For a year and a half, prosecutors kept their find quiet, hoping
to trace the history of some 1,406 pieces by artists such as
Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Marc Chagall before going
public.
But since news of the case broke last week, officials
have been scrambling to justify their secrecy and explain why
Germany can't just hand the pictures back to the heirs. At times
German authorities have appeared to be working at cross purposes
as they try to balance judicial independence with public
relations.
Ironically, it may be the strong protection of individual
rights introduced after World War II that may support the legal
argument that collector Cornelius Gurlitt should keep the works
he inherited from his father Hildebrand, an art dealer who
traded in works confiscated by the Nazis.
"His father did bad things during the Nazi period, but under
our legal system you can't punish the son for that," said
Matthias Druba, a Berlin lawyer who has dealt with other art
restitution cases.
Authorities are investigating whether the paintings, prints
and drawings were "misappropriated." But a spokesman for
Augsburg prosecutors, who are handling the case, acknowledged
that Germany's 30-year statute of limitations for most criminal
prosecutions could make a legal pursuit of the art difficult.
"I never said we will give back the pictures to all those who
suffered injustice back then," prosecutor Matthias Nikolai told
The Associated Press.
"We need to examine who can make what claims," he said. "To
put it very carefully, there is a possibility in Germany's
criminal code to hand seized objects back to victims."
Experts say the government's best option could be to appeal
to Gurlitt's sense of ethics and negotiate resolutions about the
art instead of heading to court.
There's some precedent for that. Two years ago, Gurlitt sold
a work by German expressionist painter Max Beckmann titled "The
Lion Tamer" for 864,000 euros ($1.16 million), which he shared
with the heirs of a Jewish collector who once owned the picture.
"It was all a matter of goodwill," said Karl-Sax Feddersen, a
legal adviser for the Cologne auction house Lempertz. "The heirs
wouldn't have been able to get a German court to help them."
The elder Gurlitt, who died in 1956, was one of four art
dealers commissioned by the Nazis to sell what is known as
"degenerate art" — items seized from museums because they were
deemed a corrupting influence on the German people. Prosecutors
believe some 380 of the works found in his son's apartment were
"degenerate art."
But another 590 artworks there may have been looted by the
Nazis, they say.
The German government is keen to help the claimants, aware
that doing otherwise would be a public relations disaster for a
country trying to make amends for its Nazi past.
Government spokesman Steffen Seibert said Wednesday that
authorities were using "all the available expertise at their
disposal" to determine if there were legitimate claims to the
works.
"We know that the Jewish organizations represent people who
are often very old and who suffered great injustices," he said.
"The work has begun in earnest now and it will bear results."
