Vugesta

Karl Herber managed the Vugesta, headquartered in the "Reichsverkehrsgruppe Spedition und Lagerei / Ostmark" (formerly Central Association of Freight Forwarders for Austria, Vienna 1, Bauernmarkt 24).

Nazi party members, soldiers and local authorities could purchase the looted property along with war invalids, and people who had lost their homes.

To this end, the Krummbaumgasse furniture recycling center (headed by Bernhard Witke and Anton Grimm) worked closely with the Central Office for Jewish Emigration initiated by Adolf Eichmann.

[9] From the early autumn of 1940 until the end of the war, the Vugesta seized and sold the belongings of around 5,000 to 6,000 Jews and the home furnishings of at least 10,000 Jewish families[7] who fled or were deported for over five million Reichsmarks.

In 1997, Oliver Rathkolb described the mechanism in From 'Legacy of Shame' to the Auction of 'Heirless' Art in Vienna: Coming to Terms 'Austrian Style' with Nazi Artistic War Booty in a chapter called "the whitewashing problem"[10]

In her study of Nazi looting of art collections in Vienna (Was einmal war Handbuch der enteigneten Kunstsammlungen Wiens[11]) Sophie Lillie detailed the mechanism by which theft was disguised as repossession for repayment of debt.

The Art Newspaper summarized this process in a review of her book:When a Jew applied to emigrate, in theory only 25% of his goods went to the State.

An inventory was submitted and the Zentralstelle für Denkmalschutz decided which works of art were of national importance and these were "made secure", ie; confiscated.