Palais Rothschild

"Palais Rothschild" refers to a number of palaces in Vienna built and owned by the titled Austrian branch of the Rothschild banking family. Apart from their sheer size and elegance they were famous for the art and other collections they housed, another reflection of the family's wealth and position.

The collections were confiscated by the Nazis in 1938, the palaces stripped and ruined during World War II. After the war the heirs received little compensation and what remained of the buildings were sold off or destroyed, to be replaced by modern office buildings. The history of these palaces and the art collections they contained is symbolic of the rise and fall of Austria's Jewry.

Palais (Nathaniel) Rothschild

This palace was commissioned by Baron Nathaniel von Rothschild (1836-1905), the brother of Albert Salomon von Rothschild. French architect Jean Girette designed and built the French Neo-baroque style¹ palace between 1871-78.

The palace was two stories high, surrounded by a lush garden decorated with fountains and sculptures, the whole built to showcase the wealth of the Rothschild family. Baron Nathaniel organized a huge ball for the housewarming, including an orchestra playing antique instruments from the Baron's own priceless collection of musical instruments . The art collection housed here was renowned. [pg. 147, Dieter Klein, Martin Kupf, Robert Schediwy (Ed.) Stadtbildverluste Wien - Ein Rückblick auf fünf Jahrzehnte. LIT Verlag, Vienna 2005. ISBN 3-8258-7754-X.] . Baron Nathaniel was also famous for his substantial philanthropic and charitable activities.

After the "Anschluß" (Annexation) of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938, the family were forced to flee and the estates seized by the Nazis. The Gestapo moved in and used this palace for their interrogations. The building itself was heavily damaged during Allied bombing raids in 1944.

At the end of World War II the owners returned to find a smoldering ruin. The ruins were torn down; some of the materials were used for reconstruction around the city, apparently including the Stephansdom. The estate was eventually sold to the Austrian Chamber of Labour by the sole heiress, Baroness Clarice de Rothschild, in 1950. The Labour Chamber had the rest of the ruins torn down and erected a simple modern building for its trainees [pg. 147, Dieter Klein, Martin Knupf, Robert Schediwy (Ed.) Stadtbildverluste Wien - Ein Rückblick auf fünf Jahrzehnte. LIT Verlag, Vienna 2005. ISBN 3-8258-7754-X.] .

Palais (Albert) Rothschild (I)

This palace was commissioned by Baron Albert von Rothschild and designed and built by the French architect Gabriel-Hippolyte Destailleur between 1879-84.

The building itself was unusual for Vienna: designed in the French Neo-Renaissance “hôtel particulier” style², the layout was U-shaped, three stories high and set back from the street by a courtyard, with the estate fenced off by a high iron grill. Apparently as a child Baron Albert had lived in Salomon Mayer von Rothschild's house in 1848, which would explain the palace's seclusion from the public. Attached to the palace was a garden which bordered on Plößlgasse.

The entrance hall was dominated by an enormous marble staircase, the walls decorated with priceless gobelins, mirrors and paintings. The ballroom and various salons had ceilings painted by Jean de Witt and Tiepolo, and were richly decorated with stucco, gold leaf, and heavy hanging crystal chandeliers. The ornate parquet floors were made with expensive rare woods; the furniture was in the style of Louis-Seize [pg. 149, Dieter Klein, Martin Knupf, Robert Schediwy (Ed.) Stadtbildverluste Wien - Ein Rückblick auf fünf Jahrzehnte. LIT Verlag, Vienna 2005. ISBN 3-8258-7754-X.] .

A special feature was a large orchestrion, built into a niche between the ballroom and one of the salons; together with a smaller orchestrion, these two instruments could replace an entire orchestra. In addition to being a private residence Baron Albert used it to conduct his banking business; it's opulence was both a social and financial statement.

An unusual element of the building was the private observatory, located in the middle projection ("Mittelrisalit"), reached by a small wooden staircase from the second floorpg. 149, Dieter Klein, Martin Kupf, Robert Schediwy (Ed.) Stadtbildverluste Wien - Ein Rückblick auf fünf Jahrzehnte. LIT Verlag, Vienna 2005. ISBN 3-8258-7754-X.] .

After the "Anschluß" (Annexation) of Austria by Nazi Germany, the Rothschild family was forced to flee and went into exile in England. Almost immediately the Nazis turned their attention to the Rothschild art collections, the largest and most valuable Jewish-owned art collections in Austria. The treasures of Baron Louis Rothschild composed of paintings, statues, furnitures, books, armour and coins, were all seized and removed from his house at Theresianumgasse, prior to the Gestapo commandeering the building for its Vienna headquarters.
Adolf Eichmann moved into the palace and set up the infamous “"Zentralstelle für jüdische Auswanderung"”, the 'purpose' of which was to “organise” the emigration of Jews from Austria. In fact it's mission was to strip Austrian Jewish citizens of all money and possessions, holding them to ransom in exchange for the hope of receiving emigration permits. Often the permits were withheld even after all demands had been met, often guaranteeing the victims a one-way trip to a concentration camp.

Baron Albert von Rothschild was forced to sign a document giving his consent to the art collections' confiscation, plus the appropriation of all Rothschild assets in Austria by the German Government, in exchange for his brother's release from Dachau concentration camp and safe passage for them both out of Austria.

Elsewhere in Vienna other collections were confiscated and taken to a collection point for examination. In all 163 collections worth a total of 93 billion Reichsmark (RM) were confiscatted. From this plunder 269 paintings of high value were picked out, of which 122 were later selected for considered by Hitler for inclusion in his planned museum in Linz. [Peter Harclerode, Brendan Pittaway. Lost Masters. Welcome Rain Publishers, 2000. ISBN 1-56649-165-7]

With the beginning of the “"Endlösung"” (Final Solution) and the destruction of the Austrian Jewish Community, the Gestapo office for emigration ceased to function. Eichmann himself was transferred elsewhere to organise the deportation and murder of Jews in the concentration camps.

A postal and telegram office was set up in the palace itself. It was slightly damaged during the war. Though still standing and functional, by war's end Baron Louis Nathaniel de Rothschild found it in a state of total neglect, its interior largely plundered by the Nazis.

In following years he tried to obtain compensation for his family's losses and the ruined Rothschild bank from the Austrian government. At that time the government took the stance that Austria had been a victim of the war and therefore not responsible. Many bureaucratic hurdles and much red tape made it almost impossible for any surviving Austrian Jew to get their property back or receive any proper compensation. The Baron only received a small amount of compensation and finally gave up in face of stiff government opposition.

He gave the palace, the gardens and the estate to the Austrian Government, on condition that a pension fund for former Rothschild’ employees be created with the proceeds, pegged to the pension scale for Austrian civil servants.

The palace was torn down. Anything of value still left, such as chandeliers, woodwork and fireplaces, were sold off to the auction house Dorotheum at a minimal price, well below their actual value. The stairs and pillars of marble were sold to an Italian; the rest of the stone-work was simply destroyed, the ornate iron fence and window grills sold for scrap. The richly gilded stucco was ripped down: efforts to reclaim the gold-leaf proved uneconomic. The large orchestrion was partly destroyed, though parts of it can be seen in the Collection of Ancient Musical Instruments of the Kunsthistorisches Museum. The smaller orchestrion was also lost. The building itself was made out of such sturdy materials and sound construction that dynamite had to be used to bring it down.

Palais (Albert) Rothschild (II)

A second palace was also commissioned by Albert von Rothschild on the same street as the first, at Prinz-Eugen-Straße 26. This "Palais Rothschild" was designed and built in 1894 by the theatre architects Ferdinand Fellner and Hermann Helmer. The building is four stories high and designed in a neo-classic style. Like all Jewish property it was thoroughly plundered by the Nazis during the occupation of Austria, but the building survived without structural damage and today houses the Brazilian embassy, which rents it.

The Rothschild Collections

The extensive art collections of Baron Louis and Alphonse de Rothschild had to in effect be given away by the heirs to the Republic of Austria. Complicated laws and bureaucratic red tape made a full restitution almost impossible. The heirs were forced by the State to sell off their belongings since they were, in effect, bankrupt.

Since Austria regarded itself as a victim of Nazism, and not one of the perpetrators, Austrian Jewish victims could barely appeal to the courts on their status. Often the judges sitting in the court were former Nazis themselves, who were reinstated to the bench after the end of the war. Much of the former Rothschild art collection was either taken to the Kunsthistorisches Museum (KHM) or the Austrian Gallery in the Belvedere palace.

Only in the late 1990's, due to outside pressure from the United States, a more thorough examination of its role and behaviour during the Second World War took place in Austria. After long and tedious negotiations the Austrian government agreed in 1999 to return or pay for the roughly 250 Rothschild art treasures that were looted by the Nazis and absorbed into Austrian State Museums. Restitution of the works was still pending as of 2004. Works of the Rothschild collection kept at the KHM include [http://www.konvent.gv.at/pls/portal/docs/page/PG/DE/XX/AB/AB_05184/FNAMEORIG_000000.HTML] :

* Aelbert Cuyp, "Landschaft mit Hirt und Herde"
* Frans Hals, "Tielemann Roostermann"
* Frans Hals, "Bildnis eines Mannes"
* Frans Hals, "Bildnis einer Frau"
* Hans de Jode, "Maultiertreiber"
* Gabriel Metsu, "Mädchen und Offizier"
* Isack van Ostade, "Halt vor dem Wirtshaus"
* Hyacinthe Rigaud, "Graf Philipp Ludwig Wenzel Sinzendorf"
* David Teniers the Younger, "Erzherzog Leopold Wilhelm in seiner Galerie Brüssel"
* Jan Wynants, "Landschaft mit Jägern"

In the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere:
* Heinrich Angelt, "Bildnis einer Dame"

Further Palais Rotschilds are located in Renngasse 3, today used by a bank and Metternichgasse 8.

Notes

¹ Address was at Theresianumgasse 16-18, in the IV. district Wieden.

² Address was at Prinz-Eugen-Straße 20-22, in the IV. district Wieden.

ee also

* History of Jews in Austria

References

Further reading

* Gabriele Anderl, Alexandra Caruso (ed.). "NS-Kunstraub in Österreich und die Folgen". Studienverlag, Innsbruck. 2005. ISBN 3-7065-1956-9
* Michaela Feurstein, Gerhard Milchram. "Jüdisches Wien". Boehlau Verlag, Vienna. 2001. ISBN 3-205-99094-3
* Peter Harclerode, Brendan Pittaway. "Lost Masters". Welcome Rain Publishers. 2000. ISBN 1-56649-165-7
* Gert Kerschbaumer. "Meister des Verwirrens: Die Geschäfte des Kunsthändlers Friedrich Welz". Czernin Verlag, Vienna. 2000. ISBN 3-7076-0030-0
* Dieter Klein, Martin Kupf, Robert Schediwy (Ed.) "Stadtbildverluste Wien - Ein Rückblick auf fünf Jahrzehnte". LIT Verlag, Vienna. 2005. ISBN 3-8258-7754-X
* Sophie Lillie. "Was einmal war: A Handbook of Vienna's Plundered Art Collections". Czernin Verlag, Vienna. 2003. ISBN 3-7076-0049-1
* Verena Pawlowsky, Harald Wendelin (ed.). "Die Republik und das NS-Erbe. Band 1 der Reihe Raub und Rückgabe – Österreich von 1938 bis heute". Mandelbaum Verlag, Vienna. 2005. ISBN 3-85476-154-6
* Thomas Trenkler. "Der Fall Rothschild: Chronik einer Enteignung". Czernin Verlag, Vienna. 1999. ISBN 3-85485-026-3

External links

* [http://www.nationalfonds.parlinkom.gv.at/ National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victims of National Socialism]
* [http://www.injoest.ac.at/english/index.html Institute for the History of Jews in Austria]
* [http://www.restitution.or.at/?newlang=eng Holocaust Victims' Information and Support Center]
* [http://www.historikerkommission.gv.at/ Republic of Austria | Historikerkommission]
* [http://www.rothschildarchive.org The Rothschild Archive]