­forts to resti­tute the cal­en­dar and search for pos­si­ble heirs, it turned out that both of Heil­brunn's sons, Rudolf and Robert, had em­i­grat­ed in 1939. While Robert es­caped to the USA and re­mained there, Rudolf re­turned to the Fed­er­al Re­pub­lic of Ger­many in the 1960s and lived in Kaiser­slautern un­til his death in 1998. He re­mained child­less and be­queathed his fam­i­ly archive and parts of his li­brary to the Jew­ish Mu­se­um Frank­furt. In March 2021, the cal­en­dar was there­fore al­so giv­en to the Jew­ish Mu­se­um Frank­furt.

On the oc­ca­sion of Rudolf M. Heil­brunn's 120th birth­day, "An Evening for Rudolf Heil­brunn" will be held at the Jew­ish Mu­se­um on Tues­day, April 20, 7 pm. The pub­lic con­ver­sa­tion with prove­nance re­searcher Pe­ter Hirschmiller, the Jew­ish Mu­se­um's Cus­to­di­an of Con­tem­po­rary His­to­ry Heike Drum­mer and Dr Corin­na En­gel, Head of Pub­lic Re­la­tions at the Mu­se­um of Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Frank­furt, will be livestreamed:
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eM­drq­je89lk