U.S. Jewish man petitions German panel for return of art seized by Nazis
Peter Sachs seeks the return of a precious collection of 12,500 posters seized from his father in 1938.
By The Associated PressA special German panel convened Thursday to hear the case of a Jewish man from Florida seeking the return of a valuable collection of rare posters stolen from his father by the Nazis.
Peter Sachs, of Sarasota, was only a year old in 1938 when his father's precious collection of 12,500 posters was seized and his family fled for the United States.
Now 69, he is seeking the return of what remains of the collection, some 4,300 posters with an estimated worth between $10 million and $50 million, which are in the possession of Berlin's German Historical Museum.
The collection includes elaborate advertisements for exhibitions, cabarets and consumer products, as well as political propaganda - all rare, with only small original print runs.
The museum maintains that since Sachs' father, Hans Sachs, received compensation of 225,000 German Marks (approximately $50,000) from the West German government in 1961, the posters should remain in its collection.
Sachs' main argument is that the compensation was paid when it was assumed the collection was destroyed in the war, and that once his father found out that part of it had survived, he started trying to get access to it in the East German museum where it had ended up.
Hans Sachs died in 1974 without ever seeing the collection again. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the German Historical Museum inherited the collection from its East German counterpart in 1990.
Peter Sachs is due to testify before the eight-member panel, a special commission set up in 2003 under an agreement between federal, state and local governments, under Jutta Limbach, a former chief justice of Germany's Federal Constitutional Court.
The panel's mandate is to mediate in disputes involving art looted by the Nazis from Jewish and other owners and make recommendations.
The Nazis looted an estimated 150,000 pieces of art from western Europe during World War II and some 500,000 pieces from eastern and central Europe.
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He milked the cow?? Fritz I think it is a quiet unappropriate term you are using here, a lil decency would suit you well , he is in his right to get what's his especially after the other part of it was untouchable behind the other part of the berlin wall. Sorry you cant get the logic of it...Maybe , maybe if it was your family and their art hanging in museum of country that killed them in the most barbaric way you woud think differently and oh Fritz the jews are not responsable for the darkness of german history.
I dont know those posters, but if they are important for German history, the Golden 20s, whatever... Lets imagine he would still live in Berlin and would try to sell those posters to a collector in NYC and the gouvernement would intervene. Btw, there are so many beautifull houses in Berlin and to enter and to think about their history means to think about who may have beeen forced to leave, jewish families, or what horrors were elaborated by Drs and Profs or whoever lived there in the 30s. The posters in the museum could have a signs that explain their history. For example. But lets imagine that those posters are more than just beautifull, that they represent a special time, when jews and other Germans lived happily with each other in that town etcpp.
There are other germans, not jews, who may not export their art as well. That the posters were taken away does not change this. Compensation is something else. So the museum has good arguments as well, wrong?
Firstly, Linda you are absolutely right- it's logical. I want applaude you for taking the time to stand up and tell the truth. dav, you are a feeble minded, limp wristed, borg, who couldn't have an original or logical thought for yourself even IF you had a brain. Either get a life or take your own... there's VIRGINS there!
still too. bravo. you are good student of your furer.
How could anyone possibly enjoy possessing or seeing an exhibition of stolen art? The man was cheated of so much, and this collection of posters is what remains of his stolen inheritance. I suppose if someone broke into Fritz' home with the intent to kill him and he fled out the back door, and the intruders then robbed him of all of his possessions, he could have more sympathy, esp. when the police then return SOME compensation for his stolen goods but decide to keep the rest. Poor Fritz would assume the authorities turned it all over when he accepted the lower compensation, wouldn't he? And when he found the authorities enjoying the rest of his property, wouldn't he be right to demand its return, as well? It's the same for this man.
This is, why the world loves the jews so much. The jews know always a way to make money with out working.
Well, there are many collection and to put "national heritage" into national collections is not unusual. So: to speak of return covers many questions, the fact that the original owner was a jew and the taking was illegal as such is only a part. Such things have a price and lets be happy that the Nazis and the times have not destroid more. In other words: some money and the posters stay where they are.
DEM 225.000,00 in 1961 had the same buying power like US$ 400.000,00 today, which was fair enough for the value the presumably lost posters actually had in 1961. He milked the cow and now he wants the meat as well. If this practice were accepted all people who have already been compensated for the loss of their goods can come back any time and claim extra money for the inflation in the value of their former property between the time of the original compensation and the date of their second-guessing. This is nonsense as then no claim could ever be finally settled.