Franz Schnabel
Franz (Frantisek) Gottlieb Schnabel (also later known as Frank Stephens), was born in Vienna on June 26, 1900. Before the Second World War, he owned and managed Schnabel & Co., Wien and Neupakaer Baumwoll-Spinnerei & Weberei Gottlieb Schnabel. His wife Edna Schnabel geb. Ritter was born on March 31, 1898. They lived at 26 Hohe Warte 26, Wien and in Nova Paka, Czechoslovakia. Their son, George, was born on February 28, 1930 in Vienna.
After the German invasion of Bohemia and Moravia, the Gestapo ordered the confiscation of all of Mr. Schnabel’s business and personal assets. Mr. Schnabel tried in June 1938 and again in February 1939 to export over fifty different cultural objects from Vienna to the Czechoslovakia. His export applications referred to prints, oil paintings, watercolours, marble figurines, miniatures, small bronzes statutes, rugs, antiquities, etc. Gin 1942, a German Treuhnäder, Walter Sieber, and the Gestapo took numerous “artistic paintings” from Schabel’s Nova Plaka home.
After the war, on August 18, 1947, Franz Schnabel (and the curator Dr. Jan Snyder) filed an Application for the Restitution of Czechoslovak Property. From all account, nothing was recovered.