300 million dollar art trobe and Natiera art labyrinth claim

The new chapter opened in the bitter 17 years of battle for the treasure of Guelph, one of the most valuable artists claimed by the heirs of Nazi rule, after the discovery of documents in German archives that showed that the sale was made under obsession.

Estimated to be worth $300 million, Trove is made up of gem-covered medieval church artifacts, primarily relics and crosses. The most valuable of these is a 12th century relic style, shaped like a church, made from gold, silver and copper. It is decorated with figurines of biblical characters carved from the fangs of a walrus.

The conflict dates back to 2008, when heirs of four art dealers who were members of the consortium of Jewish Owners of Guelph's Treasures filed a request with the current owner, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in Berlin. The incident has become more complicated than ever since, despite much research, as the consortium's structure cannot be completely reconstructed.

And now there is a new claim by the heirs of Alice Koch, a member of the consortium. This claim believes Germany is taking into account major changes in reparation disputes. The government has announced that it will dismantle the Advisory Committee on Nazi Route Art and replace it with a binding court of arbitration, but the timing of the switch is not yet clear.

Today, Guelph's work is a prize exhibition at the Applied Art Museum in Berlin, which is overseen by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. Earlier this month, the foundation agreed to hold a new hearing with the German Government's Advisory Committee on Nazi-raised Arts, for fresh evidence the documents revealed.

Great The lawyer representing Koch's heirs whose grandmother owns 25% of Guelph's treasures, discovered German archival documents. Jorg Rossbach, a Berlin lawyer representing one of Koch's heirs, said she used the proceeds from the sale of Guelf Treasure four months ago to pay the Nazi regime bill to 1.2 million Reichsmark. This total amounts to millions of dollars today.

“This was a discriminatory tax on Jews,” Rossbach said. “One of the key questions to determine whether a sale was compulsive is whether the seller was free to dispose of his income. Alice Koch wasn't.”

In 2014, the German advisory board rejected a claim by the heirs of the four dealers who were part of the consortium. In a statement explaining the reasoning, the committee said it “recognizes the difficult fate of art dealers and persecution during the Nazi era,” but “it did not point to pressure on the art dealers and their business partners during negotiations.”

The heirs of four dealers, Isaak Rosenbaum, Saemy Rosenberg, Julius Falk Goldschmidt and Zacharias Max Hackenbroch, pursued their allegations up to the Supreme Court in a US lawsuit. These legal proceedings ended in July 2023 after the District of Columbia Court of Appeals confirmed a previous decision that US courts lacked jurisdiction over the case.

The consortium purchased the collection in 1929 with the intention of selling it for profit. They sold around 40 items, mainly in the US. The heirs' claims relate to the remaining 44 people sold to Prussia in 1935, and are subsequently ruled by Hermann Goering, the EU of Adolf Hitler's top.

Rossbach contacted the foundation in 2022 with new evidence supporting Koch's claim. “We have agreed to begin consultations as soon as the court case over Guelph's Treasures in the United States is over,” Rossbach said.

By April last year, negotiations had not yet begun, so he filed the claim on behalf of Koch's heirs with the advisory board. Markus Stötzel, the lawyer representing the heirs of the four dealers, also filed a new request with the German advisory board at about the same time.

However, the parties must agree to the Advisory Committee on Nazi Route Art to consider a request. Under accusations of “tactical delays” by the heirs and pressure from the Advisory Committee and the German Minister of Culture, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation has agreed to a committee hearing.

The discovery of the document introduces “new aspects that we must take very seriously,” said Hermann Palzinger, president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation.

“This is a very complex and very complicated case and needs to be carried out with the proper care,” Parzinger said. He said the delay in agreeing to the hearing was because the foundation was trying to identify all potential claimants in the treasure.

“Despite a comprehensive study by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, the original composition of the consortium that sold Guelph's treasure in 1935 is not entirely known,” the foundation said in a statement.

This tangled case may be the last time the German advisory committee is working on. The German government and 16 states have announced plans to dismantle the committee and replace the decision with a binding court of arbitration. The new court will also allow the claimant to grant unilateral access, rather than the current requirement that the artwork owner also must agree.

The requirement for consent from both parties has long been unhappy as the Deutsche Museum councillors simply refused to introduce the dispute to the panel.

However, the arbitration court has not yet taken shape. Its implementation, planned this year, is likely to be overseen by a new government led by Friedrich Merz of the Christian Democratic Union. (The negotiations with his favourable coalition partner, Social Democrats, are still in their early stages, and may be weeks before the new Minister of Culture is nominated.)

Regardless of the composition of the new government, “I think the plan to introduce arbitration has reached a point where there is no revival,” said Benjamin Rafsen, law professor at the European Universitat Viadrina, Frankfurt and der der.

However, until the court begins work, the advisory committee remains at the request of the requester.

In addition to the complexity of the case, he is the third group of claimants, the heirs of Hermann Netter, and the heirs of Koch, represented by another law firm. Netter was a jeweler who owned 25% of Guelph's treasures.

The lawyers for these heirs have begun consultations with the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, but have not submitted any formal claims.