page_title: Führermuseum
section_title: Post-war
hierarchical_section_title: Führermuseum / Post-war
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Museum für Abgüsse klassischer Bildwerke (Gebäudefassade)
context_page_description: The Führermuseum, also referred to as the Linz art gallery, was an unrealized art museum within a cultural complex planned by Adolf Hitler for his hometown, the Austrian city of Linz, near his birthplace of Braunau. Its purpose was to display a selection of the art bought, confiscated or stolen by the Nazis from throughout Europe during World War II. The cultural district was to be part of an overall plan to recreate Linz, turning it into a cultural capital of Nazi Germany and one of the greatest art centers of Europe, overshadowing Vienna, for which Hitler had a personal distaste. He wanted to make the city more beautiful than Budapest, so it would be the most beautiful on the Danube River, as well as an industrial powerhouse and a hub of trade; the museum was planned to be one of the greatest in Europe.
  The expected completion date for the project was 1950, but neither the Führermuseum nor the cultural center it was to anchor were ever built. The only part of the elaborate plan which was constructed was the Nibelungen Bridge, which is still extant.
context_section_description: After the war, the American Art Looting Investigation Unit (ALIU) of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) made thirteen detailed reports on the Linz museum and the Nazi plundering of art. These reports were synthesised into four consolidated reports; the fourth of these was written by S. Lane Faison covering the Führermuseum. These reports focused on returning art to rightful owners.  The authority for this was the 1943 Declaration of London, which invalidated all German art purchases in the occupied territories.
  Most of the paintings and other artworks were brought to the "Central Collecting Point" in Munich, a former Nazi Party administrative building, where they were registered and rephotographed if necessary. Restitutions occurred as early as autumn 1945.  The work was turned over to German authorities in September 1949. In 1962, the responsible agency was disbanded, and the remaining unreturnable artworks were assessed for their value as museum items. These were loaned to various museums, while other pieces are on loan to government agencies.
  Jacques Jaujard, the French Director of National Museums, was hailed as a national hero following the war for his part in saving the French national art collection.  He was made a Commander of the Legion of Honor and given the Medal of Resistance.  Rose Valland, who surreptitiously collected information on the looted artwork that passed through the Jeu de Paume museum, became a fine arts officer with the French First Army and assisted the MFAA in the collection of looted artwork. She was inducted into the French Legion of Honor and also received the Medal of Resistance, was awarded the Medal of Freedom from the U.S. and the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit from West Germany.  In 1953, she finally received the coveted title of "curator". Count Franz von Wolff-Metternich, the "good German" arts officer who helped to protect the French national art collection from Nazi predation worked with the Allies after the war, return artworks to their rightful owners, then joined the West German Foreign Office, where he tracked looted art.
  Unfortunately, the men of the Altaussee salt mine who were responsible for saving the artwork stored there by preventing the mine from being blown up did not fare well in the postwar period.  All members of the Nazi Party, as were most professionals at that time in order to be allowed to work, they were all affected to one degree or another by the post-war denazification efforts.  None of them received during their lifetimes the credit that was due to them for their acts in saving a significant portion of the art which had been looted by the Nazis from the Occupied Territories.
  In Eastern Europe, Soviet premier Joseph Stalin tasked Mikhail Khrapchenko with taking many of the Führermuseum artworks to stock Soviet art galleries. Khrapchenko said "it would now be possible to turn Moscow's Pushkin Museum into one of the world’s great museums, like the British Museum, the Louvre, or the Hermitage." Stockpiled artwork was recovered by the Soviet "Trophy Brigades" from the two enormous flaktowers which had been built in Berlin to shelter people and supplies; many of the paintings in the Friedrichshain Flaktower were destroyed by fires.
caption: The first building of the "Central Collecting Point" in Munich, which later became the Museum of Casts of Classical Statues; it had been an administrative building for the Nazi Party. Later, other buildings in the complex were used when this building was full.[114]
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