To learn more, please visit Dr. Hartung's site.
2:30 Jonathan Petropoulos' Faustian Bargain: The Art World in Nazi Germany
2:50 Hartung’s 2005 book, Art Theft in War and Persecution
3:25 representation in 2014 of Cornelius Gurlitt regarding the Gurlitt Trove
5:20 Gurlitt exemplifies issues with Germany’s soft law towards art restitution
6:50 twelve works from Gurlitt Trove confirmed as looted
7:15 works from Gurlitt Trove with historical gaps in provenance
8:50 Germany’s task force – 5 million Euros
10:20 degenerate art in Gurlitt Trove
11:10 works on loan from private collections seized as degenerate
11:40 Paul Klee’s “Swamp Legend” from Sophie Küppers
13:30 Kandinsky’s “The Colorful Life”–Irma Klein / Lewenstein Family
17:10 Germany’s shift from advisory commission to an arbitration tribunal
22:30 restitution of “The Colorful Life"
23:40 "Blick in Ebene" by Paul Adolf Seehaus to Koppel heirs
24:10 Gibb's "Aeneas and his Family Fleeing Burning Troy" to Hartveld heirs
24:35 Sir Justice Moses, chair of UK’s Spoliation Advisory Panel
26:00 restitution-Waldmüller’s “Young Girl with Her Family” looted from Teresa Belthower; acquired by Nazi photographer Heinrich Hoffmann
28:00 looted art scandal at Bavarian State Painting Collections
30:50 suit over Friedrich von Amerling’s “Girl with a Straw Hat”
37:05 Emily Gould–restitution by Bavaria versus other German states
39:55 no formal restitution schemes in Spain and Belgium
41:25 whistleblower from Bavarian State Painting Collections
42:50 Markus Stötzel, attorney for Flechtheim heirs
44:00 Picasso’s “Madame Soler” taken from Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy; Bavaria refused to accept its body’s restitution recommendation
47:20 Hartung’s view of justice
48:00 Germany’s arbitration system-public versus private holders of work
50:40 new framework’s guidelines-presumptions and burden
53:55 new framework’s guidelines-dealers and work on commission
55:50 Hartung’s hope to contribute to higher justice and remembrance
57:20 Stolpersteine
1:01:55 Aluko, Stein & Gould
Please share your comments and/or questions at stephanie@warfareofartandlaw.com
Music by Toulme.
To hear more episodes, please visit Warfare of Art and Law podcast's website.
To leave questions or comments about this or other episodes of the podcast and/or for information about joining the 2ND Saturday discussion on art, culture and justice, please message me at stephanie@warfareofartandlaw.com.
Thanks so much for listening!
© Stephanie Drawdy [2025]
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
There are some colleagues who say they are born
art lawyers.
I was not a born art lawyer.
I had to know the art first.
I had to know the stories, thehistory first, and this has been
a long way.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Welcome to Warfare of Art and Law, the podcast that
focuses on how justice does ordoesn't play out when art and
law overlap.
Hi everyone, it's Stephanie,and that was art law attorney Dr
Hannes Hartung.
What follows is a conversationwith Dr Hartung where he shares
about how he came into the areaof art law, with a focus on
(00:41):
restitution.
He gives his insight fromdecades of experience working in
this area, including hisrepresentation of Cornelius
Gurlitt regarding the GurlittTrove.
We discuss cases he's dealtwith that involved work taken
during the Nazi regime fromstate museums but that were on
loan from private individuals,including Paul Klee's Swamp
(01:05):
Legend and Kandinsky's theColorful Life.
Dr Hartung also discusses thescandal regarding the
Nazi-looted art held by theBavarian State Paintings
Collection approximately 200Code Red artworks and 800 marked
as highly suspicious and wealso explore the current state
(01:28):
of Germany's approach towardsNazi-era restitution and how its
replacement of the formerAdvisory Commission with an
arbitration tribunal is progress, but what other steps forward
might be useful in giving a morecomprehensive approach to
restitution.
Dr Hannes Hartung, welcome toWarfare of Art and Law.
(01:54):
And Second Saturday.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Stephanie, forhaving me.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Would you give a bit of background on how you came
into your work in art law andrestitution specifically?
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah, it all started, by the way, in 2000, when I was
searching for a topic for mydoctoral thesis in Tübingen,
where I studied, and then mysupervisor said, did you read
the book of Jonathan Petropoulos, the Fortune Bargain?
(02:31):
And I thought, oh gosh, what is?
Who is this person?
Of course I know him now, butin 2000, I didn't know him.
And then I took the book and Iwas really excited, yeah.
Then I took the book and I wasreally excited, yeah.
And then I learned about theWashington Principles in 98.
And then I wrote a pretty goodbook, or a pretty thick book Art
(02:57):
theft and war and persecution.
So it's the whole frame 600pages under German law, under
public international law andprivate international law.
And this is how it all started.
And then, to be honest, it wasa long and tough way until now,
until I got the cases.
I mean, it started in 2000 andthe very big case then was in
(03:24):
2014 with Cornelius Gurlitt.
He and Yannick.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yeah, since you've just brought him up, would you
want to kind of give us anoverview of how you came to
represent him and a bit aboutjust a background for those who
may not know about HildebrandGurlitt and how Cornelius came
to have the collection that hehad?
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Yeah, sure, it was really amazing.
I mean, we all know that hiswhole collection was confiscated
in Schwabing in his apartments,more than 1,200 items.
And I got the case because Iwas interviewed by the media as
(04:06):
an expert on looted art and thenhe was under what we call
Betreuung this is a kind of asupervision because he was very
sick and he got a person whocared for him, mr Edel sick, and
he got a person who cared forhim, mr Edel, and this person
(04:29):
called me in the first day of 14.
I thought it was a joke,because so many lawyers dreamt
of representing Cornelius Gullit.
And then he asked me Hannes,could you represent him?
And I said, yeah, of course Iwould love to.
Yeah, yeah, of course I wouldlove to.
And so I got the PUA and I wasnot the only lawyer, but I was
the only lawyer for all therestitution cases and for whole
(04:52):
collection.
And there has been two otherlawyers because of the
prosecution, so there have beencriminal lawyers defending him
against the seizure of hispaintings in his apartments.
And I was the lawyer for thewhole collection, for all looted
art questions, for alldegenerate art questions.
(05:14):
The Gullit case is a goodexample of what is going wrong
in Germany?
Because in Germany you don'thave a clear law on looted art.
Germany, you don't have a clearlaw on looted art.
You just have a soft law whichis founded on the Washington
principles.
But if you would apply ourgeneral law, we have a time bar
(05:36):
of 30 years.
We have a Sitzung, which is anacquisitive prescription, so you
have no chance.
Okay, which is acquisitiveprescription, so you have no
chance, okay.
So if you want to recoverrooted R here in Germany, it all
(05:57):
depends on that.
The person who currentlypossesses it says I'm fair, I
want a fair and just solution.
If you say no, so far and thishappens very often you cannot
recover.
And probably coming back toGurlitz, I had many hopes after
this case that we would get alaw where we could get a binding
(06:22):
law dealing with looted art inGermany which would allow us to
go to court to claim back art atcourt.
But so far this is not possible.
And this is pretty sad becausepoliticians have been very
straightforward about theconfiscation and about what a
(06:44):
bad man he would have been,which is wrong.
Only 12 items of 1,500 itemshave been, after five years,
been confirmed as looted art.
Twelve Twelve, which is below apercentile.
(07:07):
It's so, it's nothing.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
On that.
I was curious.
Your thoughts about the issuesthat many of the provenance
researchers had with the girl atTrove and the lack of evidence
and the gaps and there were manythat were put in a category
where they just said we don'thave enough evidence to know, is
my understanding.
(07:31):
And so in that respect, thosethat you were talking about,
that dozen or so is where theydid find concrete evidence and
or where there then there couldbe restitution possibly, but
those others it was just a lotof historical gaps, which is
really why we needed thewashington principles that's
right.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
I mean, uh, the so-called task force, who, which
was invented by the formerchancellor merkel in november 13
, um, had a problem becausethere has been many graphic
German expressionism, graphicwork, you know.
(08:11):
Sometimes from the same motiveyou have ten different versions
and you could not say which oneis the right one.
So this I think I assume therewas more than 12 items after all
in the collection, because inmost of the German collections
(08:32):
we will speak about the currentcases later in most of the
collections there's much morerooted art than just 12 items.
For instance, here in Munich wehave hundreds, but we'll speak
about it later and about taskforce.
Probably because you askedabout task force.
They spent 5 million euro onprovenance research, so terminal
(08:57):
taxpayers paid 5 million euroson the the task force and the
outcome was nothing.
It was not.
Pretty much everyone was verydisappointed.
Because I was not disappointedbecause I said there is not much
looted art in it and I wasright, so I was not disappointed
(09:21):
.
But people were verydisappointed because they
thought this would be the bigart trough, with the big looted
art.
So you can see what happens ifmedia is saying that's a trough
and this is Nazi, so the wholeworld is still thinking this is
looted art.
But this is wrong.
(09:42):
So once again, now the museum inBern has inherited that
collection, which is wonderfulfor them because, yeah, such
wealth of items.
So they did not have torestitute many paintings.
There are wonderful paintingsin this collection, including
(10:03):
Imp, impressionist art of PaulCezanne and Montaigne,
saint-victoire of Monet,waterloo Bridge, other paintings
which are really valuable.
And the heart of the collectionis so-called degenerate art and
(10:23):
Art de Kunst, the father ofCornelius Gollet.
He acquired all of it from theNazis, but one must know that
all degenerate art is notsubject to restitution in
Germany because we say the statewas stealing the art from their
(10:47):
own collections.
So if you take it away fromyourself and throw it away, like
selling it to HildebrandGoerlitz, this is not a looted
art case.
But most items have been andare the deoins, degenerate art
(11:08):
in the collection.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
The exception to what you just said is where pieces
were owned privately and on loanin the museums when they were
seized.
And is that not the case forthe Swamp Legend and the
Colorful Life, which were twopieces?
Speaker 1 (11:27):
that you dealt with Exactly.
Thank you, Stephanie.
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
So maybe we segue into that.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
I'm just looking to a museum where the Colorful Life
is away.
But let us start with the SwampLegend.
With the Swamp Legend SwampLegend I was happy to represent
the city of Munich andBerlin-Bachhaus and the painting
is still there.
It's a wonderful painting ofPaul Klee which was degenerate
(11:55):
art on loan from SophieLisicki-Küppers to the Pro
Provencial Museum in Hannover,and Nazis took it out of the
museum as well and then it wasshown in the big exhibition
(12:15):
called and art to kunst here inMunich, very nearby, where they
wanted to degenerate the art.
They degenerated the art, theyreally humiliated the modern
German expressionism and theyshout the swamp legends in this
exhibition as to be degenerate.
(12:37):
So now the heirs of Sophie havedemanded the restitution of the
painting and this was a very,very long battle.
It was 25 years.
So I was very happy that Icould negotiate a settlement
(13:00):
which is really fair in suchcases in my point of because
it's not looted art, it'sdegenerate art and to respect
all the context and to pay aconsiderable, high amount to the
heirs, in my point of view,outside Holocaust, outside
(13:20):
Washington principles, is a verygood solution.
This has been a good story.
The bad story is not degenerateart, it's the story of a
colorful life.
A colorful life is one of themost important paintings of
Vasily Kandinsky from 1907.
(13:41):
And this was in the collectionof the Levenstein family in
Amsterdam, who were needlemanufacturers.
But you must know that thecolourful life was consigned
voluntarily by Irma Klein.
(14:01):
There are three reasons forselling art Death, divorce and
death.
And here Irma Klein was left byher husband who went for love
to your wonderful country, tothe USA.
He fell in love with ShirleyOtskin and he left her.
(14:26):
Irma Klein was staying still inAmsterdam with a wonderful art
collection of 63 pieces whichshe consigned right before
Germany invaded Netherlands.
Germany invaded Netherlands,the Nazis in 1940.
(14:46):
But you also must understand,or should understand, that
persecution did not start inthat year, where the colourful
life was sold at auction, atauction Müller Müller in
Amsterdam.
There had been another case inNetherlands, another Kandinsky
(15:12):
painting with houses it's calledpainting with houses from
Stedelijk Museum and theResiduee Commissie has refused
to return it.
But our problem was that therehas been a new mayor in
Amsterdam, a social Democrat,and she has decided she's not
(15:34):
happy that the painting is stillin the museum.
And she said no, I do notfollow the recommendation of the
restitutee commissie and Irestitute it to the heirs.
And this put us pretty muchunder pressure and the beratende
Kommission, the advisorycommission, decided to return
(15:59):
the painting, just saying hey,it's a Jewish origin, there is a
presumption, but it can't bealluded.
Therefore, we assume awful, wehave showed completely that
colorful life was part of thedivorce procedure in Amsterdam
between Irma and Robert.
(16:19):
But they didn't follow.
And, yeah, they had acelebration of 20 years advisory
commission and then they couldcelebrate a restitution as well.
Let me say I'm always in favorof restitution if it has to be
restituted.
I don't want anyone to keep artif it has been looted, but in
(16:45):
this case I'm 1000 convincedthat colorful life has not been
looted and it's not a looted artcase, absolutely you've touched
on a lot of different pointsand anyone who does have
questions, please feel free toto jump in.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
I don't know if now is the time that you want to
start talking about how there isthis need and the creation from
a commission into thearbitration tribunal and what
brought that up.
Before we started the call, wetalked about some of the
decisions, like the Max Sternrestitution project and the 2019
decision that they received, soI don't know if you want to
(17:25):
just touch on your involvementwith that and your perspective.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Yeah, yeah.
So now in Germany we havedevelopments, but we didn't
start.
So let me start with this thatwe had a hearing at Parliament
last December on a new law, on anew law on restitution of
(17:51):
looted art under civil law.
This is the one system.
The other system.
This system would be like goingto court suing and they would
have killed the time bar, sayingthere's no more time bar.
But the problem on the draftand let me say we have no law.
(18:13):
We now have a new government,we have a new term, yeah, and in
this new term they didn't startalready with this law?
Let me say, at the moment wehave enough problems with two
leaders in the world.
One of them is in Russia, oneof them is in your country.
(18:37):
I don't say more, but this isthe case.
So they didn't start with thelaw again.
So this law was saying it wouldallow us to sue at court, also
in a central court in Frankfurt,for restitution of
(18:57):
Holocaust-looted art and thetime bar is completely killed.
Okay, but other problems havenot been addressed.
We have a problems of bona fidepurchase and the biggest
problem obviously under Germanlaw is the ad-sitzung
(19:17):
acquisitive prescription.
Ad-sitzung, alright.
I also had a case at the HighFederal Court about acquisitive
prescription, where I was veryhappy about the court.
The highest German court, theBundesgerichtshof, has decided
that the requirements aregetting higher, higher and
(19:38):
higher when it comes to art.
So that's a good development,but still, the draft we had last
year was just about the timebar, but not on the other things
.
So this is system number one.
We wouldn't be in Germany ifit's not a system number two.
So system number two is anarbitration system says that
(20:03):
everybody can address thearbitration even without the
consent of a public body.
So if you would have, forinstance, looted art in a public
museum, you could address thearbitration and ask for a
settlement, a recommendation ofthe arbitration under the new
(20:27):
scheme.
We will have a new scheme.
But if you ask me now, whenwill this come?
I would tell you please callBerlin and ask them.
I don't know.
They have decided to do it inJanuary, February already, but
we don't have it in place.
We don't have it in place.
(20:49):
There should be more than 20 or30 arbitrators who are on a
panel, so you could choose as aclose panel of arbitrators who
would give a recommendation onthese cases.
And I really welcome this,because before you had no chance
(21:13):
whatsoever.
You could not go to courtbecause there was always a time
bar and you could also not go tothe Beratende Kommission, to
the Advisory Commission, becausethis needed the consent of the
other side.
And there had been many casesin the past where the other side
has said no, I don't want arecommendation.
(21:34):
Or even if they recommended thereturn, people refused to
follow the recommendationbecause it is not a binding
recommendation.
When it came to Das bunte Leben,Colorful Life, they recommended
(21:55):
the return and obviously Irepresented the Bavarian Bank,
Bayerische Landesbank, and it'sa public body and they cannot
allow to say, oh, we don'tfollow.
But they could have had thepossibility to have this
recommendation checked from acourt.
But they decided okay, no, wegive it back because we respect,
(22:20):
we accept this recommendation.
And so the painting wasreturned, but I don't know where
it is now.
I only know it was restitutedto the Lievenstein heirs, but I
don't know what has happened.
I assume it has been sold.
It's a very valuable painting.
(22:41):
It was a very painful and longdiscussion of more than eight
years.
So I assume that this, but forthat you would have to ask
Mondex what happened to thepainting, but I assume it was
sold in a private sale and notat a auction.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
So yeah, I had read the perspective of the claims
conference about thisarbitration tribunal and they
were very favorable and did citethat.
These issues that still lingerlike acquisitive prescription,
where do you project it going inthe time frame?
Speaker 1 (23:24):
I hope this is coming very fast because we will now
switch to the current cases, ifyou want, and let me start with
the good ones.
Yeah, this is restitutionnumber one.
This is from Louise, as I callher, louise Koppel, from Cologne
(23:46):
.
She was a Jew from Cologne andit was taken away from her.
It's from Paul Seehaus, who isa pupil from August Macke, from
German Expressionism, and thisone we could recover from the
museum in Bonn.
So this was the firstrestitution this year.
(24:07):
Our second restitution thisyear, this is from the Tate
Gallery in London.
I'm very proud of that.
I'm very proud of that For theheirs of Samuel Hartfeld.
Samuel Hartfeld was a dealer inBelgium, in Antwerp, and all his
(24:28):
belongings has been looted bythe Nazis.
And this pollution advisorypanel is chaired by Sir Justice
Moses and I knew this guy onlyfrom literature.
So I was very happy to get arecommendation from him.
I knew him from City of Gotha,recommendation from the 90s,
(24:52):
where he made a landmarkdecision in the 90s where he
said that it was being againstthe consciousness of the court
and good faith if somethinglooted is being kept by someone
as a general English principle.
So this was a landmark decisionCity of Gotha against Sotheby's
(25:15):
, where Sotheby's lost this case, that this landmark decision
was the very starting point,that the big auction houses
started to have restitutiondepartments in their houses
because you know, they lost somecases.
So a scene.
(25:36):
Oh, we need to fix this, weneed to handle this issue.
And, coming back to your, Ihope we have the arbitration
very soon because we are waitinglong and we have really trouble
.
This is a very problematic case.
The title of this one is AYoung Girl with Her Family.
(26:03):
It's one of the most beautifulpaintings the young farm girl,
farmer girl with her family.
It's from a famous Austrianromantic painter called
Waldmüller.
Yeah, and this painting was inthe collection of Therese
(26:24):
Bretthauer in Vienna and wastaken away from her.
And what is really horribleabout this case is that Mr
Hoffman acquired this paintingafter it was looted from her.
And who is Heinrich Hoffman?
Heinrich Hoffman was thephotographer of Adolf Hitler.
(26:48):
Okay, he was a guy who made allthe famous photographs of Adolf
Hitler.
So this painting was more than80 years in the possession of a
BayerischeStaatsgemäldesammlungen, the
(27:08):
Bavarian State PaintingCollections.
Who must, who must have known,who must have known that this
painting was looted because itwas given to them with the job
already in the 50s, find theowner and give it back.
(27:32):
So now and this is a scandal Iwanted to talk about I'm
involved at the moment and I'mreally terrified about this
because it's my hometown okay,munich.
I'm living in Munich since 2004and even in the past I was
proud to represent this museumas well, 15 years ago in our
(27:56):
cases.
I'm really very upset aboutwhat happened, what is right now
going on here in Bavaria,because we have a very big
looted art scandal at the moment.
The problem is that this museumhas more approximately 200
(28:23):
paintings looted art, red, codered in their procession and they
never.
They made a very goodprovenance research for decades,
for more than 20 years, but,hey, they never shared their
knowledge with the public.
So in February, the SüddeutscheZeitung reported about that
(28:51):
scandal, yeah, and said oh, wehave an internal museum database
showing that 200 paintings codered are in their possessions,
where they say it is looted artand 800 items are highly
(29:14):
suspicious to be looted.
So let me say this case is muchbigger than the Gullit case,
much bigger, but nobody isspeaking about it like they did
the same way they did when I wasspeaking with probably you know
(29:35):
CBS 60 Minutes and I wasspeaking with Molly Safer, a
very old gentleman.
I nearly couldn't hear himbecause he was speaking so soft,
but I was with him and I triedto explain the problems we have
with wooded art in Germany andalso America was very much
(29:57):
interested in what is going onhere.
Right now we have much morecases, a much bigger case here
with the museum, and so far alldiscussions are only here in
German media and did not reachAmerica.
(30:18):
So I hope your podcast is thefirst start, that it comes to
your awareness, also to theesteemed colleagues here in New
York in America, that we areright now having a big trouble
here because the museum is veryreluctant giving back the art.
(30:46):
We have another case here.
It is Friedrich von Ameling.
It's the girl with a straw hat.
It's also a romantic Austrianpainter and this one came from
the Leon Provers.
Leon Provers have been one ofthe most prominent art dealers,
(31:09):
jewish art dealers, here inMunich before Nazis, before
Nazis persecuted them, beforeNazis really closed their
gallery and before they had toflee.
This is really a very importantJewish gallery here in Germany
(31:35):
and the problem about this caseis as well that the museum knows
all of it for a long time,since 2014.
They started to undertakeprovenance research on the
painting In 2019.
They said it's red.
(31:56):
So they said in our opinionit's a looted art painting.
Now they're saying they wouldhave been a voluntarily exchange
between the Leon Proverbs andthe museum.
I strongly, I strongly contestthis, because there is no
(32:21):
document whatsoever proving thatthe Jewish Gallery agreed with
this exchange.
They number one they only gottwo paintings, which are
nonsense.
We even have a letter from thedirector of a museum from
(32:53):
January 35 saying we get awonderful, high-profile painting
and we give away rubbish andvery not relevant paintings in
return which are not on the sameworth.
So this letter is clearlysaying this can't be outside
Nazi regime, because nobody isgiving away such a wonderful
(33:15):
painting for nothing or fornearly nothing.
So we really hope that thestate of Bavaria is coming to
terms here.
And this Bavarian minister issaying Mr Blume, his name is
Blume, markus Blume.
This guy is saying, ah well,bavaria, we are a wonderful
(33:37):
state, we are number one inGermany doing restitution.
I would say, all right, they dorestitution, but only for very
cheap things.
As soon as real art like thisone, they do not do it like as
you've seen before with theWaldmüller, the Waldmüller
painting.
They have decided to give itback, even already, in August 22
(34:02):
.
In August 22, they have decidedto return it.
And you will wonder why didn'tthey do it then?
Why didn't they give it overthen?
Oh, they're saying theinheritance situation is not
clarified and they neversearched for the heirs.
It was us who addressed themand said hello, you have decided
(34:27):
to return it.
Probably you'd be at kind BS,kinds to return it now, as you
have decided already.
All right.
But then we said ah, there'sstill one person in London
saying he would be a rightfulheir, so we cannot do it.
So, sorry, I don't know how youhandle these things.
(34:48):
In New York, in Germany, we saythat the community of heirs is
releasing the museum from allclaims of third parties in
respect of the painting.
Okay, freistellung, we releaseit from all claims of third
parties in respect of thepainting.
Okay, we release it from allclaims.
So, uh, I have suggested thisthree years ago already, or two
(35:11):
years ago, sorry, I want to becorrect.
Two years ago I've suggestedthis, but unfortunately they
still keep us waiting, and Ithink this is really, really.
This is really humiliating myclients.
Yeah, this is reallyhumiliating.
(35:31):
This is really not in thespirit of the Washington
principles in both cases fromWeidmüller and the
Weidmü-Drethauer case on the oneside and the Leon side on the
other hand.
So I cannot wait that we havelaws.
So, because you know, if wehave laws we can go to
(35:55):
arbitration, for instance, or ifwe would have a binding law to
sue, I would be more than happyto sue.
I mean, for the Waldmühle weneed just one more one last
probate, and as soon as and thisis so painful, this is so
painful really three years.
It's horrible, painful.
If we have this probate, thenthey will restitute it, but not
(36:19):
before.
But let me say the new schemeis saying uh, be very relaxed
with these proofs.
If you've got sufficient proofsand here we have a Testament
saying this guy is the heir andin other cases you can see him
was restituting small itemsbasing on Testaments,
restituting small items basingon testaments.
(36:41):
But in this case they aresaying, no, we need a survey,
take formal hurdles to delayrestitution for years.
And we know that even some ofthe heirs died over such
procedures from Austria, fromabroad, with the Bayererische
(37:01):
Stadtschirm-Einsatz, which isreally a shame, in my point of
view.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
Hannes, could I just ask?
Speaker 1 (37:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
So the approach of the Bavarian State Museum in
these cases that you're talkingabout that has been very
resistant to these claims.
Is that typical of museumsthroughout Germany, or are other
museums much more observantwith the Washington principles?
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Thank you, emily the Seehaus.
This just took one year fromdemand letter to restitution, so
that's a normal time frame.
My experience with othermuseums is very positive and let
me say I also know that otherbig houses, like in Dresden or
(38:00):
in Stuttgart or in Hamburg or inBerlin, berlin had been a very
good place for restitution.
But they have a gulf treasurewhich is a pretty big combat
right at the moment.
So Berlin is not as strong withrestitution, no more.
But Berlin always was verystrong when it came to
(38:22):
restitution.
So now really I would sayMunich is an exemption, um, and
the others.
Really, the difference is thatI think that the other museums
do publish what they find intheir museums, where they think
it is red or it's orange, soit's clearly looted art or it's
(38:44):
really highly suspicious to belooted art.
So then you publish it on onlost arts de, on our database,
and people could find it.
And if they are better and theydo it, I know in some cases
they search for the heirs andthen obviously they don't need
me, but that's all right with me, I have enough cases, so they
(39:05):
don't need me for that.
Yeah, I think Bavaria is a verybad example and I think the
other German museums arestronger there.
But still, as long as we don'thave a binding scheme, we have
(39:26):
experienced cases in whichmuseums said we don't go to the
commission, we don't want arecommendation.
So I know some cases who willstill be tuned for restitution
but nothing happened because itwas not possible.
But overall I would say thatGermany is not a bad place and
(39:50):
if you are searching for badplaces, go to Spain or go to
Belgium.
Ok, both of these countriesdon't have a restitution scheme
at all and they also in Belgium.
They now try to set up somethings.
I have a procedure right nowrunning in Belgium, also from
(40:12):
heartfelt.
I've showed you the tapepainting from some well and have
another painting from some wellin at the city of Ghent and,
fingers crossed, we get arecommendation until September
or something from an ad hoccommission.
They made an ad hoc commissionfor us for that case, which is
(40:36):
fair enough.
But we wait for two yearsalready.
So after one year we say, ah,bertram needs to deal with
looted art, but if you go toSpain, oh, good luck.
Probably you know it from theCasira case.
So, going to Spain, so farSpain has a scheme for Franco
(41:01):
stuff.
So if something was looted incontext with Franco dictatorship
, you will have a chance, butall Holocaust-looted art,
german-looted art, no.
So there's nothing in place.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
Just going back to the scandal of the Code Red
hundreds of paintings.
Could you share a bit moreabout that, how it broke, and a
little more detail?
Speaker 1 (41:26):
Yeah, sure, I was really surprised about that.
To be honest, there was awhistleblower last year, a
whistleblower who sent me theinternal list of a museum and I
was shocked.
I cannot tell you how shocked Iwas.
(41:46):
They sent me a list withapproximately 200 paintings, but
only the red ones, code Red, inwhich the Ameling is in it, for
instance.
So this one here, but alsoother paintings.
So this one was on the list aswell and I was really shocked.
(42:08):
To be honest, I was completelyshocked and I thought this can't
be true.
But now, yeah, it turned thatit was true.
It turned that it was true.
So the museum, after the media,started to publish the scandal,
(42:33):
slice by slice, slice by slice,the museum started to publish
the paintings yeah, before theydidn't show it.
So, but there are also otherpaintings by Flechtheim.
Probably you are aware ofFlechtheim.
So my friend Markus Stötzl isdoing these cases.
(42:54):
Probably you can speak with himanother time.
Markus has made very big lootedart cases here in Germany as
well.
So he is representing theFlechtheim heirs who are living
in America and he is fighting.
This is horrible.
He is fighting in this case for16 years.
(43:18):
Imagine 16 years.
This is painful.
16 years.
Imagine 16 years.
This is painful 16 years.
And the former director,professor Maas, was even in
favor of restitution of some ofthe items of Flechtheim.
But obviously the minister, theBavarian state minister, mr
(43:40):
Blume, obviously the minister,the Bavarian state minister, mr
Blume, has decided against itand he said I want the
arbitration to decide on theseclaims.
He also decided about theSchöp's cases.
Probably you have heard thename of Paul von
Mendelssohn-tholdy, the Picasso,madame Soler.
(44:02):
So Madame Soler is a very highprofile painting at the museum
and since 2008, the heirs ofPaul von Mendelssohn Bartholdy
are asking the museum for anadvisory commission, for
(44:24):
mediation, and Bavaria refusedto accept the public body.
Let me tell you again this wasalso invented by Bavaria and by
the federal and by the federal.
So we have.
So the Land, bavaria and ourfederal government has set the
(44:46):
Beratende Kommission in placeexactly for this, and every
state was asked to accept thisprocedure and to use it, and
Bavaria has consistently refusedto use the body they have
(45:07):
invented themselves.
So now they were very.
They say oh, we are very good,we now lovely, we now have a
lovely, we now have a lovelysystem in place, wonderful with
arbitration.
But once again, Stephanie, wedon't have arbitration so far.
(45:35):
So I know that all mycolleagues would be more than
happy to go to arbitration withthese cases, as these cases are
very, very strong, yeah, but weare all waiting.
I'm waiting for it in my cases,marcus is waiting for it, ulf
is waiting for it.
Who do the other cases?
(45:55):
And I'm very.
I think that Marcus has verystrong cases.
When it comes to Madame Solaire,I don't have the details, I
cannot tell.
Probably this could be a casein which the widow of Paul, who
(46:17):
was a Jew, she was an Aryan, itwas Gräfin Kessel Aryan, it was
Gräfing Kesselstadt and it wasinherited to her and, to my best
knowledge, she was allowed todo with the art whatever she
wanted, and it's been told thatCountess Kesselstadt loved the
(46:38):
champagne much more than art.
Okay, so she sold a lot of artat that time.
So it still can be that this isnot a looted art case.
But please, I am not familiarwith all details, but in the
Flechtheim case, it's obviousthat some of the items are
(46:59):
looted art and have to berestituted, and they are not
restituted in Bavaria since 2008.
And this is really frustrating.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
With the range of cases you have worked on since
you started with the restitutionwork.
How would you say your idea oryour definition of justice has
evolved?
Speaker 1 (47:27):
I think there's still a long way to justice.
I mean justice means that itworks that if you have a case
you get restitution if it'sfound out after proper
provenance research.
So the way to justice when itcomes here in Germany is still a
(47:47):
long and a painful way, and Ireally hope that we get the
arbitration very soon in place.
But there is one problem thereArbitration is not possible if
the art is in private hands.
So if a private collector wouldsay I do not agree with
(48:10):
arbitration, would say I do notagree with arbitration, you
still don't have a chance.
So I'm asking to modify thescheme.
We are all happy because,please, it's much better than
anything we had so far, becauseall was soft, all was not
binding and you could do nothing.
So now that's a very good stepforward.
(48:33):
You can go to arbitration ifit's in public hands.
So that's a very exciting, avery good thing.
Can't wait, okay.
So even for the armaling, ifthey say we don't restitute, you
can.
That's my first case.
That's going to be my firstcase on arbitration.
(48:54):
Yeah, obviously so.
And we have other cases forLeon at the Germanische
Nationalmuseum as well, and sothis would be our cases as well.
So we have other cases where,in 1946, the Germanische
Nationalmuseum in Nurembergacquired a very valuable cross
(49:17):
and our new scheme is saying ifthe Jewish gallery has been shut
down before, this cannot bevoluntarily.
So here it would be very clearthat any arbitrator would apply
the ski and he would say dearCross, go home to the family.
(49:39):
And that's a good outcome.
So there's much hope in myheart, but we are waiting,
waiting, waiting.
It's now going on for 25 yearsfor me now.
I'm dealing with that now for25 years as a lawyer for 23
years, and I'm waiting for thebig progress.
(50:01):
So step number one of progresswould be arbitration and step
number two would be acomprehensive law allowing us to
see if there's something inprivate hands and we have a
remedy, we have a possibility torecover it.
It's going to be.
I'm still dreaming of it.
It's not true, but probablynext year or in two years this
(50:25):
dream is coming true and we canstart.
Yeah, hopefully.
Speaker 2 (50:32):
For the new framework and how certain things that say
the commission in the past hadruled on, versus how the new
framework works, say, when theNuremberg laws were passed, do
they look at that as a brightline and say 1935, if there was
(50:53):
a sale, that those sales areunder duress and deemed looted?
Speaker 1 (50:59):
Thank you very much for this question.
Yeah, so far we have theguidelines, the Handreichung who
is saying we have a presumptionthat it's been looted from
taking over of Nazi power fromJanuary 33, then this
presumption to be rebutted ismuch more difficult after the
(51:20):
Nuremberg Laws in September 1935and after 1938 or even 1946.
So now it's getting.
We have a progress there,because so far we said only from
1948.
This cannot be rebutted.
No more this presumption.
(51:40):
The new guidelines will say evengoing toward much, much tougher
, as I said.
So, for instance, if a gallerywas shut down, it's after 1935.
Most of the Jewish galleriesalso Munich, like the Gallery of
Leon Province which I represent, the heirs were shut down in
(52:02):
September 1945.
So they take over the oldscheme, but the new one is much
more in detail.
We have much more examples,what can happen and much more a
shift of burden of proof.
So the burden of proof goesmuch more on the other side,
(52:28):
which is wonderful, which Ialways demanded, because in most
cases you could not sayanything.
So you need to work with apresumption and so it's up to
the museum, it's up to the ownerto show up.
He's been in good faith but allwas right and it's not up to us
(52:52):
.
You must know many records havebeen deleted or destroyed.
Let me give you an example theDorotheum in Vienna.
They destroyed by mean, alltheir archives.
Okay, and these archives havebeen vast archives on looting,
(53:12):
because Nazis has sent all thatstuff to Vienna, which was part
of Germany at that time, yeah,and sold it there, yeah, and
there are many records destroyedforever, yeah, uh, coming from,
uh from, sent from Munich orfrom Germany to Vienna to be
sold, looted, or so I think it'sso that the burden of proof so
(53:41):
far, claimants have to prove itall.
So there must be a shift ofthat burden to the other side
and a relaxation which is morefair and equitable for both
sides to come to terms.
Speaker 2 (53:55):
Is there a specific that speaks to the say, if it
was an individual who was adealer, who had been persecuted?
Speaker 1 (54:06):
Yeah, so now the new scheme differs between private
persons and dealers.
It's also been differentbetween whether it was on
commission, sold on commissionby the dealer, which is always,
for instance, very relevant whenit comes to Fleckheim or Leon
(54:28):
and all the Jewish art dealers.
So the new scheme is asking hasit been from the stock from the
dealer himself, or has it beenon commission?
So it's a very I think it's agood job.
They did a very terrific jobdoing this new scheme, because
(54:50):
the first scheme was made veryfast after Washington principle
in 2001 and it was saying verybroad, just saying take the old
German restitution law which wasbasing on the American and all
the other occupation laws torestitute things and all the
(55:12):
other occupation laws torestitute things, the
Bundesrückerstattungsgesetz.
But now the new scheme is muchmore, having different scenarios
, and so it's a big progress.
Yeah, in my point of view.
Speaker 2 (55:24):
Thank you so much, Hannes.
Is there anything I have notasked you yet that you wanted to
share with us?
Speaker 1 (55:30):
I mean we've talked now one hour, but probably the
other colleagues have questions,or Luca or Lauren or Emily, so
we still can discuss, so happyto answer questions.
Speaker 2 (55:43):
Well, while we wait for anyone who might have
questions, I would ask you, withthe work you're doing, what's
the mark that you hope to bemaking in this area with your
work?
Speaker 1 (55:56):
What I hope to do is to contribute to higher justice
in any way I can do so.
For me, I'm always happy.
I'm always happy, and I'mreally when I have video calls
with my clients and they startto cry because they see each
(56:16):
other for the first time intheir life, because Holocaust
has separated family throughoutthe world.
This is really touching me.
So the mark is to do this job,is to contribute to a higher
justice and to remembrance.
(56:39):
So if I can do this, I hope Ican do this.
I'm 52 years old, so I can hope.
My son is nine years, so I willstill be working.
My son is speaking Englishalready because in an
international school.
I'm very happy about that.
So I think I will work for thenext 20 years still.
(57:00):
So if I can contribute to a lotof restitutions and if we, if
we have developments there, Iwould be very happy with my
clients clients.
Speaker 2 (57:17):
Yeah, I know we're closing out the hour, but what
you just said prompted me to askyou also?
About another case that you'reworking on that deals with
remembrance the StolpersteinWould you want to share a little
bit about that.
Speaker 1 (57:28):
Sure sure, Such an interesting scenario there.
Sure, sure, Such an interestingscenario there?
Yeah, it is, it is.
I represent my clients here,Terry Schwarzberg, who is
working on this initiative for20 years.
He's fighting thatStäubelsteine, stumbling stones.
(57:48):
These are stones who are put inthe public grounds throughout
Germany to remember the man orthe woman who was living there
and deported from that lastplace to concentration camp.
(58:09):
So Stolpersteine areremembering Jews and persecuted
people.
It is a wonderful project.
Unfortunately, in Munich it isnot allowed to put it on public
places, only on private places,and I sued at court that it's
(58:30):
been allowed, that it's alsobeen put on public places.
The problem is the law says weneed a special.
I was using for a so-calledspecial permission and the court
the public court has told me MrHartung, we are sorry but you
(58:54):
don't need such a permissionbecause these stones is not so.
It's not hindering any peoplewho is walking over it to use it
.
So you don't need a permission.
You just would need a privatelicense, which you have to make
with the city of Munich.
(59:15):
But unfortunately the city ofMunich decided to follow the
opinion of Charlotte Knobloch.
I really very much appreciateher work, but I do not agree
with her opinion thatStolperstein would be not an
adequate mean to remember thepeople who lived there.
(59:38):
Throughout Germany,Stolpersteine are a very good
thing to remember Jewishpersecuted people who lived
there and who were deported, andwe have thousands, thousands of
Stolpersteine laid down in theground in public grounds of
Germany.
So I also hope that one day inMunich we will have these
(01:00:03):
Stolpersteine laid down inpublic grounds.
Munich has decided to make amuch more expensive way with
steels, with so-called steels orshields which are put at the
wall, and I am for the freedomof remembering.
(01:00:25):
I was representing Peter Jordanthere, a Jew from Great Britain
who died now and who wanted toremember his parents here in
Munich, and unfortunately thereis no private place on the
(01:00:49):
ground where he could put thestone on.
So that's why, because thepublic ground is just going
until you know his house or theformer house of his parents.
So I really hope, finger crossed, that one day you must know
that in the rest of Germany it'snot a big deal.
(01:01:11):
The whole Germany, thiswonderful project is going on.
Students, young students, wouldclean these stones, these
wonderful messing stones,throughout the place, throughout
Germany, thousands of them, andlearning about the Holocaust,
(01:01:35):
the holocaust yeah, in classes.
So it's only in munich where,uh, we don't have them so far,
but I'm also very still hoping,and but we have many on the
private grounds just next to thehouse when there's private
ground.
So hundreds of them have beenplaced in private grounds
already, which is wonderful, andyeah.
Speaker 2 (01:01:55):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:01:56):
Thank you too.
Speaker 2 (01:01:58):
Is there any other question or follow-up that
anyone has?
Speaker 5 (01:02:02):
Yeah, I was going to ask a question, but you've
answered it.
Hi, I'm Toby.
Yeah, I was going to ask aquestion, but you've answered
the question already.
The question I was going to aska question, but you've answered
the question already.
The question I was going to askwas that younger lawyers are
interested in this area of artlaw, and you answered the
question already by saying thatstudents actually help in
(01:02:24):
cleaning most of the remembrancethings, and I think that kind
of answers the question.
But I was still going to ask itanyway.
Speaker 1 (01:02:32):
I think that kind of answers the question, but I was
still going to ask it.
No, no, no.
I think your question iswhether there's enough work for
all of us.
There is, there is, I think, inGermany.
You will need practitioners notonly me but other esteemed
colleagues to do that job, andthe question is how long you
(01:02:52):
still do that job?
And the question is, how longdo you still do that?
In Germany there's always adiscussion how long do we
restitute?
What I'm saying is as long asall these cases have not been
resolved with a settlement orwhatever it is.
And still, young lawyers have agood chance to work in this
(01:03:16):
field here in Germany.
So I hope that many younglawyers do my job and that they
are interested in this field.
And once again, if we have aframework, it's going to be much
better, because so far we haveno binding framework.
(01:03:36):
As soon as we have more bindingframework, it's going to be
much better.
More young lawyers working onthat.
Do you work on that as well inNew York on outlaw?
Speaker 5 (01:03:48):
No, I don't work in New York.
I live in England.
Speaker 1 (01:03:51):
Ah, in England, oh, wonderful.
Speaker 5 (01:03:56):
I'm more into the privacy space currently.
That's what I do currently.
Speaker 1 (01:04:02):
I had a case in England this year, as I told you
.
Speaker 3 (01:04:07):
I'm also in England actually.
Speaker 5 (01:04:09):
Ah, wonderful, yeah, yeah, ashley.
Speaker 1 (01:04:11):
Ah, wonderful, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So England is also a veryexciting place when it comes,
because I think your SpoliationAdvisory Panel is doing an
awesome job.
Yeah, I agree, they really do awonderful job, and Justice Moses
is one of them.
I'm a big fan of him, so youhave wonderful people there and
(01:04:32):
doing an awesome job.
So, yeah, yeah, really good.
Yeah, probably not so manycases like we have I don't know,
uh, but probably there's stillsome cases to be resolved.
I'm pretty sure about that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And where are you working,lauren?
Speaker 4 (01:04:52):
um, I'm actually still in law school, but I am in
New York right now for thesummer at a litigation firm, so
I'm planning to do art law inthe future.
That's what I am Good idea.
Because New.
Speaker 1 (01:05:03):
York is such a strong place and Stephanie can tell
you because there are many goodart lawyers like Stephanie.
So New York is much bigger.
The market, the art market inLondon and New York the markets
are much bigger than the Germanmarket is.
So I think pretty much the samefor all of you.
Speaker 4 (01:05:27):
Do you have any English translations of your
book or sections of your bookavailable for us to read?
Speaker 1 (01:05:34):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But there's still the issue withI need to clarify this with the
guys, because Norman Palmer doyou know Norman Palmer?
Norman Palmer was the boss ofthe Institute of Art and Law and
he wanted to translate thisbook, and now I need to clarify
(01:06:00):
with the publisher that I canget it translated, because we
want to work on a new book, on arestitution handbook, and then
we would just.
You know that translations noware much easier than they were,
so there's already a translationavailable I can send it to you,
there's already a wonderful,deep translation of this book,
(01:06:22):
and that we want to, becausethis book is from 2005, so it's
20 years old, and I wanted tomake a new book with new
development and all of it andbasing on that one and
eradicating the things which areno more relevant, but the new
thing.
So, yeah, I hope to publishthis in an English form in the
(01:06:45):
next years, but I can only do itif I have time and I have many
cases at the moment and I have afamily.
So you know, yeah, but I hopethat I can do it if I have time
and I have many cases at themoment and I have a family.
So you know, yeah, but I hopethat I can do it in the next
years, yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:06:58):
Well, we will definitely be looking for that
and I appreciate your time somuch.
Thank you for sharing aboutyour work and it's just been
wonderful talking with you, andthank you everyone for being
here.
So with that I will close,unless there is any other
questions or comments.
Speaker 3 (01:07:16):
No, no, I just wanted to say a big thank you to
Hannes, because it was justreally insightful to hear your
very candid and, you know,transparent comments about
what's going on in Germany inthe various cases, and I think
we all look forward to fingerscrossed the new system in
(01:07:42):
Germany and very probably lotsmore cases which will come forth
.
Speaker 1 (01:07:47):
This is a wonderful initiative.
You started many years ago andI was very happy to speak with
you tonight.
I'm wishing you, all of you awonderful summer and I hope to
see you in person.
Speaker 2 (01:08:01):
There will be links in the show notes to learn more.
If you're intrigued by thispodcast, it would be much
appreciated if you could leave arating or review and tag
Warfare of Art and Law podcast.
If you could leave a rating orreview and tag Warfare of Art
and Law podcast Until next time.
This is Stephanie Droddybringing you Warfare of Art and
Law.
Thank you so much for listeningand remember injustice anywhere
(01:08:22):
is a threat to justiceeverywhere.
There are some colleagues who say they are born
art lawyers.
I was not a born art lawyer.
I had to know the art first.
I had to know the stories, thehistory first, and this has been
a long way.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Welcome to Warfare of Art and Law, the podcast that
focuses on how justice does ordoesn't play out when art and
law overlap.
Hi everyone, it's Stephanie,and that was art law attorney Dr
Hannes Hartung.
What follows is a conversationwith Dr Hartung where he shares
about how he came into the areaof art law, with a focus on
(00:41):
restitution.
He gives his insight fromdecades of experience working in
this area, including hisrepresentation of Cornelius
Gurlitt regarding the GurlittTrove.
We discuss cases he's dealtwith that involved work taken
during the Nazi regime fromstate museums but that were on
loan from private individuals,including Paul Klee's Swamp
(01:05):
Legend and Kandinsky's theColorful Life.
Dr Hartung also discusses thescandal regarding the
Nazi-looted art held by theBavarian State Paintings
Collection approximately 200Code Red artworks and 800 marked
as highly suspicious and wealso explore the current state
(01:28):
of Germany's approach towardsNazi-era restitution and how its
replacement of the formerAdvisory Commission with an
arbitration tribunal is progress, but what other steps forward
might be useful in giving a morecomprehensive approach to
restitution.
Dr Hannes Hartung, welcome toWarfare of Art and Law.
(01:54):
And Second Saturday.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Stephanie, forhaving me.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Would you give a bit of background on how you came
into your work in art law andrestitution specifically?
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah, it all started, by the way, in 2000, when I was
searching for a topic for mydoctoral thesis in Tübingen,
where I studied, and then mysupervisor said, did you read
the book of Jonathan Petropoulos, the Fortune Bargain?
(02:31):
And I thought, oh gosh, what is?
Who is this person?
Of course I know him now, butin 2000, I didn't know him.
And then I took the book and Iwas really excited, yeah.
Then I took the book and I wasreally excited, yeah.
And then I learned about theWashington Principles in 98.
And then I wrote a pretty goodbook, or a pretty thick book Art
(02:57):
theft and war and persecution.
So it's the whole frame 600pages under German law, under
public international law andprivate international law.
And this is how it all started.
And then, to be honest, it wasa long and tough way until now,
until I got the cases.
I mean, it started in 2000 andthe very big case then was in
(03:24):
2014 with Cornelius Gurlitt.
He and Yannick.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yeah, since you've just brought him up, would you
want to kind of give us anoverview of how you came to
represent him and a bit aboutjust a background for those who
may not know about HildebrandGurlitt and how Cornelius came
to have the collection that hehad?
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Yeah, sure, it was really amazing.
I mean, we all know that hiswhole collection was confiscated
in Schwabing in his apartments,more than 1,200 items.
And I got the case because Iwas interviewed by the media as
(04:06):
an expert on looted art and thenhe was under what we call
Betreuung this is a kind of asupervision because he was very
sick and he got a person whocared for him, mr Edel sick, and
he got a person who cared forhim, mr Edel, and this person
(04:29):
called me in the first day of 14.
I thought it was a joke,because so many lawyers dreamt
of representing Cornelius Gullit.
And then he asked me Hannes,could you represent him?
And I said, yeah, of course Iwould love to.
Yeah, yeah, of course I wouldlove to.
And so I got the PUA and I wasnot the only lawyer, but I was
the only lawyer for all therestitution cases and for whole
(04:52):
collection.
And there has been two otherlawyers because of the
prosecution, so there have beencriminal lawyers defending him
against the seizure of hispaintings in his apartments.
And I was the lawyer for thewhole collection, for all looted
art questions, for alldegenerate art questions.
(05:14):
The Gullit case is a goodexample of what is going wrong
in Germany?
Because in Germany you don'thave a clear law on looted art.
Germany, you don't have a clearlaw on looted art.
You just have a soft law whichis founded on the Washington
principles.
But if you would apply ourgeneral law, we have a time bar
(05:36):
of 30 years.
We have a Sitzung, which is anacquisitive prescription, so you
have no chance.
Okay, which is acquisitiveprescription, so you have no
chance, okay.
So if you want to recoverrooted R here in Germany, it all
(05:57):
depends on that.
The person who currentlypossesses it says I'm fair, I
want a fair and just solution.
If you say no, so far and thishappens very often you cannot
recover.
And probably coming back toGurlitz, I had many hopes after
this case that we would get alaw where we could get a binding
(06:22):
law dealing with looted art inGermany which would allow us to
go to court to claim back art atcourt.
But so far this is not possible.
And this is pretty sad becausepoliticians have been very
straightforward about theconfiscation and about what a
(06:44):
bad man he would have been,which is wrong.
Only 12 items of 1,500 itemshave been, after five years,
been confirmed as looted art.
Twelve Twelve, which is below apercentile.
(07:07):
It's so, it's nothing.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
On that.
I was curious.
Your thoughts about the issuesthat many of the provenance
researchers had with the girl atTrove and the lack of evidence
and the gaps and there were manythat were put in a category
where they just said we don'thave enough evidence to know, is
my understanding.
(07:31):
And so in that respect, thosethat you were talking about,
that dozen or so is where theydid find concrete evidence and
or where there then there couldbe restitution possibly, but
those others it was just a lotof historical gaps, which is
really why we needed thewashington principles that's
right.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
I mean, uh, the so-called task force, who, which
was invented by the formerchancellor merkel in november 13
, um, had a problem becausethere has been many graphic
German expressionism, graphicwork, you know.
(08:11):
Sometimes from the same motiveyou have ten different versions
and you could not say which oneis the right one.
So this I think I assume therewas more than 12 items after all
in the collection, because inmost of the German collections
(08:32):
we will speak about the currentcases later in most of the
collections there's much morerooted art than just 12 items.
For instance, here in Munich wehave hundreds, but we'll speak
about it later and about taskforce.
Probably because you askedabout task force.
They spent 5 million euro onprovenance research, so terminal
(08:57):
taxpayers paid 5 million euroson the the task force and the
outcome was nothing.
It was not.
Pretty much everyone was verydisappointed.
Because I was not disappointedbecause I said there is not much
looted art in it and I wasright, so I was not disappointed
(09:21):
.
But people were verydisappointed because they
thought this would be the bigart trough, with the big looted
art.
So you can see what happens ifmedia is saying that's a trough
and this is Nazi, so the wholeworld is still thinking this is
looted art.
But this is wrong.
(09:42):
So once again, now the museum inBern has inherited that
collection, which is wonderfulfor them because, yeah, such
wealth of items.
So they did not have torestitute many paintings.
There are wonderful paintingsin this collection, including
(10:03):
Imp, impressionist art of PaulCezanne and Montaigne,
saint-victoire of Monet,waterloo Bridge, other paintings
which are really valuable.
And the heart of the collectionis so-called degenerate art and
(10:23):
Art de Kunst, the father ofCornelius Gollet.
He acquired all of it from theNazis, but one must know that
all degenerate art is notsubject to restitution in
Germany because we say the statewas stealing the art from their
(10:47):
own collections.
So if you take it away fromyourself and throw it away, like
selling it to HildebrandGoerlitz, this is not a looted
art case.
But most items have been andare the deoins, degenerate art
(11:08):
in the collection.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
The exception to what you just said is where pieces
were owned privately and on loanin the museums when they were
seized.
And is that not the case forthe Swamp Legend and the
Colorful Life, which were twopieces?
Speaker 1 (11:27):
that you dealt with Exactly.
Thank you, Stephanie.
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
So maybe we segue into that.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
I'm just looking to a museum where the Colorful Life
is away.
But let us start with the SwampLegend.
With the Swamp Legend SwampLegend I was happy to represent
the city of Munich andBerlin-Bachhaus and the painting
is still there.
It's a wonderful painting ofPaul Klee which was degenerate
(11:55):
art on loan from SophieLisicki-Küppers to the Pro
Provencial Museum in Hannover,and Nazis took it out of the
museum as well and then it wasshown in the big exhibition
(12:15):
called and art to kunst here inMunich, very nearby, where they
wanted to degenerate the art.
They degenerated the art, theyreally humiliated the modern
German expressionism and theyshout the swamp legends in this
exhibition as to be degenerate.
(12:37):
So now the heirs of Sophie havedemanded the restitution of the
painting and this was a very,very long battle.
It was 25 years.
So I was very happy that Icould negotiate a settlement
(13:00):
which is really fair in suchcases in my point of because
it's not looted art, it'sdegenerate art and to respect
all the context and to pay aconsiderable, high amount to the
heirs, in my point of view,outside Holocaust, outside
(13:20):
Washington principles, is a verygood solution.
This has been a good story.
The bad story is not degenerateart, it's the story of a
colorful life.
A colorful life is one of themost important paintings of
Vasily Kandinsky from 1907.
(13:41):
And this was in the collectionof the Levenstein family in
Amsterdam, who were needlemanufacturers.
But you must know that thecolourful life was consigned
voluntarily by Irma Klein.
(14:01):
There are three reasons forselling art Death, divorce and
death.
And here Irma Klein was left byher husband who went for love
to your wonderful country, tothe USA.
He fell in love with ShirleyOtskin and he left her.
(14:26):
Irma Klein was staying still inAmsterdam with a wonderful art
collection of 63 pieces whichshe consigned right before
Germany invaded Netherlands.
Germany invaded Netherlands,the Nazis in 1940.
(14:46):
But you also must understand,or should understand, that
persecution did not start inthat year, where the colourful
life was sold at auction, atauction Müller Müller in
Amsterdam.
There had been another case inNetherlands, another Kandinsky
(15:12):
painting with houses it's calledpainting with houses from
Stedelijk Museum and theResiduee Commissie has refused
to return it.
But our problem was that therehas been a new mayor in
Amsterdam, a social Democrat,and she has decided she's not
(15:34):
happy that the painting is stillin the museum.
And she said no, I do notfollow the recommendation of the
restitutee commissie and Irestitute it to the heirs.
And this put us pretty muchunder pressure and the beratende
Kommission, the advisorycommission, decided to return
(15:59):
the painting, just saying hey,it's a Jewish origin, there is a
presumption, but it can't bealluded.
Therefore, we assume awful, wehave showed completely that
colorful life was part of thedivorce procedure in Amsterdam
between Irma and Robert.
(16:19):
But they didn't follow.
And, yeah, they had acelebration of 20 years advisory
commission and then they couldcelebrate a restitution as well.
Let me say I'm always in favorof restitution if it has to be
restituted.
I don't want anyone to keep artif it has been looted, but in
(16:45):
this case I'm 1000 convincedthat colorful life has not been
looted and it's not a looted artcase, absolutely you've touched
on a lot of different pointsand anyone who does have
questions, please feel free toto jump in.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
I don't know if now is the time that you want to
start talking about how there isthis need and the creation from
a commission into thearbitration tribunal and what
brought that up.
Before we started the call, wetalked about some of the
decisions, like the Max Sternrestitution project and the 2019
decision that they received, soI don't know if you want to
(17:25):
just touch on your involvementwith that and your perspective.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Yeah, yeah.
So now in Germany we havedevelopments, but we didn't
start.
So let me start with this thatwe had a hearing at Parliament
last December on a new law, on anew law on restitution of
(17:51):
looted art under civil law.
This is the one system.
The other system.
This system would be like goingto court suing and they would
have killed the time bar, sayingthere's no more time bar.
But the problem on the draftand let me say we have no law.
(18:13):
We now have a new government,we have a new term, yeah, and in
this new term they didn't startalready with this law?
Let me say, at the moment wehave enough problems with two
leaders in the world.
One of them is in Russia, oneof them is in your country.
(18:37):
I don't say more, but this isthe case.
So they didn't start with thelaw again.
So this law was saying it wouldallow us to sue at court, also
in a central court in Frankfurt,for restitution of
(18:57):
Holocaust-looted art and thetime bar is completely killed.
Okay, but other problems havenot been addressed.
We have a problems of bona fidepurchase and the biggest
problem obviously under Germanlaw is the ad-sitzung
(19:17):
acquisitive prescription.
Ad-sitzung, alright.
I also had a case at the HighFederal Court about acquisitive
prescription, where I was veryhappy about the court.
The highest German court, theBundesgerichtshof, has decided
that the requirements aregetting higher, higher and
(19:38):
higher when it comes to art.
So that's a good development,but still, the draft we had last
year was just about the timebar, but not on the other things
.
So this is system number one.
We wouldn't be in Germany ifit's not a system number two.
So system number two is anarbitration system says that
(20:03):
everybody can address thearbitration even without the
consent of a public body.
So if you would have, forinstance, looted art in a public
museum, you could address thearbitration and ask for a
settlement, a recommendation ofthe arbitration under the new
(20:27):
scheme.
We will have a new scheme.
But if you ask me now, whenwill this come?
I would tell you please callBerlin and ask them.
I don't know.
They have decided to do it inJanuary, February already, but
we don't have it in place.
We don't have it in place.
(20:49):
There should be more than 20 or30 arbitrators who are on a
panel, so you could choose as aclose panel of arbitrators who
would give a recommendation onthese cases.
And I really welcome this,because before you had no chance
(21:13):
whatsoever.
You could not go to courtbecause there was always a time
bar and you could also not go tothe Beratende Kommission, to
the Advisory Commission, becausethis needed the consent of the
other side.
And there had been many casesin the past where the other side
has said no, I don't want arecommendation.
(21:34):
Or even if they recommended thereturn, people refused to
follow the recommendationbecause it is not a binding
recommendation.
When it came to Das bunte Leben,Colorful Life, they recommended
(21:55):
the return and obviously Irepresented the Bavarian Bank,
Bayerische Landesbank, and it'sa public body and they cannot
allow to say, oh, we don'tfollow.
But they could have had thepossibility to have this
recommendation checked from acourt.
But they decided okay, no, wegive it back because we respect,
(22:20):
we accept this recommendation.
And so the painting wasreturned, but I don't know where
it is now.
I only know it was restitutedto the Lievenstein heirs, but I
don't know what has happened.
I assume it has been sold.
It's a very valuable painting.
(22:41):
It was a very painful and longdiscussion of more than eight
years.
So I assume that this, but forthat you would have to ask
Mondex what happened to thepainting, but I assume it was
sold in a private sale and notat a auction.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
So yeah, I had read the perspective of the claims
conference about thisarbitration tribunal and they
were very favorable and did citethat.
These issues that still lingerlike acquisitive prescription,
where do you project it going inthe time frame?
Speaker 1 (23:24):
I hope this is coming very fast because we will now
switch to the current cases, ifyou want, and let me start with
the good ones.
Yeah, this is restitutionnumber one.
This is from Louise, as I callher, louise Koppel, from Cologne
(23:46):
.
She was a Jew from Cologne andit was taken away from her.
It's from Paul Seehaus, who isa pupil from August Macke, from
German Expressionism, and thisone we could recover from the
museum in Bonn.
So this was the firstrestitution this year.
(24:07):
Our second restitution thisyear, this is from the Tate
Gallery in London.
I'm very proud of that.
I'm very proud of that For theheirs of Samuel Hartfeld.
Samuel Hartfeld was a dealer inBelgium, in Antwerp, and all his
(24:28):
belongings has been looted bythe Nazis.
And this pollution advisorypanel is chaired by Sir Justice
Moses and I knew this guy onlyfrom literature.
So I was very happy to get arecommendation from him.
I knew him from City of Gotha,recommendation from the 90s,
(24:52):
where he made a landmarkdecision in the 90s where he
said that it was being againstthe consciousness of the court
and good faith if somethinglooted is being kept by someone
as a general English principle.
So this was a landmark decisionCity of Gotha against Sotheby's
(25:15):
, where Sotheby's lost this case, that this landmark decision
was the very starting point,that the big auction houses
started to have restitutiondepartments in their houses
because you know, they lost somecases.
So a scene.
(25:36):
Oh, we need to fix this, weneed to handle this issue.
And, coming back to your, Ihope we have the arbitration
very soon because we are waitinglong and we have really trouble
.
This is a very problematic case.
The title of this one is AYoung Girl with Her Family.
(26:03):
It's one of the most beautifulpaintings the young farm girl,
farmer girl with her family.
It's from a famous Austrianromantic painter called
Waldmüller.
Yeah, and this painting was inthe collection of Therese
(26:24):
Bretthauer in Vienna and wastaken away from her.
And what is really horribleabout this case is that Mr
Hoffman acquired this paintingafter it was looted from her.
And who is Heinrich Hoffman?
Heinrich Hoffman was thephotographer of Adolf Hitler.
(26:48):
Okay, he was a guy who made allthe famous photographs of Adolf
Hitler.
So this painting was more than80 years in the possession of a
BayerischeStaatsgemäldesammlungen, the
(27:08):
Bavarian State PaintingCollections.
Who must, who must have known,who must have known that this
painting was looted because itwas given to them with the job
already in the 50s, find theowner and give it back.
(27:32):
So now and this is a scandal Iwanted to talk about I'm
involved at the moment and I'mreally terrified about this
because it's my hometown okay,munich.
I'm living in Munich since 2004and even in the past I was
proud to represent this museumas well, 15 years ago in our
(27:56):
cases.
I'm really very upset aboutwhat happened, what is right now
going on here in Bavaria,because we have a very big
looted art scandal at the moment.
The problem is that this museumhas more approximately 200
(28:23):
paintings looted art, red, codered in their procession and they
never.
They made a very goodprovenance research for decades,
for more than 20 years, but,hey, they never shared their
knowledge with the public.
So in February, the SüddeutscheZeitung reported about that
(28:51):
scandal, yeah, and said oh, wehave an internal museum database
showing that 200 paintings codered are in their possessions,
where they say it is looted artand 800 items are highly
(29:14):
suspicious to be looted.
So let me say this case is muchbigger than the Gullit case,
much bigger, but nobody isspeaking about it like they did
the same way they did when I wasspeaking with probably you know
(29:35):
CBS 60 Minutes and I wasspeaking with Molly Safer, a
very old gentleman.
I nearly couldn't hear himbecause he was speaking so soft,
but I was with him and I triedto explain the problems we have
with wooded art in Germany andalso America was very much
(29:57):
interested in what is going onhere.
Right now we have much morecases, a much bigger case here
with the museum, and so far alldiscussions are only here in
German media and did not reachAmerica.
(30:18):
So I hope your podcast is thefirst start, that it comes to
your awareness, also to theesteemed colleagues here in New
York in America, that we areright now having a big trouble
here because the museum is veryreluctant giving back the art.
(30:46):
We have another case here.
It is Friedrich von Ameling.
It's the girl with a straw hat.
It's also a romantic Austrianpainter and this one came from
the Leon Provers.
Leon Provers have been one ofthe most prominent art dealers,
(31:09):
jewish art dealers, here inMunich before Nazis, before
Nazis persecuted them, beforeNazis really closed their
gallery and before they had toflee.
This is really a very importantJewish gallery here in Germany
(31:35):
and the problem about this caseis as well that the museum knows
all of it for a long time,since 2014.
They started to undertakeprovenance research on the
painting In 2019.
They said it's red.
(31:56):
So they said in our opinionit's a looted art painting.
Now they're saying they wouldhave been a voluntarily exchange
between the Leon Proverbs andthe museum.
I strongly, I strongly contestthis, because there is no
(32:21):
document whatsoever proving thatthe Jewish Gallery agreed with
this exchange.
They number one they only gottwo paintings, which are
nonsense.
We even have a letter from thedirector of a museum from
(32:53):
January 35 saying we get awonderful, high-profile painting
and we give away rubbish andvery not relevant paintings in
return which are not on the sameworth.
So this letter is clearlysaying this can't be outside
Nazi regime, because nobody isgiving away such a wonderful
(33:15):
painting for nothing or fornearly nothing.
So we really hope that thestate of Bavaria is coming to
terms here.
And this Bavarian minister issaying Mr Blume, his name is
Blume, markus Blume.
This guy is saying, ah well,bavaria, we are a wonderful
(33:37):
state, we are number one inGermany doing restitution.
I would say, all right, they dorestitution, but only for very
cheap things.
As soon as real art like thisone, they do not do it like as
you've seen before with theWaldmüller, the Waldmüller
painting.
They have decided to give itback, even already, in August 22
(34:02):
.
In August 22, they have decidedto return it.
And you will wonder why didn'tthey do it then?
Why didn't they give it overthen?
Oh, they're saying theinheritance situation is not
clarified and they neversearched for the heirs.
It was us who addressed themand said hello, you have decided
(34:27):
to return it.
Probably you'd be at kind BS,kinds to return it now, as you
have decided already.
All right.
But then we said ah, there'sstill one person in London
saying he would be a rightfulheir, so we cannot do it.
So, sorry, I don't know how youhandle these things.
(34:48):
In New York, in Germany, we saythat the community of heirs is
releasing the museum from allclaims of third parties in
respect of the painting.
Okay, freistellung, we releaseit from all claims of third
parties in respect of thepainting.
Okay, we release it from allclaims.
So, uh, I have suggested thisthree years ago already, or two
(35:11):
years ago, sorry, I want to becorrect.
Two years ago I've suggestedthis, but unfortunately they
still keep us waiting, and Ithink this is really, really.
This is really humiliating myclients.
Yeah, this is reallyhumiliating.
(35:31):
This is really not in thespirit of the Washington
principles in both cases fromWeidmüller and the
Weidmü-Drethauer case on the oneside and the Leon side on the
other hand.
So I cannot wait that we havelaws.
So, because you know, if wehave laws we can go to
(35:55):
arbitration, for instance, or ifwe would have a binding law to
sue, I would be more than happyto sue.
I mean, for the Waldmühle weneed just one more one last
probate, and as soon as and thisis so painful, this is so
painful really three years.
It's horrible, painful.
If we have this probate, thenthey will restitute it, but not
(36:19):
before.
But let me say the new schemeis saying uh, be very relaxed
with these proofs.
If you've got sufficient proofsand here we have a Testament
saying this guy is the heir andin other cases you can see him
was restituting small itemsbasing on Testaments,
restituting small items basingon testaments.
(36:41):
But in this case they aresaying, no, we need a survey,
take formal hurdles to delayrestitution for years.
And we know that even some ofthe heirs died over such
procedures from Austria, fromabroad, with the Bayererische
(37:01):
Stadtschirm-Einsatz, which isreally a shame, in my point of
view.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
Hannes, could I just ask?
Speaker 1 (37:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
So the approach of the Bavarian State Museum in
these cases that you're talkingabout that has been very
resistant to these claims.
Is that typical of museumsthroughout Germany, or are other
museums much more observantwith the Washington principles?
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Thank you, emily the Seehaus.
This just took one year fromdemand letter to restitution, so
that's a normal time frame.
My experience with othermuseums is very positive and let
me say I also know that otherbig houses, like in Dresden or
(38:00):
in Stuttgart or in Hamburg or inBerlin, berlin had been a very
good place for restitution.
But they have a gulf treasurewhich is a pretty big combat
right at the moment.
So Berlin is not as strong withrestitution, no more.
But Berlin always was verystrong when it came to
(38:22):
restitution.
So now really I would sayMunich is an exemption, um, and
the others.
Really, the difference is thatI think that the other museums
do publish what they find intheir museums, where they think
it is red or it's orange, soit's clearly looted art or it's
(38:44):
really highly suspicious to belooted art.
So then you publish it on onlost arts de, on our database,
and people could find it.
And if they are better and theydo it, I know in some cases
they search for the heirs andthen obviously they don't need
me, but that's all right with me, I have enough cases, so they
(39:05):
don't need me for that.
Yeah, I think Bavaria is a verybad example and I think the
other German museums arestronger there.
But still, as long as we don'thave a binding scheme, we have
(39:26):
experienced cases in whichmuseums said we don't go to the
commission, we don't want arecommendation.
So I know some cases who willstill be tuned for restitution
but nothing happened because itwas not possible.
But overall I would say thatGermany is not a bad place and
(39:50):
if you are searching for badplaces, go to Spain or go to
Belgium.
Ok, both of these countriesdon't have a restitution scheme
at all and they also in Belgium.
They now try to set up somethings.
I have a procedure right nowrunning in Belgium, also from
(40:12):
heartfelt.
I've showed you the tapepainting from some well and have
another painting from some wellin at the city of Ghent and,
fingers crossed, we get arecommendation until September
or something from an ad hoccommission.
They made an ad hoc commissionfor us for that case, which is
(40:36):
fair enough.
But we wait for two yearsalready.
So after one year we say, ah,bertram needs to deal with
looted art, but if you go toSpain, oh, good luck.
Probably you know it from theCasira case.
So, going to Spain, so farSpain has a scheme for Franco
(41:01):
stuff.
So if something was looted incontext with Franco dictatorship
, you will have a chance, butall Holocaust-looted art,
german-looted art, no.
So there's nothing in place.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
Just going back to the scandal of the Code Red
hundreds of paintings.
Could you share a bit moreabout that, how it broke, and a
little more detail?
Speaker 1 (41:26):
Yeah, sure, I was really surprised about that.
To be honest, there was awhistleblower last year, a
whistleblower who sent me theinternal list of a museum and I
was shocked.
I cannot tell you how shocked Iwas.
(41:46):
They sent me a list withapproximately 200 paintings, but
only the red ones, code Red, inwhich the Ameling is in it, for
instance.
So this one here, but alsoother paintings.
So this one was on the list aswell and I was really shocked.
(42:08):
To be honest, I was completelyshocked and I thought this can't
be true.
But now, yeah, it turned thatit was true.
It turned that it was true.
So the museum, after the media,started to publish the scandal,
(42:33):
slice by slice, slice by slice,the museum started to publish
the paintings yeah, before theydidn't show it.
So, but there are also otherpaintings by Flechtheim.
Probably you are aware ofFlechtheim.
So my friend Markus Stötzl isdoing these cases.
(42:54):
Probably you can speak with himanother time.
Markus has made very big lootedart cases here in Germany as
well.
So he is representing theFlechtheim heirs who are living
in America and he is fighting.
This is horrible.
He is fighting in this case for16 years.
(43:18):
Imagine 16 years.
This is painful.
16 years.
Imagine 16 years.
This is painful 16 years.
And the former director,professor Maas, was even in
favor of restitution of some ofthe items of Flechtheim.
But obviously the minister, theBavarian state minister, mr
(43:40):
Blume, obviously the minister,the Bavarian state minister, mr
Blume, has decided against itand he said I want the
arbitration to decide on theseclaims.
He also decided about theSchöp's cases.
Probably you have heard thename of Paul von
Mendelssohn-tholdy, the Picasso,madame Soler.
(44:02):
So Madame Soler is a very highprofile painting at the museum
and since 2008, the heirs ofPaul von Mendelssohn Bartholdy
are asking the museum for anadvisory commission, for
(44:24):
mediation, and Bavaria refusedto accept the public body.
Let me tell you again this wasalso invented by Bavaria and by
the federal and by the federal.
So we have.
So the Land, bavaria and ourfederal government has set the
(44:46):
Beratende Kommission in placeexactly for this, and every
state was asked to accept thisprocedure and to use it, and
Bavaria has consistently refusedto use the body they have
(45:07):
invented themselves.
So now they were very.
They say oh, we are very good,we now lovely, we now have a
lovely, we now have a lovelysystem in place, wonderful with
arbitration.
But once again, Stephanie, wedon't have arbitration so far.
(45:35):
So I know that all mycolleagues would be more than
happy to go to arbitration withthese cases, as these cases are
very, very strong, yeah, but weare all waiting.
I'm waiting for it in my cases,marcus is waiting for it, ulf
is waiting for it.
Who do the other cases?
(45:55):
And I'm very.
I think that Marcus has verystrong cases.
When it comes to Madame Solaire,I don't have the details, I
cannot tell.
Probably this could be a casein which the widow of Paul, who
(46:17):
was a Jew, she was an Aryan, itwas Gräfin Kessel Aryan, it was
Gräfing Kesselstadt and it wasinherited to her and, to my best
knowledge, she was allowed todo with the art whatever she
wanted, and it's been told thatCountess Kesselstadt loved the
(46:38):
champagne much more than art.
Okay, so she sold a lot of artat that time.
So it still can be that this isnot a looted art case.
But please, I am not familiarwith all details, but in the
Flechtheim case, it's obviousthat some of the items are
(46:59):
looted art and have to berestituted, and they are not
restituted in Bavaria since 2008.
And this is really frustrating.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
With the range of cases you have worked on since
you started with the restitutionwork.
How would you say your idea oryour definition of justice has
evolved?
Speaker 1 (47:27):
I think there's still a long way to justice.
I mean justice means that itworks that if you have a case
you get restitution if it'sfound out after proper
provenance research.
So the way to justice when itcomes here in Germany is still a
(47:47):
long and a painful way, and Ireally hope that we get the
arbitration very soon in place.
But there is one problem thereArbitration is not possible if
the art is in private hands.
So if a private collector wouldsay I do not agree with
(48:10):
arbitration, would say I do notagree with arbitration, you
still don't have a chance.
So I'm asking to modify thescheme.
We are all happy because,please, it's much better than
anything we had so far, becauseall was soft, all was not
binding and you could do nothing.
So now that's a very good stepforward.
(48:33):
You can go to arbitration ifit's in public hands.
So that's a very exciting, avery good thing.
Can't wait, okay.
So even for the armaling, ifthey say we don't restitute, you
can.
That's my first case.
That's going to be my firstcase on arbitration.
(48:54):
Yeah, obviously so.
And we have other cases forLeon at the Germanische
Nationalmuseum as well, and sothis would be our cases as well.
So we have other cases where,in 1946, the Germanische
Nationalmuseum in Nurembergacquired a very valuable cross
(49:17):
and our new scheme is saying ifthe Jewish gallery has been shut
down before, this cannot bevoluntarily.
So here it would be very clearthat any arbitrator would apply
the ski and he would say dearCross, go home to the family.
(49:39):
And that's a good outcome.
So there's much hope in myheart, but we are waiting,
waiting, waiting.
It's now going on for 25 yearsfor me now.
I'm dealing with that now for25 years as a lawyer for 23
years, and I'm waiting for thebig progress.
(50:01):
So step number one of progresswould be arbitration and step
number two would be acomprehensive law allowing us to
see if there's something inprivate hands and we have a
remedy, we have a possibility torecover it.
It's going to be.
I'm still dreaming of it.
It's not true, but probablynext year or in two years this
(50:25):
dream is coming true and we canstart.
Yeah, hopefully.
Speaker 2 (50:32):
For the new framework and how certain things that say
the commission in the past hadruled on, versus how the new
framework works, say, when theNuremberg laws were passed, do
they look at that as a brightline and say 1935, if there was
(50:53):
a sale, that those sales areunder duress and deemed looted?
Speaker 1 (50:59):
Thank you very much for this question.
Yeah, so far we have theguidelines, the Handreichung who
is saying we have a presumptionthat it's been looted from
taking over of Nazi power fromJanuary 33, then this
presumption to be rebutted ismuch more difficult after the
(51:20):
Nuremberg Laws in September 1935and after 1938 or even 1946.
So now it's getting.
We have a progress there,because so far we said only from
1948.
This cannot be rebutted.
No more this presumption.
(51:40):
The new guidelines will say evengoing toward much, much tougher
, as I said.
So, for instance, if a gallerywas shut down, it's after 1935.
Most of the Jewish galleriesalso Munich, like the Gallery of
Leon Province which I represent, the heirs were shut down in
(52:02):
September 1945.
So they take over the oldscheme, but the new one is much
more in detail.
We have much more examples,what can happen and much more a
shift of burden of proof.
So the burden of proof goesmuch more on the other side,
(52:28):
which is wonderful, which Ialways demanded, because in most
cases you could not sayanything.
So you need to work with apresumption and so it's up to
the museum, it's up to the ownerto show up.
He's been in good faith but allwas right and it's not up to us
(52:52):
.
You must know many records havebeen deleted or destroyed.
Let me give you an example theDorotheum in Vienna.
They destroyed by mean, alltheir archives.
Okay, and these archives havebeen vast archives on looting,
(53:12):
because Nazis has sent all thatstuff to Vienna, which was part
of Germany at that time, yeah,and sold it there, yeah, and
there are many records destroyedforever, yeah, uh, coming from,
uh from, sent from Munich orfrom Germany to Vienna to be
sold, looted, or so I think it'sso that the burden of proof so
(53:41):
far, claimants have to prove itall.
So there must be a shift ofthat burden to the other side
and a relaxation which is morefair and equitable for both
sides to come to terms.
Speaker 2 (53:55):
Is there a specific that speaks to the say, if it
was an individual who was adealer, who had been persecuted?
Speaker 1 (54:06):
Yeah, so now the new scheme differs between private
persons and dealers.
It's also been differentbetween whether it was on
commission, sold on commissionby the dealer, which is always,
for instance, very relevant whenit comes to Fleckheim or Leon
(54:28):
and all the Jewish art dealers.
So the new scheme is asking hasit been from the stock from the
dealer himself, or has it beenon commission?
So it's a very I think it's agood job.
They did a very terrific jobdoing this new scheme, because
(54:50):
the first scheme was made veryfast after Washington principle
in 2001 and it was saying verybroad, just saying take the old
German restitution law which wasbasing on the American and all
the other occupation laws torestitute things and all the
(55:12):
other occupation laws torestitute things, the
Bundesrückerstattungsgesetz.
But now the new scheme is muchmore, having different scenarios
, and so it's a big progress.
Yeah, in my point of view.
Speaker 2 (55:24):
Thank you so much, Hannes.
Is there anything I have notasked you yet that you wanted to
share with us?
Speaker 1 (55:30):
I mean we've talked now one hour, but probably the
other colleagues have questions,or Luca or Lauren or Emily, so
we still can discuss, so happyto answer questions.
Speaker 2 (55:43):
Well, while we wait for anyone who might have
questions, I would ask you, withthe work you're doing, what's
the mark that you hope to bemaking in this area with your
work?
Speaker 1 (55:56):
What I hope to do is to contribute to higher justice
in any way I can do so.
For me, I'm always happy.
I'm always happy, and I'mreally when I have video calls
with my clients and they startto cry because they see each
(56:16):
other for the first time intheir life, because Holocaust
has separated family throughoutthe world.
This is really touching me.
So the mark is to do this job,is to contribute to a higher
justice and to remembrance.
(56:39):
So if I can do this, I hope Ican do this.
I'm 52 years old, so I can hope.
My son is nine years, so I willstill be working.
My son is speaking Englishalready because in an
international school.
I'm very happy about that.
So I think I will work for thenext 20 years still.
(57:00):
So if I can contribute to a lotof restitutions and if we, if
we have developments there, Iwould be very happy with my
clients clients.
Speaker 2 (57:17):
Yeah, I know we're closing out the hour, but what
you just said prompted me to askyou also?
About another case that you'reworking on that deals with
remembrance the StolpersteinWould you want to share a little
bit about that.
Speaker 1 (57:28):
Sure sure, Such an interesting scenario there.
Sure, sure, Such an interestingscenario there?
Yeah, it is, it is.
I represent my clients here,Terry Schwarzberg, who is
working on this initiative for20 years.
He's fighting thatStäubelsteine, stumbling stones.
(57:48):
These are stones who are put inthe public grounds throughout
Germany to remember the man orthe woman who was living there
and deported from that lastplace to concentration camp.
(58:09):
So Stolpersteine areremembering Jews and persecuted
people.
It is a wonderful project.
Unfortunately, in Munich it isnot allowed to put it on public
places, only on private places,and I sued at court that it's
(58:30):
been allowed, that it's alsobeen put on public places.
The problem is the law says weneed a special.
I was using for a so-calledspecial permission and the court
the public court has told me MrHartung, we are sorry but you
(58:54):
don't need such a permissionbecause these stones is not so.
It's not hindering any peoplewho is walking over it to use it
.
So you don't need a permission.
You just would need a privatelicense, which you have to make
with the city of Munich.
(59:15):
But unfortunately the city ofMunich decided to follow the
opinion of Charlotte Knobloch.
I really very much appreciateher work, but I do not agree
with her opinion thatStolperstein would be not an
adequate mean to remember thepeople who lived there.
(59:38):
Throughout Germany,Stolpersteine are a very good
thing to remember Jewishpersecuted people who lived
there and who were deported, andwe have thousands, thousands of
Stolpersteine laid down in theground in public grounds of
Germany.
So I also hope that one day inMunich we will have these
(01:00:03):
Stolpersteine laid down inpublic grounds.
Munich has decided to make amuch more expensive way with
steels, with so-called steels orshields which are put at the
wall, and I am for the freedomof remembering.
(01:00:25):
I was representing Peter Jordanthere, a Jew from Great Britain
who died now and who wanted toremember his parents here in
Munich, and unfortunately thereis no private place on the
(01:00:49):
ground where he could put thestone on.
So that's why, because thepublic ground is just going
until you know his house or theformer house of his parents.
So I really hope, finger crossed, that one day you must know
that in the rest of Germany it'snot a big deal.
(01:01:11):
The whole Germany, thiswonderful project is going on.
Students, young students, wouldclean these stones, these
wonderful messing stones,throughout the place, throughout
Germany, thousands of them, andlearning about the Holocaust,
(01:01:35):
the holocaust yeah, in classes.
So it's only in munich where,uh, we don't have them so far,
but I'm also very still hoping,and but we have many on the
private grounds just next to thehouse when there's private
ground.
So hundreds of them have beenplaced in private grounds
already, which is wonderful, andyeah.
Speaker 2 (01:01:55):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:01:56):
Thank you too.
Speaker 2 (01:01:58):
Is there any other question or follow-up that
anyone has?
Speaker 5 (01:02:02):
Yeah, I was going to ask a question, but you've
answered it.
Hi, I'm Toby.
Yeah, I was going to ask aquestion, but you've answered
the question already.
The question I was going to aska question, but you've answered
the question already.
The question I was going to askwas that younger lawyers are
interested in this area of artlaw, and you answered the
question already by saying thatstudents actually help in
(01:02:24):
cleaning most of the remembrancethings, and I think that kind
of answers the question.
But I was still going to ask itanyway.
Speaker 1 (01:02:32):
I think that kind of answers the question, but I was
still going to ask it.
No, no, no.
I think your question iswhether there's enough work for
all of us.
There is, there is, I think, inGermany.
You will need practitioners notonly me but other esteemed
colleagues to do that job, andthe question is how long you
(01:02:52):
still do that job?
And the question is, how longdo you still do that?
In Germany there's always adiscussion how long do we
restitute?
What I'm saying is as long asall these cases have not been
resolved with a settlement orwhatever it is.
And still, young lawyers have agood chance to work in this
(01:03:16):
field here in Germany.
So I hope that many younglawyers do my job and that they
are interested in this field.
And once again, if we have aframework, it's going to be much
better, because so far we haveno binding framework.
(01:03:36):
As soon as we have more bindingframework, it's going to be
much better.
More young lawyers working onthat.
Do you work on that as well inNew York on outlaw?
Speaker 5 (01:03:48):
No, I don't work in New York.
I live in England.
Speaker 1 (01:03:51):
Ah, in England, oh, wonderful.
Speaker 5 (01:03:56):
I'm more into the privacy space currently.
That's what I do currently.
Speaker 1 (01:04:02):
I had a case in England this year, as I told you
.
Speaker 3 (01:04:07):
I'm also in England actually.
Speaker 5 (01:04:09):
Ah, wonderful, yeah, yeah, ashley.
Speaker 1 (01:04:11):
Ah, wonderful, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So England is also a veryexciting place when it comes,
because I think your SpoliationAdvisory Panel is doing an
awesome job.
Yeah, I agree, they really do awonderful job, and Justice Moses
is one of them.
I'm a big fan of him, so youhave wonderful people there and
(01:04:32):
doing an awesome job.
So, yeah, yeah, really good.
Yeah, probably not so manycases like we have I don't know,
uh, but probably there's stillsome cases to be resolved.
I'm pretty sure about that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And where are you working,lauren?
Speaker 4 (01:04:52):
um, I'm actually still in law school, but I am in
New York right now for thesummer at a litigation firm, so
I'm planning to do art law inthe future.
That's what I am Good idea.
Because New.
Speaker 1 (01:05:03):
York is such a strong place and Stephanie can tell
you because there are many goodart lawyers like Stephanie.
So New York is much bigger.
The market, the art market inLondon and New York the markets
are much bigger than the Germanmarket is.
So I think pretty much the samefor all of you.
Speaker 4 (01:05:27):
Do you have any English translations of your
book or sections of your bookavailable for us to read?
Speaker 1 (01:05:34):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But there's still the issue withI need to clarify this with the
guys, because Norman Palmer doyou know Norman Palmer?
Norman Palmer was the boss ofthe Institute of Art and Law and
he wanted to translate thisbook, and now I need to clarify
(01:06:00):
with the publisher that I canget it translated, because we
want to work on a new book, on arestitution handbook, and then
we would just.
You know that translations noware much easier than they were,
so there's already a translationavailable I can send it to you,
there's already a wonderful,deep translation of this book,
(01:06:22):
and that we want to, becausethis book is from 2005, so it's
20 years old, and I wanted tomake a new book with new
development and all of it andbasing on that one and
eradicating the things which areno more relevant, but the new
thing.
So, yeah, I hope to publishthis in an English form in the
(01:06:45):
next years, but I can only do itif I have time and I have many
cases at the moment and I have afamily.
So you know, yeah, but I hopethat I can do it if I have time
and I have many cases at themoment and I have a family.
So you know, yeah, but I hopethat I can do it in the next
years, yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:06:58):
Well, we will definitely be looking for that
and I appreciate your time somuch.
Thank you for sharing aboutyour work and it's just been
wonderful talking with you, andthank you everyone for being
here.
So with that I will close,unless there is any other
questions or comments.
Speaker 3 (01:07:16):
No, no, I just wanted to say a big thank you to
Hannes, because it was justreally insightful to hear your
very candid and, you know,transparent comments about
what's going on in Germany inthe various cases, and I think
we all look forward to fingerscrossed the new system in
(01:07:42):
Germany and very probably lotsmore cases which will come forth
.
Speaker 1 (01:07:47):
This is a wonderful initiative.
You started many years ago andI was very happy to speak with
you tonight.
I'm wishing you, all of you awonderful summer and I hope to
see you in person.
Speaker 2 (01:08:01):
There will be links in the show notes to learn more.
If you're intrigued by thispodcast, it would be much
appreciated if you could leave arating or review and tag
Warfare of Art and Law podcast.
If you could leave a rating orreview and tag Warfare of Art
and Law podcast Until next time.
This is Stephanie Droddybringing you Warfare of Art and
Law.
Thank you so much for listeningand remember injustice anywhere
(01:08:22):
is a threat to justiceeverywhere.
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