Facts & Files was commissioned by the Hagen family to conduct research on property which was looted or sold under duress due to persecution after 1933. 

The Hagen Family owned the banking house Hagen & Co. in Berlin, Germany. Carl Hagen (1856-1938), the founder of the bank, and his son Louis Hagen (1888-1977) were members of supervisory boards of several companies. The bank Hagen & Co. was specialized to industrial financing, for instance it was the leading bank of the capital increase of the Bayerische Motorenwerke AG.

Together with other Berlin entrepreneurs Carl Hagen donated paintings by impressionists’ artist to the Berlin National Gallery between 1904 and 1907.

After 1933, the family faced persection by the German National Socialist government. Carl and Louis Hagen lost a majority of their memberships of advisory boards. The bank’s business shrank due to persecution. The Hagen family had to sell shares of the Bayerische Motorenwerke under duress, and other property as well.

Carl Hagen sold four still life paintings by Dutch masters from the “Golden Age” to the art dealer Julius Böhler in Munich in 1936. In the same year the family consigned rare books, wood cuts by Albrecht Dürer and Rembrandt, and two orignal copper plates by Rembrandt to an auction at Max Perl in Berlin. The whereabout of these objects are unknown.

When the Anti-Jewish laws were enacted the bank house was forced into liquidation by January 1, 1938. Carl Hagen died on January 30, 1938. His children were trying to escape from Germany.

The property of the family was sold by force or was confiscated; among the assets were works of art as well. Some of artworks belonged formerly to collection of the lawyer Dr. Carl Thürling (1887-1955). These artworks were sold under commission by the art dealer Dr. Eduard Plietzsch and the bankier Siegfried Simonson in 1938/39.