OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
The U.S. Supreme Court delivered a setback to a bid by the heirs of Jewish art dealers to win restitution from Germany in American courts for what they called a coerced sale forced by the former Nazi government in 1935 of a collection of precious medieval religious art.
The justices in a 9-0 ruling decided that the lawsuit cannot proceed under a U.S. law called the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act that limits the jurisdiction of American courts in claims against foreign governments.
They threw out a lower court’s decision that had let the lawsuit move forward in federal court in Washington.
But while the justices decided that this law barred the claims that the heirs brought against a German agency that administers state museums, they directed lower courts to re-examine other arguments made in the case, meaning the lawsuit potentially could still proceed.
The case concerns a collection of ecclesiastical relics known as the Welfenschatz that was sold by Jewish art dealers. The collection, dating primarily from the 11th to 15th centuries, includes gilded crosses and busts of saints. Pieces from the collection are on display at a museum in Berlin. The heirs sued Germany and the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which oversees museums in Berlin, in 2015 in U.S. federal court, seeking the collection’s return or $250 million.
Writing for the court, Chief Justice John Roberts said that the law does not cover what a foreign country does to property belonging to its own citizens within its own borders.
“As a nation, we would be surprised – and might even initiate reciprocal action – if a court in Germany adjudicated claims by Americans that they were entitled to hundreds of millions of dollars because of human rights violations committed by the United States government years ago,” Roberts wrote.
“There is no reason to anticipate that Germany’s reaction would be any different were American courts to exercise the jurisdiction claimed in this case,” Roberts added.
The ruling has set off a flurry of lawsuits in the courts across the country.
In one case already grabbing headlines, a businessman’s descendants are suing New York’s Guggenheim Foundation to recover the painting they allege was sold under duress to escape Nazi persecution, The Washington Post reported.
Karl Adler and his wife Rosa made a desperate escape plan and a steep Nazi “flight tax” on emigrating Jews stripped them of most of their wealth.
Around 1938, they were allegedly forced to sell a painting by Pablo Picasso.
The Post reported:
A lawsuit filed in New York County Supreme Court alleges that the Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan, where the painting is on display, wrongfully possesses the Picasso as it was sold under the duress of Nazi oppression and asks that it be returned to Adler’s heirs.
Adler’s dilemma was a common one faced by emigrating Jews as they fled Nazi Germany, Netherlands-based art detective Arthur Brand told The Washington Post.
Adler sold his Picasso painting at a price far below its market value, according to the complaint. In 1931, he valued it around $14,000, according to the lawsuit. In 1938, strapped for cash, he allegedly sold it to a Jewish collector in Paris, Justin Thannhauser, for around $1,500.
Brand thinks the heirs have a case.
“I think that if the family can prove that, indeed, they didn’t get the market price and that Adler himself had to pay flight taxes or visa [fees], they have a chance to get the painting back,” he added.
“Adler would not have disposed of the Painting at the time and price that he did, but for the Nazi persecution to which he and his family had been, and would continue to be, subjected,” the lawsuit’s complaint alleges.
“This family … can change its mind, you know,” Brand said. “We now understand better the tactics of the Nazis. Although something looked voluntary, it doesn’t always mean that it was really voluntary.”
