Database on the "Munich Central Collecting Point"

The File Card Systems

MCCP Control Number File (according to Munich Number) or Arrival Cards

The boxes and objects were assigned an Arrival Number or Munich Number at the time of their delivery to the Collecting Point in Munich. Listed in addition to the arrival number were the artist, title, prior inventory numbers, arrival date, and condition of the object. Specific information about the art object is generally missing. These arrival cards are designated as the Control Number File in the catalogue of the cultural assets trustee administration inventory in the Bundesarchiv in Koblenz. The inventory includes 43,189 Arrival Cards.

MCCP Restitution File (according to Munich Number) also called Property Cards

After their registration on the Arrival Cards, the artworks were described in detail on the Property Cards. If more than one object was registered under one Arrival Number, each object was assigned a sub-number. When possible, the artist, title, art form, size, existing inventory numbers and evidence regarding provenance were recorded. The entries were generally handwritten in English with later additions in German. Only a portion of the original Property Cards are located in the Bundesarchiv in Koblenz. This partial inventory is administered (according to Mu-No.) as the Restitution File and is at the same time the main file. The main file contains 65,573 cards, including those Munich file cards subsequently written in German by the Cultural Assets Trustee Administration (TVK). The TVK had taken over the responsibility of the inventorying and restitution the art works from the officers of the American Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives unit in 1952. The newly created Mu-cards covered works that until then had not been registered. The American Property Cards for objects still in the CCP were translated into German.

Initial and subsequent Minister President Files

Officers from the American cultural assets protection unit entered "Minister President" in the field for resumed owner or "transf. to Min. Pres. decided by MFA Off. E. Breitenbach April 49" on the cards for those artworks that were to be turned over to the German government in 1949. This concerned objects that had been "legally" acquired by the German Reich. A large portion of these artworks are today property of the German government under the designation "Remaining CCP Inventory".The file card entries are typed in English and have German annotations. They contain information on the artwork but generally little on the provenance. This file is stored in the Bundesarchiv in Koblenz as the "Initial Minister President File (updating discontinued January 1, 1962)" with 9,702 file cards and the "Minister President File (restituted objects)" with 2,452 cards.

JRSO File

The series of file cards maintained under the heading IRSOlists those artworks that were restituted to the predecessor institution of the Jewish Claims Conference, the Jewish Restitution Successor Organization. The Bundesarchiv in Koblenz contains some 1,345 relevant file cards.

Munich Property Cards – Inventory BADV (Germany)

The file cards for the artworks, which as Remaining CCP Inventory (Germany) are in the possession of the German government, are located in the archives of the Federal Office for Central Services and Unresolved Property Issues. The inventory contains 2,717 file cards filed according to their Munich numbering.

Photographs of Art Objects

Subsequent to the objects’ inventorying in the CCP, large format black-and-white photographs, including some detail views, were made of the artworks and placed in a separate photograph file. The images were fixed on cardboard and labeled with the respective Mu-number. These objects, too, can only be identified in the main file through their Mu-numbers and, where applicable, sub-numbers. The major portion of the photographs made at the Collecting Point is located at the BADV.

Munich Property Cards – Inventory BDA (Austria)

The transfer of the “Remaining CCP Inventory” (Austria) to Vienna in 1952 included index cards as well as artworks. The some 1,000 index cards are now kept by the Austrian Federal Office for the Care of Monuments and evaluated by the Commission on Provenance Research.

Database on the Sonderauftrag Linz (Special Commission: Linz)

The database also contains information from the online image database on the Sonderauftrag Linz (Special Commission: Linz), which was published in July 2008 by the German Historical Museum (DHM), in cooperation with the Federal Office for Central Services and Unresolved Property Issues (BADV). It shows paintings, sculptures, furniture, porcelain, and tapestries that Adolf Hitler and his agents purchased or appropriated from confiscated property between the end of the 1930s and 1945, primarily for a museum planned for Linz, but also for other collections.

Objects in the DHM

Twenty eight objects from the BADV, which are on loan to and under the conservational supervision of the DHM, have been entered in the CCP database to make additional image material available.