One of Cornelius Gurlitt’s attorneys, Hannes Hartung, told the Wall Street Journal last week, and was again quoted in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung yesterday, that Gurlitt was open to possible resolutions to claims from heirs to the paintings found in his apartment in 2012. According to Hartung, Gurlitt is already in talks with heirs, and wants a “fair and equitable solution.” 
One of the interesting side plots involves the oft-circulated quote from the first 2013 interview with Der Spiegel. Hartung said that Gurlitt was misquoted as saying, Freiwillig gebe ich nichts zurück, nein, nein—"I will give nothing back willingly, no, no.” Hartung instead argued to the FAZ that the quote is sicher falsch und verzerrend—“certainly false and distorted.” The New York Times also quoted Hartung as saying “"Mr. Hartung said that interview had misrepresented his client.”
Der Spiegel itself, and its reporter Özlem Gezer responded quickly and posted a video from the interview itself. The Spiegel article itself is titled, “Spiegel Quoted Gurlitt Correctly.” In the video, he says:
Ja, das mach' ich eben nich'. Ich geb' nichts freiwillig zurück. Das mach' ich auf keinen Fall. Aber Sie können... ich kann natürlich nichts machen. Wenn sie's beschlagnahmen und enteignen, was soll ich dann machen? Da kann ich nichts machen. Muss ich eben abwarten. Erst mal. Dann lass' ich das erstmal so.
“Yes, I just won’t do that. I will give nothing back willingly. Under no circumstances will I do that. But you can…I obviously can’t do anything. When they seize it and take it away, what can I do then? I can do nothing. I have to just wait. Just that. Then I let it the first time.”
Whether there is a contextual issue with his intent (the section of the video clip in which he says it begins with the statement itself) could be a different question, but that is not the challenge Hartung made.
In any event, it does not really matter to a possible resolution, whether or not he said it he could still agree now to a resolution. It is more likely a salvo to create an atmosphere in which productive discussions could take place. Whether they go anywhere is far from clear: expressing a vague openness to discussions is a long way yet from any agreements.
Lastly, there is a terrific article in The Art Newspaper by David D’Arcy today about a Max Beckmann painting Bar, Braun, that was donated to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art one day after the revelation by Focus of the Gurlitt seizure and story.
