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Showing posts with label Friedrich Gustav Kadgien. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Friedrich Gustav Kadgien. Show all posts

August 27, 2025

Wednesday, August 27, 2025 - ,,,,,,,,,, No comments

Swastikas, SOCMINT and Stolen Masterpieces: Inside the Hunt for Goudstikker’s Lost Art in Argentina

On Monday, the internet lit up after Algemeen Dagblad published an explosive investigation by Peter Schouten, John van den Oetelaar, and Cyril Rosman, revealing the identification of two World War II-era paintings linked to the family of Friedrich Gustav Kadgien, sparking renewed attention to Nazi-looted art hidden abroad.  Kadgien, a Nazi SS officer, served as Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring’s liaison with Swiss banks in his work connected with Germany's Vierjahresplan before splitting for Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay as Germany lost the war.

Friedrich Kadgien's visa for Uruguay.

Building on this revelation, ARCA released its own article yesterday, outlining some of our parallel research into the tragic losses of Amsterdam dealer Jacques Goudstikker, as well as tracing a brief outline of Kadgien’s movements before and after his escape to South America.  As the case remained a developing one, we discussed only the general outlines of our own OSINT and SOCMINT explorations,  in order to give Kadgien's relatives time to respond. 

Today, journalists Schouten and Rosman reported that federal prosecutor Carlos Martínez has opened a case of concealment of smuggling, in cooperation with INTERPOL and the Policía Federal Argentina. As a result of this investigation law enforcement officers from Mar del Plata's Special Investigations Unit executed a search warrant, authorised by the Mar del Plata Court of Guarantees No. 2, which was carried out at a home in Mar del Plata in search of the 17th century painting Portrait of a Lady by Giuseppe Vittore Ghislandi, looted during World War II.  Kadgien 's youngest daughter, accompanied by her husband and lawyer, were present during the search.

During the police raid, investigators discovered that the family had removed the artwork, leaving its current whereabouts unknown.  Where it had hung on the wall, a tapestry with a horse had been hung.  Despite this, more than 25 prints from German and French collections from the 1940s were seized, along with relevant documentation, two cell phones, a revolver, and a shotgun.

This painting, by Italian artist Giuseppe Ghislandi, was stolen from Jacques Goudstikker's collection when the Jewish Dutch art dealer fled the Netherlands as it was invaded by Nazi Germany

This case got underway after the artwork depicting Cecilia Colleoni had been discovered in a photograph uploaded for a Robles Casas & Campos real estate advertisement.  The image depicted the 17th century countess behind a green couch next to a wooden and glass tile coffee table, which unfortunately, by mistake or design, forms the shape of a swastika, an ancient religious symbol, adopted by Adolf Hitler to represent the German Reich

The Nazi used the right facing form of a swastika at an angle of 45 degrees
with the corners pointing upwards.

Shortly after the news broke in Europe this week, Robles Casas & Campos removed the photos and changed the Mar del Plata housing listing to another property in barrio Parque Luro located 5 km away. Reviewing documents for Argentine companies listed as Sociedad de Responsabilidad Limitada ARCA found that the original Buenos Aires home, located at Padre Cardiel 4152, Mar del Plata, was owned, and/or occupied, by Kadgien's younger daughter, Patricia Mónica Kadgien and her partner Juan Carlos Cortegoso.  

As the story gained steam within the international press, Patricia Kadgien, who had already stopped communicating with the Dutch journalists, switched all of her social media channels private, as did other relatives and former employees of the family.  As an added precaution, Kadgien, also changed her online name from Patricia Kadgien to Monica Cortegoso.  

But before these changes were made, ARCA had already captured a series of photos posted by the former SS officer's daughter, which were of two additional artworks. 

One was described by the Dutch journalists as a still life painting depicting a crowded display of peaches and other fruit, a bird's nest, insects and a lizard.  This oil painting is believed to have been completed by the German artist Abraham Mignon (1640–1679), and was also being searched for as a World War II era loss by the Dutch Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed. 

ARCA captured a grouping of images of this artwork posted on Kadgien's socials in 2011, which showed what is believed to be the Mignon painting displayed behind three individuals.  While the wall-mounted light illuminating the painting from above causes the artwork to be out of focus, we could clearly see three peaches poking through. 

Still life painting by Abraham Mignon which was known to have been purchased by Friedrich Gustav Kadgien, a lawyer responsible for foreign currency procurement through Swiss front companies for the Vierjahresplan.

While the visibility of the painting published in that social media post was quite limited, the three pieces of visible fruit depicted in the social media uploaded photo are consistent with the three peaches in the black and white image of Mignon's artwork recorded in the Netherlands online ‘Cultural Goods WWII’ portal.  This can be seen with our rudimentary overlay below. This painting was also not found during this initial police search warrant.


In other explorations, ARCA captured another blurry photograph, this time of a religious artwork posted by Patricia Kadgien hanging above two twin beds inside a second residence located near the Costa Esmeralda - Barrio Deportiva some distance from Buenos Aires.  While the photograph of this third artwork was taken from a distance, and was not in perfect focus, it clearly showed a religious scene of the Blessed Mother and Christ child hung on a wall above the headboards of two twin beds.

Discovered 3rd painting in a rental residence advertised by Kadgien's daughter.  

This artwork corresponds to the iconography of several paintings titled La Vierge aux raisins (The Virgin with the grapes) attributed to, or executed in the style of, Pierre Mignard.  This allegorical composition depicts Mary seated in a darkened room at twilight with her infant son on her lap and holding a cluster of grapes in her right hand.  

The painting's imagery is understood to be a foreshadowing of the Virgin's role at the Wedding Feast at Cana, as well as the sacrifice of the Cross. In this scene, the artist painted the Christ Child delicately lifts his mother's veil, an action which has been interpreted as a prefiguration of his unveiling of the path to mankind's salvation.

Paintings of this type are sometimes referred to as "Mignardes," after their original author, and were intended for private devotion.  One of Mignard's original oil paintings illustrating this subject is housed in the Musée du Louvre.  Unfortunately, there are multiple versions of this artwork, by the original artist, his peers, and by later copyists, so for now at least, it remains unclear whether or not the work can be traced to a specific  World War II-era loss.


By late Monday, 25 August 2025, as was the case with the digitally available photo of Ghislandi's Portrait of the Countess, someone acting in the family's interests, scrubbed the suspect photo displaying the Madonna with Child painting from the internet.  However other images depicting the interior and exterior of this second residence, uploaded in different years, demonstrated that the property was still under Patricia Kadgien's control, at least in the year 2023. 


Two of the original images ARCA captured from a 2019 posting before the take-downs occurred, showed the exterior of this property.  One of these corresponds to a newer December 2023 photo uploaded by Kadgien's daughter which depicts the same house, showing a portion of the same veranda and the same white table. 


This third artwork can also be seen in this local Ahora Mar del Plata news site photo, showing that it was seized along with other suspect works when the search warrant was executed.  This painting and these other works on paper, will now need to be sifted through, though we can already see that some of the prints appear to be part of the Henri Matisse. Seize peintures 1939-1943, a First Edition set of 16 Prints
Published by Les Editions du Chene in Paris in 1943. 


For now, the Portrait of a Lady by Giuseppe Vittore Ghislandi has not been recovered.  Nor, it seems, has the other high value still life by Abraham Mignon.  One has to hope that Patricia, her husband, her sister Alicia Maria Kadgien or other members of the family, will cooperate more with police and prosecutors than they did with the journalists covering this evolving and long time coming story. 


By Lynda Albertson and Alice Bientinesi


August 25, 2025

Monday, August 25, 2025 - ,,,,, No comments

Diamonds and Dispossessed Art: The Friedrich Gustav Kadgien connection to the Goudstikker collection

"Portrait of a Woman" from the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed website.
. 
As readers of this blog know, Jacques Goudstikker was once considered to be the preeminent dealer of Old Master paintings in Amsterdam and is estimated to have amassed an extraordinary collection of some 1400 works of art over the course of his professional career.  When Germany began its assault on Holland on May 10, 1940, the Jewish dealer was acutely aware of the imminent threat to his family’s safety and livelihood.

With Rotterdam burning and as the Nazi invasion under Reichsmarschall Göring gaining speed, Goudstikker, took his young wife Désirée von Halban Kurtz, and their infant son Edouard, to IJmuiden in North Holland, where the family boarded the SS Bodegraven, a ship docked at the port city departing for England. 

Goudstikker inventory of property

Unable to transport his gallery's paintings with him, Goudstikker carried a neatly typed inventory of his property in a black leather notebook.  This notebook detailed artworks by important Dutch and Flemish artists like Jan Mostaert and Jan Steen, as well as works by Peter Paul Rubens, Giotto, Pasqualino Veneziano, Titian, Rembrandt, Vincent van Gogh, and the Cranachs.  Unfortunately, in a further tragic twist of fate, Goudstikker lost his life on his journey to safety, breaking his neck in an accidental fall through an uncovered hatch just two days into the ship's voyage.

In less than a week after the German Luftwaffe of the Third Reich crossed into Dutch airspace, Dutch commanding general General Henry G. Winkelman surrendered and the country fell under German occupation.  As a result, Amsterdam came under a civilian administration overseen by the Reichskommissariat Niederlande, which was dominated by the Schutzstaffel.  

Goudstikker's collection was quickly liquidated, taken under circumstances of vulnerability and displacement typical of many World War II -era art thefts.  Nazi Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring himself cherry picked many of the choicest gems, including two 6-1/4 foot (1.9 meters) tall panels of Adam and Eve by Lucas Cranach the Elder, which would become the subject of a protracted and painful multi-million dollar lawsuit with the Norton Simon Museum in California.

But today's story is not about the Cranachs, but about a painting by Giuseppe Vittore Ghislandi, (better known as Fra’ Galgario), an Italian painter from the early 1700s. 

In the aftermath of World War II, the Goudstikker family sought to rebuild their life and secure what remained of their assets with several works becoming part of broader restitution claims. This painting, titled simply Portrait of a Lady was one of the works seized by the Nazis from Jacques Goudstikker's art gallery in Amsterdam and was last traced to Friedrich Gustav Kadgien, a lawyer responsible for foreign currency procurement through Swiss front companies, and who acted as  Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring's liaison with Swiss banks for the Vierjahresplan.  

Brazilian identity card for "Federico Gustavo" Kadgien

As the Allies crossed the Rhine, in the east and the Red Army advanced on Berlin Kadgien, a member of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (since 1 November 1932) and the SS since 1935, was responsible for Germany's war economy.  But despite his high ranking position, he fled to Switzerland, crossing the German-Swiss border near Kreuzlingen just days before Germany's official surrender.  There he lived, for several years, for the most part sheltered and under the radar.  Germany lost the war, and the former SS officer began using his contacts with Swiss businessmen and banks for his own purposes.  

Much later, the Bergier commission will identify him as being connected to the newly renamed firm Imhauka Handels- und Finanzierungs-gesellschaft AG, a finance and trading firm formed with Ernst Imfeld and Ludwig Haupt, hence the letters IM-HAU-KA, that had branches in Tangier, Buenos Aires, and Rio de Janeiro. This firm is believed to have made it possible for the Germans to move money, fuel, diamonds, and apparently art, out of Europe.

 The motor vessel "Anna C" docked in Genoa for Buenos Aires 

Interrogated by the American authorities in Bern, in 1948, who wanted him extradited back to Germany, Kadgien skipped town to Latin America.  To do so he  hopped the passenger ship, "Anna C" (1948 - 1971) docked in the port of Genoa and headed to Buenos Aires.  Once in that South American country, he settled, found himself a younger wife, bred and rode horses, and founded Imhauka Argentina, with branches in Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro, as well as the Companhia Brasileira de Caldeiras.  


Little is known about his company's activities but Kadgien's wealth was enormous, sufficient in fact to allow him and Ludwig Haupt to acquire an 82,000 hectare fazenda, a parcel of land roughly the size of the city of Berlin, on a curve of the Taquari-Guaçu river.  Some speculate that the German bon vivant's wealth came from laundering the German war chest and that he financed coups in Colombia (1953) and Guatemala (1954), using the proceeds from confiscated diamonds taken from their owners in Antwerp during the war.

A house and private plane on Kadgien's 82,000 hectare fazenda.

In Argentina his network of companies functioned perfectly even after the war and not long after he was granted Argentine citizenship, which conveniently protected him from being extradited to Germany.  He died in Buenos Aires in 1978 at the age of seventy one, without ever being held accountable for any of his crimes.

Today in an article published by Algemeen Dagblad and written collaboratively by Peter Schouten, John van den Oetelaar and Cyril Rosman, it became publicly known that at least one stolen World War II-era painting from Jacques Goudstikker's collection apparently made its way with Kadgien to Argentina.

© Robles Casas & Campos

The painting depicting the Countess Cecilia Colleoni by Ghislandi was identified when one of the former SS Officer's two daughters listed her house in Mar del Plata, south of Buenos Aires, with the Robles Casas & Campos real estate firm.  There, above a well-won green couch was the painting of a woman in a light coloured dress, laced at the front with half sleeves.  Examining the photograph, experts Annelies Kool and Perry Schrier of the Dutch Heritage Agency state: "There is no reason to believe it could be a copy." According to them, "The dimensions also appear to match the information we have. Definitive confirmation can be obtained by examining the back of the painting" noting that the verso may still retain markings or labels confirming its provenance.

Official documents on the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed website and cited in the Dutch article reveal that Kadgien also owned (at least) two paintings from Amsterdam in 1946 which were at one point with the Jewish art dealer Goudstikker.  The second artwork is a still life painting with fruit by the German artist Abraham Mignon (1640–1679) described in this document. 

Like the Dutch journalists, ARCA was able to find photographs identifying this still life painting linking the artwork to Kadgien's living family members, via OSINT methods.  I was also able to discover a third painting, which may be a match to a painting by one of the most important portrait painters of the French Baroque.  That artwork was stolen from a museum in Germany at the end of the war.  If this third identification is also a match, that would bring the number of suspect paintings tied to this Second World War actor to at least three. 

A 1996 Swiss Independent Commission of Experts investigating Switzerland’s role in the Nazi period noted SS Friedrich Kadgien as a lawyer at the Nazi Public Economy Department during the Second World War. According to that report, "Kadgien had been heavily involved in criminal methods for acquiring currency, securities and diamonds stolen from Jewish victims playing a major role."

Jacques Goudstikker's heirs have stated that they will seek the return of the Countess painting.  Time will tell with the other two. 


By:  Lynda Albertson

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