Art stolen by the Nazis that will never return to its owners

BarcelonaIt is quite difficult to put a figure on Nazi plunder. The V&A Museum in London preserves the only known copy of the inventory that Goebbels drew up of the art seized by the Nazi regime from public institutions in Germany, mainly during the years 1937 and 1938. The report of the Reich Minister of Propaganda includes more than 16,000 works, but if the list is extended to include data from other countries and those held in other countries Center for Art Law, with the Nazi‑Looted Art Restitution Project, or the Claims Conference, in collaboration with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the figure exceeds 650,000 works of art that were either stolen or bought at a very low price under pressure.

The Nazis devastated everything they could in France, Poland, the Netherlands, Austria... Robert B. Storey, one of the American prosecutors at the Nuremberg trials of the main war criminals, stated that the looting of the Third Reich was equivalent to all the treasures of the Métro, the Louvre in Paris, and the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. It is estimated, for example, that Poland lost practically 70% of its artistic heritage.

The heirs of the victims of looting have not had an easy time recovering what was stolen from them. It is estimated that there are more than 200,000 works of art that are still not in the hands of their rightful owners. "There are insurmountable legal problems in most of the legislation created to be able to return cultural assets to their legitimate owners," says Sonia María Fernández López (Verín, Ourense, 1975), attorney, professor of international law at the University of Barcelona and author of the thesis The restitution of works of art and cultural property looted in armed conflict. Special reference is made to art seized during the Nazi period.Fernández believes that legislation and an international court are needed to address these cases.

Time's up

Among other problems, Fernández points out that claims are sometimes ill-founded. Another difficulty is the expiration of restitution laws. For example, in the United States, as of January 1, 2027, the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act of 2016 (HEAR), which establishes a six-year deadline for filing claims for art stolen or forcibly sold during the era of December 3, 1945, will no longer apply. The six-year countdown begins the moment the affected person determines the location of the work and has all the necessary documentation to initiate a claim. For example, if an heir discovers in 2025 that a family painting is on display in an American museum, they have until 2031 to file a claim, based on the HEAR Act deadline. If it is not discovered until 2028, they will, in principle, be unable to use it and will have to resort to other ordinary laws, making the claim much more complicated.

There are also different interpretations regarding what is meant by usurpation and what is supposed to be a good faith purchase. Depending on the country, who is considered the legitimate owner will vary. "In the case of the United States, the rights of the original owners usually prevail, while in Europe, there has been a tendency to side with the current owners, arguing that there was no usurpation but that the works were acquired in good faith by third parties, thereby protecting the museums, which are the owners of many of these works," explains Ferná. The difficulties of reconciling good faith with historical injustice have often been evident. One of the most controversial recent cases in this regard was that of the heirs of Collector Lilly Cassirer against the Thyssen Museum in MadridCassirer had to sell off Rue Saint-Honoré in the afternoon. Effect of rain, by Camille Pissarro (1830-1897), in order to escape Germany. In 1976, the painting was purchased by Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza for $360,000 from a New York dealer. It is currently valued at €38 million, and the courts ruled in favor of the Thyssen Museum, supported by the State Attorney's Office and the Ministry of Culture. In fact, many policies and courts have prioritized the rights of those who purchased these works in "good faith." Furthermore, the passage of time and the fading evidence make matters even more difficult for claimants.

The Power of States

Another obstacle for families is that the courts of one state cannot judge another state without its consent. The immunity of a foreign state has been invoked in various litigation cases involving art stolen by the Nazis. There are international conventions, such as the Washington Principles on Art Confiscated by the Nazis (Washington, DC, December 1998), an agreement whose preamble makes it clear that it is not binding and, therefore, no one is obliged to comply with it, or the Terezín Declaration. "The Spanish state signed these two treaties, but subsequently ignored them, as demonstrated by the case of the Thyssen Pissarro. It's yet another example that these conventions are simply declarations of intent and diplomacy, a matter of looking good, but which in the end are not applied," says Santos M. Mateos Rusillo, the historian.The Noah of Catalan artistic heritage (Editorial Base, 2022). "It's very sad that families have to hire lawyers and initiate lawsuits that drag on for years. They have to live through an ordeal, and it's like a double punishment," says Mateos, who recalls that this has also happened in Spain with works of art looted by the Franco regime. "Furthermore, many people don't have the resources to file these lawsuits," he adds.

In October 2022, the Pontevedra Museum handed over to the Polish state a 15th-century medieval diptych attributed to the Dutch painter Dieric Bouts. Specifically, it was a Painful and one Ecce homo Originally part of Princess Czartoryski's collection, this Polish aristocratic family had their own museum with more than two thousand works, but the Nazis took them when they occupied Gołuchów Castle. It is unknown what route the works took, but in 1981 they were owned by the Spanish businessman José Fernández López, and the Pontevedra Provincial Council purchased them in 1994. The Pontevedra Museum received a claim from the heirs of the Czartoryski family. Finally, following the process established by the 2017 law, which establishes the restitution of cultural assets that illegally leave a member of the European Union, the works were returned to the Polish state.

In 1931 the Dutch dealer Jacques Goudstikker bought Adam and Eve by Lucas Cranach the Elder. Goudstikker died in 1940 while fleeing the Nazis, and his vast collection passed into the hands of Hermann Göring. The Allies recovered many of the works and handed them over to the Dutch state, which sold them. Adam and Eve In 1966, it was sold to George Stroganoff-Scherbatoff, who sold it to the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California, in 1971. Decades later, in 2007, Goudstikker's younger sister, Marei von Saher, sued the California museum. The museum claimed that it had lawfully purchased the work from the Dutch state. American courts recognized the entire Nazi plunder as a moral outrage, but found they lacked the authority to invalidate an action by the Dutch state.

Pablo Picasso painted The actor around 1904 and was bought by the collector Paul Leffmann, who in 1938, upon fleeing Nazi Germany with his wife, sold it to gallery owners Hugo Perls and Paul Rosenberg. In 1941, Thelma Chrysler Foy bought it, and in 1952 it was donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. In 2016, the Leffmanns' great-granddaughter, Laurel Zuckerman, demanded the return of the work or compensation, alleging that her great-grandparents had been forced to sell it. However, the courts ruled in favor of the museum on two grounds: they considered that there was no coercion or specific threats, and that too much time had passed.