Germany has returned the painting “Hansl’s First Exit (Home Returning Children)” by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller to the heirs of Grete Klein. It was confiscated from the Austrian entrepreneur due to Nazi persecution, presumably of the so-called "Anschluss" of Austria between March and December 1938.
Minister of State for Culture Wolfram Weimer: "Every return is an important sign of living up to Germany's historical responsibility for the atrocities of the Nazi era. With this return, the state recognizes the fate of Grete Klein, who had to flee Germany from the Nazis and was dispossessed. We are committed to the implementation of the Washington principles.”
Dr. Christoph Faden, director of the federal art administration: “The reappraisal of Nazi cultural heritage is an important part of the memory of the persecuted people of the Nazi tyranny, which also included Grete Klein. I am very pleased that we were able to hand this work personally to the heirs to Grete Klein. This restitution also underlines the central role of provenance research in dealing with the past. My special thanks go to the provenance researchers.”
The heirs to Grete Klein: “The descendants of the Klein from Mödling family, who were scattered on all five continents, are happy that the day has come when a painting from the art collection of her grandparents is returned. In our opinion, this moment represents a significant step in the processing of Nazi-acquisition losses.”
Grete Klein (b. Fischer, 1884–1962) lived in Mödling and Vienna. Undoubtedly, she and her husband Karl Klein (1879–1955) were one of the persecuted of the Nazi regime because of their Jewish origins after the so-called "annexation" of Austria in March 1938.
The Nazis closed Grete Klein's shoe factory in Vienna on January 1, 1939 and sold it to a non-Jewish employee of the company. The Klein couple had to sell jewellery and silver in February 1939. In December 1939, Grete and Karl Klein fled to Palestine; their remaining assets in Austria, including their villa were passed to the German Reich. There were about 35 other paintings in the confiscated villa, including works by Friedrich Gauermann and other artists. An extensive collection of polished glasses from Bohemia and tin plates with “Judaica” motifs also included the inventory of the Mödlinger Villa. To this day, all works of art are considered lost.
Provenance research by Gregor Derntl with the cooperation of Dr. Jakob Eisler and the federal art administration revealed that the painting "Hansl's First Exit" was also deprived of Nazi persecution. The art dealer Maria Almas-Dietrich, through whom the painting arrived at Adolf Hitler's “Special Mission Linz” in December 1938 (the latest), benefited considerably from the anti-Semitic persecution policy of the Nazi state in her acquisitions after the so-called “annexation” of Austria. Although it was not possible to trace when exactly the sale happened.
Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller (1793–1865) was an Austrian genre and landscape painter. More than 60 paintings by Waldmüller were acquired for the “Special Order Linz”.
After the war, the painting was inventorised under the number 1740. Based on Article 134 of the Basic Law, the painting came into the art holdings of the federal government in 1960 as a former Reich assets. Most recently, it was on loan to the Museum Wiesbaden, where it was personally handed over to the heirs of Grete Klein by the federal art administration.
Main Image: Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller "Hansl's erste Ausfahrt (Heimkehrende Kinder)", 1858
