Who stole and where are the (still) missing Führerbau paintings

By: Marc Masurovsky
Holocaust Art Restitution Project

On this day, 71 years ago, while the US 3rd Army met light to moderate resistance as it overran Munich, unknown individuals made off with more than 700 paintings, mostly Old Masters, from the Führerbau - translated as "the Führer's building, Adolf Hitler's administrative building on Arcisstraße in Munich.

Photo Clipping, Life Magazine, 

During the period of American military occupation, the Munich Central Collecting Point transformed the Führerbau into a central clearinghouse for assessing the origin of thousands of art objects looted across Europe.

To date, the theft has not been resolved.

The Zentral Institut fur Kunstgeschichte, housed in the old Führerbau building, has been working to reconstruct this historic theft, under the guidance of Prof. Christian Fuhrmeister and Dr. Stephan Klingen, director of the Fototek at the ZI, with Dr. Meike Hopp, a formidable art historian and provenance expert regarding the fate of art looted in Germany.