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Palais Rothschild refers to a number of palaces in Vienna, Austria, built and owned by the titled Austrian branch of the Rothschild banking family. Apart from their sheer size and elegance, they were famous for the huge collections of paintings, statues, furniture, books, and armour they housed, another reflection of the family's vast wealth and position.
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The collections were confiscated by the Nazis in 1938, the palaces stripped and ruined during World War II. After the war the heirs received little compensation and what remained of the buildings were sold off or destroyed, to be replaced by modern office buildings. The history of these palaces and the art collections they contained is symbolic of the rise and fall of Austria's Rothschild family.
The palaces
The five Palaces Rothschild (Palais Rothschild) in Vienna are:
The Rothschild collections
The extensive art collections of Baron Louis and Alphonse de Rothschild had to in effect be given away by the heirs to the Republic of Austria. Complicated laws and bureaucratic red tape made a full restitution almost impossible. The heirs were forced by the State to sell off their belongings since they were, in effect, bankrupt.
Since Austria regarded itself as a victim of Nazism, and not one of the perpetrators, Austrian Jewish victims could barely appeal to the courts on their status. Much of the former Rothschild art collection was either taken to the Kunsthistorisches Museum (KHM) or the Austrian Gallery in the Belvedere palace.
Only in the late 1990s, due to outside pressure from the United States, a more thorough examination of its role and behaviour during the Second World War took place in Austria. After long and tedious negotiations the Austrian government agreed in 1999 to return or pay for the roughly 250 Rothschild art treasures that were looted by the Nazis and absorbed into Austrian State Museums. The images were restituted to the heirs in 1999. Works of the Rothschild collection that used to be kept at the Kunsthistorisches Museum included:
In the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere: