Karl Haberstock

Karl Haberstock of Augsburg and Munich was well-established in the art trade when the Nazis came to power in 1933. Between 1936 and 1938, he sold more than 100 works to Hitler alone. He recommended Hans Posse as the first director of Hitler’s planned museum in Linz. In the winter of 1940/41, Haberstock met with an art dealer at the Hotel Negresco, in Nice, who had offered to sell him part or all of the Schloss Collection. He rejected the proposal. A year and a half later, on 24 August 1942, Haberstock was informed by Roger Dequoy, manager of the aryanized Wildenstein gallery in Paris, that he might be able to establish contact with a member of the Schloss family regarding the sale of its collection. Neither the meeting nor the sale ever materialized. In December 1942, in a note written to Georges Destrem, a Paris-based art dealer deeply involved in dealings with the Germans, Haberstock reiterated his interest in acquiring all or parts of the Schloss Collection and attached a list of the paintings in which he was interested. Nothing came of it. After Posse’s death, Haberstock’s influence with Hitler and the Sonderauftrag Linz diminished. Nevertheless, Haberstock remained an essential figure in the recycling of art works plundered in the Occupied Territories – mostly for Göring’s benefit – until his capture by the Americans at Aschbach Castle shortly after Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender in May 1945. After his release from a civilian internment camp, Haberstock moved to Munich and resumed his business as an art dealer. He died in 1956. Literature: M1782- OSS Art Looting Investigation Unit Reports, 1945-46, Detailed Interrogation Report, Report Number 13: Karl Haberstock [online at: https://www.fold3.com/image/231997374] National Gallery of Art, “Karl Haberstock” https://www.nga.gov/collection/provenance-info.21600.html#biography Jonathan Petropolous, Art as Politics in the Third Reich, University of North Carolina Press 1996, p. 318. Jonathan Petropolous, The Faustian Bargain: The Art World in Nazi Germany, Oxford University Press 2000, pp. 74-98. Jonathan Petropolous, “Inside the Secret Market for Nazi-Looted Art,” Art News, 29 January 2014 (online at: https://www.artnews.com/art-news/market/inside-the-secret-market-for-nazi-looted-art-2379/) Horst Kessler, Christof Trepesch, Ute Haug, Anja Heuss, Karl Haberstock. Umstrittener Kunsthändler und Mäzen, Deutscher Kunstverlag 2008.