The Looting

In exile in Switzerland, Ferdinand was cut off from his family and all his possessions. The sugar company he directed was aryanized, and Ferdinand’s shares held in Swiss banks were handed over to the Nazis.  Ferdinand’s palais was bought by the railroad for its new headquarters.  The artworks were plundered. In early 1939, a large group of Nazi and museum officials met in Ferdinand’s palais to discuss dividing up the enormous art collection. His famous 400-piece porcelain collection was auctioned off, with the best pieces going to Vienna’s museums. Some of his 19th century artworks by Austrian masters were taken and given to Adolf Hitler and Hermann Göring. Others were bought for Hitler’s planned museum in Linz.  Erich Führer, the Nazi lawyer liquidating the estate, was allowed to take a few paintings for his own collection. 

The Austrian Gallery expressed an interest in the Klimt paintings, ultimately obtaining three of them from Führer, including the famous gold Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer.  One landscape was bought by the City of Vienna and another was kept by Führer. The portrait in Ferdinand’s bedroom ended up in the hands of an art dealer.

In his second-to-last will, dated Oct. 8, 1942, Ferdinand wrote while in exile in Zurich: "In an illegal manner, a tax penalty of one million Reichsmarks was imposed and my entire estate in Vienna was confiscated and sold off." Indeed, when the war ended in 1945, Ferdinand was almost penniless.  He died in November 1945, never having recovered any of his property.  Not surprisingly, in his last will written in October 1945, Ferdinand made no provision for the donation of his property to any Austrian museums.