Art Believed Destroyed By Nazis Found In Berlin
Nearly a dozen sculptures considered by the Nazis to be “degenerate” artwork and believed to have been lost or destroyed after World War II have been unearthed during construction near Berlin’s city hall and were shown to reporters Monday.
The terra-cotta and bronze statues were found during a dig to lay down a new subway line. They belonged to a collection of 15,000 works condemned by Hitler’s regime for containing “deviant” sexual elements, anti-nationalistic themes or criticizing Nazi ideology.
The sculptures mainly depict women — a woman holding grapes, a mother and her child, a full-figured woman stretching — the other three are of males.
Ten of the pieces will go on display Tuesday in Berlin’s Neues Museum. One, a male terra-cotta head, is too fragile for display.
Construction workers found the art on the site of an office building that burned down in the summer of 1944, Museum Director Matthias Wemhoff told reporters Monday. The fire started in the roof, burning the building from the top down.
