ART TROVE IN MUNICH WORTH 1.5 BILLION EUROS

According to the Bavarian justice ministry, some 1,280 paintings and drawings were found in the apartment, although a figure of more than 1,400 works had been mentioned previously. The collection can be roughly divided into three groups:

First, there were the pictures that Hildebrand Gurlitt sold on behalf of the Nazi dictatorship, which it classified as "degenerate" and which he was expected to turn into hard currency abroad. The Bavarian investigators estimate that this category includes 380 works of art.
The second group consists of those works that were "seized in connection with acts of persecution," or the so-called looted art. These are works that were stolen from their Jewish owners. The Nazis confiscated entire collections, often forcing their sale. Top Nazi officials obtained some of the works, while others ended up with art dealers. Cornelius Gurlitt's collection apparently contained some 590 works that officials want to investigate as possible looted art.
The third group, which includes 310 artworks, appears to be more innocuous. Hildebrand Gurlitt's acquisition of some of the pieces may be above suspicion, perhaps because he purchased them before the Nazi era or because they were part of the family estate.

[...]The provenance researchers now have the task of clarifying the origins of the artworks with the necessary expedience given the politically charged nature of the situation. They are tasked with ascertaining the labyrinth history of every single one of the 570 paintings and, specifically, whether they belonged to Jews or other victims of the Nazis. It's a Herculean task.

But it is unlikely the researchers will be able to act with the urgency required. At the annual meeting of the Provenance Research Working Group last week in Hamburg, the around 60 attendees spoke of "undertaking the requisite research into the Munich art find as speedily as possible, but also in the necessary scientific quality."

The working group has existed for 10 years, but its members have not been able to agree on a standard for provenance specifications. It's more likely it will take the task force years rather than months to identifiy possible looted art in Gurlitt's collection. "Each case is unique," said one provenance researcher, "every picture is different."

At first, it also appeared that politicians and officials in Berlin were hesitant to include members of the Jewish Claims Conference among the experts reviewing the Gurlitt collection. With pressure growing, however, officials announced Monday that 10 experts would be part of the group probing the artworks, including two researchers with the organization, which has sought the return or restitution of Jewish property lost during the Holocaust.
"The Claims Conference has represented the interests of Jews persecuted by the Nazis for more than six decades in all questions about damages and restitution," Rüdiger Mahlo, the international organization's German representative, said last week. "It is self-explanatory that there should be representation of the Jewish victims on such a commission."

While the task force is being created, investigators in Augsburg are still receiving inquiries from lawyers who want to know whether artworks they are looking for on behalf of the heirs to the victims have been found in Gurlitt's apartment. Some 100 lawyers have already registered their interest with the public prosecutor's office. They have not received any answers.

[...]Augsburg prosecutor Reinhard Nemetz said in a statement on Tuesday that artwork that was not suspicious, not stolen by the Nazis and "undoubtedly was the property of the accused" would be returned to Gurlitt "immediately."

"It is of key importance that works taken in connection with the Nazi persecution be identified so that outstanding property claims can be settled and possible previous owners can exercise their rights," said Nemetz. [...]

[...]Augsburg prosecutor Reinhard Nemetz said in a statement on Tuesday that artwork that was not suspicious, not stolen by the Nazis and "undoubtedly was the property of the accused" would be returned to Gurlitt "immediately."

Immediately after sitting on them for two years. Only in Bavaria. . . .

[...]
Despite the lengths Germany has gone to to repair the moral and material damage done during World War II, for decades the restitution of confiscated art was not a topic of discussion or action here, and no German government has sought to repeal the Nazi law.

“The legal situation is relatively obvious and clear,” said Mr. Büche, who oversees the collection at the Moritzburg Foundation in Halle. “With art taken from Jewish collectors, there are sometimes legal or at least moral circumstances under which they can seek to have their works restituted. We can only seek to buy them back.”

Indeed, those works confiscated from public German museums stand in a separate category from works seized or sold under extreme duress by private Jewish collectors, whose heirs may still have legal claims to the art. Some have initiated new actions to retrieve works found in Mr. Gurlitt’s apartment.
[...]
While the German authorities have come under criticism abroad for their handling of the Gurlitt case — in particular, keeping the discovery of the art trove secret for almost two years — questions have been raised in the German news media about whether they had the right to seize Mr. Gurlitt’s entire collection. While he is under investigation for tax evasion, he has yet to be charged with any crime.

On Tuesday, the state prosecutor in Augsburg, Bavaria, where the case is being handled, said he would urge the task force appointed to clarify the provenance of the collection to tell him as soon as possible which works are irrefutably Mr. Gurlitt’s, so that they can be returned. Mr. Gurlitt has made clear he considers the works his property and wants them back.
[...]
Mr. Büche, the curator, would like his pictures back, too. Yet, in his three decades at the Moritzburg museum, he has been able to celebrate the return of just 16 prewar items, a tenth of a collection that once ranked among the most impressive in the country.

Some of the museum’s prewar works now hang in the Museum of Modern Art in New York or at Harvard University after having been traded on the open market like many so-called degenerate works once confiscated by the Nazis.
[...]
Historians say the Soviet powers sought to have the law nullified in the early 1950s but claimed that the Western Allied powers, for reasons that are unclear, did not support the idea. So Hitler’s rejection of works that did not reflect the Nazis’ sentimental view of art lives on.

Last weekend, the respected conservative daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung condemned the law’s endurance as part of the “unsurpassed hypocrisy” of German dealings with the art the Nazis plundered.

“It is hard to believe, but this Nazi law has never been overturned by the German government,” said Ulrike Lorenz, director of the Kunsthalle Mannheim, which lost its Modernist collection, some 800 works, to the Nazis.

The Kunsthalle Mannheim began early on to collect works by the German Expressionists, including Ernst-Ludwig Kirchner, whose “Melancholy Girl,” a print described by Ms. Lorenz as an important and very personal work, was found in the Gurlitt collection. Ms. Lorenz would like to see it hanging again in Mannheim.

“Of course, we will seek to have the work returned,” Ms. Lorenz said. “Carefully put, I think that the public museums have a certain moral claim to the art that once belonged to them.”

Some art historians point to the precedent set by Bernhard Böhmer, who, like Mr. Gurlitt’s father, Hildebrand, was one of four dealers tapped by the Nazis to sell the so-called degenerate works. After he took his own life in 1945 in the East German town of Güstrow, the Soviets handed over most of his collection to the state, which returned the works to museums or sold them back at a nominal price.

Others warn that nullifying the 1938 law could have far-reaching implications.

“If that law were to be nullified, then all the transactions would have to be annulled,” said Sabine Rudolph, a lawyer who specializes in the restitution of art confiscated from Jews. “If one museum that recognizes a work in the Gurlitt collection insists, ‘I want that back,’ they may suddenly realize they have several works that previously belonged to other museums that they would then have to return.”

These fears aren't even implausible. Remember, the Nazi government had confiscated all 'degenerate' art from every museum in Germany that owned any, and from each individual under German jurisdiction who owned any. We're talking tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of difficult lawsuits here.

BERLIN - The president of the World Jewish Congress is criticizing as "irresponsible" demands by German prosecutors to quickly return many artworks that were confiscated from the home of Munich collector Cornelius Gurlitt.

Ronald Lauder said in a statement Wednesday that decisions regarding the 1,400 artworks found in Gurlitt's apartment, many of which may have been stolen by the Nazis, should be made by the German government, not local prosecutors.

Today, according to a report in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the Central Council of Jews in Germany criticised the plans to give some hundred paintings back.More "sensitivity and responsibility" should be shown because this affair didn't have only legal aspects but "a moral and historic dimension" as well.

German Jewish body criticizes handling of Gurlitt art hoard

The Central Council of Jews in Germany has argued against returning some artworks seized from Cornelius Gurlitt's apartment. After 18 months of "conspiratorial" silence on the find, they said it was now unwise to rush.

The president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Dieter Graumann, told Thursday's edition of the 'Süddeutsche Zeitung' newspaper that prosecutors should rethink plans to return some of the art to Cornelius Gurlitt.
[...]
"There will probably be around 310 paintings that are doubtless the property of the accused," Aubgsburg public prosecutor Richard Nemetz told the Süddeutsche when asked how many pieces might be returned to Gurlitt.

Jewish representative Graumann said officials were running the risk of compounding earlier errors.
"After the whole affair was handled almost conspiratorially for a good 18 months, now this swift decision in favor of a partial return is also the wrong path," Graumann said. ... ... ...

do you folks REALLY want to go back to the days when Rome decided based upon current whims?

If "you folks" means the Central Council of Jews in Germany, the answer is "yes". The Central Council is a lobbying organization; pushing the interests of the Jewish heirs is their job, and they're doing their job effectively and forcefully. (Appropriately so --- this is how a free society works.)

please help me to understand: why now are German firms, that is people who were not even alive 70-80 years ago, falling all over themselves to apologize to jews who were also not alive 70-80 years ago for what the Nazi's did. And handing them money?