GERMAN COURT RULES NAZI-SYMPATHIZER’S WORK MUST REMAIN ON DISPLAY
Catherine Hickley reports in the Art Newspaper that the heirs of artist Erich Klahn, whose commissions for churches contain symbols such as swastikas and runes, have won a court battle in Germany to ensure that his art will continue to be displayed in a convent in the northern part of the country.
The artist, who died in 1978, joined the Nazi party as early as 1921, and though he eventually left, he “was influenced by the political right and anti-parliamentarianism and allowed himself to be instrumentalized by Nazi cultural policy,” Klosterkammer Hannover, a regional public authority responsible for managing property that once belonged to the convent’s church, said. At the heart of the court case is a contract with Klahn’s heirs that the authority canceled in 2014. The agreement obliged it to keep and display the artist’s works, after discovering his affiliation with the Nazis.
In January, the federal court of justice, Germany’s highest civil court, rejected the Klosterkammer’s appeal against previous court rulings that the cancelation was invalid. Andreas Hesse, director of the Klosterkammer, said, “We are looking at what further steps we can take. For now, we are obliged to keep Klahn’s work safe and to show it in the exhibition as previously agreed.” Also, as a result of the decision, he says a museum of Klahn’s work will re-open in April in the Mariensee convent, one of fifteen convents and monasteries the Klosterkammer oversees. The artist’s Good Friday altarpiece in the Mariensee convent, produced in 1939, features hinges crowned with swastikas and ancient German runes.
Peter Raue, a Berlin-based lawyer representing the Klahn heirs, welcomed the court’s decision and disputed the Klosterkammer’s view that Klahn was a Nazi, claiming that the artist never paid his subscriptions to the party. He also argued that the artist Emil Nolde, associated with the Die Brücke group, was more deeply implicated in Nazism than Klahn, yet his work is still exhibited today.
Between 1928 and 1959, Klahn created seven altarpieces, of which five are still in use, as well as tapestries, windows, and paintings for churches in northern Germany. The Erich Klahn Foundation, officially managed by the Klosterkammer, holds about 1,130 works by the artist.
