Hermann Brugger, MA
Hermann Brugger, MA
Born in South Tyrol. Many years of work in the IT industry. Study of art history including a one-year ERASMUS stay in Berlin. Lecturer at Technikum Wien. Independent art historian in the field of provenance research www.ARTexploring.com Beginning of a dissertation on the transfer of ancestral heritage during the Second World War at the Institute for Art History (Prof. Lioba Theis) and the Institute for Contemporary History (Prof. Bertrand Perz).
Research interests: Provenance research on art objects and documentation of the history of their creation, acquisition, and loss during the Second World War. Methodical search of art objects in databases, museums or in the art trade worldwide.
Current research project: Der Kulturgut-Transfer von Südtirol und Slowenien ins Deutsche Reich durch die Kulturkommission der SS-Forschungs-und Lehrgemeinschaft „Das Ahnenerbe“.
The transfer of cultural assets from South Tyrol and Slovenia to the German Reich by the Cultural Commission of the SS Research and Education Association "Das Ahnenerbe”.
Less research has been done to date on the transfer of cultural assets by the SS Research and Teaching Association Das Ahnenerbe in the context of Europe-wide resettlements during the Second World War. In the present study the role of the Kulturkommission, a sub-organisation of the Ahnenerbe in the resettlements in South Tyrol and in Slovenia, is examined. Within the Kulturkommission the working group Museums and Art Treasures was responsible for the reception, securing, purchase and transfer of coveted art objects to the German Reich. The main aim of the work is to examine the processes of this working group. The relevance lies in the distinction between the contractually agreed taking of cultural property by the resettled persons and the procedure of the SS working group for seizure by means of purchase (repressive?) and the export licences that were not applied for. In the course of the research, the art objects brought out South Tyrol and Slovenia are recorded, described and presented on an online platform. Roughly estimated, there are over 1000 works of art mentioned in the documents of the Kulturkommission in correspondence, procurement lists or delivery lists. These art objects transferred to the German Reich are lost worldwide, some of them have disappeared or are in museums, in depots or in private collections.
Publications:
- Hermann Brugger, Kunstraub in Südtirol 1939-1945, ATHESIA Verlag, Bozen 2019.