The Purge of Art Market Actors at the Liberation
The purge followed a “rugged,”1 but not “untended” path:2 from the ordinance of 18 August 1943 in Algiers establishing a purge committee to the general amnesty law of 6 August 1953, dozens of legal texts went into the fashioning of the transition process.
The aim was to reestablish Republican legitimacy and to define a range of sanctions in proportion to accusations without compromising national unity, political and economic stability. De Gaulle’s message from Algiers was clear: we must prepare the Liberation, “restore State justice and allow it to judge with fairness those who betrayed the country.”3
Starting in the Spring of 1944, amid the soaring violence of revenge, the provisional French Government densified the judicial and administrative framework, creating several courts and committees by ordinance: the justice courts of 26 June 1944; the civil chambers of 28 August; departmental committees for the confiscation of illicit profits, as well as the regional interprofessional purge committees and the National Interprofessional Purge Committee on 18 October; and finally, the High Court of Justice on 18 November.
Extra-legal manifestations continued,4 but the use of military justice offered a temporary jurisdictional response to popular vindictiveness – an imperfect but immediately operational justice.5
Outside of these main ordinances, a multitude of specialized committees were created to purge each state and administrative body, each professional, intellectual and artistic sector.
Thus an entire legal framework was put in place (I), but actors in the art market were above all viewed through an economic prism (II).
The criminal aspect: justice courts, civic chambers, the High Court
To condemn an individual, guilt had to be established according to acts previously defined and punishable by the law applicable at the time they were committed. At the Liberation, sovereignty – absolute, indivisible and perpetual – was incarnated in the French people and represented by a government that described itself as legitimate since 1940 and returning from exile.
However, common law may not correspond to the post-war will to purge – thus the task of transitional justice was to draw up a list of new incriminations linked to these exceptional circumstances.
Treason, a common law crime, could be mobilized, since the 17 June 1940 call to cease combat was interpreted as the matrix of all future cases of treason. Once the regime of Pétain was considered a usurpation of sovereignty in connection with an occupation by a foreign force, any participation in that regime would be a sign of collusion with the enemy in wartime, subject to the death penalty (criminal code, article 75 and following). Violation of state security could also be used and be punishable by forced labor (article 79 and following).
The judgement of high-ranking politicians was hardly a legal problem since the government relied on a long tradition of high political courts. But beyond the approximately 100 individuals judged by the High Court, more than 55,000 persons accused of treason were brought before justice courts set up throughout the country.1
Nonetheless, treason was too grave and monolithic a crime to include the range of behaviors during the Occupation – one could not judge in the same way the ordinary bureaucrat who expressed in conversation his indifference towards the fate of the English or members of the Resistance, and a member of the militia or an all too zealous denouncer.
Thus the crime of “national indignity” (indignité nationale) was created, its moral nuance reflecting an individual’s conscience and place in the community of citizens. A “republican punishment,”2 it called to mind the political foundation of the ancient City and created the term “vichyste” to describe those who withdrew from the body of the Republic by their words and actions, hence in thought. Those guilty of national indignity would suffer the loss of civic rights, a punishment already existing in French history since the Revolution and the “lèse-nation” that replaced “lèse-majesté”. Due to its historic nature, it was difficult for such a sentence to bypass the principle of the non-retroactivity of laws: it would not be a new crime, but the same offense sanctioned by a lesser sentence, allowing it to be punished by a retroactive criminal law.
By this historical-legal contortion, the ordinance of 26 August 1944 enabled the sentencing of those guilty of national indignity to dégradation nationale, considered a lesser sentence compared to past punishments such as deportation. Yet it entailed loss of rank, forfeiture of rights, professional disqualifications and prohibitions, and could be accompanied by confiscation of property and/or prohibition of residence.
Civic chambers, created within the courts of justice, were mainly competent to establish indignité nationale, but the justice courts could also pronounce dégradation nationale. Of 69,282 persons judged, 46,645 were sentenced to lifelong or temporary dégradation nationale.3
These figures were at the end of the legal chain, since the large majority of affairs were filtered upstream by the Liberation Committees and the reestablished institutions, in order to avoid overburdening the courts with affairs having to do with more or less founded local revenge dynamics.
Economic purges and actors in the art market
The art market and its actors were definitely present in the context of professional and economic purges, though the sector was not dealt with in priority, as is reflected in the historiography, mainly interested in the administration and in the legal, intellectual and financial professions, from both the criminal and economic points of view.
Historians have gradually come back to Henry Rousso’s idea that “economic collaboration had been the most important and the most widespread,” but “its repression less than moderate.”1
An economic purge did take place, though it was uneven, since it involved the same contradictory needs for rapidity and stability as the criminal purges. It brought to light the issue of legal profit in wartime and the distinction between gains obtained on good faith and others obtained by fraud and collaboration.
In addition, the war inflicted deprivations on the whole of society that did not come to an immediate end at the Liberation, making the continued presence of small and large profiteers even more intolerable. Questions of constraint and working for Germany were everywhere. Even those returning from forced labor were regarded with suspicion.
Economic collaboration could also be a step toward a criminal prosecution on the grounds of active collaboration in the category of national indignity or collusion with the enemy. In fact, one provision of the pre-war criminal code, restored at the Liberation, made it possible to incriminate economic exchanges with the enemy not only on the basis of their known existence, but by seeking the intentions and motives behind the acts of the accused.
Three main entities were set up to deal with the economic purge: departmental committees for the confiscation of illegal profits, the CCPI (Comités départementaux de confiscation des profits illicites), the CRIE (Comités régionaux interprofessionels d’épuration), and the CNIE (Commission nationale interprofessionnelle d’épuration).
The CCPI, institutions with a majority of members from the tax administration, faced the huge gap between the number of cases, the severity of sanctions and the reality of recovering the sums demanded. Clogging encouraged the multiplication of committees and the redirection of simpler affairs to the tax department for adjustment. Despite the latter, over 123,000 summonses were listed, even if the recovery of sums and thus the final benefit was difficult to evaluate. The fact that deadlines and payment schedules were granted, but that we have no proof of recovery for lack of a continual series of archives, makes it impossible to draw definitive conclusions in that regard.2
Local studies give insight into the reasons for procedural delays of the CCPI. In the Gironde, for example, the committee was unable to start work for lack of clear instructions and lack of personnel, accountants in particular.3 Besides which, the committee was expected to act in accordance with the CRIE, whose aim was to purge enterprises of compromised individuals without dealing with the economic aspect.
The CRIEs, presided by judges but composed of an equal number of employers, workers and civil servants, could also pronounce professional sentences, of prohibition to exercise, exclusion, even dégradation nationale, in order to avoid referral to the civic chamber. Procedures were long and were slowed down by professional secret. An illegal activity was not concretized by sanctions until 1946, when the urgency of the purge was over. During that lapse of time, these institutions were vilified by the press and public opinion.
These entities responsible for economic purge were part of an already overburdened structure in which numerous bodies intersected, collaborated, even clashed and overlapped. This grid-like purge did not make for a fluidification of the communication of evidence and the same person could be brought before the court as an individual, or before a CCPI and/or a CRIE in the name of his enterprise.
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Actors in the art market were mainly brought before and sentenced by the CCPI and with few exceptions, affairs brought before the CNIE and the Seine Justice court ended up with no sentences.
Using the RAMA data base, we traced 62 individual itineraries mentioned in purges and that often faced several entities, mostly the CCPI and CNIE.
Approximately ten of those cases were brought before the justice court for only three individuals sentenced – Max Stöcklin, Gustav Rochlitz and Yves Perdoux. Stöcklin was an authentic intelligence officer in the service of the occupier; it was therefore as a collaborator rather than for the occasional purchase of looted artworks that he was sentenced on 18 January 1946 to lifelong forced labor for collusion with the enemy. Rochlitz was closely linked to the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) and was brought three times before the CCPI, with overall sequester of property and high fines, while being condemned to three years in prison by the justice court. Yves Perdoux led an active economic collaboration with the German authorities, sometimes together with Rochlitz. He was fined and sentenced to dégradation nationale by the justice court and also brought before the CCPI.
The others escaped sentencing for various reasons, which shows the difficulties of establishing a link between illicit profit during wartime and the certainty of treason or collusion with the enemy.
The affairs of the gallery owner Alfred Maquet were rapidly closed thanks to activities in the resistance and the fact that his transactions with two Germans were financially minimal and had nothing to do with looted works. The question of constraint and intention also weighed on decisions regarding the Brosseron gallery, which hid and sometimes, on their request, sold works of close Jews. This was enough to condemn the gallery before the CCPI, but not before the justice court, which reasoned that commercial contacts with the Germans had been undergone and not sought. It was the same for other actors implicated in commercial operations where the fact of collaboration was not clearly established: prosecution of the Vandermeersch gallery before the CNIE and the justice court was rapidly abandoned. Moreover, Alfred Maquet had very few operations with Germans and hid an escaped prisoner of war for a year, which made for the closing of the dossiers before the CNIE justice court.
André Schoeller had mixed luck. Although condemned by the CCPI, his other dossiers before the justice court and the CNIE were closed. His case reflects the ambiguity towards individuals appearing in the economic chain during the Occupation. As a member of the Syndicate of dealers in paintings, he was in relation with German institutions, while maintaining links with collectors, and at the Liberation argued resistance activities. Some were not convinced and Jean Dutourd denounced these Franco-German networks and the fact that “all the sales at the hôtel Drouot were carried out under the Schoeller-Fabiani name.”4 Similarly, Martin Fabiani, who made substantial gains during the war, saw his criminal affairs closed, but was condemned by the CCPI.
Some actors also benefited from the urgency and superficial nature of examinations. Such was the case for the antiques dealer Paul Tulino, who was only briefly questioned by the justice court of the CNIE, whereas later research revealed his implication in the transaction of looted works. These same constraints of the purge machinery may also explain the closing of other files before the justice court, like that of the Atri gallery, implicated in several sales to German museums and to Walter Hofer, Göring’s principal art dealer. Roger Dequoy was condemned twice by the CCPI, but obtained a non-lieu in the dossier examined by the justice court. He was in contact with the whole German and collaborator trade network, but was able to recuperate the Wildenstein collections of the Parisian gallery he was responsible for, thus avoiding their confiscation. The contrary was true of Avogli Trotti, who had close and continued links with Adolf Wüster and German museums, for which he was condemned by the CCPI, but he died before action by the justice court could take place. Paul Pétridès was also exonerated by the justice court and the CNIE, though condemned for illicit profits.5
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Among the actors we studied, no file presented before the CNIE ended with a sentencing. There too, collaboration was not a factor despite illicit gains. Marie Albin was suspected of double accounting for which she was condemned by the CCPI, her sentence later lessened by the CSCPI, Conseil supérieur de confiscation de profits illicites. She had the support of Michel Martin, SNIE rapporteur, who did his best during the Occupation to keep artworks in France.
Others, such as Étienne Bignou, Pierre Landry, Edouard Leonardi and Jean-Louis Souffrice were sentenced for illicit profits but exonerated by the CNIE despite regular links et large volumes of transactions with German persons and institutions. Intention was the heart of their defense, based on the same arguments: absence of solicitation on the part of German clients, forced transactions, sales undertaken for Jews in need, and sometimes the absence of impoverishment of the national patrimony if the sale concerned works of little interest or belonging to a German school. Despite a large number of transactions involving works from collections then considered Jewish in terms of anti-Semitic legislation, the dossier of Raphaël Gérard was closed by the CNIE as well as by the CCPI, like that of the Charpentier gallery in November 1946. Jean Schmit, who had a laissez-passer granted by the German authorities, was not condemned by the CNIE, on the grounds of pressure exerted by the occupier.
The Zacharie and Alexandra Birtschansky couple were also exonerated before the CNIE and the CCPI. Zacharie was Jewish and sales to Germans gave him the funds necessary to flee to the free zone. The small amount of money involved and the fact that the sales concerned their private collection also played in their favor. The cases against Alfred Daber, the Manteau gallery, Paolo Aflallo de Aguilar and André Camoin were also abandoned due to the small volume of transactions.
Some dealers pointed to actions of resistance, such as Garbis Kalebjian, who hid a number of Jews, or the Maison Jansen, aiding resistants to the STO and hiding private objects. Jeanne Batifaud was condemned by the CCPI but her dossier was closed by the CNIE, considering the works she had hidden and sales undertaken for the benefit of Jews, despite the slim border between sincere support and wartime profit.
César Mange de Hauke also had a dual activity during the war, on one hand ensuring the safety of the property of his employer, Seligmann, based in the United States, while carrying on sales with the occupier. Georges Terrisse was part of a resistant group aimed at hiding artworks and keeping watch on public sales, but at the same time a member of the collaborationist Rassemblement national populaire. An ambivalent profile and services rendered worked in his favor before the civic chamber and the CNIE, even if the archives of the civic chambers show that in general, certified membership in a collaborating movement systematically ended up in the recognition of national indignity.
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Thus the overall picture shows clemency, especially considering difficulties with payment of fines, possibilities for appeal for their suspension or reduction. Actors in the art market benefited from a form of de-linking that dissociated their profits from any suspicion of collaboration. Despite recognized acts of resistance on the part of certain actors, art dealers could easily present themselves as passive actors in a constraining system. The post-war withdrawal from affairs – far from common – could also serve as an argument, a form of expiation recognized by the committees. However, beyond the duly condemned financial aspect, the traffic of artworks deeply concerned the culture and identity of those who had been looted. Even when spoliation was not the case, art trafficking was part of a global enterprise on the part of a predatory regime that instrumentalized art and culture. The trafficking of artworks and continued trade with the occupier could be analyzed from the point of view of the vichyste behavior that motivated the creation of the term national indignity.
The expertise of Michel Martin, rapporteur for the CNIE weighed heavily. His reports show the will to preserve the interests of the profession and of the market, including the reputation of certain actors who compromised in a way compatible with post-war society. In the affair involving Joseph Leegenhoek, M. Martin insisted on “the interest for the profession of M. Leegenhoek’s commerce, since it exports on the Belgian and Dutch markets, where it seems particularly well placed.”6 The CNIE closed the affair on that basis, but sent it to the CCPI, which condemned it to confiscations and fines.
It was an identical legal path for Allen Loebl, Jewish owner of the Maison Kleinberger. Recognizing the constraints that weighed on his activity, M. Martin attested to “the honor of a well-reputed maison, still now very well disposed towards the national museums,”7 allowing the closing of his file by the CNIE.
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In conclusion, the art market was not an anomaly in the overall picture of the purge. It reflects the same indulgences, the same will to displace sanctions on financial, rather than moral or criminal grounds. The only difference was the protective entre-soi, the play of personal relationships, clearer here than in other professional corps that depend on it less. A deeper, case by case study, could bring to light the actual colorimetry of the judgements of society and the law at the time of the Liberation.
Basic data
Personne / collectivité
Personne / personne
Personne / personne
