The Supreme Court of the United States will navigate, Monday, December 7, between the Middle Ages and the 1930s during a hearing devoted to the treasure of the Guelphs – an art collection acquired by the Nazi regime from Jewish art dealers. Finely chiseled gold cross, pieces of goldsmith’s work, sumptuous reliquaries… The object of the conflict relates to religious works created between the XIe and XIVe century, now exhibited in a Berlin museum.
“This case is a matter of restitution, of reparations for a forced sale with great financial implications, but it is first and foremost a matter of justice”Jed Leiber, a Californian musician who is suing Germany in memory of his grandfather, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The latter, Saemy Rosenberg, was an art dealer in Frankfurt in the 1920s. With other Jewish colleagues, he had bought, shortly before the stock market crash of 1929, all of his treasure from the Duke of Brunswick, a descendant of the house of the Guelphs. In a damaged market, they had managed to resell half of the coins to American collectors in 1932, and had the remaining quarantine safe in safes in the Netherlands.
In 1935, two years after Adolf Hitler came to power, they ceded it cheaply to the Free State of Prussia – then led by Hermann Göring, the founder of the Gestapo. For Jed Leiber, “It was simply impossible in 1935 for a Jewish trader, much less for those in possession of a German national treasure, to get an honest deal with the one who was perhaps the greatest art thief of all time. the story “.
“It was not a forced sale”
But Germany does not see it that way. “It was not a forced sale”, estimates the Foundation for the Prussian cultural heritage, a public institution which manages many museums including the one where the treasure of Guelphs is exposed (“Welfenschatz”, in German).
Berlin is based on the opinion of an advisory commission seized after receiving a request for restitution in 2014. This body considered that the sale price reflected the situation of the art market and that there was no no evidence of “Pressures” exercised by the Nazis.
Following this advice, several descendants of Jewish merchants turned to American justice to recover the treasure, which they estimate the value to be at least $ 250 million (over 200 million euros). They relied on a 1976 U.S. law that prohibited civil lawsuits against a foreign government except in cases of “Violations of property rights as defined by international law”.
Berlin immediately appealed to stop the proceedings, arguing that this law did not apply to this case. After setbacks at first instance and on appeal, she turned to the United States Supreme Court. Its nine “wise men” will examine Monday, by telephone, this legal debate for a decision by June 2021, which will only say if the American courts are competent.
“A form of Holocaust denial”
In an argument sent before the hearing, the German government assures “Take this type of request very seriously” and recalls having paid “Over $ 100 billion to compensate Holocaust survivors”.
But he argues that the sale took place between Germans, on German soil and that only German justice can take up the case. Decide the reverse “Would incite a whole series of complaints against sovereign governments for acts on their soil and could incite other nations to retaliate”, write his lawyers.
“Germany seeks nothing less than to achieve impunity for property seized during the Holocaust”, replied the lawyers of the plaintiffs. “The Holocaust was not a domestic policy”, they write.
“My grandfather was proud to be German”, he had been decorated for his feats of arms during the First World War, recalls Mr. Leiber. “And yet he lost his nationality when Hitler came to power. “” I know there are legal debates, he continues. But, on a human level, all of this makes no sense and it sounds like a form of Holocaust denial. I find it dangerous. “
