A Lost Inheritance

In September 1951 a 24-year-old German-born Londoner, Susanne Schaefer, inherited 1,500 paintings and drawings from her father, the popular German artist, cartoonist and illustrator Albert Schaefer-Ast. But there was a problem. She was unable to obtain possession of her inheritance because her father had lived and died in what at that time was the Soviet-controlled zone of East Germany. Before the war Susanne had been sent to the UK as a 12-year-old Kindertransport refugee because her mother Steffie was Jewish. A few months later Steffie also managed to escape to the UK, but Albert, who was not Jewish, had to stay in Germany. This book tells the story of how all the artworks inherited by Susanne seemingly disappeared in the 1960s and remained mysteriously hidden for 45 years. Susanne died in 2002 without ever finding out what had happened to her inheritance. but several years later many of her pintings and drawings started to e offered for sale in two art galleries and an auction house in what had formerly been the communist-controlled German Democratic Republic.