{"id":5435,"date":"2013-11-07T09:12:20","date_gmt":"2013-11-07T14:12:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artcorner.com\/?p=5435"},"modified":"2013-11-07T09:12:20","modified_gmt":"2013-11-07T14:12:20","slug":"one-billion-euro-in-art-stolen-by-nazis-recovered-in-2011-has-questionable-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.overstockart.com\/blog\/one-billion-euro-in-art-stolen-by-nazis-recovered-in-2011-has-questionable-future\/","title":{"rendered":"One Billion Euro in Art Stolen By Nazis was Recovered but Kept Secret by the German Government"},"content":{"rendered":"

An estimated one billion euro ($1.35 billion dollars) worth of artwork was recovered in an apartment in Munich, Germany in 2011. Up to 1500 paintings are said to have been claimed by authorities. Many of the paintings rendered by renowned artists. The artists among the works are such names as Edgar Degas<\/a>, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse<\/a>,\u00a0Marc Chagall, \u00a0Paul Klee, Oskar Kokoschka, Franz Marc<\/a>, Max Beckmann, Emil Nolde and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner.\u00a0‘Focus’, a German news magazine, broke the story<\/a>\u00a0as recently as April of 2013.<\/p>\n

A collection of engravings, printings, and paintings was discovered among decades old tin cans of food\u00a0by Bavarian tax authorities when they raided a\u00a0rundown apartment in the Schwabing district for tax evasion, according to Focus. The works forming the cache are associated with Hildebrand Gurlitt and are said to be recovered from his son Cornelius Gurlitt; apparently Hildebrand Gurlitt (1895-1956)\u00a0was one of only four dealers given permission by the Nazi authorities to buy and sell works of art seized as “degenerate art.”<\/p>\n

\"Looting<\/a>Berlin art historian\u00a0Meike Hoffmann is busy studying the artworks and is fascinated by a missing part<\/a> of culture now having resurfaced.\u00a0Many relatives of families with artwork stolen during\u00a0World War II\u00a0 are waiting to find out how and if the works can be handed back to the original owners, or at least, as decades have passed–the family line.\u00a0Art experts and media in various countries are questioning why it has taken so long for the news to reach the world, particularly why two years have spanned since the news broke in Germany.<\/p>\n

Christopher Marinello of\u00a0Art Recovery International\u00a0shares with CNN<\/a> that “the details of the paintings should have been published online as soon as they were found “so that the entire world could stake a claim,” and also adds, “We were told they were worried about the number of claimants that would come forward, but two years is a long time to wait,” he said. “People died. Claimants of this era are in their 80s and 90s, and records are disappearing.”<\/p>\n

\"Hitler<\/a>Though, a list of stolen art compiled by U.S. Troops in the 1950s may assist with matching heirs to the paintings, according to Bloomberg<\/a>:\u00a0“U.S. troops vetted Hildebrand Gurlitt\u2019s collection — including works by\u00a0Max Beckmann\u00a0and\u00a0Edgar Degas\u00a0— and handed it back to him 63 years ago, according to a custody receipt that Marc Masurovsky and Willi Korte, researchers at HARP, found yesterday in the National Archive in\u00a0Washington.”<\/p>\n

Rumored works to be in the collection according to Bloomberg<\/a>\u00a0are:<\/p>\n