(WASHINGTON-October 22, 2020) The heirs to the Jewish art dealers who were forced to sell the medieval devotional art collection known as the Welfenschatz (in English, the Guelph Treasure) to agents of Hermann Goering in 1935 filed their brief today in the Supreme Court of the United States. It can be viewed at this link. The Supreme Court is set to hear argument on December 7, 2020, on whether the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) and its “takings clause” create jurisdiction over the heirs’ claims for restitution of the Welfenschatz—as all reviewing courts so far have held. The Welfenschatz is held by the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz (in English, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation).
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Topics:
Third Reich,
Gestapo,
Z.M. Hackenbroch,
Prussia,
Germany,
Nazi-looted art,
Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act,
Markus Stoetzel,
Supreme Court,
Mel Urbach,
SPK,
Nuremberg race laws,
Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz,
Hermann Goering,
FSIA,
NS Raubkunst,
Sullivan & Worcester LLP,
J.S. Goldschmidt,
Gerald Stiebel,
Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation,
Adolf Hitler,
Nicholas M. O'Donnell,
Alan Philipp,
Welfenschatz,
I. Rosenbaum,
Paul Körner,
Wannsee Conference,
Jed Leiber,
House of Brunswick (Braunschweig)-Lüneberg,
Emily Haber,
Wilhelm Stuckart,
Final Solution
(WASHINGTON-July 10, 2018) The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has affirmed the right of the heirs to the so-called Guelph Treasure (known in German as the Welfenschatz) to seek restitution in U.S. courts for the value of the treasured art collection. The appellate court rejected Defendants’ arguments that U.S. courts lack jurisdiction, or that Germany’s treatment of its Jews in the 1930s should be immune from judicial scrutiny. While the Federal Republic of Germany itself was dismissed as a defendant, the actual possessor and key party in interest (the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz, or SPK) must now prove that a 1935 transfer of the collection by a consortium of Jewish art dealers to Hermann Goering’s minions was a legitimate transaction if they are to retain the collection.
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Topics:
Gestapo,
Z.M. Hackenbroch,
Prussia,
Germany,
Nazi-looted art,
Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act,
Markus Stoetzel,
Mel Urbach,
SPK,
Hermann Goering,
FSIA,
NS Raubkunst,
Sullivan & Worcester LLP,
J.S. Goldschmidt,
Adolf Hitler,
Nicholas M. O'Donnell,
Welfenschatz,
I. Rosenbaum,
D.C. Circuit,
Consortium,
Genocide Convention,
Reichstag,
flight taxes,
Baltimore Sun,
Luftwaffe
Paintings by Beckmann, Gris and Klee Valued at Nearly $20 Million That Once Belonged to Flechtheim Are at Issue in New York Lawsuit
Sullivan & Worcester LLP has filed suit against Bavaria and its state museums in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on behalf of our clients Dr. Michael Hulton and Mrs. Penny Hulton, heirs to the renowned and persecuted Jewish art dealer Alfred Flechtheim. The Hultons have asked the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York to restitute several paintings by Max Beckmann, Paul Klee, and Juan Gris that are now in the possession of the German federal state of Bavaria, Adolf Hitler’s and the Nazi party’s homeland, and its Bavarian State Paintings Collections (known in German as the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, or BSGS). We are aided in this case by our co-counsel Markus Stoetzel and Mel Urbach, Esq.
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Topics:
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung,
Cornelius Gurlitt,
Deutschlandradio. Deutsche Presse Agentur,
Monuments Men,
Nazi-looted art,
Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act,
Max Beckmann,
Markus Stoetzel,
Mel Urbach,
Paul Klee,
FSIA,
Gurlitt,
NS Raubkunst,
Restitution,
Bavaria,
Sullivan & Worcester LLP,
World War II,
Alfred Flechteim,
Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen,
Dr. Michael Hulton,
Juan Gris,
George Grosz
We reported last week on the outrage over the decision by Germany and the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz (SPK) to argue in their motion to dismiss my clients’ claims to the Welfenschatz that a commercial interaction between German Jews and a cabal instigated by Hermann Goering in 1935 “predated the Holocaust by several years.” As we noted last week, the suggestion that the Holocaust was a distant possibility in 1935 was an indefensible statement, factually, historically, and ethically. The initial reaction was swift and severe. As Germany gets ready to host the First Conference of the German Centre for Cultural Property Losses next week, its policies are hurtling in the wrong direction.
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Topics:
Jewish Week Mel Urbach,
Hermann Goering First Conference of the German Cen,
Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums,
Henning Kahmann,
Atlanta,
Simon Wiesenthal Center,
Varda Neumann Federal Administrative Court,
Yale University,
Marion Kaplan,
New York University,
Germany,
Nazi-looted art,
Hitler,
Kristallnacht Rabbi Abraham Cooper,
Deborah Lipstadt,
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum,
Markus Stoetzel,
Emory University,
Behrens,
Holocaust,
Bloodlands,
SPK,
Advisory Commission,
Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning,
Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz,
Restitution,
Los Angeles,
World War II,
Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil,
Washington,
Raubkunst,
Timothy Snyder,
Welfenschatz
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Topics:
Maria Altmann,
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung,
National Socialists,
Third Reich,
artdaily.org,
Reuters,
United States Supreme Court,
Gestapo,
Haaretz,
Deutschlandradio. Deutsche Presse Agentur,
Robin Young,
the Guardian,
The Art Newspaper,
Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act,
The Wall Street Journal,
Deutsche Welle,
Santa Fe,
KRQE News 13,
the Observer,
Markus Stoetzel,
Die Erle,
Mel Urbach,
Nazis,
Advisory Commission,
3SAT,
ZDF,
Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz,
Washington DC,
Hermann Goering,
Private Wealth,
Restitution,
Sullivan & Worcester LLP,
Here & Now,
Gerald Stiebel,
World War II,
Foreign Sovereign Immunities,
flight tax,
Süddeutsche Zeitung,
Adolf Hitler,
United States District Court,
The New York Times,
Federal Republic of Germany,
BBC News Europe,
Alan Phillip,
Welfenschatz,
NPR,
PrivateArtInvestor,
ArtNet news
I filed yesterday a new civil action against the Federal Republic of Germany and the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz (the SPK, which is responsible the administration of the Berlin museums, among other things) in the United States District Court in Washington, DC. You can read the Complaint here. The lawsuit seeks the immediate restitution to my clients of the collection held by the SPK known as the Welfenschatz, or as it is referred to in English, the Guelph Treasure. My clients Gerald Stiebel and Alan Phillip are the blood relatives and successors to the consortium of Jewish art dealers who were threatened and forced by the National Socialist government into selling the Welfenschatz in 1935.
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Topics:
Maria Altmann,
National Socialists,
Third Reich,
Philipp v. Federal Republic of Germany et al. 15-c,
United States Supreme Court,
Gestapo,
Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act,
Markus Stoetzel,
Mel Urbach,
Nazis,
Advisory Commission,
Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz,
Washington DC,
Hermann Goering,
Restitution,
Sullivan & Worcester LLP,
Gerald Stiebel,
World War II,
flight tax,
Adolf Hitler,
United States District Court,
Federal Republic of Germany,
Alan Phillip,
Welfenschatz
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Topics:
Maria Altmann,
National Socialists,
Third Reich,
Philipp v. Federal Republic of Germany et al. 15-c,
United States Supreme Court,
Gestapo,
Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act,
Markus Stoetzel,
Mel Urbach,
Nazis,
Advisory Commission,
Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz,
Washington DC,
Hermann Goering,
Restitution,
Sullivan & Worcester LLP,
Gerald Stiebel,
World War II,
Foreign Sovereign Immunities,
flight tax,
Adolf Hitler,
United States District Court,
Federal Republic of Germany,
Alan Phillip,
Welfenschatz
