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JEWISH HEIRS SUE GERMANY OVER NAZI MEDIEVAL HOARD
24 February 2015 Last updated at 15:50 GMT
The Guelph treasure is worth over £100m
The heirs of Jewish art dealers who claim their relatives were forced
to sell a medieval treasure trove to the Nazis have filed a US lawsuit
against the German state.
They allege that the Nazis forced the sale of dozens of relics known
as the Welfenschatz or Guelph treasure.
They want to recover the collection, now thought to be worth $226m
(£146m), which is currently in a Berlin museum.
The government says the deal was fair and the relics should stay
in Germany.
The descendants believe that the original deal took place under duress
and that the Nazis forced the Jewish dealers to accept a lower price.
"Any transaction in 1935, where the sellers on the one side were
Jews and the buyer on the other side was the Nazi state itself is by
definition a void transaction," said lawyer Nicholas O'Donnell.
The four dealers received millions of dollars when they sold them to
the Gestapo founder Hermann Goering.
In March last year Germany's advisory body on cases of suspected
Nazi-looted art, the Limbach Commission, found no evidence of
persecution and that the price was fair.
This is the largest collection of medieval church art in the hands
of the German state, and was recently classed a national cultural
treasure. Some of the pieces are more than 800 years old.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31606569
24 February 2015 Last updated at 15:50 GMT
The Guelph treasure is worth over £100m
The heirs of Jewish art dealers who claim their relatives were forced
to sell a medieval treasure trove to the Nazis have filed a US lawsuit
against the German state.
They allege that the Nazis forced the sale of dozens of relics known
as the Welfenschatz or Guelph treasure.
They want to recover the collection, now thought to be worth $226m
(£146m), which is currently in a Berlin museum.
The government says the deal was fair and the relics should stay
in Germany.
The descendants believe that the original deal took place under duress
and that the Nazis forced the Jewish dealers to accept a lower price.
"Any transaction in 1935, where the sellers on the one side were
Jews and the buyer on the other side was the Nazi state itself is by
definition a void transaction," said lawyer Nicholas O'Donnell.
The four dealers received millions of dollars when they sold them to
the Gestapo founder Hermann Goering.
In March last year Germany's advisory body on cases of suspected
Nazi-looted art, the Limbach Commission, found no evidence of
persecution and that the price was fair.
This is the largest collection of medieval church art in the hands
of the German state, and was recently classed a national cultural
treasure. Some of the pieces are more than 800 years old.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31606569