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Hitler’s art collection made public online

The German Historical Museum has made every piece of information on Adolf Hitler's art collection available online as of Thursday.

Published: 31 July 2008 12:32 CEST

Hitler's art collection made public online

Photo: A screenshot of the German Historical Museum's website.

The Linzer Sammlung, or Linz Collection, includes works stolen by the Nazis between 1939 and 1945 in Germany and German-occupied countries.

Hitler collected art systematically, “like beetles” gathered by an insect specialist, Berlin historian Christian Löhr, who helped build the data bank, told news agency DDP.

The former postcard painter turned Nazi dictator had envisioned building a museum for the massive collection of works after the war in his childhood home of Linz, Austria.

His private collection was to be displayed on the first floor of the unrealized museum, and the archive includes documents on floor plans for their exhibition. The data bank comprising 4731 artworks was a joint project between the museum and Germany’s Federal Office for Central Services and Unresolved Property Issues (BADV). It includes images of paintings, sculptures, porcelain and furniture.

The BADV, responsible for the some 1,700 unclaimed pieces that still remain in state custody, hopes that the newly publicized information will spur new research to help return the works to their rightful owners.

Check out the data bank here in German only.

German police swoop on gang of foreign dating scammers

The Black Axe gang was involved internationally in “multiple areas of criminal activity”, with a focus in Germany on romance scams and money-laundering, Bavarian police said in a statement.

The dating trick was a “modern form of marriage fraud”, police said.

“Using false identities, the fraudsters for example signalled their intention to marry and in the course of further contact repeatedly demand money under various pretexts,” police said.

The money was subsequently transferred to Black Axe in Nigeria “via financial agents”, authorities said.

In the process, the gang used a “commodity-based money laundering” scheme where products, often with a seeming “charitable purpose” were bought and delivered to Nigeria.

Some 450 cases of romance scamming had been reported in the region of Bavaria in 2023 alone, with the damages rising to 5.3 million euros ($5.7 million), police said.

The suspects, who all held Nigerian citizenship and were aged between 29 and 53, were arrested in nationwide raids on Tuesday.

Law enforcement swooped on 19 properties, including both homes and asylum shelters, police said.

The Black Axe gang had “strict hierarchical structures under leadership in Nigeria” operating different territorial units, police said.

The group had a “significant influence” on politics and public administrations, in particular in Nigeria.

Globally, the gang’s main areas of operation were “human-trafficking, fraud, money-laundering, prostitution and drug-trafficking”.

Black Axe operated under the cover of the Neo Black Movement of Africa, an ostensibly charitable organisation used as “camouflage” for the gang’s structures.

The action against Black Axe was the first of its kind in Germany, police said.

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