English Translation

30 For the time being, it appears from the documents available that Jaromir Czernin intended to sell the painting, which had been listed as part of the Czernine Gallery of Paintings since 1924, at least since the comparison with Eugen Czernin of February 23, 1933. As far as the documents show, the sales negotiations with the art store Duveen Brothers, which was active for Andrew Mellon, were the most concrete in 1936. The purchase price negotiated at the time should have been about US$ 1 million, but a purchase contract was not concluded. Since this purchase price would have required an export permit, the potential buyer Andrew Mellon died in 1937, and no further concrete foreign offer is documented thereafter, the question of the amount of this purchase purchase price appears only to be of limited relevance. The considerations of Alfred Stix, then director of the Kunsthistorisches Museum's Gemäldegalerie at the turn of the year 1937/38, which, if granted an export licence, is to be paid at the rate of öS 500,000,--expected export fee for the purchase of the Wiltener Kelche, do not need to be pursued any further, because the acquisition of the Wiltener Kelche was obviously financed by the KunstHistorische Museum in February 1938 from other sources. At the time of the "connection", neither an export permit was issued nor any such permit was envisaged. Nor does any of the documents show that a concrete foreign offer was made after Andrew Mellon, who died in 1937. On the contrary, it turns out that after the "connection" a sale in the German Reich was envisaged, whereby the contacts of Eugen Czernin with Karl Haberstock and Jaromir Czernine with Hildegard Gussenbauer (also) actively considered a sale to (or around) Adolf Hitler. In concrete terms, a sale to Adolf Hitler was first made in August 1939, when Jaromir Czernin had the representational painting spent in Munich. Although the picture was thus in Adolf Hitler's immediate access, it was returned to Vienna after the inspection by Adolf Hitler, which was carried out in the presence of the legal representatives of Jaromir Czernin and Eugen Czernine, because Adolf Hitler was at that time the required purchase price of RM 1.7 million too high. In the subsequent intended sale to Philipp Reemtsma by RM 2.0 million. Jaromir Czernin's attorneys Ernst Egger and Fritz Lerche tried to obtain the necessary legal approvals by Hermann Göring using the "authorization" granted. Although it is clear from the present files that this sale was not possible because of Adolf Hitler's intervention, it was clearly due to the instigation of the (Vienna) Ministry of Internal and Cultural Affairs and the Central Office for Monument Protection.