Lawsuit filed for return of medieval treasure
The heirs of Nazi-era Jewish art dealers said they have filed a lawsuit in the United States suing Germany and a German museum for the return of a medieval treasure trove worth an estimated $226 million.
The suit was filed late on Monday in the US District Court in Washington and is the latest salvo in a long-running campaign by the heirs for the return of the so-called Welfenschatz, or Guelph Treasure — which they claim their ancestors sold under Nazi pressure.
Originally collected by Braunschweig Cathedral, the Welfenschatz includes some of the outstanding work by goldsmiths of the Middle Ages. Many of the pieces are decorated with jewels and pearls. Some are more than 800 years old.
Attorney Nicholas O’Donnell said in Berlin that the suit asks the Washington court to declare a US and a British descendant of a consortium who owned the collection in 1935 — when it was sold to the German state of Prussia — the rightful owners.
The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which oversees Berlin’s museums, said the collectors were not forced to sell the pieces.
The Welfenschatz collection, originally 82 pieces, ended up in the hands of a consortium of Jewish art dealers in 1929 when they purchased it from a Braunschweig duke.
After Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, the story becomes murky. What is undisputed is that Jewish owners sold the remaining 42 pieces to the state of Prussia, which at the time was governed by top Nazi Hermann Goering.
The collection has been on display in Berlin since the early 1960s at the city’s Museum of Decorative Arts.