 In 1937, Joseph Goebbels created a commission headed by Adolf Ziegler whose mission was to purge all German government-owned museums of such "degenerate" works.The Museum Folkwang fell into the category of government-controlled institutions and was therefore part of the purge.Over 1,200 works of art were removed from the museum (among others by Georges Braque, Paul Cézanne, Giorgio de Chirico, Henri-Edmond Cross, André Derain, Henri Matisse, and Edvard Munch), part of over 17,000 works of art removed from museums throughout Germany.