Court rules museum posters be returned
Source: Agencies |
March 17, 2012, Saturday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
GERMANY'S top federal appeals court ruled yesterday that a Berlin museum must return to a Jewish man from the US thousands of rare posters that were seized from his father by the Gestapo, saying that for the institution to keep them would be perpetuating the crimes of the Nazis.
The Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe said Peter Sachs, 74, was the rightful owner of the posters collected by his father Hans Sachs, now believed to be worth between 4.5 million euros (US$6 million) and 16 million euros, and can demand their return from the German Historical Museum.
The ruling brings to an end some seven years of legal battles to have the vast collection of posters that date back to the late 19th century returned.
"I can't describe what this means to me on a personal level," Peter Sachs, who recently moved to Nevada from Sarasota, Florida, said in an e-mailed statement after the ruling. "It feels like vindication for my father, a final recognition of the life he lost and never got back."
The case ended up with Karlsruhe court because of the posters' tumultuous journey through more than 70 years of German history, in which they were stolen from Sachs by the Nazis' Gestapo, moved on to the possession of communist East Germany, then to the Berlin museum after reunification.
Hagen Philipp Wolf, a spokesman for Germany's cultural affairs office which oversees the German Historical Museum, said the decision would be respected.
The Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe said Peter Sachs, 74, was the rightful owner of the posters collected by his father Hans Sachs, now believed to be worth between 4.5 million euros (US$6 million) and 16 million euros, and can demand their return from the German Historical Museum.
The ruling brings to an end some seven years of legal battles to have the vast collection of posters that date back to the late 19th century returned.
"I can't describe what this means to me on a personal level," Peter Sachs, who recently moved to Nevada from Sarasota, Florida, said in an e-mailed statement after the ruling. "It feels like vindication for my father, a final recognition of the life he lost and never got back."
The case ended up with Karlsruhe court because of the posters' tumultuous journey through more than 70 years of German history, in which they were stolen from Sachs by the Nazis' Gestapo, moved on to the possession of communist East Germany, then to the Berlin museum after reunification.
Hagen Philipp Wolf, a spokesman for Germany's cultural affairs office which oversees the German Historical Museum, said the decision would be respected.
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