Cramer, Gustav, 1881-1961

Cramer, Gustav, 1881-1961.

The blog exemplifies art-looting strategies in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands by investigating invoices writted by Gustav Cramer addressed to Sonderauftrag Linz, Adolf Hitlers planned art museum in Linz, Austria.

Gustav Max Cramer
Birthdate: June 03, 1881
Birthplace: Felsberg, Kassel, Hesse, Germany
Death: 1961 (79-80)
The Hague, The Hague, South Holland, Netherlands
Immediate Family:
Son of Max Cramer and Bernhardine Cramer
Husband of Gertrud Viktoria Anna Marie Cramer
Father of Hans Max Cramer
Brother of Emmy Cramer and Hugo Cramer

The gallery's correspondence is extensive and dates from 1936 to 1998. It traces business dealings with museums in Europe, the United States, and Canada, art dealers, auction houses, private clients, numerous renowned art historians, art magazines, conservators, lawyers, and shipping and financial institutions.

The blog presents the G. Cramer's wartime correspondence that exemplifies art-looting strategies in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands.

The owner of the gallery, Gustav Cramer (1881–1961), came from a family of Jewish art dealers in Kassel, Germany. After World War I, he moved to Berlin, where he worked at the renowned Van Diemen gallery, in charge of the Old Masters section, and in 1933, he opened his own gallery there. After being expelled from the Reichskammer der bildenden Künste (The Reich Chamber of Visual Arts) owing to anti-Semitic laws, he moved to the Netherlands and reopened the gallery in The Hague in 1938.3

With the occupation of the Netherlands in 1940, German authorities in The Hague advised Cramer to protect himself and his family from deportation by registering the gallery under the name of his son Hans Max Cramer, who, according to Nazi racial laws, was not considered Jewish. In Nazi terminology, the gallery was "aryanized."

Art dealers.

Narrower term: Jewish art dealers