The Gemäldegalerie lost approximately 580 artworks as a direct result of the Second World War. These losses included long-term loans that went missing, paintings that were stolen or confiscated, and—most significantly —works destroyed intwo catastrophic fires that tore through the Friedrichshain flak tower in May 1945. The Gemäldegalerie’s photo archive preserved historical glass plate negatives of the lost and destroyed paintings. These are currently being digitised and made publicly accessible.

In 1925, in response to the widespread loss of cultural property during the First World War, Berlin museum photographer Gustav Schwarz (1871–1958) was commissioned to photograph the entire collection of the Gemäldegalerie. The resulting glass negatives, which have survived to this day, now serve as a unique visual record of nearly all the artworks lost during the Second World War.

From late 1941, the most important works in the Gemäldegalerie’s holdings were moved to the control tower of the Friedrichshain air-raid shelter for safekeeping. In March 1945, with the war drawing to a close and the threat intensifying, the decision was made to evacuate the most important pieces to underground mines in Thuringia. These works were later recovered by American forces. However, around 430 paintings —most of which large-format artworks that were too big to fit in the mine shafts— remained in the Friedrichshain bunker. After the war’s end, these works were lost in two fires, the causes of which remain unknown.

Many of the destroyed paintings were by some of Europe’s most renowned artists, including ten by Peter Paul Rubens, five each by Paolo Veronese and Anthony van Dyck, and three masterpieces by Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio).

The digitisation of the surviving photographs—the majority of which are of exceptional quality, including some of the earliest colour images—offers an invaluable resource for future research and represents a major contribution to the documentation of European art history.
 

Objectives and outcomes: Digitise the museum’s collection of glass photographic plates, catalogue the images in the museum’s database, and make them publicly accessible online
Funding: Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Project managers: Dr. Katja Kleinert (deputy director and curator for Netherlandish Art of the 17th-century, Gemäldegalerie), Franziska May (research associate for provenance research at the Zentralarchiv,Gemäldegalerie)
Project members: Maria Stein (photo archivist, Gemäldegalerie), Eva Gudermann (voluntary assistant as part of FSJ Kultur, Gemäldegalerie), Florian Schmitt (intern for digitisation, Gemäldegalerie)
Duration: 2024 to 2025