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Behold the Nazi Catalog of “Degenerate Art”


February 5, 2014 | Andy Cush

The Victoria & Albert Museum just released a document under Creative Commons that catalogs all art seized by Nazi Germany and labeled “Entartete Kunst,” or “degenerate art.” According to the museum, most of the works were confiscated from public institutions between 1937 and 1938, and the inventory was created around 1942, after much of the art had been destroyed or sold off. If you’re interested, you can grab part one of the doc here, and part two here.

For some help navigating the vast list: entries are organized by the city in which the art was taken, with volume one spanning Aachen to Görlitz and two from Göttingen to Zwickau. As such, it’s difficult to browse for the name of a particular artist. Much of the seized works are by Germans, but some familiar international names pop up as well: volume one reveals a host of works by Marc Chagall Paul Klee, and Wassily Kandinsky were taken in Berlin, for instance. Once you’re done paging through, you can go see The Monuments Men and really feel like you understand what you’re watching.