2016 - News - Detail Page - Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz

The prehistory

Since those dark days of National Socialist rule in our country, public museums, libraries and archives in Germany have borne a special responsibility to make amends for the inconceivable injustice that was inflicted on fellow citizens of the Jewish faith in particular. They fulfil this responsibility by restituting art and cultural assets that were seized from Jewish owners as a result of persecution.

The persecution of Jews in Germany has a long history and did not just begin in 1933 with Hitler's seizure of power. Anti-Semitism has repeatedly manifested itself in our country through social marginalisation and also through coercive state measures against Jews. Particularly from the late Middle Ages and early modern times, the privileges of Jewish moneylenders, to whom the ban on interest did not apply, and other pretextual reasons led to hostilities that were directed at the entire Jewish population. A lack of understanding and intolerance towards the faith and the associated way of life of the Jews, as well as envy and resentment towards their level of education and wealth, resulted in comparable distorted images at almost all times.

In 1812, the Jews living in the Kingdom of Prussia became Prussian citizens, albeit with numerous restrictions. It was not until 1871 that the new imperial constitution declared all German Jews to be equal citizens, at least according to the law. Nevertheless, this did not put an end to anti-Semitism in society, and it repeatedly broke out, especially in economically and politically difficult times. For example, anti-Semitic propaganda blamed Jewish revolutionary forces for the defeat in the First World War and the collapse of the German Empire.

Although the Weimar Republic brought further legal improvements for Jews, such as free choice of profession and school, there was also a significant intensification of anti-Semitic attacks. For example, a number of spa and bathing resorts on the Baltic Sea or in Bavaria advertised that they were "free of Jews" even before 1933. It is also worth remembering the fate of the Jewish philosopher Theodor Lessing, a private lecturer at the TH Hannover, who was suspended in 1926 due to a critical article against Hindenburg under pressure from the nationalist student body; the Nazis then murdered him in August 1933. When the National Socialists seized power, there was already a latent threat to all things Jewish, and the new Reich government developed a perfidious strategy over the following 12 years that went as far as complete annihilation.

1933 was not the year zero for the beginning of the injustice inflicted on Jewish fellow citizens, even if an entire state machinery was subsequently put at the service of anti-Semitism and the extermination of Jews. The question of the role of public museums, libraries and archives should therefore also be extended to the period before 1933. This aspect can even be of considerable importance when dealing with individual cases.

Since their foundation in 1830, Berlin's museums have developed into world-class centres of art, culture and science with outstanding collections. The fact that they were able to achieve this position in a comparatively short time is due in no small part to the generosity of Jewish patrons. This applies equally to other museums in Germany. Names such as James Simon, Eduard Arnhold, Oskar Huldschinksy and many others are as closely associated with the history of the Berlin museums as Ludwig Darmstaedter and Martin Breslauer are with the Prussian State Library. The list could easily be continued.

Jewish citizens, who had become wealthy through the economic boom of the Wilhelminian era in the trade of goods and money as well as in the liberal professions as doctors and lawyers, saw it as their religious and moral duty to help and to dedicate part of their income to charitable and cultural causes. The private Jewish collectors were generous lenders and donors, patrons and advisors whose support public museums and libraries were happy to utilise. The year 1933 also brought a profound turning point in this respect.

The National Museums in Berlin - like other cultural institutions in Germany - were part of the system and from 1933 onwards took part in the Nazi state's raids in search of Jewish-owned artworks. The interplay between museums, libraries and archives and the National Socialist authorities, who carried out the confiscation of Jewish property, went according to plan. The basic principle was that from April 1938, Jewish citizens had to disclose all their assets and report them to the authorities in accordance with a registration ordinance in order to prevent the "emigration of cultural property", as it was called in Nazi jargon. The removal goods of Jews wishing to emigrate were searched for valuable art objects by experts, with the assistance of high-ranking museum employees and art dealers, including the Director General of the Berlin State Museums, the Director General of the Prussian State Library and the Director of the Prussian Secret State Archives.

These so-called experts were not necessarily always fanatical National Socialists, but in many cases they saw themselves as institutionally involved in the aryanisation process. Hanfstaengl, for example, as director of the Nationalgalerie, was forced by official order in 1935 to destroy art that was considered "degenerate". This also affected works from the Littmann Collection in Breslau. Littmann was systematically prevented from practising as a lawyer from 1933 onwards and finally committed suicide in 1934. In 1935, his heirs sold parts of his extensive art collection at an auction organised by Max Perl. Here, the Gestapo confiscated 64 works as "degenerate" and took them to the National Gallery in Berlin for destruction. Hanfstaengl was only able to save a few, most of the works were burnt in the heating system of the Kronprinzenpalais.

Unlike Hanfstaengl, however, there were also active accomplices, such as Hans Posse, the then director of the Dresden Picture Gallery, who placed himself entirely at the service of National Socialist cultural policy. The state cultural institutions very consciously profited from the hardship and coercion to which their Jewish fellow citizens were exposed. They acquired considerable stocks of valuable works and collections at auctions or directly from the collectors, often far below value, to enhance their own collections. The Washington Principles are therefore - following the restitution and compensation proceedings in the 1950s - a necessary step towards greater justice.

The Washington Principles

Exactly ten years ago, from 30 November to 3 December 1998, the international "Conference on Holocaust Assets" was held at the Holocaust Museum in Washington. It was organised by the US State Department under the patron Madeleine Albright, then US Secretary of State, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The Washington conference was a continuation of the talks held in London a year earlier. From 2 to 4 December 1997, at the invitation of the British government, the work of the so-called "Tripartite Gold Commission" was discussed there. This had been founded in Paris in 1946, consisted of England, France and the USA and had the task of collating the still existing and verifiable monetary gold that the German Reich had confiscated from the banks of the occupied and conquered states. This task was as good as completed in 1997 and the seized gold was distributed to the creditor states. The remaining assets were to be used to set up a fund for the direct compensation of Holocaust survivors, as a considerable amount of gold belonging to Jewish citizens was also found among the assets in question.

However, the London conference did not aim to reach any concrete decisions on how to proceed. Instead, the aim was to open up the archives and ensure unhindered access to the documents. The inflows and outflows of gold were explained in great detail and discussed openly. However, other confiscated assets also played a role time and again: bank accounts, companies and art and cultural assets belonging to Jewish citizens. The American representatives finally offered to organise a follow-up conference that would deal with the seized Jewish assets in depth.

Just one year later, in December 1998, this announcement was honoured with the Washington Conference. It was attended by 57 delegations from 44 countries, representatives of 13 NGOs and numerous experts, totalling over 400 people. The German side was represented by the Federal Foreign Office, and the then German Ambassador to the USA, Tono Eitel, gave the closing speech in which he outlined Germany's position with regard to the future handling of "looted art", namely to ensure the implementation of the principles adopted in Washington, to intensify the search for confiscated Jewish cultural property in accordance with the legal and factual possibilities and then to find just and fair solutions.

As in London a year earlier, the German compensation and restitution efforts were emphasised in Washington as a "unique and unprecedented national effort". Ignatz Bubis, who represented the European Jewish Congress in Washington as President, also honoured these German post-war achievements. However, it also became clear that in the period after 1945 and during the long years of German division, many of those affected were unable to assert their claims.

The reunification of Germany finally offered a new opportunity for late restitution for these unresolved issues, which was reflected in a Property Act passed by the last GDR government, which was adopted into German law by the FRG in September 1990. In the former GDR, benefits had until then generally only been paid to victims of fascism who conformed to the system. Neither the Soviet occupying power nor the later GDR government saw any need to regulate assets that had been seized from Jewish citizens until 1945; instead, these assets were transferred to state ownership.

At the end of the conference, the so-called Eleven Washington Principles were adopted for the art and cultural assets seized from their Jewish owners until 1945 as a result of persecution. They are based on the principles of the American Association of Museums (AAMD) and, according to the organisers, should be accepted as international standards for dealing with Nazi-looted art.

However, they were not legally binding, i.e. they were not transposed into the national law
of individual states, and they still do not exist today. The different legal systems of the participating states stood in the way of this, as did the view that fair and just solutions could not be achieved through lengthy and cost-intensive legal proceedings. In a compromise, the participants then agreed that the principles should only be understood as recommendations. However, these eleven Washington Principles are still the only international agreement on dealing with Nazi-looted art. Previously, there were only the national restitution and compensation laws of the immediate post-war period, all of whose deadlines have expired.

At the top of the list of principles is the call for the identification of confiscated artworks. Sufficient financial resources should be made available for this extensive task. This demand for provenance research is closely linked to the appeal to open the archives and set up a central register of all known artworks looted by the Nazis. The final step should be fair and equitable solutions between the pre-war owners or their heirs and the current owners. The special circumstances of the persecution of those affected were taken into account in that no excessive burdens of proof were formulated. It was understandable that written acquisition documents may not have been preserved due to the circumstances of the war, which is why other evidence and circumstantial evidence should be sufficient to justify a claim.

The interpretation and implementation of the principles

The core of the principles, namely to find "fair and just solutions" to restitution claims, was not defined in more detail in Washington. The assessment of this recommendation as "soft law" therefore varied widely and there was occasionally talk of a "blunt sword". However, the Washington Principles have a certain binding force in that they are still the only recognised basis for restitution decisions in connection with Nazi-looted art.

But the Washington Principles were also of decisive importance in another respect: firstly, on the basis of these principles, persecuted persons and their heirs received back art and cultural assets that had been seized for the first time after the expiry of the restitution regulations in Germany in the 1960s. And secondly, provenance research to investigate Nazi-Socialist cultural theft was once again recognised as a current and urgent task in Germany and worldwide, which also had concrete consequences.

In the Federal Republic of Germany, the Washington Principles were implemented through the "Joint Declaration of the Federal Government, the Federal States and the Local Authorities on the Tracing and Restitution of Nazi-confiscated Cultural Property, especially Jewish Property", which was adopted in December 1999. After initial attempts at practical implementation, however, it became apparent how helplessly and counterproductively individual institutions sometimes handled these principles, so that in February 2001, on the initiative of the then Minister of State for Culture, a working group of experts formulated a set of instructions for the examination and handling of restitution requests, known as the "Handreichung". This "Handreichung" was fundamentally revised in November 2007 on the basis of a wide range of experiences gained in the almost 10 years that had passed since the Washington Conference.

The central concerns were, firstly, the effective and peacemaking organisation of restitution procedures, secondly, the identification of possibilities for "just and fair solutions" in line with the 1998 principles and, thirdly, the provision of guidance for provenance research at museums, libraries and archives.

In accordance with a further commitment from the Washington Declaration, the Coordination Centre for the Loss of Cultural Property in Magdeburg was set up to record and publish identified works of art in a central register. In order to fulfil this task, the Coordination Office is dependent on the supply of data from the institutions, as it does not conduct provenance research itself. However, the reporting of findings from the provenance research of individual German cultural institutions is based on the principle of voluntariness.

The requirements for public art and cultural institutions in Germany resulting from the Washington Principles and the "Joint Declaration" can be summarised as follows. Firstly, public collections should be aware of their responsibility to contribute to the identification of cultural property in their own collections that was confiscated as a result of Nazi persecution; secondly, they should document works with unclear provenance that were presumably confiscated as a result of Nazi persecution on the basis of accessible documents and the current state of research; and thirdly, they should make this knowledge known to the public by reporting it to the Coordination Centre in Magdeburg.

Of the more than 110,000 data records managed in Magdeburg, however, the majority relate to art and cultural objects lost during the war, the original main task of the centre set up by the federal and state governments. In addition, there are over 8,000 reports of finds of Nazi-looted art from German institutions.

A further step towards implementing the Washington Principles is the establishment of an advisory commission, also known as the "Limbach Commission" after its chairperson Jutta Limbach. The committee was formed in consultation between the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, the Conference of Ministers of Culture of the federal states and the municipal umbrella organisations. Its honorary members include Richard von Weizsäcker, Rita Süssmuth and Reinhard Rürup. The Commission's task is to act as a mediator between the owners of the collections and the former owners of the cultural assets or their heirs in the event of disagreements over the restitution of cultural assets seized as a result of Nazi persecution and now held in museums, libraries, archives or other public institutions in the Federal Republic of Germany, and to make appropriate recommendations, although these cannot be legally binding as they lack a corresponding legal basis. This commission can be called upon if this is desired by both sides. It has issued three recommendations to date. The committee is highly accepted, but it is only called upon very rarely. The question of whether a unilateral appeal to the commission should also be considered is the subject of much controversy. Perhaps this conference will shed further light on this issue.

Under the impression of various restitution requests from Jewish owners or their heirs since 1990, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (SPK) had already arrived at its own position on this issue in the summer of 1999, i.e. even before the publication of the "Joint Declaration". This was based on a resolution passed by the SPK's Board of Trustees on 4 June 1999, which was formulated entirely in the spirit of the Washington Principles and the later published "Joint Declaration". The Board of Trustees welcomed the President's efforts to help clarify the relevant facts and to make the documentation available to third parties. Furthermore, it authorised the President to seek amicable solutions and also accepts the surrender of works of art, even if this is not a mandatory consequence of a legal regulation.

Since reunification, the Foundation had previously dealt with restitution claims on the basis of the so-called Property Act. On 3 October 1990, the SPK took over the parts of the Berlin State Museums, the Berlin State Library and the Secret State Archives that had been administered in the territory of the former GDR since the end of the war and the division of Germany under the provisions of the Unification Treaty. The institutions, which had been divided since 1961, were thus reunited. In 1961, when the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which was established by federal law in 1957, began its work, there were no longer any pending claims to works of art in the Foundation under the restitution law applicable in the old Federal Republic of Germany, nor were they possible due to the expiry of the statutory registration deadlines. Until reunification in 1990, the Foundation - like other German museums, libraries and archives - was not confronted with such restitution issues.

Since 1991, however, there has been increasing contact between the SPK and the Jewish Claims Conference (JCC) about works of art that had come into the current collections of the Foundation's institutions before the end of the war. The Foundation then initiated an initial review of all inventories of the reunified Berlin museums. The main focus was on determining whether the known circumstances of the acquisitions could be assumed to be connected to persecution-related asset losses. The review was limited to acquisitions made between 30 January 1933 and 8 May 1945, which were either based on an official allocation or could be identified as former Jewish property on the basis of inventory book entries. The Jewish Claims Conference was notified of the works identified as having an unclear provenance. However, the Property Act contained a cut-off period: claims could only be filed until 30 June 1993. Even then, however, the Foundation declared to the Jewish Claims Conference that it would not oppose claims for restitution after this deadline.

From 1998 onwards, the Foundation received an increasing number of enquiries about works of art that had changed hands before 1945 and were located in West Berlin after the war. In most cases, these were the surviving dependants of persecuted Jewish collectors, most of whom were represented by lawyers.

The case of the drawing "Olive Trees in front of the Alpilles Mountains" by Vincent van Gogh from the Max Silberberg Collection was exemplary. The work was acquired at an auction by the Verein der Freunde der Nationalgalerie in 1935, passed on to the Nationalgalerie as a gift immediately after its purchase and inventoried in the Nationalgalerie Berlin-Ost in 1957 with the indication of origin "Gift of the Verein der Freunde der Nationalgalerie, Collection S., Silesia". A claim for restitution had been filed by the Jewish Claims Conference, and after clarification of the provenance, restitution was finally made to the heiress because there could be no doubt that the loss was due to persecution.

The painting "Self-Portrait with Yellow Hat" by Hans von Marées, acquired in 1935 at the same auction as the van Gogh drawing, came from the same collection and was kept in the Nationalgalerie. The work had been confiscated by American military authorities at the end of the war and returned to the Nationalgalerie in West Berlin in the early 1960s. Based on the information provided by the heiress, there were no doubts about the provenance and the persecution-related nature of the loss of this work either. The Foundation therefore concluded a restitution agreement with her and was able to acquire the work from her in December 1999 and thus keep it permanently in the Nationalgalerie.

In the library area of the SPK, it is above all the active research of the State Library that has repeatedly led to restitutions in recent years. Examples include the restitution agreements with the heirs of Arthur Rubinstein, Leo Baeck and Edwin Geist, who have received back the individual items found in Berlin in the spirit of fair and equitable solutions. Edwin Geist's music is now still in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin on the basis of a loan agreement (we will be able to enjoy his music in tonight's evening programme). The Staatsbibliothek's ongoing project to clarify the effects of the "Reichstauschstelle" is uncovering numerous other clues, which are being investigated intensively.

As the successor to the Prussian State Museums and the Prussian State Library, which were significantly supported by Jewish patrons in the course of their development, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation feels particularly obliged to take the generosity it once received as an opportunity to make far-reaching decisions in dealing with restitution claims. In view of the known legal situation under the restitution and property laws, the Foundation invoked the freedom to make voluntary payments under special conditions.

The resolution of the Board of Trustees passed in the summer of 1999 and mentioned above gives the President sufficient room for manoeuvre in dealing with restitution claims. Since then, he has been able to seek amicable solutions through negotiations with the heirs and beneficiaries and decide independently whether works of art should be returned. This paved the way for voluntary restitution, as in most cases statutory deadlines had expired and claims were therefore no longer enforceable. Works of art that were kept in the Foundation's former Western institutions before 3 October 1990 are not excluded from this.

This power of attorney puts the Foundation in a more favourable position than many other German museums, which are still dependent on their sponsors in these matters and require a longer lead time for the relevant decisions, a circumstance that is not insignificant for the often very elderly applicants. Irrespective of the requirements of the Washington Principles, the Foundation had to define conditions for dealing with restitution requests in this situation, which have since become important guidelines for other German institutions dealing with restitution requests; they have also found their way into the aforementioned handout.

However, certain conditions must be met for voluntary restitution. First of all, the identity of the reclaimed item with the object from the Foundation's collections must be clearly proven, whereby the claimant is generally responsible for providing proof of identity. In cases of doubt, the inability to clarify this central requirement is to the detriment of the claimant, as public collections are always obliged to preserve their holdings and cannot dispose of their property as they wish, unlike private individuals. Strict adherence to this criterion is also the guarantee that wrong decisions are avoided and that restitution is actually made to the authorised parties.

A second indispensable decision-making tool is proof of the loss of property during the Nazi era between 30 January 1933 and 8 May 1945. The requirements for this cannot be defined in abstract terms; rather, they are always based on the individual case and often result less from documents that are still available than from a chain of evidence that ultimately allows a reliable assessment to be made. In the cases dealt with by the Foundation to date, there have been no cases that have remained doubtful in this respect.

The circumstances of a persecution-related loss of assets cannot be generally determined either. The so-called presumption of persecution according to the restitution laws and the Property Act applies analogously. It is presumed in favour of the entitled persons that the loss of assets was caused by persecution if it occurred between 30 January 1933 and 8 May 1945. This presumption of persecution is to be understood as a principle; borderline cases are conceivable if the owner disposed of the property by legal transaction, realised a standard market purchase price and also received this at his free disposal.

In the cases dealt with by the Foundation to date, the fact that collectors had possibly already tried unsuccessfully to sell the work before 1933, for whatever reason, was not a circumstance relevant to the decision. For many collectors, the global economic crisis of 1929 led to a serious threat to their economic existence. Art collections were often the only assets that could be realised in the short term, and many were forced to offer their collections for sale. The decisive factor for the Foundation's restitution decision will therefore always be the circumstances of sale or loss after 1933.

The examination of the time and circumstances of the change of ownership on the one hand and the acquisition by museums, libraries and archives on the other harbours the most difficulties in practice. Those cases in which the acquisition was based directly on forced auctions or state confiscation of artworks are relatively clear, provided that there is still clear evidence of this today. It becomes more difficult when various interim sales have taken place and the direct link between the loss of assets on the victim's side and the acquisition of the museum on the other side no longer exists.

According to the Foundation's current view, however, the immediacy is not disturbed if an intermediate acquirer, such as a friends' association, has purchased the work and then donated it to the museum. However, cases in which several interim acquisitions have taken place before the acquisition by the museum or the temporal connection with the loss of assets no longer exists can be problematic. In our opinion, it is therefore absolutely essential to trace the path of each individual work of art from the loss of assets to its acquisition by the museum as completely as possible. Provenance research can and must fulfil this task. We know only too well what a massive need there is for research in this area, which will have to be carried out comprehensively and transparently by German museums, libraries and archives in the coming years.

After 1998, it was also repeatedly discussed whether earlier restitution or compensation proceedings preclude current restitution considerations. In this context, however, the Foundation was more concerned with the question of whether the entitled persons were in a position to meet deadlines or to present and prove their claim and the loss of assets due to persecution. If this was not the case and the circumstances nevertheless favoured the legitimacy of the application, any decision other than restitution would have been intolerable from the SPK's point of view.

Many restitution and compensation proceedings have been concluded with monetary payments because the affected parties had no knowledge of the whereabouts of their artworks, books or archival materials in the 1950s and there was no possibility of researching them. If works whose provenance can be proven turn up today, we believe that a compensation payment, which was usually minimal, cannot be a reason to refuse restitution. Only the "prohibition of double compensation" must be observed here, according to which, in the event of restitution, the monetary payment received earlier must be reimbursed.

Provenance research in Germany

Once again, provenance research forms the basis for implementing the Washington Principles and for negotiating fair and equitable solutions when dealing with specific individual cases. It must be carried out by the cultural institution whose holdings contain the work in question. The often demanded immediate and comprehensive provenance research as a task of the collections will hardly be possible due to the effort involved. In addition, the active clarification of the collection history of individual works in museums with large holdings can only be carried out gradually and systematically.

The Central Archive of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin has developed a phased concept with regard to the necessary provenance research of the foundation's own holdings. The provenance research is based on the finding aids published by the Central Archive for the files of the Nationalgalerie, the Sculpture Collection and the Picture Gallery. In addition, so-called in-depth cataloguing is being carried out for selected file holdings of the Nationalgalerie. This allows a wide range of conclusions to be drawn about works, owners and dealers, as the files are scrutinised not only for purchases but also for offers and loans. This results in a variety of cross-references to private and public collections as well as to previous owners, allowing traceable provenances to be established.

For the systematic cataloguing of all collection inventories and archival records of acquisitions from 1933 onwards, a permanent full-time position has been created in the Central Archive for the Foundation's internal provenance research in order to clarify the origin of the works - especially those formerly owned by Jews - that are now in the holdings of the National Museums. Similar endeavours are being undertaken in Cologne (Municipal Collections), Munich (Bavarian State Painting Collections) and Hamburg (Kunsthalle/Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe). Such systematic provenance research with the museum's own holdings is otherwise almost without exception only carried out in Germany by provenance researchers employed on a temporary basis, if it is carried out at all.

In addition, there are issues or groups of holdings for which systematic provenance research can also be carried out without being tied to an individual case. As an example, I would like to cite the examination of the entire holdings of the Nationalgalerie's so-called "Gallery of the XXth Century", a collection that is largely owned by the State of Berlin, but has been maintained, stored and exhibited by the Foundation for decades. Not only because of the work by Lionel Feininger, "Kirche von Niedergrunstedt", which is currently under examination and for which the provenance is currently being processed by the Berlinische Galerie, have both the State of Berlin and the Foundation realised that this collection needs to be examined very thoroughly because it contains a large number of works that were created in the critical period before 1945. The preparatory work has already begun and we have the ambitious goal of completing the cataloguing of this collection by the end of 2011 at the latest. We will document and publish the results in accordance with the Washington Principles.

However, the necessary clarification of the facts is often only possible with the co-operation of those affected, as not all acquisitions in the cultural institutions indicate that they could be cultural property seized as a result of persecution. Many of the Foundation's works that have since been restituted were publicly exhibited or at least publicised as museum holdings. For very few of them, the indications in the inventories were so clear that provenance research would have had to be initiated by the Foundation's own institutions.

Under the impression of the public debates surrounding the restitution of the "Berlin Street Scene" by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Minister of State for Culture Bernd Neumann invited leading museum and institution directors, art and legal experts as well as those affected to an exchange of dialogue and experiences in November 2006. After several meetings, important fundamental decisions were made. All participants agreed that the principles of the Washington Declaration of 1998 and the "Joint Declaration" of 1999 must not be called into question. The "Handbook" was updated and made more practice-orientated, taking into account previous experience.

There was also agreement that provenance research in German museums should be carried out systematically and comprehensively and that the institutions should receive financial and conceptual support for this. To this day, the actual extent of the affected collections in German cultural institutions is unknown; this must change. The reason for this is not that the museums and their sponsors do not want to comply. Rather, the capacities of the permanent staff are generally not sufficient to cope with this task alongside their day-to-day business. Sometimes there is also a lack of the necessary experience or qualifications for this complex activity of provenance research. Comprehensive projects such as that of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, in which the 1.2 million holdings of the SKD have been recorded in a database and analysed according to their provenance with the support of the state government over a period of 10 years and a budget of 15 million euros since spring 2008, are an extremely rare exception, both nationally and internationally.

Since 2000, the Federal Ministry of Finance has been researching the provenance of 13,000 works of art that are still in its custody after they were handed over to it by the Western Allies. More than 50 works from previous Jewish ownership have already been identified and every work whose unlawful ownership can be proven will be restituted immediately. Until now, the focus has mostly been on the period between 1933 and 1945, but the acquisitions made after the war are similarly problematic and give reason to expect further restitution claims if the ownership situation changed between 1933 and 1945.

In his speech on the 2008 federal budget in the German Bundestag on 12 September 2007, Minister of State for Culture Bernd Neumann declared that responsibility for our past also applies to the restitution of cultural assets formerly owned by Jews that were looted or confiscated by the National Socialists. He emphasised that his most important task is to find reliable regulations that take into account both the legitimate interests of the heirs and the concerns of the museums. As museums, libraries and archives could not be left alone with the complex provenance research, around 5 million euros were made available over three years from 2008 for a provenance research centre at the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. It was hoped that this initiative would set an example for the federal states and local authorities, which are responsible for the largest number of museums.

The Kulturstiftung der Länder (Cultural Foundation of the Federal States) is supporting this centre for the same period with a further 200,000 euros a year from federal state funds. These funds are earmarked for the maintenance and personnel costs of the centre. The task of the centre is to support public museums, libraries and archives in Germany in identifying cultural assets in their collections and holdings that may have been confiscated from their rightful owners during the National Socialist era. Funding is provided for individual research projects as well as systematic research into collections or entire holdings. The award procedure is designed to be as clear and transparent as possible so as not to create any additional administrative hurdles, but to utilise the available funds in a targeted, effective and rapid manner.

In addition to project funding, the Centre has set itself the goal of contributing to the institutionalisation of provenance research and the consolidation of the results. It will be crucial to strengthen the networking of research that deals with the history of public and private collections and libraries, the art and antiques trade and the auction system during the National Socialist era, as well as the structure and functioning of the National Socialist enforcement and utilisation apparatus with regard to Jewish property. Furthermore, the centre intends to link the results of the provenance examination of individual objects with historical context research and make the findings available to the specialist public. It is to be expected that new and further-reaching questions will arise from the projects. With an electronic archive, which includes a database and a communication forum and is editorially supervised by the centre, an important and soon indispensable tool for provenance research is to be made available. The centre was set up in June 2008 and its director, Uwe Hartmann, will also be speaking during the course of the conference.

Overall, it can be summarised that 10 years after the Washington Conference, many restitution decisions have been made in Germany and the foundations have been laid for a systematic processing of the holdings in question in German institutions, even if there is still a long way to go and provenance research is only at the beginning of an enormous task.

Thematic blocks of the conference

The conference today and tomorrow is dedicated to three different thematic blocks. The first deals with basic questions of restitution and will show that restitution was not without precursors on the basis of the Washington Principles and the resulting joint guidelines. The Federal Act on Compensation for Victims of National Socialist Persecution of 1956 and the Federal Restitution Act of 1957 should be mentioned here for the territory of the "old" Federal Republic of Germany, as well as the Act on the Settlement of Unresolved Property Issues of 1990 for the acceding territory after German reunification. We also want to compare the German regulations on the implementation of the Washington Principles with the situation in other countries in order to identify the need and possibilities for legal improvements both in Germany and in other countries.

Regardless of how restitution is legally organised, provenance research is the necessary basis, which is why we are giving it a lot of space at this conference. A distinction is sometimes made between so-called independent provenance research, i.e. independent art historians conducting research on behalf of claimants or lawyers, and provenance research conducted by employees of cultural institutions. In our opinion, however, such a distinction is not relevant. Freelance and salaried provenance researchers differ only in the framework conditions of their working relationships with their clients, but not in their methodological approach or in the problems of incomplete source material.

The debates about fair and equitable solutions are a core issue that is repeatedly addressed, particularly in individual cases such as the Kirchner decision. Georg Heuberger from the Jewish Claims Conference has repeatedly pointed out that there can only be fair and just solutions if the proceedings are also fair and just, because only then can the claimants accept the outcome, whatever it may be. But what should such a procedure look like? And furthermore, is only the return of a work of art a "fair and just solution", or are there other possibilities, and what conditions must be met?

Aggressive restitution requests and stubborn obstructionism on the part of individual museums are just as unsuitable for achieving fair and equitable solutions. As a rule, many museums only react when lawyers make concrete demands. This usually results in the paintings having to be sold in order to pay the lawyers. If museums could invest more staff and money in provenance research on their own initiative, more appropriate solutions could be found.

The cases dealt with so far by the "Advisory Commission" reveal a certain range of possible solutions. In the case of Julius and Clara Freund, for example, the Commission recommended the return of three paintings by Karl Blechen and a watercolour by Anselm Feuerbach. The Freund couple had to emigrate to London in 1939, destitute due to National Socialist persecution. After the death of her husband, Clara Freund was forced to sell the works in Switzerland in 1942 for financial reasons.

With regard to Hans Sachs' collection of posters, the commission was in favour of leaving them in the Deutsches Historisches Museum. However, the museum was instructed to publicise and honour the origin of the collection and Sachs' work in an appropriate manner. After extensive consideration of statements made by the collector himself, the commission came to the conclusion that this solution best reflected the collector's intentions.

In the case of Laura Baumann's heir, the Commission recommended that the painting be left in the museum and compensation of 10,000 euros be paid to the applicant in view of the fact that the applicant was only a half co-heir, had possibly already received a payment from the museum and the facts of the case could not be clarified beyond doubt; the estimated value of the work was 30,000 to 40,000 euros. At the same time, the Museumslandschaft Kassel was asked to draw attention to the provenance of the painting and the compensation payment to the applicant when it was presented.

All these examples clearly show how important the circumstances of each individual case are if a truly fair and just solution is to be found. However, we believe it would be extremely helpful to use this symposium to shed light once again on the general expectations, positions and possible solutions.

Approaches for further discussion

In conclusion, I would like to point out a few further questions that repeatedly arise when dealing with the subject of restitution.

The voluntary nature of property dispositions
In connection with the known restitution cases, it is often heard that the persecution-related nature of the property dispositions made by the Jewish owners of art and cultural assets is called into question. It is assumed that the sales were based on the economic hardship of the collectors, were connected to the global economic crisis of 1929 or could simply be categorised as bad business decisions. This suggests that the owners at the time voluntarily disposed of their artworks in order to compensate for economic hardship, which could not be linked to persecution by the National Socialists. However, the differentiation required for this approach between economic and persecution-related predicaments does not always appear to have been analysed with the necessary care. There may indeed be individual cases in which both reasons were equally responsible for the sales. But what would be the consequence for a restitution claim? Should the burden of proof for such sales fall to the heirs after all and, unlike in restitution proceedings, should the presumption of persecution-related loss not apply here?

The prosperity of those affected
The alleged material prosperity of Jewish citizens is also frequently cited as an argument in favour of rejecting restitution. This is often based on unbearably hypocritical arguments, as shown by an excerpt from a German weekly magazine that addressed the Kirchner debate but also dealt with the restitution of the Klimt paintings, entitled "Im Strudel des Spekulationswahns" (In the maelstrom of speculation mania). It said: "Altmann, an elegant elderly Jewish New Yorker who can still seamlessly slip into a flawless Viennese dialect, was understandably overjoyed by the profitable evening [of the auction at Sothebys in N.Y.]. Meanwhile, the old lady's lip service before the auction that the art should remain accessible to the public was not particularly convincing. In response to the Austrian government's attempts to keep the paintings, she said pitifully: "I don't give out donations".

What is such reporting trying to suggest? It completely ignores the fact that the old lady had to wrestle with the Austrian state for over eight years to get back the works that had been seized from her uncle as a result of persecution. Is it really possible to expect goodwill? Furthermore, it shows a peculiar understanding of the law if one actually believes that the wealth of the heirs could play even the slightest role in a restitution decision.

The time cut debate
"There has to be an end"; this argument can also be heard again and again in the sometimes emotional, sometimes polemical debate about the principles of restitution. However, the argument of a lack of legal certainty seems unconvincing, especially if certain conditions are not met. In this context, the model practised in the Netherlands is noteworthy. The cultural assets that have been unequivocally identified as ancient Jewish property have been summarised there in a list with the necessary work details and published on the Internet. This makes it possible for heirs and legal successors worldwide to search for works of art that their relatives lost between 1933 and 1945 as a result of Nazi persecution.

However, the Dutch government has set a deadline for the publication of this list. According to this, entitled persons can assert their claims within three years of the publication of the list of works. After the deadline has expired, the works are deemed to be the legal property of the owners if no claims have been filed. After the necessary determination of the provenance of the works and a reasonable period of time, this will achieve a legal certainty that makes sense for all sides and also appears justifiable in light of the persecution of Jewish citizens by the National Socialists. We will certainly hear more details on this in the course of the conference.

Concluding remarks

Due to the legally non-binding nature of the principles applicable in Germany, judicial proceedings to clarify individual cases are hardly conceivable. On the other hand, out-of-court proceedings can offer a wide range of options for clarification and decision-making. It would make sense to use mediation for the issues to be settled, a process that does justice to both sides with a win-win solution at the end, if necessary by a neutral moderator. In addition to restitution through the return of the work, a financial compensation in money or a loan agreement, combined with the explicit determination of who is considered the owner of the work, possibly linked to a right of first refusal for the owning institution, regardless of whether it is a museum, library or archive. In the SPK's experience, this can be helpful in giving cultural institutions willing to restitute the necessary time to procure the necessary acquisition funds.

After the unspeakable injustice caused by National Socialism to Jewish fellow citizens, the restitution of art and cultural assets seized as a result of persecution must first and foremost be about "fair and just solutions", as demanded by the Washington Principles. The problem here is that it is not possible to define what "fair and just solutions" should look like in a universally valid and legally sound manner. The fact is that each individual case must be considered on its own merits. And since guidelines are at best recommendations and cannot be legally binding, it depends on the spirit in which restitution claims, if they are justified, are negotiated. Of course, the museums' endeavours to preserve art and cultural assets for the public are understandable. Practice at the SPK also shows that this goal can certainly be achieved if it is possible to make this convincingly clear to the heirs or their legal successors.