Fritz Salo Glaser
Fritz Salo Glaser was a German Jewish art collector.
Life
[edit]Born in Zittau in 1876, Glaser trained as a lawyer. He fought in World War I.[1][2]
Art collection
[edit]Glaser collected works by Otto Dix, Paul Klee, Kandinsky, Kokoschka, Schmidt-Rottluff and Emil Nolde, all artists considered "degenerate" by the Nazis.[3] [4] He also had artworks by Bernhard Kretschmar, Otto Griebel and Conrad Felixmüller.[1][5]
Nazi persecution
[edit]When the Nazis came to power in 1933, Glaser was persecuted due to his Jewish heritage. Expelled from his profession due to antisemitic laws, he was also refused the benefits due to him as a veteran. He was arrested.[6]
Shortly before the Nazis planned to deport him to Theresienstadt from Dresden, Allied warplanes bombed the city. and Glaser managed to escape.[7][8]
The Gurlitt discovery
[edit]Numerous artworks discovered in the stash hidden in the apartment of Cornelius Gurlitt, the recluse son of Hitler's art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt, were thought by authorities to have belonged to Glaser.[9][10][11]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ a b Oltermann, Philip (2013-11-13). "Jewish art collector's cherished works are among those in Munich hoard". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2024-11-27.
They include works mainly by modernist Dresden artists belonging to the Neue Sachlichkeit or New Objectivity movement, such as Bernhard Kretschmar, Otto Griebel and Conrad Felixmüller.
- ^ "Monuments Men and Women Foundation I WWII Most Wanted Art™ | Emil Nolde". MonumentsMenWomenFnd. Retrieved 2024-11-27.
He studied law at the turn of the century, earning a doctorate and establishing his own practice in Dresden at Wilsdruffer Strasse 1 in 1904, mostly working in tax law. Glaser voluntarily served in World War I
- ^ "Search | Lost Art Database". www.lostart.de. Retrieved 2024-11-27.
- ^ "Monuments Men and Women Foundation I WWII Most Wanted Art™ | Emil Nolde". MonumentsMenWomenFnd. Retrieved 2024-11-27.
An April 1938 ordinance had required Jews with assets of RM 5,000 or more to register their assets with the state. Those individuals were now required to forfeit 20% of the value of their reported assets beginning in December 1938. Glaser was assessed an "atonement tax" of RM 23,250. To pay the tax, he sold paintings by Klee, Kandinsky, Kokoschka, Nolde, and Schmidt-Rottluff from his collection. This was complicated further as another ordinance issued by the Reich that December forbade Jews from selling their works on the open market
- ^ "Nazi Trove Reveals Dresden Holocaust Survivor's Lost Art". www.lootedart.com. Retrieved 2024-11-27.
The German government this week began publishing details of the artworks in the hoard that may have been seized by the Nazis or lost by Jewish collectors in forced sales. Of the first 25 to be registered on the database www.lostart.de, 13 were listed as belonging to Glaser. They are drawings, graphics and watercolors by the Dresden artists he socialized with -- Otto Griebel, Ludwig Godenschweg Erich Fraass, Christoph Voll, Conrad Felixmueller and Wilhelm Lachnit. Glaser also owned works by Paul Klee, Emil Nolde, Wassily Kandinsky, Oskar Kokoschka, and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff.
- ^ "Monuments Men and Women Foundation I WWII Most Wanted Art™ | Emil Nolde". MonumentsMenWomenFnd. Retrieved 2024-11-27.
In the cover of darkness, during Kristallnacht on November 9, 1938, Glaser fled his home to avoid arrest and deportation to the Buchenwald concentration camp. Upon his return, he was arrested and imprisoned for three weeks. His financial distress worsened after the November pogroms
- ^ Oltermann, Philip (2013-11-13). "Jewish art collector's cherished works are among those in Munich hoard". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2024-11-27.
- ^ "Monuments Men and Women Foundation I WWII Most Wanted Art™ | Emil Nolde". MonumentsMenWomenFnd. Retrieved 2024-11-27.
Glaser received notice that he was to be sent to Theresienstadt on February 16, 1945; his family was safe, as they had already sought shelter with a farmer in a town outside of Dresden. On the night of February 13, the Allies unleashed a multi-day aerial bombing attack on Dresden, which allowed Glaser to escape deportation and join his family.
- ^ "Nazi Trove Reveals Dresden Holocaust Survivor's Lost Art". www.lootedart.com. Retrieved 2024-11-27.
Focus, which first reported the find, also said a file of 181 unframed artworks in his son's apartment is believed to have belonged to Glaser.
- ^ "Nazi-looted art: A chronology of the Gurlitt case – DW – 02/28/2022". dw.com. Retrieved 2024-11-27.
- ^ Gamerman, Ellen. "Nazi Art Spurs Search Into Family Histories". wsj.com.
Out of the 25 artworks made public, 13 were traced to Fritz Salo Glaser, a Jewish lawyer from Dresden who was forced to liquidate his modern art collection and lost other works to Nazi seizures, Ms. Schwelle said. Mr. Glaser was saved from his scheduled deportation to the concentration camp Theresienstadt after the Allied raids on Dresden in 1945 but didn't reclaim much of his collection after the war. Mr. Glaser died in 1956, the same year as Hildebrand Gurlitt.