Berlin Germany will simplify and accelerate the restitution to the descendants of the victims of the Holocaust of the works of art exchanged by the Nazis 80 years after the end of the National Socialist dictatorship. After a long negotiation period, yesterday the federal, state and local authorities agreed to create an arbitration court that should start working this year.
The Court will address the cases of works of art stolen from victims of persecution during the Nazi era or sold under coercion and that are now in German museums. In the so -called 1998 Washington principles, which have the support of Germany, the former owners are already encouraged to register their claims to search fair and equitable solutions
. In practice, this is usually difficult. To date, the litigation have been treated by the Advisory Commission, which will become an arbitration court. The novelty is that now the affected parties can be directed unilaterally to the Court, since before the consent of the other party was necessary, for example, the affected museum. Therefore, the commission only mediated in some individual cases. It is estimated that up to 600 thousand works of art were stolen during the Nazi era.
The administrative agreement on arbitration demonstrates that the parties involved recognize their historical responsibility, said Saxony Minister of Culture, Barbara Klepsch, president of the Conference of Ministers of Culture. It is a procedure that produces legally binding decisions and does more justice to the interests of those affected
.
The Secretary of State for Culture at the federal level, Claudia Roth, spoke of an important step to improve and accelerate the restitution of the assets looted by the Nazis. He also mentioned historical responsibility for the victims of the dictatorship established in Germany.
Recently, a controversy over pillaged art broke out that is currently in state painting collections of Bavaria.
Charlotte Knobloch, president of the Jewish community of Munich and Alta Baviera, spoke in the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung of the suspicion that Information is being held to the descendants of the former owners of the looted art and works of art are being held in one of the most important museums in the country
. Bavaria’s Art Minister Markus Blume admitted certain errors and announced measures to improve the situation.