City of Regensburg returns Nazi-looted art from museum – questionable past of the culture officer

Created: 10/30/2022, 9:28 p.m

By: Stefan Aigner

Walter Boll in 1970 with the sculpture that was erected in his honor in the Historical Museum - and it still stands there today.

© City of Regensburg

Among other things, the city of Regensburg is returning a painting by Prince Thurn & Taxis to a Masonic lodge that the then museum director Walter Boll had incorporated into the city during the Nazi era.

Regensburg – Did the long-time Regensburg cultural department head, museum director, city archivist, honorary citizen, NS district culture warden and Nazi careerist Walter Boll actually “hid a Jew in a stone coffin in the Minorite Church from the Gestapo in 1943 and thus saved his life”?

Questionable history of the former cultural advisor on the test bench

Regensburg city councilor Jakob Friedl (Ribisl list) would like to know.

While rummaging through the minutes of previous city council meetings, Friedl noticed this story, which the former cultural advisor Klemens Unger told during a debate on provenance research at the museums in Regensburg in 2017.

Without there being any questions about it.

But is there any reliable evidence?

Who is it that Boll is said to have hidden?

In which stone coffin had he hidden her?

These are just a few of the questions that Friedl would now like to have clarified.

Because this story of Ungers would actually be a small sensation.

City council calls for clarification on questionable story

There is nothing about this in the denazification files of the Spruchkammer proceedings, in which Walter Boll, who was initially classified as incriminated, made some false statements that have since been refuted in order to be classified as exonerated.

Nor is there any evidence of this in the historical research published to date.

So does Klemens Unger have exclusive insights that are still awaiting publication?

Or did the former culture officer, knowingly or unknowingly, serve the city council with an exculpatory legend in favor of Boll, of which there were so many, in order to relativize and disguise his actual role during the Nazi era?

(By the way: Our brand new Regensburg newsletter will keep you regularly informed about all the important stories from the World Heritage city and the Upper Palatinate. Register here.)

New culture officer wants to return looted art

The reason for Friedl's application was actually a welcome draft resolution by the incumbent cultural affairs officer, Wolfgang Dersch.

Accordingly, the city will return several art objects that came into the possession of the city museums under Boll's aegis in November 1933, so-called looted art.

The journalist Robert Werner first published detailed research on the internet portal regensburg-digital.de in February 2019.

Nazi careerist widespread exoneration legend

For decades there had been talk that Walter Boll, as municipal curator, had valuable possessions of the banned and dissolved Masonic lodges "Three Keys to the Faithful German Brotherhood" and "Walhalla to the Rising Light" (after the war this resulted in the Lodge "Three Keys to the Rising Light" ) from being seized by the Nazis and therefore even got into trouble with the Gestapo.

But this story cannot be reconciled with the historical sources.

However, in 1947 she made a significant contribution to Boll being able to present himself as a resister in his tribunal proceedings and finally being classified as "exonerated".

To this day: honorary bust by Walter Boll in the Historical Museum

In fact, Boll worked entirely in the interests of the Nazi authorities – he gave the Gestapo membership lists and more recent documents from the Masonic lodge without further ado.

He kept the more valuable part of the loot for the city museums - in agreement with NS Mayor Otto Schottenheim.

It is not documented anywhere that Boll ever got into trouble with the Gestapo.

Irrespective of this, this legend was repeated in 2015 as part of an exhibition in the Historical Museum - without even in any way questioning Boll's role during the Nazi era.

A bust of him is still in the museum today.

Boll's role, on the other hand, is not discussed.

The draft resolution for the city council clears up the exoneration legend

All these backgrounds are not explained in detail in the template for the culture committee.

However, reporter Wolfgang Dersch clears up Walter Boll's main exculpation legend when he writes that Boll documented in a file note that he acted "in consultation with his superior departments" when he kept the more valuable objects of the Masonic lodge for the museums.

The alleged act of resistance is also off the table here.

It is clearly stated that the objects confiscated by Boll are "National Socialist looted property" that must be restituted, i.e. returned.

At the beginning of the year, the Masonic lodge submitted an application for the return of a total of six objects.

Specifically, it is about three Masonic letters, two medals and a portrait showing Prince Karl Alexander von Thurn & Taxis as Grand Master of the Lodge.