Hitlerova sbírka v Čechách 1 - Sochy, busty, drobné plastiky – Kuchař Jiří (2009)

Decades after the Second World War, the shadows of the Third Reich still reach Bohemia. Adolf Hitler’s private collection has entered world history as one of the most extensive art collections ever assembled. Alongside confiscated works and generous purchases, it included pieces he personally bought at the Great German Art Exhibitions held in Munich between 1937 and 1945. Dozens of objects from Hitler’s Munich purchases, dating mainly from 1939 to 1943, were transported during the war to the Cistercian monastery in Vyšší Brod. In the summer of 1945, they were declared compensation for items previously “removed from the Vyšší Brod monastery during the war”. Another collection, assembled by one of the most important collectors of the first half of the twentieth century, was also hidden there during the occupation. The world-famous Mannheimer Collection, secretly concealed in this mysterious corner of the Bohemian Forest, best illustrates the importance Adolf Hitler attached to the unique Vyšší Brod repository. This book explores a specific part of Hitler’s view and understanding of the art world and presents sculptures and busts that, through the remarkable course of history, remained in Bohemia at the end of the Second World War. It also recalls the period in which they were created, the many notable artists behind them, and above all the artistic and social climate in which they worked. The book traces the lives of dozens of sculptors and their works from the era of National Socialism, when the Nietzschean ideal of the Übermensch was embodied in matter and art became an integral part of state-building.