Editing Hermann Josef Abs (section)

== Controversies about Joest WWII role ==
In 1974, the artist [[Hans Haacke]] revealed the supposed role of Abs with  the Nazi regime in a project for the exhibition Manet-PROJEKT '74' which detailed, in ten panels, the ownership history of Édouard Manet's [[A Bundle of Asparagus|Bunch of Asparagus]] (1880).<ref>{{Cite web |title=Hans Haacke Institutional Critique |url=http://ewaneumann.com/websites/haacke/project74.html |access-date=2023-01-16 |website=ewaneumann.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-01-16 |title=Review: Hans Haacke's New Museum Survey Is Important—and Commonplace – ARTnews.com |url=https://www.artnews.com/art-news/reviews/hans-haacke-new-museum-review-1202669974/ |access-date=2023-01-16 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230116032525/https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:yvsPIAk1nFgJ:https://www.artnews.com/art-news/reviews/hans-haacke-new-museum-review-1202669974/&cd=12&hl=fr&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=opera |archive-date=2023-01-16 }}</ref> The Wallraf-Richartz Museum rejected the Haacke display.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Hans Haacke: Memory and Instrumental Reason |url=https://monoskop.org/images/6/6d/Buchloh_Benjamin_HD_1988_Hans_Haacke_Memory_and_Instrumental_Reason.pdf |publisher=Art in America}}</ref>

In 1995, studies of the Deusche Bank archives by [[Harold James (historian)#German history|Harold James]] show that, while the DB helped the Nazi in different variating degrees, direct and indirectly, there has various links between Abs and [[German resistance to Nazism|anti-Nazi resistance]] during the war, while Abs decided not direct participate in resistance organized acts, he went to various secret meetings and such links were described as something that made James "astounded".<ref>{{Cite web |last=Mitchener |first=Brandon |date=February 22, 1995 |title=Deutsche Bank Admits It Helped Hitler : Confronting a Dark Past |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1995/02/22/business/worldbusiness/IHT-deutsche-bank-admits-it-helped-hitler-confronting.html |url-status=deviated |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210417160427/https://www.nytimes.com/1995/02/22/business/worldbusiness/IHT-deutsche-bank-admits-it-helped-hitler-confronting.html |archive-date=17 April 2021 |access-date=9 November 2023 |website=[[The New York Times]]}}</ref>

After the war, he participated in the restitution to Israel and individual Jews for the Holocaust.