Bavaria’s Minister of Art apologizes in Nazi Roban art debate

Bavaria’s Minister of Art Markus Blume (CSU) has apologized for Bavaria’s failure to deal with Nazi robbery. One might have been too sure that you would be further here, he said in the Bavarian state parliament. “It is not enough to trust that things are going.” It was also unbearable for him that victims and their descendants felt like supplicants.

It should be different now: With an entire package of measures, the Free State wants to speed when looking for possible predatory art in its stocks. The state parliament unanimously voted for two applications from the SPD as well as CSU and free voters who aim more transparency and pace when returning stolen cultural assets from Jewish property. The questions contained in the applications should be answered at the latest for the summer break. The majority of the Greens were rejected.

This is the only way to do justice to historical responsibility and end the state of intolerance, said Blume. Victims and descendants could rely on the fact that everything will be done to make up for Nazi law, insofar as this is still possible today.

Inventory in all state museums

The background to the debate was reports of the Süddeutsche Zeitung. The SZ had been assigned an extract from the database of the State Painting Collections, which contains provenance reports on 200 works of art that were marked internally as “red” – red for predatory art. In several cases, the state paintings have not passed on their information on the origin of works to the victims’ lawyers.

In response to the SZ research, Blume has already announced an externally occupied task force that is supposed to drive provenance research in the Bavarian State Painting Collections. The Free State wants to provide one million euros and additional bodies. In addition, according to Blumes, all state museums and collections should be instructed to inventive their stocks, digitize files and to consider which system the origin of the works can be explored.

By summer, MPs want to have an overview of all possible cases of predatory art that still have to be researched. They have to be prioritized and published results, also in the Lost Art. Information database, for example, they also want to ask the question of the form of possible claimants to assert their claims according to the provisions of the Washington principles.

Flower takes protection of state paintings

“We are in a historical responsibility in this topic,” said Michael Piazolo (Freie Voter), Chairman of the Committee on Science and Art. 80 years after the end of the Nazi regime, you are much too late with the return of works of art. Only a few victims are still alive. “We owe them to find fair and fair solutions quickly,” Piazolo promised and made a statement for decisions: “In doubt for the claimants, if things can no longer be cleared up to the last.” Help is hoped for by arbitration, the establishment of which is now to be advanced according to the decision of the state parliament, but which is also controversial. In the event of a dispute, it could legally decide whether it is a work of art that the National Socialists stolen from former Jewish owners or decreased under compulsion.

Blume took the Bavarian State Painting under protection and at the same time criticized the reporting of the SZ. It was unbearable how one of the largest and most important painting collections in the world was miscrete through incorrect allegations in the media. The accusation that the victims and their heirs were deliberately withheld research results was “incorrect”, Blume claimed: “In Germany, the Süddeutsche Zeitungwhat predatory art is. ” Susanne Kurz, Cultural spokeswoman for the Greens, on the other hand, said: “You can only be grateful if the press in the Free State also traces and traces something like this in the Free State.”