I’ll venture to guess that the Nazi-gold-guarding Swiss kicked out some cash for these over the years; personally, I’m glad this guy saved all these works, and I’m also glad he finally got caught. It’s mysterious that he didn’t figure out a way to just move the whole works out of the country. The real task will be to track down the ones already sold into private collections, but the German tax collectors will probably manage it.
> in a routine search on a train from Switzerland to Germany, his son was caught with 9,000 euros cash earned from an illicit art deal... Experts claim most were acquired from Jews in exchange for escape
> He was suspected of tax evasion, and investigators obtained a search warrant for his home in Munich... The younger Mr Gurlitt had kept the works in darkened rooms and sold the occasional painting when he needed money, Focus reports.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24794970
> Josef Goebbels used the elder Gurlitt to sell part of the 20,000 Degenerate Art collection which was put on display in Munich in 1937. Goebbels later appointed him to be the director of a “super museum” the Nazis hoped to build in Linz, Austria. After the war, Gurlitt was allowed to continue his business. He told allied investigators that the artworks were destroyed when the family mansion was destroyed in the firebombing of Dresden in Febuary 1945. Meike Hoffmann, a Berlin-based art dealer has been asked to help track down the potential owners of the works. At least 200 pieces are thought to be on lists of missing treasures.
- Obama will want “a piece of the action...” £1billion art collection seized by Nazis found in shabby Munich apartment ...