[CPProt.net] Flick pays Nazi-reparation fund after years of protests

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

Flick pays Nazi-reparation fund after years of protests
By Lucian Harris 

LONDON. Billionaire Mercedes heir and art collector Friedrich Christian “Mick” Flick, has paid €5 million ($6.54 million) into a fund for surviving victims of Nazi forced labour, administered by the German foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and the Future”.

Dr Flick, whose grandfather was Hitler’s leading weapons manufacturer, had been under pressure to make the payment for several years, particularly in light of the long-term loan of his contemporary art collection to the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum in Berlin, which went on show last September, attracting vociferous protests from Jewish groups. Salomon Korn, vice-president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany described Berlin’s decision to accept the collection that had previously been rejected by Zurich, Strasbourg, and Dresden, as “a moral whitewash of blood money that [is] like showing the Goering Collection”. 

Others defended Mr Flick. Heinz Berggruen, a prominent Jewish collector and dealer, said at the time: “The concept of Sippenschaft or family guilt was applied by the Nazis and should now be rejected.”

Despite the continuing pressure, or perhaps because of it, Dr Flick, who is notoriously independently-minded, repeatedly declined to make the payment. He argued that as an individual he was not obligated to contribute to the fund, which was established by the German government and industry in 2000 to receive reparations from companies. He is also believed to have felt that payment would be tantamount to an admission of guilt for the crimes of his grandfather. Instead, in 2001, he put E5 million into a foundation to fight racism and xenophobia.

Mr Flick would not comment on his latest change of heart. A press release issued on 22 April stated simply that “Dr Flick would like to acknowledge the fate of former forced labourers and to convey to them an expression of his deepest respect and sympathy”. His donation was made shortly before the 60th anniversary of World War II and the opening of Peter Eisenmann’s Holocaust Memorial in Berlin.

http://www.theartnewspaper.com/