Schlittschuhläufer by Gari Melchers, 1892
Restituted by MARP in 2019.

The Mosse Art Restitution Project

The Mosse Art Restitution Project, led by Roger Strauch, represents the current heirs of Felicia Lachmann-Mosse, the sole heir of Rudolf Mosse.

Rudolf Mosse was a successful German-Jewish entrepreneur and philanthropist in the late 19th and early 20th century. His business leadership and industry foresight created a phenomenally successful publishing and advertising enterprise with over one hundred newspapers and journals throughout Germany. Their flagship newspaper, the Berliner Tageblatt, debuted in 1872 and soon became the paper of record for the nation, earning it the nickname “the New York Times of Germany.”

Following Rudolf’s death in 1920, his sole heir was his daughter, Felicia Lachmann-Mosse, and her husband, Hans Lachmann-Mosse, became the publisher of the Berliner Tageblatt. The newspaper was an outspoken critic of Adolf Hitler and the National Socialists, and the Lachmann-Mosse family became a symbol of the Nazi’s hated “Jewish press.” Following Hitler’s assumption of power in 1933, the Nazi secret police forced Hans and many of his Jewish staff members to leave Germany. The government took control of all Mosse family property, including the newspapers and estates as well as Rudolf and Hans’ prized art collection.

Rudolf was an avid art collector, a patron of Germany’s contemporary artists across a spectrum that ranged from established masters to lesser known local painters. Paintings made up the bulk of the collection, which also included sculptures and antiques, and Rudolf displayed his vast assortment of artwork to the public in his home, the Mosse-Palais, where it could be viewed for a small fee. All money collected was donated to charity. Rudolf believed in showcasing the beauty of German life, and sharing that beauty with all. The exact extent of his collection is unknown, but there were well over a thousand different pieces at its peak.

The Nazis seized the entire collection, and promptly liquidated it. Many pieces were sold at auction in 1934, while others were divvied up among Nazi officials and their supporters. While the auction house catalogues from Lepke and Union offer some accounting of the collection, many pieces went unaccounted for and simply disappeared from public record.

Following his expulsion from Germany, Hans and Felicia divorced. He moved to the United States in 1941 with his second wife, Karola Strauch, and his stepson, Karl. In 2011, Karl’s son Roger Strauch, a venture capitalist and philanthropist in his own right, began the Mosse Art Restitution Project on behalf of all of Rudolf’s heirs. The Project identifies and locates the artwork looted from the Mosse collection, working with governments, museums, galleries, and collectors around the globe to find the stolen artifacts and get restitution for the Mosse heirs. Dozens of pieces have been discovered in Austria, Germany, Israel, Switzerland, and the United States. The Project’s investigation is active and ongoing, continuing what has been the world’s largest and most successful recovery project of stolen Nazi artifacts.