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HOLOCAUST

US to return artworks stolen by Nazis to heirs of Austrian Jewish cabaret star

US authorities announced Friday that two drawings worth $2.5 million stolen by the Nazi regime and eventually displayed in American museums will be returned to relatives of Fritz Grunbaum, an Austrian Jewish cabaret performer killed in the Holocaust.

This photo illustration created on September 13, 2023 shows a person looking on a computer screen at artwork by Austrian expressionist Egon Schiele entitled
This photo illustration created on September 13, 2023 shows a person looking on a computer screen at artwork by Austrian expressionist Egon Schiele entitled "Russian War Prisoner" (L), "Portrait of a Man" (R) and "Girl With Black Hair" (top), which were seized by investigators in 2023. The US announced on Friday that it would return artworks stolen by Nazis to heirs of Austrian Jewish cabaret star and art collector Fritz Grunbaum. (Photo by Chris DELMAS / AFP) 

It follows the return last year of seven works of art stolen from Grunbaum in 1938 and sold by the Nazis to fund their war machine.

“Girl with Black Hair” had been held by the Allen Museum of Art at Oberlin College and is valued at approximately $1.5 million, while “Portrait of a Man” was in the Carnegie Museum of Art collection and valued at approximately $1 million.

They are both by Egon Schiele, an Austrian expressionist artist.

“This is a victory for justice, and the memory of a brave artist, art collector, and opponent of Fascism,” said Timothy Reif, a judge and relative of Grunbaum who died in Dachau concentration camp.

“As the heirs of Fritz Grunbaum, we are gratified that this man who fought for what was right in his own time continues to make the world fairer decades after his tragic death.”

This handout image provided by the New York District Attorney's Office on September 20, 2023, shows the painting "A Portrait of a Boy" by Austrian artist Egon Schiele.

This handout image provided by the New York District Attorney’s Office on September 20, 2023, shows the painting “A Portrait of a Boy” by Austrian artist Egon Schiele. (Photo by New York District Attorney’s office / AFP) 

In addition to the seven returned last year and the two latest pieces to be handed back, one piece was surrendered by a collector directly to the family.

“The fact that we have been able to return ten pieces that were looted by the Nazis speaks to the dogged advocacy of his relatives to ensure these beautiful artworks could finally return home,” said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

Grunbaum, who was also an art collector and critic of the Nazi regime, possessed hundreds of works of art, including more than 80 by Schiele.

Schiele’s works, considered “degenerate” by the Nazis, were largely auctioned or sold abroad.

Arrested by the Nazis in 1938, Grunbaum was forced while at Dachau to sign over his power of attorney to his spouse, who was then made to hand over the family’s entire collection before herself being deported to a different concentration camp, in current-day Belarus.

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CULTURE

Ode to joy: How Austria shaped Beethoven’s Ninth

The night Ludwig van Beethoven's monumental Ninth Symphony rang out in a Vienna concert hall for the first time almost exactly two centuries ago, the great German composer was anxious for all to go well.

Ode to joy: How Austria shaped Beethoven's Ninth

He needn’t have worried. The audience erupted in spontaneous applause during the performance, but Beethoven was already so hard of hearing that he had to be turned around by a musician to notice it.

While he was born in Bonn in 1770, Beethoven spent most of his life in Vienna after moving to the Austrian capital as a 22-year-old.

Despite receiving repeated offers to relocate, the legendary composer never left Vienna, where he had found his home from home, surrounded by supportive fans and generous patrons.

“It was the society, the culture that characterised the city that appealed to him so much,” said Ulrike Scholda, director of the Beethoven House in nearby Baden.

The picturesque spa town just outside Vienna deeply shaped Beethoven’s life — and the last symphony he would complete, she said.

Under pressure

“In the 1820s, Baden was certainly the place to be”, with the imperial family, the aristocracy and a Who’s Who of cultural life spending their summers there, Scholda said.

Beyond his hearing loss, Beethoven suffered from various health problems ranging from abdominal pains to jaundice, and regularly went to Baden to recuperate.

Enjoying long walks in the countryside and bathing in Baden’s medicinal springs helped him recover and simultaneously inspired his compositions.

In the summers leading up to the first public performance of his Ninth Symphony in 1824, Beethoven stayed at what is now known as Baden’s Beethoven House, which now serves as a museum.

It was there that he also composed important parts of his final symphony.

A letter Beethoven sent from Baden in September 1823 details the pressure he felt to finalise the symphony to please the Philharmonic Society in London which had commissioned the work, Scholda said.

A piano used by German composer Ludwig van Beethoven is seen on display at the Beethovenhaus museum, where Beethoven spent some of his summers and composed sections of his Ninth Symphony, on April 30, 2024 in Baden bei Wien, Austria. (Photo by Joe Klamar / AFP)

‘Less war, more Beethoven’

Upon completing the symphony in Vienna, weeks of intense preparations followed, including an army of copyists duplicating Beethoven’s manuscripts and last-minute rehearsals that culminated in the premiere on May 7, 1824.

The night before, Beethoven rushed from door to door by carriage to “personally invite important people to come to his concert”, said historical musicologist Birgit Lodes.

He also managed to “squeeze in a haircut”, Lodes added.

At almost double the length of comparable works, Beethoven’s Ninth broke the norms of what until then was a “solely orchestral” genre by “integrating the human voice and thus text”, musicologist Beate Angelika Kraus told AFP.

His revolutionary idea to incorporate parts of Friedrich von Schiller’s lyrical verse “Ode to Joy” paradoxically made his symphony more susceptible to misuse, including by the Nazis and the Communists.

The verses “convey a feeling of togetherness, but are relatively open in terms of ideological (interpretation),” Kraus said.

Since 1985, Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” from the fourth movement has served as the European Union’s official anthem.

The Beethovenhaus museum, where German composer Ludwig van Beethoven spent some of his summers and composed sections of his Ninth Symphony, is pictured on April 30, 2024 in Baden bei Wien, Austria. (Photo by Joe Klamar / AFP)

Outside the Beethoven House in Baden, which is marking the anniversary with a special exhibition, visitor Jochen Hallof said that encountering the Ninth Symphony as a child had led him down a “path of humanism”.

“We should listen to Beethoven more instead of waging war,” Hallof said.

And on Tuesday night that certainly will be the case, with Beethoven’s masterpiece reverberating throughout Europe with anniversary concerts in major venues in Paris, Milan and Vienna.

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