Jewellery with Nazi links set to fetch $200m at auction

GENEVA – Christie’s auction house will next week launch the sale of hundreds of jewels that belonged to Austrian billionaire Heidi Horten, whose German businessman husband made his fortune under the Nazis.

Christie’s will offer 700 lots from Horten’s collection, including “unique and exceptional pieces” from 20th-century designers including Cartier, Harry Winston, Bulgari and Van Cleef & Arpels.

The whole collection has an estimated value of more than US$150 million (S$200 million).

The sale could eclipse previous records set by Christie’s in sales of properties that belonged to actress Elizabeth Taylor in 2011 and the “Maharajas and Mughal Magnificence” collection in 2019, both of which exceeded US$100 million.

Leading the collection is a rare Cartier ruby and diamond ring, which weighs in at 25.59 carats and has “a saturated pigeon-blood red colour and fine purity”, according to the auction house.

“What makes this collection particularly remarkable is the breadth and quality of the gemstones represented,” said Mr Max Fawcett, head of jewellery at Christie’s in Geneva.

“You’ll find everything from costume jewellery and one-of-a-kind haute joaillerie pieces, to historic jewels with exceptional provenance,” he added.

Heidi Horten died last year aged 81. According to Forbes, she was worth US$2.9 billion.

Nazi party

According to a report published in January 2022 by historians commissioned by the Horten Foundation, her husband Helmut Horten, who died in Switzerland in 1987, was a member of the Nazi party before being expelled.

In 1936, three years after Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany, Horten took over the textile company Alsberg based in the western city of Duisburg after its Jewish owners fled.

He later took over several other shops that had belonged to Jewish owners before the war.

“How did a 27-year-old take over a major department store? Did he put the (Jewish) seller under pressure?“ the historians wrote.

“The giant among the West German entrepreneurs remained silent about his activities in the years 1933-45. And so the image of an unscrupulous profiteer endures today.”

The Allied denazification committee exonerated Helmut Horten after the war.