Caroline Flick

Licensing and Relegation. A Totalitarian Trade Regime and Dealers’ Tactics

The archival records of the Berlin Head Office of the National Socialist Reich’s Chamber of Fine Arts are only preserved in part. Nevertheless, there are lists which indicate an increased level of bureaucratic activity in the second half of the year 1935.1 These documents include a “Collective Listing of New Applicants in the Professional Group for Art and Antiques Dealers”, comprising forty-four names. (Fig.1) It was dated by the Berlin policy officer in handwriting only with “15/6” as he filed it away.2 This list raised a question about what had happened before it was compiled, and even more importantly, what came to pass afterwards. Why would these dealers apply, and what further fate befell them?3

Fig. 1: List of new entrants in the group of Art and Antiques, section Berlin, undated (15 June 1935);

Landesarchiv A Rep. 243-04 no. 70.

The list gives a comprehensive overview of a wide range of dealers, from agents for decorative paintings and commissions to recognised experts, and from entrepreneurs who were new to the business to those who were self-employed as a result of “Aryanisation”, and those who had emigrated. As a group, they were as heterogeneous as the artistic community, with a trading territory demarcated by the cornerstones of modern, undesirable art and in-demand classical art, with business entities ranging from micro-enterprises to notable firms.4 All of them were confronted with the same new regulations.5 The price they had to pay varied greatly, from government interference and surveillance to racist enforcement of business closure, leading to a loss of purpose in life and, for more than a few, to a loss of life itself.

In order to look more closely at the events surrounding this dry archival record, I would like to make use of a model to facilitate a comprehensive perspective of my ongoing research about, to date, more than 160 files on Berlin art dealers relating to the Chamber. This article will deal exclusively with the Berlin trade section within the Reich’s Chamber of Fine Art.6

The Reich’s Chamber of Culture was established in order to standardise “cultural creation”, that is, activities of contemporary art production and reception. Its early definition of “art” as a commodity, however, not only subjected contemporary art-making but also cultural goods from before 1850 to its jurisdiction.7 As a consequence, its influence was felt throughout the entire art market and initiated a market disturbance which reverberates to the present time, necessitating market research and price analysis.

Distorting the concept of “Chambers”

Through adopting the nomenclature of “Chamber”, the new organisation suggested a familiar model. It evoked the reassuring image of the Chamber of Commerce, a self-administrative organ of business people in a region, who would support and maintain the local economic network. In this model, which had been established since the nineteenth century, members of the board and committees were chosen in free elections every six years. They set the budget, prepared reports and organised public conferences. So that everybody was represented and would have the opportunity to speak freely about decisions to be taken, membership was obligatory. To ensure adherence, the organisation’s running costs were levied together with taxes. The Ministry of Trade represented merely a legal supervisory body.8

As the Weimar Republic was transformed into a totalitarian state, this type of “Chamber” was completely deformed. By mid-1934, the Chambers of Commerce were bundled into so-called Economic Chambers, whose president was appointed by the minister. In a vertical hierarchy based on the “Führerprinzip”, this president was empowered to appoint his own advisory board and also set up procedural rules, executed by a civil servant manager. Elements which replicated the original were of course obligatory membership and the automatic collection of fees.9

Such a distorted Chamber provided neither representation nor self-administration. Along these lines, the Reich’s Chamber of Culture was established as an instrument of directional governance, set up in parallel to the “Economic Chambers”, as already indicated in the Chamber constitution of 1935 (fig. 2), an objective which becomes even clearer after the vertical restructuring in 1936 (fig. 3).10 The purpose of the organisation was a subjugation of its sectors to trading regulations.

Following the former Chamber of Commerce model in principle, the foundation act of the Chamber in September 1933 interpreted compulsory membership as a consequence of professional practice. An explicit inversion of this condition made membership a “prerequisite of professional practice”. This volte-face was buried in the wording of the legislation (fig. 4), in a paragraph on deadline regulations, and was confirmed by the administrative decree for the protection of profession in 1934.11

Fig. 2: Organisational chart of the Reich’s Chamber of Fine Arts, 1935, including sub-sections

Reichskulturkammer (printed typoscript), undated (15 April 1935).

It follows that we have here a permission, a license to enter the market, that was granted by membership in the Chamber and could also be taken away by it. The metamorphosis of the Reich’s Chamber to an office of authorisation is part of the conversion of a former “legislation to permit with reservations to forbid” towards a “legislation to forbid with reservations to permit” under the National Socialist regime.12

Freedom of trade in the nineteenth century required licensing for very few professions, for example handling dangerous goods. Since 1845, the German trade regulations had adopted traditional admission criteria.13 In this instance, the newly subjected professions were to be extensively and comprehensively regulated after 1933, to the point of strangulation.

Fig. 3: Organisational chart of the Reich’s Chamber for Fine Arts in 1936 after verticalisation;

Reichskulturkammer (printed typoskript), undated (15 April 1936); in Die Kammer schreibt, 22f.

Licensing as a weapon

As early as November 1933, the Chamber of Culture firmly established the formula for acceptance or exclusion “if there are facts which suggest that the person in question does not have the reliability and suitability required for the performance of the profession”.14 If “facts presented” could lead to an admission being withheld, the reasons for failure would need to be provided by the office of authorisation – the burden of proof did not lie with the applicant. These formulae appeared within the licensing procedures from the outset. What was novel about the approach was not so much that drastic action was taken against individuals, but rather the application of such actions to the professions related to the arts.

Fig. 4: “Integration” as a future prerequisite for professional practice; Zweite Verordnung zur Durchführung des Reichskulturkammergesetzes. Vom 9. November 1933, RGBl 1993 I 969;

http://alex.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/alex?aid=dra&datum=1933&size=45&page=1094.

The admission criteria were set by the administrative order for the protection of profession for arts and antiques dealers of August 1934. As was customary practice, paragraph 4 lists five points relating to the “reliability” – explained as the absence of a criminal record or offences against property –, and “suitability” – explained as sufficient expertise, knowledge of the business and commercial knowledge (fig.5).

In practice, however, these criteria were treated to some extent as negotiable. A dealer with previous convictions for fraud and gambling debt could certainly be said to fail on the grounds of professional respectability. Accordingly, the police president pressed for intervention but the Chamber’s local head office decided to ignore the facts. One dealer with four previous convictions and one acquittal not only managed to become policy officer for Berlin, but was also granted his license without further ado.15

Other police records based on the legal framework of the time did not stand in the way of holding a licence. These concerned rulings following paragraph 175 of the German penal code, criminalising homosexual activities. The art historian Christian Isermeyer remembers that the art dealer Hanns Krenz – who must have stood trial for being gay – had always refused to discuss this matter. Files are missing. In another case, even though bankruptcy ensued, due to the prolonged prison sentence of the business partner, the license was also not rescinded.16

Fig. 5: Decree for the Protection of Profession, dated 4 August 1934, in Schriftenreihe der Reichskammer der bildenden Künste, published by the president of the R.d.b.K., Heft 1 (1934), 46-48, 47;

Stefan Pucks, Berlin (private collection).

In contrast, the criteria of suitability were actually applied. In the late summer of 1935 the Arts Chamber refused a license to a few small dealers, due to lack of “sufficient professional experience”.17 Having said that, at the end of the year Goebbels proclaimed that everybody had to be accepted in his stated profession without any further examination. This political change of direction put paid to the Chamber’s ambitions for quality control. Its objective was an enlargement of the economic base, as well as direct control of each and any artistic activity and distribution of its products. The Arts Chamber had been informed about this directive in advance by the end of October 1935 – by December, the aforementioned dealers had been accepted as members.18

It is worth bearing in mind that Germany’s art trade differs from centralised countries, such as France, England or Austria, in that the art trade was not concentrated to a large extent in a single urban centre. A directory of 1932 confirms this wider distribution (fig. 6), which reflects the German historic structure of small states and late founding of the Reich (fig. 7).

Nevertheless, two centres had emerged, drawing on the importance of the respective city in its former monarchy and its attraction to neighbouring counties. In a 1933 directory of 945 art dealers, Berlin stands out with 129, and Munich with 92. Meanwhile, even with a large gap, 20 to 50 dealers are still listed for each of the next bigger locations, many of them former residences of ruling houses (fig. 8).19

Fig. 6: Art dealers in European countries and capitals: France, United Kingdom, Austria, Germany; author’s own calculations based on: Internationales Adressbuch des Altkunst- und Antiquitätenhandels (Weimar 1933).

Consequently, at its point of inception, the Reich’s Fine Art Chamber’s 320 members comprised less than 15% of the 2,074 dealers listed in 1934 official statistics.20 They joined the Chamber at the end of 1933 via an association which changed its name several times, finally known as the “Bund Deutscher Kunst- und Antiquitätenhändler”.21 This enforced compliance had been instigated by the notorious Julius Streicher, chair of the Central Committee to Repulse Jewish Atrocity and Boycott Agitation, who felt that the board of the previously established renowned main art dealers’ association had been “overrun by Jews”.22 Several regional associations and other driving bodies had been made to toe the official line by the chair of this newly founded art dealers association, the Munich auctioneer Adolf Weinmüller.23

Figs. 7 and 8: Distribution of the art trade across cities; author’s own calculations based on: Internationales Adressbuch des Altkunst- und Antiquitätenhandels (Weimar 1933).

The Association of German Art and Antiquities Dealers was nominally a society, but in fact a hierarchical structure. It was now tasked with recruiting.24 Regional representatives visited applicants and made enquiries. Both their nomination and their vote can be regarded as co-optation, since they were chosen by officially appointed representatives and awarded the license to applicants. Both the vote and the appointment lacked transparency and must be attributed to self-empowerment. Co-optation recruits its own kind, but no rejection is known from this intermediate period either and was perhaps also not an option.25

The licensing process was formalised from spring 1934 through the establishment of specialist administration in the head office of the Fine Arts Chamber, staffed in line with party membership.26 Dealers who had not been part of the classical clientele of the associations seemed to be in no hurry to enrol – perhaps they did not feel that the requirement applied to them or they did not take the new organisation particularly seriously.27 But at this point, admittance criteria became pernicious. The admission questionnaire asked about characteristics relevant to the profession, such as place of residence and business address, associations including party membership and religious confession, marital status, education, legal entity, capital and turnover.

The questionnaire pre-empted an anti-Semitic selection. The forms show “race” being listed independently of “confession”. The documents also show that completed forms were marked-up afterwards in this field – sometimes two or three times. The membership number at the top was marked first in pencil, possibly with the receipt stamp (fig. 9). In other cases, subsequent top markings are likely to have been made during revisions, added to control relegation and surveillance.28

The dissolution of the associations on 30 June 1935 – preceding the Nuremberg racial laws by several weeks – liquidated all of these societies.29 As the intermediary function of the societies was eliminated, the ensuing verticalisation (see above, fig. 3) resulted in all members becoming direct underlings of the Chamber. As the institution was terminated, membership ceased and the license was lost.

Fig. 9: Multiple annotations under “Abstammung [ancestry]”; Landesamt für Bürger- und Ordnungsangelegenheiten Berlin, A Rep. 243-04 no. 2617 Arthur Goldschmidt.

While the majority of art dealers subsequently received immediate confirmation of their Chamber membership, former licensees could be treated as applicants and become subject to a supposed re-examination. The protection of profession had been tied to an additional criterion inserted under paragraph 5, which was “Responsibility towards the People and the Reich” (fig. 10), converting the Chamber’s purpose into that of the individual. The rejection notice could now refer to this “Responsibility” entirely independently of professional criteria. Indeed, an application could be rejected even if the latter were completely satisfactory: “I was unable to identify particular facts which speak against Haas’ reliability and suitability. Nevertheless, I consider H. unreliable as a Non-Aryan”, the Berlin manager wrote in September 1935.30 Before the end of the year 1935, it was also stated explicitly that “as a Jew” one could not assume such responsibility.31 The enforcement applied to individuals was now – in contrast to the trade regulation’s criteria for obtaining a license – based on their perceived personal attributes rather than their actions – a National Socialist procedure of exclusion.32

By the late summer of 1935, a wave of relegations had denied admittance to almost 700 art dealers throughout the Reich, including the setting of an absurdly short time limit for business restructuring (fig. 10). For example, on 11 August 1935 the Berlin art agent Arthur Abt was refused admittance to the Chamber; he was given four weeks to dissolve his business. When he objected, the President of the Reich’s Fine Art Chamber confirmed the refusal on 17 March 1936, stating a “conclusion of the review”.33

Fig. 10: Relegation of 16 August 1935;

Landesamt für Bürger- und Ordnungsangelegenheiten, Berlin, EA 57 487 Arthur Abt, E 3.

Considering that almost half of 1,657 relegated persons were based in Berlin, one may wonder whether the objective was a “cleansing” of the general cultural sector or rather of the capital (fig. 12).34 A breakdown of relegations by profession shows that more than half were art dealers (fig. 13), indicating a particular eagerness for targeted persecution of the interface of art and money. However, looking at Berlin relegations overall, the percentage of dealers was smaller than in the entire Reich, pointing rather to the importance of the capital as a place of education and training as well as a seat of employers, for example for architects and painters (fig. 14).

Looking at the distribution of Chamber members in 1938, there is clearly a pressing need for further research in order to clarify whether the same proportion between art dealers and other self-employed professionals in Fine Arts, such as painters, architects and others had existed previously (fig. 15). It is noticeable that the Berlin Chamber management counted “326 refused or relegated [persons], who are constantly monitored” among 1,016 art dealers in its catchment area.35

Stalling manoeuvres

Nevertheless, the mass relegation effected through licensing did not translate into a clear cut, but rather into an extended process. The system of enforced licensing not only governed market access, but also influenced options to adapt. It caused multiple evasive actions and exit transitions, since it ultimately eliminated all forms of adjustment. Those art dealers who were excluded faced twofold persecution: on the one hand, there was disbarment, which could still be partly negotiated through evasive manoeuvring. On the other hand, they were affected by other forms of persecution, including the dispossession of Jews, which further restricted options for transition and evasion and inevitably led towards emigration or death.

It is however necessary to assess the art trade in the general context of the annihilation of Jewish business activities. At the same time, evaluating the options left open for these dealers – in fact, agency under constraint – would permit a more comprehensive understanding of their decisions and activities and eventually of the historical facts.36

Objections to relegation could only be filed with the same authority, which inevitably led to reconfirmation. However, any objection suspended the terms of delivery for those relegated and increased their time for manoeuvring (fig. 11).37 Economic concerns also prompted the granting of approximately 32 special licenses, issued in readmission processes.38

The most frequent reaction to relegation was downsizing. A dealer would adapt the business profile by moving away from licensed goods towards those outside the license definition – in other words, the art dealer rebranded as a bric-a-brac shop or as a seller of reproduction goods. The Ordnungspolizei, responsible for the maintenance of law and order, found this taxing to deal with, and even if a fine was imposed, it could be temporarily averted by raising objections and petitioning, which would force the decision to be escalated right up to the minister. At the same time, work activities remained vulnerable to observers and informers. 39 In addition, research needs to take into consideration third party adversaries who were in a position to further undermine the business, for example by tenant eviction.

Fig. 11: Confirmation of relegation dated 17 March 1936; Bundesentschädigungsakte, Landesamt für Bürger- und Ordnungsangelegenheiten, Berlin, EA 57 487 Arthur Abt, E 4.

Such a strategy required a certain capacity for disobedience or resistance. A dealer of ethnographic objects was able to gain a respite of almost two years through petitions and objections, since the police were unable to evaluate his wares and he kept asking for details of the particular object which was relevant to sentencing. In the meantime, he no longer sold from shop premises, but relied solely on his already established mail order business.40

A move away from shop premises was another form of adaptation, as was the relabelling of goods. One may become a broker, but even then, the definition of goods needed to be considered so as not to fall under the licensing requirement again, and some measure of risk remained.41 The above-mentioned dealer of ethnographic objects eventually rebranded his business as brokering household furniture.

A structural adaptation would change the legal status of the business in order to bypass the license, and to avoid self-employed status, for example by taking on a business partner.42 One model was to form a general partnership between the relegated dealer with a business partner who was based abroad, with the latter holding the license. To deflect attracting further attention by the former’s name the entrepreneurs then converted the business into a public limited company, with the relegated dealer taking a back seat in holding a minority share. However, in the case in point, the Chamber tracked down the information in a follow-up inspection and thus opened the floodgates for the business to be purchased by a direct, non-Berlin-based, competitor.43

Fig. 12: Relegated by the Chamber in 1938: Germany and Berlin; author’s own calculations based on BAB R 55/21305.

Another form of adaptation concerned the dealer’s own manpower, which might not only be transformed into that of an employee, but also be redefined as being “mechanical” and “manual” in character, and thus below the licensing radar. The success of this strategy critically depended on visibility, which would be the first point of vulnerability: a saleswoman in a specialist shop was more likely to attract attention than the stock manager working behind the scene.44

Finally, there was the option of delegation. In this structural adaptation, the entire business was transferred more or less nominally to a license holder. The chances of success increased if the designated licensee was not a new applicant in this context, since the data collected revealed the professional or financial background of the transaction. In one case, while a license was not denied as such, the underlying contracts were not accepted, as the participants were suspected of being front men.45 In such cases, again, third parties could actively intervene, as one delegation which had been accepted for reasons of attracting foreign currency was torpedoed by a denunciation from a direct competitor.46 Both the process and the time limits were influenced by competing institutions. Even a deliberate lack of intervention could be based on expectations of profitable gains, be they material or in the form of vital business intelligence.47

Fig. 13: Relegated by the Chamber in 1938: professions;

author’s own calculations based on BAB R 55/21305.

An alternative reaction was withdrawal. The decision to take this route would depend on the economic position of the relegated dealer and the future options derived from it. Those who considered themselves financially secure, retired from professional life;48 those with alternative chances to work sold;49 those with business connections abroad closed down in order to come away with the name and, if possible, the stock-in-trade.50 Such a decision depended to a large extent on the existence of a competent or even powerful or menacing successor, who may have been further enabled by the backing of an institution.51 The prices agreed or even paid under these constraints do not reflect the actual exchange value. Such processes of sliding and decreasing adaptation continued until the end of 1937 and into the year 1938.

Gaps in the market

As an intervention of political economics, restricting market access to license holders, as in supporting the Mittelstand, had little effect initially. The purchasing power of those who had been relegated or expelled was removed. This was felt until 1940, as demonstrated by the following chart of sample curves of prices and auction results (fig. 16).52

Fig. 14: Relegated by the Chamber in 1938: Berlin and professions;

author’s own calculations based on BAB R 55/21305.

An analysis of purchases by 14 art commission agents in five Berlin auctions in 1935 shows that they held a share of the total sold proceeds of between 25 and 44 percent. These bidders were usually authorised by the buyer on whose behalf they acted, but now, under the new regulation, they also needed to register their profession. Seven of these agents were relegated in 1935. This was clearly a contested market, which the relegated dealers first dominated and finally lost after a very brief recovery while negotiating their relegation: the size of the prize was at least a quarter of market turnover, which was to be safeguarded for the licensees.53

The trade participated in more than half of the purchases at a large Berlin auction sale in the autumn of 1937. Among these, 41 percent of buyers were license holders. With 8 percent relegated, this translated into a much higher percentage in terms of sale value. In this example, more than half of the turnover would have become monopolised by the licensees (figs. 17 and 18).54

Fig. 15: Chamber Members in Berlin 1938 by profession

Author’s own calculations based on LAB A Rep. 243-04, no. 75, 18 March 1938.

With a business size of two employees on average, the art trade tended to favour family involvement (fig. 19).55 Since the economic downturn of 1930, many of these firms would have to be referred to as “proletaroid” (Theodor Geiger), essentially describing self-employment in order to avoid unemployment.56 They certainly did not dispose of the means to benefit from the wave of relegations and only generated more income during the later increase in prices.57

Considering the interventions, the number of enterprises in Berlin from 1928 to 1943 remained surprisingly stable and only fell some time after the beginning of the war (fig. 20).58 While there was a marked dip in 1936, when the number fell by 70, it recovered and even surpassed previous numbers in the following year. According to the research for this article, this would not simply translate into a linear substitution of relegated dealers by licensees. Rather, it demonstrates the shortcomings of the documentary source, since the number of advertisements in the directory of the art trade had already dropped by 52 in times of economic uncertainty from 1931 to 1932, only to rise again in 1933 by 91 (advertising orders received in the previous year). Further research and investigation are needed in this area.

Fig. 16: Price development in the art trade 1937-1943: auction totals and lot prices achieved at the auctioneering firm Hans W. Lange, Berlin; author’s own calculations based on Lange’s publications and Weltkunst magazine.

Licensees benefited from the relegation drive by reduced competition and by upgrades, which does not however present a mirror image of the above-mentioned downsizing strategies. Employees became self-employed with the acquisition of a firm;59 bigger firms bought stock-in-trade and became even bigger;60 beginners were able to acquire their own stock at affordable prices.61

Some new entrants to the trade who had hoped to profit from the redistribution failed because they were unable to keep the acquired business going,62 others demonstrated a flying start in their turnover figures.63

The Chamber seems to have kept skilled employees on standby for takeovers, but these might be rejected by existing business owners and would have to start their own firm;64 others spotted a niche for specialisation and founded successful start-ups.65 As prices slowly began to rise, new businesses kept appearing. These did not necessarily last, but were able to participate in a market with less competition. But the relegated dealers had taken irreplaceable expert knowledge with them, as can be demonstrated by the number of important specialist firms which they were forced to create elsewhere. Once in New York, the above-mentioned bric-a-brac dealer founded an influential gallery for ethnographic art with a reputation that went far beyond its specialist field of trading.

Fig. 17: Buyers at an October 1937 auction in Berlin by type;

Author’s own calculations based on LAB A Rep. 243-04, no. 28.

After the elimination of rights, all licensees were potentially subject to punishment and relegation. As a relegated dealer had been reported to have sported insignia of the “German Workers Front”, the employees of a relegated coin dealer swiftly place an order for membership badges of the Reich’s Fine Art Chambers, which had been designed in 1937 (fig. 21). The “right” political convictions needed to be demonstrated as well as subverted.66

Under perennial threat of penalties and being barred from the profession, let alone ideological convictions and improved profit chances, licensees became loyal operators and suppliers. If they still wanted to sell contemporary art based on their own aesthetic ideals, they were forced to navigate a difficult and dangerous environment.67

If we follow the logical line of thought that a license should be required for handling dangerous goods, it is only natural that the sale of “dangerous” cultural objects was exclusively handed over, bound by an exceptional license, to a limited number (four, in fact) of contracted dealers after 1937.68

Fig. 18: Buyers at an auction in Berlin in October 1937 by spend; author’s own calculations based on LAB A Rep. 243-04, no. 28.

It is equally logical that a dealers’ license to exhibit, which had been immanently included, was gradually retracted. Restraints were first established in Berlin – always a dangerous place, the capital –, and the license to exhibit was eventually rescinded and replaced by a permission relating to specific objects.69 In a complementary move, the control mechanism for “inferior art objects” was set up in the autumn of 1940. It became multifunctional as it could be activated on a case by case basis, permitting intervention at will and regardless of category.70

Fig. 19: Art dealing firms in Germany, 1925, 1933, 1939: Companies and employees; based on Statistisches Jahrbuch für das Deutsche Reich 51 (1932), 88; 53 (1934), 111; 59 (1941/42), 184.

From a reverse perspective, the temporary measure of marking such “endangered” goods signalled to buyers that they might make an offer, but should not overpay – at the expense of the dealers and sellers.71 Large numbers of objects which had been looted did not enter the art market. At the same time, objects taken from those who were persecuted were readily available for purchase directly from the financial authorities.

Fig. 20: Art dealing companies in Berlin 1928-1943 according to the Yellow Pages; Count of the entire art trade in Berlin 1928-1943 for the exhibition "Gute Geschäfte" 2011, Aktives Museum e.V.

Those contradictory effects were little suited to settle the market. The licensees began to stockpile objects which would only be sold later in a seller’s market with bigger profit margins. Price increases were due to a change in taste, as clients invested profits made in the wartime economy in collections. At the same time, the public found that their expenses on the cost of living and consumer goods decreased by up to a quarter in these leaner times, driving investments in tangible assets such as art.

As demand exceeded supply, pressure grew on emigrated relegated dealers who were still within reach. Especially in the Netherlands, they were under a dual threat.72 Regardless of whether an approach by former colleagues was made to help them generate income, or by adversaries who wanted to blackmail them into selling low, they became virtually part of the new system, forced to use their knowledge to make more objects accessible for the market, or to reintroduce their objects into the market via the licensees.73

Fig. 21 a: Lapel pin of the Reich’s Culture Chamber, design by Richard Klein, 1937; and fig. 21 b: the pin © Süddeutsche Zeitung

After a drop in prices, the art market began to develop until new peak prices were reached, for no regulation could prevent these. The licensees only reached a comfortable economic position when external factors took hold, such as an artificially high demand in the war economy. These factors ultimately combined to drive a massive increase in turnover across categories for all dealers (fig. 22). The sample shows 14 dealers for whom turnover data were available. The scale shows some smaller antique dealers at the bottom, as well as a dealer in popular or trivial art, who were able to grow up to tenfold. At the top there was a serial prints dealer whose income level created a need for scaling logarithmically in the first place. Such a steep exponential curve was owed to the command of the armed forces, which kept building barracks but could no longer furbish them, leading to a proliferation of prints with nationally uplifting motifs on the walls.74 An opposite fate was that of the dealer and commission agent two curves below, who was conscripted for military service.75

It follows that a secure income for permissible and party-compliant art dealers was not so much the result of relegation, even though it served its own purpose of driving Jewish dealers out of the profession. Yet it had also been intended as a measure to increase the market share of the Mittelstand in the industry. Instead, a growth in income only materialised through a cumulative effect of selection, accelerated demand and lack of investment choices in the war economy. It was only this aggregate effect that would provide even the smallest firms with a secure income, as the late entries in the mid-1935 lists demonstrate.

Fig. 22: Turnover development of selected art dealers 1935-1943: Increases according to their own submissions to the Chamber for calculating their contribution payments; author’s own calculations based on archived personal files.

With regard to economic policy favouring the Mittelstand, licensing hardly turned out to be fit for purpose, and even less so with regard to trade control. As a categorical means of the “national appropriation” of art, its effect was almost paradoxical, since it actually started and accelerated an international distribution of art objects.

Translation: Susanne Meyer-Abich

Caroline Flick is an independent researcher based in Berlin, working and publishing on the history of the auction house Hans W. Lange and the art trade in the National Socialist era.