Holocaust art

A new twist in an ongoing dispute over 42 golden containers that are displayed in the Berlin Applied Arts Museum has turned up the heat on the simmering issue of Holocaust art restoration.

The Prussian Culture Foundation has said it thinks the sale of the priceless collection, which was bought from four Jewish art dealers in 1935, was fair. It is refusing to return them to their heirs, who first sued for restitution in 2008.

In the 1930s, collectors and the Nazi German state bought the collection, known as the Treasure of the Guelphs, from the four owners. The treasures date from the 11th to the 15th century and illustrate the sophistication of medieval German goldsmiths.

Notion of "fairness" is at heart of dispute

The current law says that where sales were unfair, those contracts are void and the art must be returned to the heirs.

But the Prussian Culture Foundation, which administers Berlin's royal collections and many 20th-century acquisitions in the capital, is arguing that in this case, the Nazi state bought the statues fair and square from the dealers.

That raises the question that is at the heart of the dispute: Can any sale price negotiated with Jewish vendors after the Nazi takeover in 1933 be considered fair?

Markus Stoetzel is the lawyer for the heirs of the Frankfurt art dealer. In the case of the Guelph Treasures, his answer to that question is a definitive "no."

The museum's decision to defend the Nazi regime's purchase of the treasures is "a thus far unique, but deeply shameful action," Stoetzel told the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung. "What the (foundation's) decision openly communicates is that they want to say this is the end of the line for that discussion."

Market price was paid, foundation says

On May 29, the culture foundation issued a 12-page exposition, explaining its stance that Prussia had paid the 1935 market price for the treasures. In it, the foundation contends that the consortium of Frankfurt art dealers overpaid for the items of Christian sacred art in 1930 when they bought them for 8 million reichsmarks.

The dealers in question - Zacharias Max Hackenbroch, Isaak Rosenbaum, Saemy Rosenberg and Julius Falk Goldschmidt - had jointly acquired the family collection from Duke Ernst-August of Braunschweig-Lueneburg, whose fortunes suffered in the Great Depression.

The items, among them a small inlaid altar and a reliquary in copper and ivory, were the property of the church of Saint Blaise in Brunswick until 1671, when the local branch of the royal house of Guelph acquired the original 82 items.

The treasures were exhibited in the US, where 40 were sold. Museums in Chicago and Cleveland acquired some of them. Negotiations began when the items were abroad, and Prussia acquired the remainder in 1935 for 4.2 million reichsmarks.

Demand for restitution

The heirs' lawyer, Stoetzel, has demanded restitution based on newly discovered documents. The newly uncovered papers show that the dealers sold the golden vessels in 1935 for far less than their true value because their dealerships were in business difficulties, he says.

And the Prussian art authorities had an unfair negotiating advantage under Adolph Hitler's dictatorship. Moreover, Stoetzel questions whether the purchase price was actually paid in full.

Yet the Prussian Culture Foundation has refused to accept that there was any unfair pressure on the art dealers to sell the gold items. It said the owners did not have to repatriate the pieces, and that the price reflected world values in the 1930s. It also said the sale was customary in 1930s terms.

This response has some critics accusing the Foundation of de-historicizing the situation. Sueddeutsche Zeitung wrote that the approach of deciding what a "fair" price would be fails to take the situation of the Jews during the Nazi regime into adequate consideration.

Delicate issue for all sides

To date, the Foundation has had a better record than many other German state collections, and has done extensive provenance research. In 22 out of 29 cases it has dealt with since 1999, it has returned art and documents to Jewish heirs.

The current dispute raises politically delicate questions for the Foundation, which has faced demands from Egypt to give back the pharaonic bust of Queen Nefertiti and from Turkey to hand back the Pergamon Altar.

Foundation representatives and lawyers for the defendants have said they will meet further to discuss the claim.

Author: Jennifer Abramsohn

Editor: Kate Bowen