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Else Cassirer (ne Sommerguth)
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 | Alfred Sommerguth (23 Sep 1859 - 1950) - now confirmed as brother of Else
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 | The account below by Joel Levi suggests that Alfred Sommerguth may be a member of the Else Sommerguth family who married Isidor Cassirer, and indeed may be Else’s brother. However the Cornelia Schrader-Muggenthaler Director of Research at Muggenthaler Research (www.muggenthalerresearch.com), who is Joel Levi’s partner, has now confirmed that Alfred was the brother of Else. (email 14 Dec 2005)
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 | “The Sommerguth Case” by Joel Levi (extract from Spoils of War, International Newsletter, no 8, May 2003)
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| The Sommerguth case
In the year 2000 the attorney Joel Levi of Ramat Gan Israel had been contacted by
the Ministry of Finances in Germany regarding the restitution of a painting. He
represents the heirs of Alfred and Gertrud Sommerguth, a Jewish couple from
Berlin, who fled from Germany during the Holocaust to the United States.
The story begins when Alfred Sommerguth, who was born on 23.9.1859 in
Magdeburg, started collecting art. He was the director and co owner of the famous
tobacco factory Loeser and Wolff, one of the largest if not the largest before the
war. In 1920, Mr. Sommerguth sold his shares and became an official in the
Ministry of Interior in Berlin in charge of town planning. He held the rank of a
Regierungsrat and was prominent within the Berlin Society.
Alfred Sommerguth lived with his wife Gertrude in Berlin and their rich cultural life
lead to a remarkable collection of 106 paintings. There were Dutch masterpieces
like the Adoration of the Magi as well as paintings on religious subjects and of
course those of the artists of the 19th centuries like Adolph von Menzel who was
born in 1813 in Breslau, Lingelbach, Max Liebermann and the French impressionist
Camille Pissaro.
When the Nazis came into power, the Sommerguths were confronted with the horror
of leaving their belongings after listing them all in a property declaration. The art
collection was brought to the Lange Auction house and on February 9, 1939, all of
the paintings were sold for very low prices. The catalogue states a famous Berlin
collection (“eine bekannte Berliner Privatsammlung”). This auctionhouse was
aryanized by Mr. Lange from the Jewish owner Paul Graupe and absorbed itself in
plundering Jewish valuables during all those years of persecution. Alfred
Sommerguth had to draw a “Judenvermoegensabgabe” and paid the special tax
levied on those who “desired” to leave Germany. Then the Sommerguths lost their
civil rights and all their belongings were confiscated by the Nazi Regime. The
couple was able to flee in 1940 shortly before being deported.
After an odyssey of travelling through Switzerland to Cuba, the family arrived in
New York.
Alfred Sommerguth died there in 1950 and Gertrude died on April 8, 1954.
On the 9th of February 2003, 64 years from the day of looting, an agreement was
signed between the heirs of the late Alfred Sommerguth and the Federal Republic of
Germany determing the restitution of a painting which belonged to this collection.
The painting by Franz von Lenbach, oil on carton “Frau Professor Roubaud with
Marion Lenbach’s daughter” was in possession of the German Government. At the
auction it was sold to the Gallery Almas for the Hitler Museum scheduled to be built
in Linz, Austria. Almas paid 3,000.- RM. After the war it was kept by the Federal
Republic of Germany as an object belonging to an unknown owner. Mr. Levi who is
specialized in restitution matters and the research for lost and looted art, compiled
together with Muggenthaler Research, a genealogical institute which is also
specialized in Holocaust and lost art research regarding the full documentation and
prove of heirship. Now the agreement between the Oberfinanzdirektion for the
German government and the attorney representing the heirs to give back the
painting, was signed. The agreement stipulates that due to the fact that Alfred
Sommerguth was deprived of his property due to persecution, it is returned to his
heirs.
Mr. Levi then negotiated with the Museum which held the painting on loan since
1966, i.e. the Darmstaedter Landesmuseum. The museum desired to buy the painting
and after careful consideration and evaluation, the painting was sold to the museum
for the market price.
This story is similar to 120 family stories of Jewish families living in Germany who
were ardent collectors of art and contributed to the cultural life of Germany for more
than 60 years since the unification of Germany in 1870. The course of history of two
German states did not enable the process of returning looted art until the
reunification of 1990. Now, a Co-ordination office for the loss of Cultural Assets
was established in Germany and little by little all the art objects are registered on
web sites. The international auction houses cooperate and encourage provenance
research to be executed by themselves and the museums. Public collections in
Germany cooperate with this initiative and so do Governmental agencies in many
countries around the world. The notorious galleries are watched carefully by agents
and eventually justice, although delayed, is not denied and all of us can close a
circle which started in the 19th and is nearing its final stage in the 21st century.
Joel Levi
Avgad Building. 5 Jabotinski St., Ramat-Gan 52520.
Fax. 972-03-5754257 Tel. 972-03-5754255. E-mail: levi_adv@bigfoot.com
http://www.lostart.de/pdf_org.php3?pdf_name=texte%2Fforum%2Fsow8.pdf
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| Marburg (Hessen, old western Germany, University like Heidelberg) should not be counfounded with Magdeburg (former GDR, eastern Germany, capital of ‘Sachsen-Anhalt’). Alfred Sommerguth was born in Magdeburg. (There may be somewhere in meta-studies a connection made between Sommerguth and Marburg).
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