[MSN] Germany Agrees to Return Nazi-Looted Painting.

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Germany Agrees to Return Nazi-Looted Painting
By Cameron Abadi

On Thursday, the German Finance Ministry acknowledged that a prominent
painting in its possession was illegally acquired from a Jewish collector
during World War II. It will soon be returning the work to its rightful
owners -- but, what will they do with it?


 DDP
Carl Spitzweg's painting "Fiat Justitia" is being returned to the heirs of
its pre-World War II owner.
Photos and links:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,468293,00.html

Carl Spitzweg's "Fiat Justitita" is among the art world's most iconic
portraits of Justice; the 19th century painting depicts a proudly erect,
blindfolded figure on a pedestal, prepared to solemnly weigh evidence on a
set of scales.

Though Spitzweg was a leading representative of the bourgeois Biedermeier
school of painting, the fate of "Fiat Justitia" in the turbulent twentieth
century has been laden with bitter, post-modern political ironies. The
German government has been in wrongful possession of the painting since the
1930's, when its Jewish owner held a fire-sale to finance an attempt to
escape the Nazis.

On Thursday, nine months after independent investigators formally cast doubt
on the government's acquisition of the painting, the German finance ministry
announced that the painting will be returned to the heirs of art collector
Leo Bendel, the original owner.

The dubious Nazi-extorted transaction of the 1930's had entirely disappeared
from the record books until a contemporary Bendel descendent, intrigued by
family records, hired a team of researchers to investigate the ownership of
the painting. When the team, headed by historian Monika Tratzkow, presented
their findings to the office of the president, the painting was removed from
display and the government began an investigation of its own.

Tratzkow's research showed that Bendel sold the painting on June 15, 1937,
to a gallery in Munich for 16,000 reichsmarks to pay for his family's escape
to Austria. Just nine months later, the painting was bought at the behest of
Adolf Hitler for a planned museum in Linz for 25,000 reichsmarks -- a clear
indication that Bendel's persecution by the Nazis was a factor in both the
sale and the low price he received.


Photo Gallery: The Search for Nazi Looted Art
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Despite his conversion to Catholicism, Bendel was rounded up by the Nazis in
Vienna and deported to Buchenwald concentration camp, where he died in 1940.
Else Bendel, Leo's wife, managed to survive the war in extreme poverty in
Vienna, but her request to retrieve "Fiat Justitita" was rejected by
post-war German authorities, who claimed she lacked sufficient proof that
her husband had, in fact, owned the artwork. The painting was subsequently
acquired by the office of the German president in 1961 and was prominently
displayed in a villa in the former capital city Bonn.

Germany claims that its acquisition of the painting was not in bad faith,
but rather a simple error of judgment. But, Gunnar Schnabel, property lawyer
and co-author with Tratzkow of the recently published book "Nazi Looted
Art," is not convinced. "First of all, all the documents after the war were
clearly falsified to cover-up Bendel's ownership of the painting," he says.

Schnabel also suggests that the German government has failed to uphold the
so-called Washington Principles; at an international conference in
Washington in 1998, Germany and other countries agreed to investigate the
origins of its art collections and return those works that were acquired by
Nazi confiscation and extortion.

"I'm astounded, absolutely astounded, that an independent group had to be
brought in to root this out," Schnabel says. "Then the governmental
bureaucracy arrogantly continued its own investigation for another nine
months."

Nonetheless, Bendel's heirs are committed to reassembling the art collection
lost at the hands of the Nazis; at least one of Bendel's paintings, another
Spitzweg, is in the hands of a prominent German company whose founder
collaborated with the Nazi regime.


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 So far, efforts to recoup that work have been rebuffed by the company. But
Schnabel suggests that eventually the corporation will be shamed into
returning the confiscated property.

Indeed, shame has proven a powerful weapon in the effort to stop the trade
in Nazi looted art. US auction houses have become particularly careful about
investigating the pedigree of artworks they plan to sell and there are
numerous cases of doubtful pieces being pulled off the auction block.
Auction houses in Europe are slowly beginning to follow suit. With more and
more attention being focused on art restitutions, the German government has
asked state museums to investigate the provenance of all their works. 

But it has done little to finance that effort. According to Schnabel,
Germany only finalized its decision to return "Fiat Justitita" after the
Bendel heirs threatened to sue the German president in an American court.
"Of course, we prefer to do these things peacefully," Schnabel says. "But,
we're not afraid to get tough."

"Fiat Justitita" is only the latest Nazi-looted work to be returned to its
rightful owner. Other countries have waged and lost bitter court battles
trying to keep their hold on fugitive art; Austria was recently forced to
relinquish a number of Gustav Klimt paintings, but not before a messy and
lengthy legal battle.

Unless Germany begins more stringently investigating its art collections,
the government may not be able to avoid a public scandal for very much
longer: "I really predict that this is just the beginning," Schnabel says.

While it will take some time before "Fiat Justitita" is returned to the
Bendel family, the major obstacles have been definitively cleared. The heirs
will probably use the interim to decide what to do with the painting. If
previous auctions are any indication, they could stand to make a big profit.


Photos and links:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,468293,00.html