[CPProt.net] Looted Art Strains Russo-German Relations

[Museum Security Network / Cultural Property Protection Net (Ton Cremers)]

29.04.2005  
 
 Looted Art Strains Russo-German Relations  
  A new exhibition in Moscow marking the 60th anniversary of the end of WWII
has reignited a nagging argument between Germany and Russia over looted art.

 The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow opened its doors Tuesday
for an exhibition entitled "Archeology of War: Return from Nonbeing," which
features pieces from Ancient Greece, Cyprus, Italy, as well as Etruscan
vases, sculptures, terracotta, bronze articles, carved bone and
architectural fragments. 
The high-profile show has outraged Germany's art community -- although it's
largely based on Russia's collection of art looted from Germany in the final
throes of World War II, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation was
uninvolved in the project and was refused access to Russian's depots of
German art treasures.
Some 350 of the antiques displayed, restored over a period of five years by
a team of Russian experts, originally came from Berlin collections, which
were stored in bunkers in the city center during the war and blown up by the
SS as the Red Army approached in 1945. When special "trophy commissions"
made up of Red Army experts -- whose official mission was to look for
cultural property stolen by the Nazis -- began removing and transporting art
treasures from Germany back to the Soviet Union, these fragments went with
them.

Vocal criticism
 
The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in Berlin has been vocal in its
criticism of the exhibition. But the Pushkin Museum insists that according
to international law on restitution of works of art looted during armed
conflicts, the pieces belong to Russia.
It isn't the first time exhibitions of so-called "trophy art" from Germany
have taken place in St. Petersburg and Moscow. In November 1992, the
Hermitage  showed drawings from the Bremen Kunsthalle and most of the
objects were exhibited again in Moscow in March 1993.  
The perceived recalcitrance of Russia's museums was underscored by the fact
that on Tuesday, the same day the latest exhibition opened, the foundation
symbolically returned a work of 17th century art to Russia as a gesture of
reconciliation.
"Russia's behavior is seriously straining our relationship and is highly
detrimental to the position of Germany's museum directors," said Christina
Weiss, State Secretary for Media and Culture. 

Secret spoils

The German Government has been trying to reclaim its cultural property from
Russia for some 15 years, including the restitution of almost 200,000 works
of art, two million books and about three kilometers of files. 
For years, Russian authorities denied it was keeping secret spoils in
special depots, while simultaneously maintaining that its German cultural
property was legitimately owned as reparations.  
Then, in 1992, the promising German-Russian Treaty of Cultural Cooperation
was expected to usher in a new era of amicability, but by the mid-1990s the
restitution negotiations had caved in to opposition from influential Russian
political sectors rejecting the restitution claims, as well as pressure from
nationalistic groups championing the right of the Russian people to German
cultural property as indemnity for its 30 million dead and the suffering and
atrocities Russia had to endure through Nazi aggression.  
As Günter Nooke from the Christian Democrats pointed out in an interview
with the Berliner Zeitung, the issue provides a stark contrast to the upbeat
state of German-Russian relations touted by Chancellor Schröder and
President Putin. 
"This is a political standstill," he said. "The cultural property must be
returned, and compensation negotiations are out of the question."
 
 Author DW staff (jp)  
 
 http://www.dw-world.de © Deutsche Welle 

Additional reports:
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,1564,1568912,00.html