A U.S. federal court has ruled against the heiress of a Jewish art dealer who tried to sue Germany in America over priceless medieval artifacts that were coerced and sold at deep discounts in Nazi-era Frankfurt. .
A ruling last week by the District Court for the District of Columbia was filed as part of an effort to recover the Treasures of Guelph, a collection of medieval religious artifacts currently estimated to be worth about $250 million. was rejected.
At the end of the Weimar Republic in 1929, a consortium of three companies owned by Jewish dealers purchased the collection. They sold about half of their collection to individual buyers and museums.
However, when the Nazi government came to power, the collection caught the attention of Hermann Göring, a powerful Nazi figure and Chancellor of Prussia. According to his heirs, Göring coerced an art dealer in 1935 to sell the remaining relics for far less than they were worth.
The 42 pieces sold were eventually acquired by the Museum of Decorative Arts in Berlin.
In 2014, a German arbitration panel specializing in art looted by the Nazis ruled that the 1935 sale to Prussia was voluntary and that the relics did not need to be returned, allowing the museum to legalize the collection. made a judgment that it was acquired
As a result, the heirs sued in federal court in the United States.Panel of her three judges on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled over Germanythe case can proceed.
Germany argued that the action was barred by the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act, which generally prohibits litigation against foreign countries. However, the law allows some exceptions, such as expropriation of property.
But last year, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously No exceptions were made when a foreign government was accused of robbing the property of its own citizens.
To address another argument put forward by the heirs, the Supreme Court held that the relatives were not in fact German citizens at the time of the 1935 sale, but were free to sue because they were an exception to foreign sovereignty immunity. , remanded the case to the lower court. the law applies.
The heir claimed that two of the merchants fled from Germany to the Netherlands and were not considered German citizens. Meanwhile, the remaining merchants were subject to Nazi policies that stripped Jews of the legal and economic rights normally recognized as German citizens.
But in the ruling, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said the heirs had not submitted sufficient information to support their claim that the dealer was not a German national at the time of the sale.
The heir’s allegations “concerning individual art dealers and the policies of the Nazi regime in force during the relevant period are not sufficient to prove that the members of the consortium were not German nationals at the time of the sale.” she writes
Judge Kollar-Kotelly also found that early in the case the heirs’ attorneys erred by failing to present the argument that they should be exempt because they were not considered German nationals. discovered. At the time, the heir’s attorneys focused on the claim that the dealer was a victim of genocide, and that genocide violates international law, so he had the right to sue in American courts.
As a result, Judge Kollar-Kotelly said the case did not fall within the exceptions to the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act.
In a statement, Chairman Hermann Persinger said: Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, or SPK, which oversees the museums in Berlin, said: The SPK also holds that the sale of the Guelph Treasures in 1935 was not forcibly sold as a result of Nazi persecution and therefore the action for its return is substantially baseless. “
Nicholas M. O’Donnell, an attorney representing the heirs, said his client was disappointed with the ruling and was considering an appeal.
“This recent decision confirms that two of the victims had left Germany for Amsterdam by the time of the forced sale, and that, in the eyes of its hateful regime, Jews were regarded as Germans. ignoring detailed records of Nazi policy that could not have been considered,” he said in an email.
“Furthermore,” he said. All previous petitions have focused on the Nazi government’s lewd views on this issue and related departures to Holland. “