Post date: Nov 06, 2013 11:33:23 PM
The legal status of looted art found in a Munich apartment is ambiguous and the German government may have the authority to return it to the Jewish owners.
SALZBURG, AUSTRIA (NOVEMBER 6, 2013) (REUTERS) - The German recluse who hoarded his late father's trove of Nazi-looted art may be its legal owner but the Berlin government has the authority - and moral obligation, some argue - to return the art works to their original Jewish owners or their heirs.
The status of the haul is ambiguous nearly 70 years after World War Two, subject to conflicting claims and obscured by the secretive world of art dealing. The man in whose Munich flat it was found, Cornelius Gurlitt, may even get to keep it.
Last year customs investigators seized 1,400 art works by European masters dating from the 16th century to the avant garde which had been hoarded by his father, one of the men Adolf Hitler put in charge of selling so-called "degenerate" art.
Hailed as one of the most significant discoveries of art looted by the Nazis, it has fuelled feverish speculation about its provenance and likely claims from the heirs of Jewish collectors robbed, dispossessed or murdered by the Nazis.
Germany, already under fire for keeping the hoard secret for nearly a year, could face further criticism if it allows Gurlitt to keep the paintings, sketches and sculptures.
Legal experts and those familiar with the question of looted art said Germany could nullify his ownership by citing the principle of "adverse possession" or under the 1998 Washington Declaration, a set of principles for dealing with looted art.
One of the lawyers representing the heirs of a Jewish art patron and collector who lost everything to the Nazis - Alfred Flechtheim, who died impoverished in London in 1937 - said "I can not give you a clear answer to the question how much Flechtheim is in the Gurlitt art trove."
Markus H. Stoetzel told Reuters "we have reason to suspect that other works of Flechtheim origin exist after the auction of Max Beckmann's 'lion tamer' which came onto the market in 2011."
"It was handed in by Cornelius Gurlitt and it was from that collection. The father of Cornelius Gurlitt, Hildebrand Gurlitt, apparently was in contact in the early 1930s with people who had access to the Flechtheim collection," said Stoetzel.
Flechtheim's estate has been fighting for decades for the restitution of works now hanging in German galleries and the lawyer said he would be seeking information about the new haul from the public prosecutor's office.
Other legal experts believe that a statute of limitations on claims that would allow Gurlitt to keep the art could be negated because the art work was confiscated by the state in connection with a tax evasion investigation against him in Bavaria.
It was not until Focus magazine broke the story this weekend that officials came forward and confirmed an intriguing tale of customs officials stumbling upon the art after a routine check found large sums of cash on Gurlitt on a train from Zurich.
Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said the federal government had known about it for several months and was now pushing for publication of any works suspected of being obtained by "forced removal through Nazi persecution".