The German newspaper Der Spiegel has published a devastating indictment of German governments’ and museums’ handling of an enormous amount of valuable art, jewelry, land and more looted by the Nazis, calling it “a moral disaster that began in the 1950s and continues to the present day.â€
The report, published Wednesday, is based on an extensive search of public and private documents and details how a succession of German governments ignored or actively blocked attempts to return property worth hundreds of millions of dollars to its rightful owners or organizations that represent Jewish victims.
Some objects decorate the walls and halls of museums and government buildings, including a cherry desk that adorns the president’s office.
The newspaper discovered that in the wake of some feeble resttution efforts in the 1960s, the government misled the public into believing the issue had been fully investigated and resolved. Der Spiegel said that it, too, had been taken in by the government’s assurances at the time.
Even now, the government has devoted so few resources to provenance research that it would take several decades to search through the inventories of cultural institutions, the article said. Museums have often responded to requests for information from the families of victims with charges that the questioners are money-grubbers.
The paper extensively details how Hitler’s personal photographer, Heinrich Hoffman - classified as a “Major Offender†by the Allies in 1947 - nonetheless managed to reclaim after the war a huge portion of the valuables he stole.
The article exhorts the government to fully finance provenance research.
