Profile — Dr Tina Hess
Switzerland's richest man
and the art he should not have owned
Emil Georg Bührle was born in Germany in 1890 and acquired Swiss citizenship after purchasing a controlling stake in Werkzeugmaschinenfabrik Oerlikon in 1936. Oerlikon manufactured precision anti-aircraft guns — weapons for which demand was enormous throughout the Second World War. Bührle supplied them to every major belligerent, including Nazi Germany, making him one of the principal arms merchants of the war and, in the process, the richest man in Switzerland.
Arms Sales to Nazi Germany
Oerlikon's anti-aircraft cannon was one of the most widely deployed weapons of the Second World War. Its manufacturer supplied both Allied and Axis powers, consistent with Swiss neutrality's formal position. But the scale of Bührle's business with Nazi Germany was exceptional. He maintained close commercial relationships with the German arms procurement system throughout the war, visiting Berlin regularly and hosting German officials at his Zürich residence.
Swiss Federal Archives documentation confirms that Bührle's Oerlikon works received wartime export licences for arms deliveries to Germany throughout the conflict. The Swiss government investigated his activities in 1945 and temporarily confiscated a portion of his assets — they were subsequently returned.Slave Labour at Oerlikon
The Oerlikon munitions works employed forced labourers during the war period — workers from occupied territories who were transferred to Switzerland under wartime labour agreements. The use of such labour was documented in post-war investigations. Bührle, as the controlling owner, was aware of and responsible for the conditions under which these workers were employed.
The Art Collection and Looted Works
From the late 1930s onwards, Bührle used his wartime fortune to assemble one of Europe's most significant private art collections — Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works by Cézanne, Monet, Renoir, Van Gogh, and others. A significant number of these works were purchased from Jewish owners who were being persecuted, dispossessed, and, in many cases, murdered. The prices paid were often a fraction of market value; in some cases the sellers had no meaningful choice.
After the war, several works were identified as having been sold by Jewish owners under duress and were subject to restitution claims. Bührle reacquired some of these works through subsequent purchases from claimants — a mechanism that satisfied legal requirements but did not restore the original owners to the position they would have occupied had the forced sale never occurred.
The Kunsthaus Zürich Controversy
When the Bührle Foundation donated the collection to the Kunsthaus Zürich and a new wing was opened in 2021, it reignited international debate about the provenance of the works. Restitution advocates, Jewish organisations, and historians protested that several works in the collection remained disputed — that their acquisition from Jewish owners during the Nazi period had not been adequately addressed, and that presenting the collection in a major public institution laundered its history.
The Kunsthaus subsequently commissioned a provenance research programme. Several works are currently the subject of active restitution negotiations. The collection did not arrive in Zurich clean, and the question of what the museum's association with it represents remains publicly contested.
Assessment
Bührle represents a distinct category of wartime enrichment from the industrial families of Category I: his wealth came from weapons manufacture and art acquisition in a country that was formally neutral. Swiss neutrality provided legal cover for activities that were, in their effects, deeply implicated in the Nazi war effort and the Holocaust. The restitution disputes around his collection are the current form of an unresolved accounting that began in 1945 and has never been fully settled.
Dr Hess's Assessment
"Bührle sold weapons to the Nazis, used slave labour at his munitions works, and purchased art from Jewish owners who had no real choice but to sell. That art now hangs in one of Europe's most prestigious museums. The restitution disputes it has generated are ongoing. The collection did not arrive in Zurich clean."