Walter Andreas Hofer

Walter Andreas Hofer was born in Berlin. He was a German art dealer and since 1937 Hermann Göring’s principal art agent. From 1939 to 1944, he acted as “Director of the Reichsmarschall’s Art Collection.” He was deeply immersed in the selection of works confiscated from Jewish collections, including at the Jeu de Paume museum. In May 1943, Hofer was informed that the Schloss Collection had been seized but he largely stayed in the shadows while other German officials took the lead in acquiring paintings from the confiscated collection. In January 1944, Hofer was drafted as a private soldier and served in the guard regiment of the Hermann Göring Division. In November, although he was called to active duty, his entire military service took place in and around Carinhall, Göring’s luxurious country residence. Allied investigators interrogated him and he was called upon to assist in identifying and locating looted paintings. He was interned in Hersbruck. A French military tribunal convicted Hofer in absentia and sentenced him to ten years in prison, which he never served. In 1952, Hofer sold a looted Schloss painting by Koninck (Schloss 113) to a Chilean businessman in Munich. It had been one of the many Schloss paintings stolen from the Führerbau on 29-30 April 1945 that never resurfaced. In 2017, the painting reappeared in Santiago, Chile, when the descendants of the Chilean businessman offered it for sale through Christie’s. U.S. authorities seized the painting; in 2019, the artwork was restituted to the Schloss heirs.

Literature: Petropolous, Jonathan. Art as Politics in the Third Reich. University of North Carolina Press, 1996, p. 189. M1782-OSS Art Looting Investigation Unit Reports, 1945-46. Detailed Interrogation Reports (DIR). Report Nr. 8: Walter-Andreas Hofer. https://www.fold3.com/image/231996367. Accessed on 9 May 2021. Plaut, James. “Loot for the Master Race.” The Atlantic, Volume 178, No. 9, September 1946. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1946/09/loot-master-race/354838/. Alford, Kenneth. Hermann Göring and the Nazi Art Collection. The Looting of Europe’s Art Treasures and Their Dispersal After World War II. McFarland, 2012. “Christie’s Restitution Research Facilitates the Return of Nazi-Looted Painting Missing for More Than 75 Years.” Christies Press Release, 1 April 2019. https://www.christies.com/about-us/press-archive/details?PressReleaseID=9334&lid=1. Russell, Josh. “Feds Seize Nazi-Looted Art Put Up for Auction in NY.” _Courthouse News Service, _22 October 2018. https://www.courthousenews.com/feds-seize-nazi-looted-art-put-up-for-auction-in-ny/.