Furnishing the Neue Burg—For Nazi Museum Plans in 1940
In the year of the Nazi regime’s seizure of power, the interior of the Middle Tract of the Neue Burg was still not finished. In autumn 1938 Adolf Hitler expressed his view that these spaces would make ideal exhibition galleries. The Reichsstatthalterei (“Reich Governorship”) of Austria now promised the staircase, which reached to all floors, plus these galleries to the Art Historical Museum. But first it used the areas as a storage and distribution centre for looted art in the Central Depot for Seized Collections, delaying the transition to exhibition use by two years. The new museum rooms were finally opened to the public on 3 March 1940 with two special exhibitions of the Art Historical Museum. The occasion for these was the transfer of the state art collections to the Reichsgau of Vienna. The rooms were officially opened by the Gauleiter, Josef Bürckel. The propaganda reports about the “newest temple of art” were full of enthusiasm about the marble stonework and opulent décor, the glamour and the “noble” furnishing of the Neue Burg.
Work on completing and furnishing the area around the monumental staircase had first been first ordered by State Secretary Kajetan Mühlmann in 1939. For Adolf Hitler’s visit to mark the first anniversary of the “Anschluss”, the staircase was decorated with tapestries, paintings and chandeliers. New carpets and fireguards were also specially made. By 1940, other representative rooms in the Neue Burg had been furnished. No one said anything about where these furnishings and artworks came from, however. Some objects originated from the inventory of the Furniture Depot, and chandeliers and wall lamps were additionally transferred from the Schönbrunn and Belvedere palaces to the Neue Burg. Numerous pieces of furniture and artworks were also, however, obtained from private holdings. These were in fact the property of people who had been persecuted and expropriated as Jews, for example Alphons Rothschild. The use of looted objects for furnishing the Neue Burg is evidenced by index cards and the “Confiscation Catalogue” from the former Central Depot.
