Christie’s to Sell Jewelry Collection Owned by Wife of Nazi Party Member

By: Ilana Siyance & Fern Sidman

For those out there who have a penchant for the world’s finest jewelry, it has been reported that the internationally renowned Christie’s will host a series of auctions in Geneva, Switzerland featuring the estate jewelry of Austrian philanthropist Heidi Horten, who passed away last June.  According to a recent report in the New York Post, one can get a gander at the world’s most expensive ruby ring that is valued at up to $20 million as well as a collection that is expected to fetch more than $150 million that consists of 700 glittering pieces.

The collection includes necklaces, brooches and bracelets by designers like Cartier, Bulgari, Harry Winston and Van Cleef & Arpels.  One notable lot, the “Briolette of India,” features a 90-carat diamond, with a high estimate price of roughly $7.8 million. The sale will be online from May 3rd to May 15th and the two-part live sale will take place in Geneva on May 10th and 12th. It is slated to break records as one of the largest jeweler sales in history. The New York Times reported that amount brought in at the auction is expected to surpass the $137 million taken in during the 2011 sale of famed actress Elizabeth Taylor’s extensive collection of fine jewelry.  The Post report also said that the all time record for the sale of jewels, goes to Christie’s main competitor, Sotheby’s who in 2015 fetched $160.9 million at a single auction.

“It’s one of the most beautifully curated collections that will ever come up in the jewelry world,” said Anthea Peers, president of Christie’s Europe, Middle East and Africa, as was reported by the New York Times. “This is a sale that will do an enormous amount for philanthropy. That’s important for the estate and for us.” The Heidi Horten Foundation contributes to medical research, and also runs a museum in Vienna featuring the heiress’ extensive art collection.

The Post report, written by investigative journalist Isabel Vincent, the author of the 2022 book, “Overture of Hope” that focuses on the amazing story of two British sisters who spirited dozens of Jewish opera singers as well as personnel of the Austrian and German opera out of the country during World War II to escape the wrath of the Third Reich, wrote that Horten’s staggering wealth which includes her grand jewelry and impressive art collection was obtained while married to her first husband.

Horten’s late husband Helmut, who died in 1987, managed to amass this wealth as a member of the Nazi party and a business man who made his fortune from department stores confiscated from Jewish owners after the Nazis invaded Austria in 1938. Through his ruthless confiscation Horten built up the fourth-largest chain of department stores in Germany known as Horten AG.

The May-December romance between the couple began when Helmut was 51 years old and Heidi was only 19 years of age. The Post reported that the two met in a bar in 1959. They married seven years later and set out to construct an art collection with pieces by such well known artists as Egon Schiele, an Austrian Expressionist, Pablo Picasso and Marc Chagall. In a new Netflix seven part series titled, “Transatlantic” Chagall is portrayed as being ushered out of France in the early 1940s to escape Nazi persecution  by Varian Fry, am American journalist who lived in Marseille in order to rescue Europe’s brain trust from annihilation.

Helmut Horten was apprenticed in a Düsseldorf department store belonging to Leonhard Tietz before working for the Duisburg department store of the Gebrüder Alsberg (Alsberg brothers) company, according to a Wikipedia report. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, Horten was able to acquire the company from the Jewish owners, Strauß and Lauter, who fled to the United States. Wikipedia reported that he was aided in this transaction by the banker Wilhelm Reinhold of the Commerz- and Disconto-Bank. The bank was to become a partner in the newly formed Horten & Co.

Wikipedia also reported that until 1939, Horten acquired several other department stores and enjoyed a good relationship with the Nazi government despite that his uncle, the (later) Catholic saint Titus Maria Horten died in custody in 1936. Horten was able to acquire the distribution rights to certain goods which were scarce due to the Second World War, the report indicated.

Subsequent to World War II, Horten was interned by the British Army in 1947 in Recklinghausen. Following a hunger strike he was released in 1948, as was reported by Wikipedia. He soon continued with the consolidation and expansion of his company, which he still owned.  Horten introduced Germany’s first supermarket after a visit to the United States.

In 1968, with 25,000 staff and turnover of the equivalent of 1 billion euros in West German marks, he floated the group on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, according to the Wikipedia report.

In 1972, Horten sold his majority stake and retired from the business, which controversially lost a great deal of value soon afterwards. Wikipedia reported that in 1994 the chain was bought by Kaufhof Holding AG, merged into the German retail group METRO AG in 1996.

Christie’s auction house also acceded that, the decision to host the upcoming sale in Geneva included a debate about Helmut Horten’s questionable purchases from Jews who were compelled to sell because of the impending Nazi onslaught during World War II.  “We are aware there is a painful history,” Peers said, as was reported by the NYT.  “We weighed that up against various factors,” she added, saying that the foundation is “a key driver of philanthropic causes.”

“Please know that we have engaged in both thoughtful and constructive conversations with those who have reached out to us to openly address their concerns,” Peers said in a statement to National Jeweler.

She added that, “At the same time, we appreciate our clients’ and colleagues’ candor about the way Christie’s is handling the auction and their support of our efforts to enhance transparency. “

The NYT also reported that there are still those who are of the firm belief that the philanthropic benefits do not justify hosting a sales event which puts the targeting of Jewish businesses during the Nazi era in the back seat.  A moral and ethical debate on this matter continues.

David de Jong, a historian and the author of the recent book, “Nazi Billionaires: The Dark History of Germany’s Wealthiest Dynasties,” told the NYT of Helmut Horten, “He laid the foundations of his wealth during the Third Reich by acquiring companies on the cheap at fire-sale prices from Jewish business owners under duress.”

De Jong said that in some cases, like the purchase of the Alsberg department store in 1936, Horten had paid only 65% of the company’s value to the Jewish owners, according to the NYT report. The Nazi party newspaper had boasted about the sale at the time, saying the store had “passed into Aryan ownership.”

In response to questions and criticism about her late husband’s business acquisitions, Mrs. Horten had hired historian Peter Hoeres to investigate the origins of her husband’s fortune.  Hoeres had concluded that while Horten did exploit many opportunities, he had initially paid “quite normal market prices” for Jewish companies, and had been “comparatively fair” in comparison to other German businessmen.

The lengthy report depicted Horten as a shrewd businessman, but not necessarily one with Nazi ideology.  The report highlighted several instances in which Horten kept on Jewish employees or suppliers.  Also, although Horten was a Nazi party member, he was later expelled.  “We have tried to get the facts and we have not tried to whitewash it,” Hoeres said of the report he submitted. “What you have is a mixed picture of Horten.”

The Aryanization of Jewish businesses in Germany took place in two stages. The NYT reported that before 1938, pressure from the Third Reich led Jews to sell their businesses, at times at deep discounts. After 1938, the sales were typically forced, and the prices paid often sank even lower. Horten was active during both phases, according to historians, who said he was involved in deals that spanned the Nazi takeover of Europe from Amsterdam to East Prussia, the NYT reported.

Other historians have criticized Hoeres’ portrayal. Horten cannot be off the hook just by saying he “was not worse than others,” said Birgit Kirchmayr, a member and senior adviser of the Austrian Art Restitution Advisory Board. “As a historian, I could not agree with the main narratives in the Hoeres report.”

The NYT also reported that another critic of Helmut Horten’s business practices is Stephanie Stephan, a journalist in Munich, who published a book last year about Horten’s acquisition of Jewish businesses. She said her father, Reinhold Stephan, had been on the board of Gerzon, a fashion house which was headquartered in Amsterdam, and was one of the companies purchased by Horten. She published an affidavit from one of the business’ Jewish owners, Arthur Marx, who said Horten had threatened them with being deported to concentration camps if they tried to resist selling the company to him.

“My father rebelled against Horten from the very beginning because he knew that he had already forced several Jewish owners of department stores in Germany to sell their department stores for ridiculous sums,” Stephan told the outlet, according to a report.  “He immediately dismissed my father. Horten made sure that my father was imprisoned several times and finally was expelled from the Netherlands.”

In 1994, Heidi Horten married Jean-Marc Charmat, a Frenchman, but they divorced in 1998.  In 2020, her net worth was estimated by Forbes to be roughly $3 billion.  She died in June 2022, at age 81.

As far as the Christies sale of the estate jewelry goes, some criticize the auction house for not publicizing the history more openly.  “You can say that the jewelry itself is not looted,” said Birgit Kirchmayr, a member and senior adviser of the Austrian Art Restitution Advisory Board. “But the money is connected with the Nazi past, and this is a fact that has to be mentioned in the biographies of the collectors.”

The NYT reported that after Christies attracted some criticism over the upcoming sale, the auction house announced that it would donate a portion of the proceeds from the sale to Holocaust research and education.  It also added some mention of Horten’s purchase of Jewish businesses that were “sold under duress”.  “It was never Christie’s intention to hide information about the well-documented history of Mr. Horten,” Guillaume Cerutti, the chief executive at Christie’s, said in a statement.

Sharing his perspective with National Jeweler (nationaljeweler.com), Mark Schonwetter, the former owner of bridal jewelry company Lieberfarb and co-founder of the Mark Schonwetter Holocaust Education Foundation said, “These jewels were acquired through funds gained by both force and duress during the Nazi regime, which I feel was very wrong.

While he understands the money from the sale will go to charity, he said more than a portion of the proceeds should benefit Holocaust research and education, according to the detailed report on the National Jeweler web site.

“Christie’s should dedicate this money to organizations that dedicate themselves to educating people not only about the atrocities of the Holocaust, but also to learning from the past so that this will not only never happen again but that we can live in a better world today, “ Schonwetter told National Jeweler. He added that, “Let us use the money that was ultimately gained at the expense of those persecuted to educate others.”

The mission of Schonwetter’s organization is to provide support and funding for teachers at schools across the country to include Holocaust education in their lesson plans, as was reported by National Jeweler. The funds can be used for purchasing educational materials, subsidizing field trips, or covering the costs of speakers, assemblies and programs.

As a Jewish child in Poland during the Holocaust, Schonwetter, along with his mother and sister, hid in the forests and others’ homes to avoid persecution, as was reported by National Jeweler. In 1961, Schonwetter arrived in the United States with five dollars in hand, unable to speak English.

He took a job sweeping the floors at a jewelry factory and his English improved as he worked his way up through the company ranks.  National Jeweler reported that Schonwetter was promoted to factory manager within five years. He purchased Lieberfarb, a wedding ring and bridal jewelry company, five years after that. He ran the company for more than 40 years with help from his daughters, but is now retired.