The Art That Hitler Hated

Presented by Alan Yentob, the return of the BBC One’s flagship arts strand opens with a remarkable two part special, The Art That Hitler Hated. These films, from award-winning director Jill Nicholls, explore the sensational discovery of a hoard of art hidden by a reclusive old man in his Munich flat. The find sheds new light on the fate of many paintings looted by the Nazis and puts the question of restitution back centre stage. This is a story full of coincidences, cover-ups and denial, which has reignited passions that seemed long spent. Film 1 With the strange tale of Cornelius Gurlitt’s treasure trove as a springboard, imagine… dives deep into an intriguing past. It uncovers a lost world of Jewish collectors. This was art Hitler thought as sickly and ‘degenerate’ as the Jews themselves; he tried to rid Germany of both. Their pictures were seized, scattered or sold at knockdown prices before the owners fled into exile or were killed. Imagine follows the trail of the old man’s father, Hildebrand Gurlitt, art dealer to the Nazis. It opens a new window onto the history of the Third Reich and its campaign against modern art Film 2 – The Sins of the Fathers imagine… tells how the end of the war was only the beginning of another battle. In the art world in Germany, it was ‘business as usual’. Many people continued in jobs in museums which they had held during Nazi times. So people involved in looting art might now be in charge of deciding whether to return it. For families, often living in exile, it was an uphill struggle. For them the discovery of the Gurlitt hoard has raised new hopes – and repeated some old disappointments.