“Keep That German Kitsch Away from the Czech Hands!” Ethnic Cleansing in the Light of Material Culture: Furnishings of the Displaced Moravian and Silesian Nobility on the Post-1945 Brno Auction Market

Abstract

The paper deals with the significant social restructuring and radical ethnic cleansing in post-Second World War Czechoslovakia borderlands as evidenced by the art market, where massive state appropriations and transfers of furnishings from the mostly ex-German and ex-Hungarian nobility residences manifested themselves in huge wave of frenetic auction sales. The uniquely preserved archive file on the Karel Ditrich Exhibition and Auction House in Brno enables us to reconstruct these processes within the scope of the entire Moravian and Silesian territory. The documents reveal the contemporary ethnic, social, and economic disputes, leading in the end to significant class and social transfers, i. e., new trends in living culture and collecting.