Tasks and Challenges for Collections Preserving Cultural Property

For some years now, provenance research has received increasing attention, as have the terms stolen art, looted art, human remains, restitution or repatriation. At the University of Tübingen, with its approximately 70 collections, the determination of the origin of objects and human remains as well as the proof of possible contexts of injustice was also recognized as an important research desideratum. Individual aspects have already been dealt with in depth in scientific projects, publications and exhibitions. However, this topic will continue to accompany us in the future, as it not only concerns objects that already belong to our collections, but also those that will be added in the future.

As the past has shown more than clearly, provenance research is a long-term task, partly because of the difficult, lengthy research required due to incomplete records and the sheer mass of objects whose history of origin has not yet been clarified. As every object that is newly added to a collection must be investigated in terms of its origin, we will have to deal with provenance history in the future as well.

If a context of injustice is proven or assumed, then the question of restitution or, in the case of human remains, repatriation arises quite soon. In these cases, the entitled heirs or the societies of origin must be identified. Even if statutes of limitations can already be invoked, it remains our moral duty, demanded by society as well as politics, to deal with the issue and to strive for such restitution or repatriation. This has been the general consensus at least since the Washington Principles. On December 3, 1998, following the Conference on Holocaust-Era Assets, 44 states signed this legally non-binding agreement. The aim of the voluntary commitment is to identify looted art, to locate pre-war owners or heirs and to arrive at "just and fair solutions". If the initial focus was on the Nazi period, these objectives now apply to all contexts of injustice, to the colonial period as well as to the former Soviet Occupation Zone (SBZ) or the GDR.

Challenges of Provenance Research

The problem is: the further back in time the event of unjustly seizure occurred, the smaller the amount of preserved data usually is. Inventory books have been lost over time, documents have been desposed during moves, letters, notes and other records can no longer be found, sometimes records have been given to an archive. It should also be noted that the level of knowledge about the history of origin of objects at university collections is often lower compared to scientific collections at museums. This may be due to the fact that university collections have received less attention in recent decades, and that their importance for research, teaching, outreach, and as the cultural heritage of our educational institutions has only been acknowledged in the last ten years or so. Former collection custodians, researchers or collectors can often no longer be interviewed, and so other ways must be found to obtain information about the origin of the objects. Detours are often necessary, which is why contacts with other collections and provenance researchers are essential.

For university collections, provenance research provides further, in-depth insights into their own institution and knowledge about the actors involved, which had often been forgotten. The history of the institution and the collection is illuminated and thus the understanding of the individual research directions is considerably expanded. The work in today's networks – i.e. together with other scientific collections, museums or institutions as well as with colleagues – enables the reconstruction of earlier networks, which are not only highly relevant in the context of provenance research, but also for epistemology.

The relevance of provenance research and the historical reappraisal of past injustices were recognised at the University of Tübingen. As early as the 1970s and 1980s, research on this topic was conducted and published (e.g. Wilfried Setzler/Uwe Dietrich Adam: Hochschule und Nationalsozialismus: die Universität Tübingen im Dritten Reich, Tübingen 1977; Benigna Schönhagen: Das Gräberfeld X: eine Dokumentation über NS-Opfer auf dem Tübinger Stadtfriedhof, Tübingen 1987). An exhibition of the Tübingen University Archives in 1983 dealt with the beginnings of National Socialism at the University of Tübingen between 1926 and 1934 (­­see accompanying booklet). In 2001, the University Library returned the surviving part of the book collection of Caesar Hirsch (1885–1940), which had been confiscated by the Gestapo in 1933, to the rightful heirs in the USA. A bibliography concerning the University of Tübingen during the National Socialist era is also available online (see here).