Gerhard Utikal

  Gerhard Utikal was born in Friedrichsgrätz. He was an employee of Alfred Rosenberg, “_Der Beauftragte des Führers für die Überwachung der gesamten und weltanschaulichen Schulung und Erziehung der NSDAP”Loh (Commissioner of the Führer for the Supervision of the Entire Intellectual and Ideological Schooling and Training of the NSDAP-DBFU), an office established in 1934. Utikal emerged as Alfred Rosenberg’s right-hand man. Between August 1940 and April 1941, he coordinated the plunder of Jewish-owned art collections in France as head of the ERR’s Berlin headquarters. He also organized special units and work groups that became integral to the ERR. As of April 1941, Utikal managed all operational ERR units, and in August 1941 he took over as staff leader of the ERR for the occupied Eastern territories. Utikal’s involvement with the Schloss Collection mostly centered around his displeasure with Lohse’s participation in the confiscation of the collection leading him to assert in June 1943 that Lohse had overstepped his bounds with regards to Göring and the ERR. However, given the fact that the s_Sonderauftrag Linz acquired the Schloss Collection, Utikal reiterated the ERR’s lack of interest.   In 1945, Utikal went into hiding until his arrest in 1947. The American prosecutor, Robert Kempner, interrogated him as part of the Nuremberg IMT trials. In December 1947, Utikal was handed over to the French authorities. In 1951, Utikal was released from prison. He died in 1982 in Germany.

Literature:

Jonathan Petropoulos, Art as Politics in the Third Reich., University of North Carolina Press, 1996, p. 128.

M1782- OSS Art Looting Investigation Unit Reports, 1945-46 Consolidated Interrogation Reports (CIR) – Report: Activity Of The Einsatzstab Rosenberg In France. Online at: https://www.fold3.com/image/231997561?terms=utikal,gerhard

Institut für Zeitgeschichte. “Vernehmung des früheren Parteimitglieds Gerhard Utikal (1947)” https://www.ifz-muenchen.de/archiv/zs/zs-0793.pdf accessed 5 May 2021.   Treue, Wilhelm. ”Zum nationalsozialistischen Kunstraub in Frankreich. Dokumentation”. Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 13. Jg. (1965), Heft 3, pp. 285–337. (online at: https://www.ifz-muenchen.de/heftarchiv/1965_3_4_treue.pdf