The secret of one of the most mysterious museum thrillers in Austria has finally been revealed after 23 years – and as it turned out, the disappearance of Egon Schiele’s letters from the Museum of Military History was not the work of skilful thieves, but something completely different: Apparently, they were the letters – unbelievable, but still – actually “just mislaid”!
Each of us is familiar with the situation: one moment you still have something in your hand – keys, mobile phone, glasses – and the next moment it is untraceable. You search and search desperately, but what was just here has suddenly disappeared from the face of the earth. You look umpteen times in the same place and then – sometimes minutes, sometimes hours or days later, you find it right there – or in a place that was right “in front of you” one way or another. Apparently, this doesn’t just happen to “normal consumers”, but also to historical institutions and renowned museums. And sometimes it takes a few years or decades for things that have disappeared to appear again. Exactly that seems to have been the case in the case of the missing letters in the Museum of Military History: The unique documents have now turned up again after 23 years – and as it turned out, they were never gone, but simply kept in the wrong place…
“A joyful historical moment for the art world, while there is an international fear of war or peace,” mused Defense Minister Klaudia Tanner (ÖVP) with a thoughtful expression when Christian Ortner, the director of the Museum of Military History, handed her the letters that were believed to have disappeared, along with Egon Schiele’s business card presented: Inestimably valuable documents of historical and cultural value, the whereabouts of which occupied the whole of Austria for over two decades. Now the military historian and the minister can hold the letters in their hands again – with kid gloves, of course.
The letters were last presented to the public in 1998 as part of a special exhibition before they disappeared without a trace – nobody could explain where they disappeared to. There was talk of an art thriller, and over the years the fear grew that the valuable documents would remain lost forever. Who would have thought that digitization would finally lead to the – surprisingly simple – solution to the riddle: When Minister Tanner and Director Ortner commissioned the digitization of important historical exhibits, the two of them also asked to look for the Schiele letters again . Lo and behold: the Schiele letters actually turned up again! For the whole 23 years, they lay safely in a place where no one would have suspected them: namely in a large-format plan from the 18th century, which describes the manufacture of cannons in a steel foundry in the Styrian cast iron works. It was obviously a mistake…
Schiele’s letters are considered cultural treasures because they show the young artist’s correspondence with the then HGM director Wilhelm John. Schiele, who had already served in 1916 as a soldier in the provisions office of a prisoner of war camp near Wieselburg (Lower Austria), asked in these letters to be transferred to the Imperial and Royal Army Museum. Which was finally approved.
