The Goering Catalogue is a documentary film which premiered in 2020. In 2024, it was shown on French and German television (arte).
The French title:
Une collection d’art et de sang:
Le catalogue Goering
The German title:
Göring, Brueghel und die Shoah:
Die Blutspur der NS-Raubkunst
The film is divided into two chapters.
The first chapter is about Hermann Goering and how he managed to collect numerous works of art during the time when Hitler and the Nazi Part controlled the German government (1933-1945).
In the beginning – before the war – he could only operate in Germany. But later, when the war began, he was able to expand his field of operation.
During the war, he could also operate in the occupied countries, in particular Belgium, the Netherlands, and France, where many of the items he desired were found.
Some works of art were bought, but many were confiscated after the owners had been arrested and had been transported to a concentration camp where they were eventually killed.
Many of the owners who were arrested and later killed were Jewish. The hunt for precious items was a significant part of the holocaust.
The second chapter is about the time after the war when some of the stolen items were returned to the original owners or their descendants.
The process of returning stolen items to their rightful owners was often long and difficult. The stolen items were transported to Germany where they were safely stored and therefore survived the war. They were discovered after the end of the war.
Items discovered in Germany were often returned to a museum in the country from which they were stolen.
But once an item had entered a museum, the administration of this museum was often reluctant to hand it over to anyone else, even when they claimed to be and seemed to be the rightful owners.
In many cases, the original owners were no longer alive. They did not survive the war. The descendants often faced many obstacles when they wanted a museum to hand over an item which had been stolen from their ancestors before or during the war.
This process is not yet over. It is still going on today, in the beginning of the twenty-first century, more than 75 years after the end of the war.
One person, who is interviewed in the film, explains the situation with the following words:
“The war is not really over, until all the stolen items have been returned to the rightful owners.”
Why is this issue so important?
Because every item that was stolen is not only a case of theft.
Every item represents a crime against a family who was forced to sell precious items or who were simply arrested and later killed, because Hitler, his right-hand man Hermann Goering, and other Nazis wanted to possess as many precious items as possible.
Every work of art that was stolen is closely connected with the Nazi regime and its policy of death and destruction.
Here is some basic information about this film:
** Directors: Laurence Thiriat and François Gonce
** Writers: Laurence Thiriat and Jean-Marc Dreyfus
** Based on the book Le Catalogue Goering by Jean-Marc Dreyfus (2015)
** Languages spoken: French, German, English
** Subtitles: English, Italian, Spanish
** Run time: 90 minutes
Several persons are interviewed in the film.
Here are the names of the participants
(listed in the order of appearance):
** Jean-Marc Dreyfus – a French historian
** Stefan Martens – a German historian
** Eric Michaud – an art historian
** Emmanuelle Polack – an art historian
** Simon Goodman – of the Gutmann family – author of the book The Orpheus Clock: The Search for My Family’s Art Treasures (2016)
** Alain Monteagle – of the Jaffé family
** Anne Liskenne – a conservator
** Sebastian Chauffour – a conservator
** Lionel Selem – of the Gentili family
** Christian Fuhrmeister – an art historian
** Maximilian Hofbauer – in 1945, he was a young boy living in Berchtesgaden
** Otto Fischer – in 1945, he was a 16-year-old boy living in Berchtesgaden
** Robert Brandner – an antique dealer who lives and works in Berchtesgaden
** Bart Eeman – the government committee in search of provenance, Belgium
** Geert Sels – a Belgian journalist who has investigated the question of art stolen by the Nazis
** Corine Hershkovitch – Lionel Salem’s lawyer
** Christoph Frank – a Swiss art historian who has conducted investigations around Carinhall
The lives and careers of the following persons who are no longer alive are presented in the film:
** Hermann Goering (1893-1946) – Hitler’s right-hand man
** Walter Andreas Hofer (1893-ca. 1971) – an art dealer – Goering’s advisor
** Bruno Lohse (1911-2007) – an art historian – an art dealer – Goering’s advisor
** Rose Valland (1898-1980) – an art historian – a member of the French resistance – during the war, she was working as a curator at the museum where the stolen items were temporarily stored (Jeu de Paume)
The following locations are relevant for the story of Hermann Goering and his collection of stolen art:
(1) Musee du Jeu de Paume – a museum in Paris where stolen items were stored and presented before the most valuable items were packed in crates and shipped to Germany
(2) Carinhall – the private residence of Hermann Goering located in a forest north of Berlin. The compound is named after his wife who died in 1931. Many stolen items were on display in this residence.
In 1945, shortly before the end of the war, Goering made arrangements to have the whole place blown up. He did not want anybody to take over his private residence.
Before the place was destroyed by 80 bombs, many works of art were packed up and loaded on a train which was going to Berchtesgaden in the south of Germany
(3) Berchtesgaden – a town in Bavaria located in the south of Germany not far from Berghof which was Hitler’s summer residence.
Numerous items were transported from Carinhall to Berchtesgaden where many of them were hidden in tunnels under the mountains.
But some items were never unloaded. They were still in the railway carriages when the war ended in May 1945.
What is the Goering Catalogue?
The Goering Catalogue is a book with more than 250 pages. In this book, every item bought or stolen by Hermann Goering is listed.
The catalogue offers basic information about each item which was a part of Goering’s collection:
More than 1,300 paintings as well as sculptures, carpets, pieces of furniture, and other items.
The catalogue was discovered in the 1950s. For many years, the existence of the catalogue was known, but very few people had actually seen it.
In 2015, the catalogue was published by the French historian Jean-Marc Dreyfus, who appears in this film, which is based on his book.
Many precious items were confiscated by the Nazis in Belgium, the Netherlands, and France.
The items were temporarily stored and presented at a museum in Paris (Jeu de Paume) before the most interesting and most valuable items were packed in crates and transported to Germany
The figures of Nazi German looting are staggering:
** 29 trains with 138 carriages were used to transport stolen works of art from France to Germany
** The trains carried more than 4,500 crates which contained around 100,000 works of art
** More than half - around 60,000 - were discovered at the end of the war and the western allied forces tried to return them to the rightful owners.
What do reviewers say about this film?
On IMDb it has a rating of 65 percent which corresponds to a rating of 3.3 stars on Amazon.
In my opinion, this rating is too low. The story of Hermann Goering and how he created his collection of stolen art is important. The story deserves to be told, and in this film, it is done very well.
I want to go all the way to the top with this product. I think it deserves a rating of five stars (100 percent).
REFERENCES
# 1. Items available online
Henry Samuel
“Hermann Goering’s full catalogue of looted Nazi art published for the first time,”
The Telegraph
30 September 2015
Sara Wildman
“The Revelations of a Nazi Art Catalogue,”
The New Yorker
12 February 2016
Isabel Vincent
“How a Nazi became Hermann Goering’s art looter – then got rich in the US,”
New York Post
30 January 2021
Diane Cole
“The masterpieces stolen by the Nazis,”
BBC News
25 November 2021
# 2. Books
The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History
By Robert M. Edsel
(2009)
Lost Lives, Lost Art: Jewish Collectors, Nazi Art Theft, and the Quest for Justice
By Melissa Müller and others
(2010)
Hermann Goering and the Nazi Art Collection
By Kenneth D. Alford
(2014)
The History of Loot and Stolen Art
By Ivan Lindsey
(2014)
Hitler’s Art Thief: Hildebrand Gurlitt, The Nazis, and the Looting of Europe’s Treasures
By Susan Ronald
(2015)
The Orpheus Clock:
The Search for My Family’s Art Treasures
By Simon Goodman
(2016)
Göring’s Man in Paris:
The Story of a Nazi Art Plunderer and his World
By Jonathan Petropoulos
(2021)
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*****
The French title of the film
(arte tv) (2024)
*****
The German title of the film
(arte tv) (2024)
*****
Le Catalogue Goering
by Jean-Marc Dreyfus
(Flammarion)
(2015)
*****
Hermann Goering
(1893-1946)
Hitler's right-hand man
*****
Rose Valland
(1898-1980)
Art historian
Member of the French resistance
*****
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