Wiebke Müller M.A.

Wiebke Müller has been a member of staff at the Museum of Hamburg History since 1993, initially working in the museum’s library whilst she was still a student. After completing her degree in Cultural Studies and History in Hamburg (Master’s thesis: ‘The Construction and Reception of a Historical Narrative: The Case of Leon Uris’s Novel “Exodus”’), she specialised in provenance research, focusing on cultural property confiscated as a result of Nazi persecution. She has worked on various research projects for the Museum of Hamburg History (MHG), for example on the provenance of the painting and silver collections and on Dr Carl Schellenberg, as well as on the Town Hall silver for the Hamburg Senate Chancellery. Since 2011, she has also worked part-time as a freelance provenance researcher for, amongst others, private art collections, the ‘Help Desk’ of the German Centre for Lost Cultural Property (DZK) and the art trade. She has been conducting research at the IGDJ since September 2026 and is preparing a project on the topic of ‘The whereabouts of the Hamburg synagogue silver’.

The ‘Synagogue Silver in Hamburg’ project aims to identify local patterns of persecution and plunder, trace the beneficiaries before and after 1945, and name the regional and national actors involved. The project seeks to reconstruct the historical inventory of these ritual objects in the Hamburg area and to trace their subsequent fate after 1938. Which objects were lost, when and how? And where are they today? The project thus combines two perspectives: one on Hamburg’s synagogue silver of the past and the other on that of the present. On the one hand, it is a study of the whereabouts of historical collections; on the other, it is provenance research into pieces that exist today, through which the background to Hamburg’s current collections can be elucidated. In doing so, the project looks beyond the provenance of individual objects to examine the historical structures underlying the plundering and desecration of liturgical vessels and sacred objects.

Relevant preliminary work has already been carried out by Wiebke Müller, MA. An experienced provenance researcher and long-standing member of staff at the Museum of Hamburg History (MHG), she has, as part of a research project based there, examined, amongst other things, the expropriation of silver and jewellery from Jews persecuted in Hamburg and the central role played by the MHG curator Dr Carl Schellenberg. This research also yielded initial findings regarding synagogue silver, which the planned project aims to investigate in detail. For example, an auction was identified at which, in 1944, a collection of ‘silverware from synagogues’ was publicly auctioned off by the Hamburg bailiffs’ office. It would be worth investigating whether the existing auction list can be cross-referenced with any old inventory lists from the synagogues that may still exist, and what can be ascertained about the provenance and current whereabouts of the auctioned items. The names of the buyers were documented in 1944.

Arbeitskreis Provenienzforschung e.V. (AKP), u.a. in der AG Judaica und jüdische Alltagsgegenstände und in der AG Niederlande; Verein für Hamburgische Geschichte.

• Die Gunst der Stunde. Carl Schellenberg als Netzwerker und Kulturgestalter in Hamburg und Europaim Zweiten Weltkrieg, in: Robel/Strupp (Hrsg. für die Forschungsstelle für Zeitgeschichte): Kultur inHamburg 1933-45 (Arbeitstitel). Erscheint Hamburg 2027
• Dispossession, Injustice, Violence. Trauma Awareness in Provenance Research, in: Tagungsband zurJahrestagung des Arbeitskreises für Provenienzforschung (AKP) in Bonn 2025. Erscheint 2026.
• Herkunft und Erinnerungskultur. Aus der Werkstatt einer Provenienzforscherin, in: Die Erinnerungwachhalten. Ulrich Bauche und sein Wirken in Hamburg. Hrsg. v. Wilfried Weinke. Hamburg 2023, S.149-170.