The director of the Hessian State Museum in Darmstadt reacted with surprise to the allegations in the annual report of the Hessian Court of Auditors.
This is a "scandalous reduction," said Martin Faass of this newspaper yesterday on request.
The report published on December 16 clearly criticized the State Museum and the Hessian Ministry for Science and Art.
Catherine Deschka
Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.
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Because the museum was renovated between 2007 and 2014, but the originally planned new building with storage areas was not realized, 70 to 90 percent of all exhibits are still outsourced.
According to the report, some of the objects were not stored correctly and were damaged as a result.
Since 2012, six art objects worth around 1.3 million euros have also been "untraceable".
In addition, the existence of art objects from the museum collection with a balance sheet value of another 7.6 million euros could not be adequately documented, as was only determined during a subgroup audit, writes the Court of Auditors.
Inventory ambiguities
This is an almost sensational abridgement, says Faass about the presentation of a "complex situation".
Here, the reported theft of the six art objects worth 1.3 million euros in 2017 is associated with incorrect SAP data records, on the basis of which objects could not be successfully assigned during the last inventory.
According to Faass, the objects of art and natural history with a value of 7.6 million euros have not disappeared.
"The problem is not in the depots and the handling, but in the data records on which the last inventory is based," says Faass.
Errors occurred during a data transfer in which all historical heritage institutions in Hesse, i.e. the state museums and other state institutions, sent data on their exhibits to a central inventory manager in order to then transfer them to SAP.
They have already warned about the mistakes several times, said Faass, who has headed the Darmstadt State Museum since January 1, 2019.
"It can be assumed that all objects are in the depots." With more than one million objects in the collection, correct data records are a crucial prerequisite for a successful inventory.
The errors in the 2012/13 subgroup audit were classified as insignificant by the auditors PWC, and there was an agreement with the 3rd Senate of the Court of Auditors to correct the errors in the next full inventory.
You have to know that the value of all the objects belonging to the Hessian State Museum is around 1.54 billion euros.
A full inventory is planned for 2023/24, and ambiguities will then be cleared up at the latest.
"We're talking about 1.35 million objects," said Faass.
That is quite a lot of effort: "But every single work is important."
In fact, the sculptures and painting frames were affected by deposits due to storage in APP film, which had been identified as the best packaging material.
"There can be no talk of a loss in value of the objects," says Faass.
He also could not confirm a pest infestation.
This was only feared.
The zoological exhibits have been unpacked since the beginning of the year and placed on new shelves.
"Fortunately, we were able to determine that our concerns were unfounded."
