US court sides with Germany in Nazi treasure row

WASHINGTON: The US Supreme Court rejected a suit by the heirs of Nazi-era Jewish art dealers for compensation from Germany for a storied collection of medieval art treasures.

The court ruled unanimously on Wednesday that Germany had sovereign immunity in US courts from claims over the Guelph collection of gold crosses, jewels and other religious works from the 11th to the 14th centuries.

But they avoided comment on the merits of the claim that a group of art dealers was illegally forced to sell the collection at cut prices in 1935 to Prussia, then run by Gestapo founder Hermann Goering, as the Nazis increasingly threatened Jews.

After the war, the treasure ended up on display in a museum in Berlin, and the dealers’ heirs have sought fuller compensation for the artworks, which they say are worth over US$250mil (RM1.01bil) today.

Germany, the defendant in the case, argued that the dealers were not robbed in the 1935 sale, but simply cut their losses after paying too much for the collection on the eve of the global depression of the early 1930s.

After failing in Germany to win compensation, the dealers’ heirs turned to the US courts, which have been supportive of claims for restitution over art taken from Jews by the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s.

“It was simply not possible in 1935 for any Jewish business, least of all dealers who are in possession of the German national treasure, to get a fair deal with perhaps the greatest, most notorious art thief of all time,” Jed Leiber, whose grandfather Saemy Rosenberg was one of the dealers, said in December.

However strong that claim may have been, the nine justices ruled that Germany was protected by the US Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act, which insulates foreign governments from lawsuits in US courts, with only a few exceptions. — AFP