America and the Return of Nazi Contraband: The Recovery of Europe's Cultural Treasures

Description

The Nazi war on European culture produced the greatest dislocation of art, archives, and libraries in the history of the world. In the ruins of the Reich, Allied occupiers found millions of paintings, books, manuscripts, and pieces of sculpture, from the mediocre to the priceless, hidden in thousands of secret hideaways. This 2006 book tells the story of how the American military government in Germany, spearheaded by a few dozen dedicated Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives officers and enlisted men, coped with restoring Europe's cultural heritage. Caught up in often bitter diplomatic wrangling during and after the war, the American restitution effort struggled to uncover what the Nazis had hidden and to equitably return all that was found. Based on the pioneering study of cultural restitution first published in 1985, America and the Return of Nazi Contraband presents insights into how the American government and Jewish organizations managed the painfully difficult problem of heirless Jewish cultural property.

Michael J. Kurtz currently serves as the Assistant Archivist for Records Services in Washington, DC, with responsibility for all records management, archival, and public outreach program functions performed by the National Archives and Records Administration in the nation's capital. He is also an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland's College of Information Studies, teaching a course on the management of cultural institutions. Dr Kurtz has published extensively in the areas of archival management and American history including: Managing Archival and Manuscript Repositories (2004) and Nazi Contraband: American Policy on the Return of European Cultural Treasures, 1945-1955 (1985). He served as chair of the Archives Management Roundtable of the Society of American Archivists, from 1987-2001.

"Kurtz's discussion of cultural restitution during the last half-century underscores how war ravages and destroys humans as well as their artistic creations." -Choice "Although other books on Nazi looting have been published in the last decade, none has the breadth of Kurtz's work." -Marilyn Henry, the author of Confronting the Perpetrators: The Jewish Claims Conference, CONGRESS MONTHLY "While other current publications deal with the restitution of looted art objects, none do so from the vantage point of the American military government, and it is this more than anything else that makes Kurtz's volume such a contribution to the field." -Dana Herman, The American Jewish Archives Journal