(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
One of the issues exposed and exacerbated by the ongoing Gurlitt collection stalemate is the question of Germany’s restitution procedures with respect to art. As the Bavarian legislative proposal to abolish the statute of limitations for claims against bad-faith acquirers is considered by the Bundestag, the “German Advisory Commission for the Return of Cultural Property Seized as a Result of Nazi Persecution, Especially Jewish Property” has issued a decision over what has become known as the “Guelph Treasure” (Welfenschatz) in the collection of the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz (SPK), the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. The March 20, 2014 opinion (available, so far as I know, only in German at this point at www.lostart.de) underscores the issues around claims of sales under duress, and the appropriate present-day procedural remedy. Readers should also brush up on their medieval German history to keep up.
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Topics:
Holy Roman Emperor Otto IV,
German Supreme Commercial Court,
Holy Roman Empire,
Bundeshandelsgericht,
German Supreme Constitutional Court,
Z.M. Hackenbroch,
Karl Blechen,
Duchy of Brunswick and Lüneburg,
Niedersachsen,
Karl Ernst Baumann,
Act of State,
Kingdom of Hanover. Königreich Hannover,
Dr Alexander Lewin,
Prussia,
Lower Saxony,
Anselm Feuerbach,
Gurlitt Collection,
Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act,
Preussen,
Hans Sachs,
German Advisory Commission for the Return of Cultu,
Hessen,
Fogg Art Museum,
Congress of Vienna,
Julius and Clara Freund,
Kurhannover,
Dresdner Bank,
Hermann Goring,
Austrian Supreme Court,
Johann J. August von der Embde,
House of Welf,
Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz,
Wilhelm Leibl,
Portrait of Amalie Zuckerkandl,
Braunschweig-Lüneburg,
Harvard,
Portrait der Familie von Dithfurth,
Gurlitt,
Restitution,
George I,
J.S. Goldschmidt,
World War II,
Peasant Girl without a Hat and with a White Headcl,
Queen Victoria,
Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation,
Art Institute of Chicago,
Kurfürsten,
Jutta Limbach,
www.lostart.de,
Soviet Union,
Gustav Klimt,
Bundesverfassungsgericht,
Welfenschatz,
Limbach Commission,
I. Rosenbaum,
Electors
