/databases-on-motor-vehicles-in-austria-in-the-1930s-and-1940s
Databases on motor vehicles in Austria
In the 1930s and 1940s
As part of a research project at the Technisches Museum Wien (2009-2012) important sources on motor vehicle ownership in Austria in the 1930s and 1940s were collated and analysed.
The database is sourced from directories of motor vehicles regularly published by the automobile clubs of Austria’s federal provinces prior to 1938, containing extensive data on motor vehicles and their owners.
The database currently contains the names of approx. 75% of automobile owners and approx. 45% of motorcycle owners in Austria prior to 1938. The database is complemented by symbolic photographs illustrating the various vehicle types as well as original vintage photographs.
If you have any historical documents and photographs of vehicles from the 1930s and 1940s, please do send them to us. We depend on your assistance and support to broaden our database!
Following the Anschluss in March 1938 when Nazi Germany annexed Austria, the Nazi Party seized more than 3,000 motor vehicles, which were used either as official cars for the Party or were auctioned by the Dorotheum auction house in Vienna in summer 1938 at the behest of the GESTAPO. Around 20% of all passenger cars registered in Vienna at the time were looted by the Nazis – the largest auto theft in Austrian history.
In 2008, as part of its research into provenance, the Technisches Museum Wien was able to restitute a Fiat 522C seized by the SA to the son of the original owner, Jewish businesswoman Rosa Glückselig. Following its purchase by the Technisches Museum Wien it is now on permanent show. This individual case prompted a systematic examination of the confiscation of motor vehicles by the Nazi regime and their restitution after 1945.
The Nazi Vehicle Loot database contains motor vehicles seized by the Nazi regime in Austria – based on current knowledge – and is therefore an aid to identifying the looting of public and private collections by the Nazis as well as the vintage car trade.
Project Management:
Christian Klösch
Project staff:
Verena Pawlowsky (Technisches Museum Wien)
Oliver Kühschelm (Deutsches Museum München)
Rainer Hackauf (Israelitische Kultusgemeinde-Wien [Vienna Israelite Community])
Sponsors
Cooperation partners