Art, Science, Politics - Museums in NS-Germany. The State Collections for Art and Science in Dresden and their Scientific Staff

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This project will investigate the institutional organization, personnel structures, and research work of a long-standing museum association during the period of National Socialism. The findings of this project should provide substantial information for further research into the different contexts in which art was stolen by the Nazis. One of the project's aims is to make a substantial contribution to research into the circumstances surrounding the theft of art. The institution of the museum was and still is influenced by its directors and research staff who actively shape the museum's work, make decisions, and are involved in both political life and public administration. The professional biographies of these protagonists are the object of this project. Although the focus is very much on people, the project will not confine itself to the compilation of monographs, but will go further and examine the relations and interconnections between scholarship, museum work, and politics. This will incorporate aspects of research into contemporary history and art history, the history of the institution, of scholarship and science. One of the central ideas behind the research project is the question of continuity and breaks in both the work of the museum and biographies of the people involved. Can universal mechanisms be identified within the complex system of conformity, cooperation, submission, social advancement, distancing, non-compliance, the end of careers, displacement, and escape? What significance must be assigned to individuals and their conduct within the framework of the museum on the one hand and the cultural operations of the Nazi party on the other? Did they have the assistance of contacts within the political, military, or business elite? From this basis, the project will make it possible to clarify questions on the role of the cultural city of Dresden. Was Dresden a testing ground for the cultural policies of the National Socialists? Did the city serve as the pivotal hub of the Nazi's system for relocating artworks? It was, after all, the directors of the Gemäldegalerie, Hans Posse and Hermann Voss, who coordinated Hitler's Special Commission Linz, which aimed to set up a Führer Museum in the Austrian city. By answering these questions, the project will also make an important contribution to provenance research and research on the subject of looted art. Through the linking of provenance research, the history of the institution and its scholarship, and the systematic research of biographies, the project will take a broad methodical and interdisciplinary approach. It builds on the intensive research that has been conducted by the SKD for many years into the history of the institution and the provenance of its artworks.