German recluse demands return of his secret £1bn hoard of art that was taken by the Nazis

The Daily Mail Online ^ | November 18, 2013 | Allan Hall

[Uncle Chip]

Art recluse Cornelius Gurlitt has said he wants the £1billion of art treasures taken from his flat by German customs officials returned to him – despite the fact at least some of the haul is Nazi loot strong-armed from Jewish people at knock-down prices.

Gurlitt, 80, told Der Spiegel news magazine in a rambling interview laced with an overriding sense of victim-hood that his father Hildebrand – a powerful Nazi-era art dealer once tasked to sell modern art abroad for the regime to buy weapons – had acquired the priceless works legally and that he as his heir sees himself as their rightful owner.

He is a man consumed with anger – at the state, at the media – even towards his sister Benita for dying of cancer....

‘I will not give anything back voluntarily,’ said the eccentric loner who has not been charged with any crimes.

‘I hope this gets resolved soon and I finally get my pictures back.

‘I’ve never committed a crime, and even if I had, it would fall under the statute of limitations. If I were guilty, they would put me in prison.’

Gurlitt, who suffers from a heart condition, said he had given state prosecutors investigating him on charges of tax evasion and misappropriation of assets ‘enough’ documents to prove his innocence.

The art was seized in February last year but the existence of the collection only became known a fortnight ago, subjecting Gurlitt to a media firestorm which he detests.

The flat was raided by customs officials who had stopped him in 2010 on a train back from Switzerland with 9,000 euros in cash and empty envelopes stamped with the name of a Swiss bank.....

[knarf]

I seem to remember a story a few years ago where a guy located his stolen car some years following its theft and because he retained the title, he got his car back from the owner who had legally purchased it.

[rbg81]

Where’s my violin?

[zipper]

Heart condition?

Deport him to the US and put him on Obamacare.

He can keep his paintings if he wants to. But he’ll be too dead to appreciate them.

[FES0844]

Possessed by his possessions.

[sergeantdave]

Two clods - a Geobbel’s reporter and a Nazi art collector - with heads stuffed with self-rightous leftism colliding. This explosion of liberal egos should be fun to watch.

[Rodamala]

A legal sale would transfer title.

[knarf]

As I recall the story, somehow another title was constructed but the original (date) superceded the copy.

I can't remember details, so this may be all moot.

I haven't read the stolen art story, so I was just interjecting another thought process into the mix.

Maybe I should have stayed out of it.

[fella]

“A legal sale would transfer title.”

Didn’t know that artwork came with a title. Under the dmoncraticly elected Nazi government many things that we call illegal were legal. Come to think of it many of the things our government does are illegal but since it is the government “Who ya going ta call?”.

[Gay State Conservative]

Any work of art that can be shown to have been illegally seized by the Nazis can only be legally owned by the original owner or his/her rightful heirs.

[mosesdapoet]

There were a bunch of postings in FR’s on this. From earlier ones he was the sole survivor of a jewish family with the same surname that were murdered in one of the death camps. His father or grandfather was a collector of that type of Nazi banned art who somehow retrived and hid them .He was slowly liquidating some of the lessor known works to live off of when he was arrested. From those postings he may well be the legal owner of those paintings not the state.