Were valuable art works an economic form of money during the German Third Reich Period and its aftermath?
-
DOIhttp://dx.doi.org/10.21511/pmf.06(4).2017.04
-
Article InfoVolume 6 2017, Issue #4, pp. 33-38
- Cited by
- 865 Views
-
154 Downloads
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This examines the special use of art works as a store of value in Germany during the Third Reich era. Some Jews were able to buy their freedom, as the fascists closed in. Then as the Third Reich fell, some escaping fascists used art works to secure freedom outside of Germany. One of the characteristics of money is a store of value. When confidence in a currency is present, the more conventional form of money takes precedence. A respected, economic form of currency and coin has all three elements of money: medium of exchange, store of value and unit of account. This last trait is especially absent when using various art works as money, as there is no agreed upon unit of account with such different art. Furthermore, art works could not qualify as a medium of exchange, since only a very small amount of the population was involved in this way of dealing in art during the stressed times for the Third Reich.
- Keywords
-
JEL Classification (Paper profile tab)N4, N14
-
References25
-
Tables0
-
Figures3
-
- Figure 1. Matisse’s “Seated Woman”
- Figure 2. El Greco’s “Portrait of a Gentlemen” (1600)
- Figure 3. August Klimt’s “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I”
-
- Aalders, G., Pomerans A., & Pomerans, E. (2004). Nazi Looting: The Plunder of Dutch Jewry During the Second World War. New York: Berg’s Publishers.
- Ally, G. (2005). Hitler’s Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State. New York: Henry Holt and Company, Inc.
- BBC News (2015). Dutch royal family to return Nazi looted art.
- Blair, E. (2015). Looted By The Nazis, Matisse’s ‘Seated Woman’ Finally Finds Her Way Home.
- Boucher, B. (2015). El Greco stolen by Nazis and Sold by Knoedler Returns to Rightful owners. Artnet News.
- Cohen, P. (2015). The Story Behind ‘Woman in Gold’: Nazi Art Thieves and One Painting’s Return. The New York Times.
- Gentle, P. F. (2016). Native American Wampum for Non-Monetary Uses and For Use as Money. Public and Municipal Finance, 3, 6-21.
- Giliberti, M. (2001). Principi della citta nazista; l’immaginario autoreferenziale in Albert Speer. Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia, Italia (Bachelor Thesis).
- Goetzmann, W. N., Renneboog, L. & Spaenjers’, C. (2011). Art and Money. The American Economic Review, 101(3), 222-226.
- Harris, Paul. (2016). Alabama Monuments Men. Alabama Heritage, 121, Summer, 10-21.
- Hersokovits, Melville J. (1965). Economic Anthropology: The Economic Life of Primitive Peoples. New York: W.W. Norton, Incorporated.
- Klimt (2017). Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I.
- Lo, A. (2013). Supply and Demand of Rare Paintings, Prezi, January 27.
- Mandel, Benjamin R. (2009). Art as an Investment and Conspicuous Consumption Good. American Economic Review, 99(4), 1653-1663.
- Mandel, Benjamin, R. (2013). Investment in Visual Art: Evidence from International Transactions. In Victor A. Ginsburgh & David Thorsby (Eds.), Handbook of Economics, Art of and Culture (vol. 2). Elsevier.
- Mankiw, N. G. (2015). Principles of Economics. Stamford, CT: Cenage Publishers.
- Melissa, Eddy, & Alison Smale. (2016). Ruling Paves Way for Transfer of Art Trove Including Nazi-looted Works. New York Times, 12.
- Mishkin, Frederic S. (2016). The Economics of Money, Banking, and Financial Markets. New York: Pearson Addison-Wesley.
- NPR (2015). 1921 Matisse, Seated Woman, to be Reunited with Rosenberg Heirs.
- Radford, R. A. (1945). The Economic Organization of a P.O.W. Camp. Economica, 12(48), 189-201.
- Ronald, S. (2015). Hitler’s Art Thief: Hildebrand Gurlitt, the Nazis, and the Looting of Europe’s Treasures. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
- Steinmetz, J. (2009). For the Love of God: The Artist as Capitalist.
- Subjective Value (2016). Subjective Theory of Value.
- Winer, S., & AP. (2015). El Greco painting looted by Nazis returns to heirs.
- Winter, S. (2013). Hitler’s Wristwatch: A Nazi Legacy Hidden in German Museum, Spiegel On-Line.
