New publication: Dr. Kathrin Kleibl publishes volume on Nazi provenance research in northern Germany

The German Maritime Museum (DSM) / Leibniz Institute for Maritime History presents a new scientific publication entitled “NS-Provenienzforschung in Norddeutschland”. The volume is now available in the museum store.

The Franz Leuwer art dealership was an institution in Bremen until its closure in 2023. Founded in 1903 in Obernstraße, further branches followed on Wangerooge, Borkum and Spiekeroog. There were even on-board bookshops on North German Lloyd (NDL) passenger ships under the name Leuwer.

The new anthology “Nazi Provenance Research in Northern Germany - Locally Specific Contexts in the Theft, Transfer and Sale of Cultural Property” was produced following a workshop with provenance researchers at the DSM. In it, Dr. Kathrin Kleibl focuses on the well-known Bremen bookshop. This was originally run by the Jewish widow Anni Leuwer and fell victim to the repression of the Nazi regime.

After the National Socialists came to power, the Leuwers were banned from operating the on-board bookshops and stocking the on-board libraries at the NDL. Anni Leuwer was forced under massive pressure to sell the company to one of her employees, Carl Emil Spiegel. Spiegel profited considerably from this “Aryanization” and also acquired works at so-called “Jewish auctions” in order to sell them on at a profit. Anni Leuwer herself was deported to Theresienstadt at an advanced age, where she died in inhumane conditions.

Dr. Kleibl's research sheds impressive light on this exemplary story and illuminates the mechanisms of dispossession, disenfranchisement and inhumane violence during the Nazi era.

The publication not only offers scientific perspectives on the DSM's provenance research, but also raises awareness of the need to systematically come to terms with the history of victims and perpetrators.

Kleibl, born in 1973, is a provenance researcher, classical archaeologist and art historian. She began researching the history of the DSM collection in 2016 before moving to the Heinrich-Vogeler-Museum in Worpswede in 2024.

Interested parties can now purchase the anthology in the museum store for 38 euros.