[2] When the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, they enacted discriminatory racial laws targeted Jews.
After a protest from the local business community over the importance to tourism of the art auctions held at Helbing, Kauffmann was able to continue operating on a limited basis until 1938.
In 1938, the owner of the property, Maximilian von Goldschmidt-Rothschild, was forced to sell, and after a renovation by the city of Frankfurt, the traveling exhibition Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) made a stop there in the summer of 1939.
[9] [10] He donated the side panels of a tryptych from the workshop of Hieronymus Bosch to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in 1956.
Kauffmann was a member of the British Antique Dealers' Association and the Oriental Ceramic Society.