Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on November 19, 2013

Under German law, art hoard found in Munich likely belongs to the son of Hitler's art dealer

The painting Two Riders on the Beach by Max Liebermann, one of over 1,400 Nazi-looted artworks found in a Munich apartment

In the court of public opinion, Cornelius Gurlitt never stood much of a chance. Last year, during a search of his Munich apartment, German authorities found a massive hoard of paintings that the Nazis seized from Jewish collectors during the Holocaust. Many of them had belonged to his late father Hildebrand Gurlitt, who helped Adolf Hitler sell looted art. So when the media learned of the haul last month, the most common reactions demanded the works be returned to their former owners. In a German court of law, however, the younger Gurlitt would have more than a fighting chance of keeping them. According to art experts and lawyers, anyone who wants to challenge his ownership of these works would face a grueling legal battle. And even Holocaust survivors would have little chance of success.

For one thing, Gurlitt seems to have no intention of parting with the works for moral reasons. In an interview published on Sunday, he said he would not voluntarily give back anything. And though the paintings are now in the hands of German authorities pending investigation, he told the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel, They have to come back to me.

Because the discovery was so enormous comprising a total of 1,406 artworks, including pieces by Picasso, Renoir and Matisse there is no clear legal precedent for this case. But experts in the field of art recovery say its not simply a matter of returning stolen property. The public perception is that Hitlers art dealer must have kept looted art for himself, and Germany shouldnt be hiding this stuff and protecting the people who did, says Charles Goldstein, a lawyer at the New Jerseybased firm Herrick, Feinstein LLP, who has worked on the recovery of Nazi-looted art. But that would be the laymans take on the whole thing, he says by phone from New York City.

From a legal perspective, the German government has no right to confiscate these artworks from Gurlitt, who seems to have legally inherited them after his fathers death in 1956. Even if the works were stolen from Jewish collectors during the Holocaust, the statute of limitations for theft would long have passed in Germany and the current possessor would have every right to claim the works as his own, says Goldstein.

(MORE: Germany Rushes to Let Holocaust Victims Claim Nazi-Looted Art)

The legal doctrine that protects Gurlitts ownership is called adverse possession, which is widely applied around the world. Informally known as the squatters right, it holds that if you take someones property and openly use it for long enough, it can become yours by law. In the U.S. that doctrine broadly applies to real estate, but not to art; in Germany it applies to both, says Goldstein.

After the Gurlitt hoard came to light, some Jewish rights groups have started calling for that legal nuance to change. In a statement earlier this month, Ronald Lauder, the president of the World Jewish Congress, urged Germany to abolish the statute of limitations on the theft of art during the Holocaust, calling it the principal obstacle to the recovery of Holocaust-looted art.

In Gurlitts case, this statute would lead to a rather bizarre situation, says Jutta von Falkenhausen, a Berlin lawyer who works on art-recovery cases. Even if a Holocaust victim can prove that the Nazis looted his paintings and that Gurlitts father came to posses them in bad faith, the victim would still not be able to get those paintings back through a civil lawsuit. After 30 years, the owners claim to restitution would be barred by the statute of limitations, von Falkenhausen tells TIME. That is current German law.

Read the rest here:
The Nazi-Looted Art Hoarder May Keep It All

Category: Jewish American Heritage Month
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