[CPProt.net] Austria must return 'Nazi-theft' Klimts. Paintings worth $150 million to be given to Jewish family

[Museum Security and Cultural Property Protection (Ton Cremers)]

Austria must return 'Nazi-theft' Klimts
Paintings worth $150 million to be given to Jewish family

Monday, January 16, 2006 Posted: 1337 GMT (2137 HKT) 


VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- The Austrian governments should return five
paintings by Gustav Klimt to the heir of a Jewish family, a Vienna
arbitration court said Monday, indirectly backing the family's claims that
the pictures were stolen by the Nazis.

While the ruling was not binding, lawyers for both the family and the
government have said they would abide by it to end an 18-year legal struggle
over who owns the paintings, estimated to be worth at least $150 million.

A decision to return the paintings would represent one of the costliest
settlements since Austria's government started more than a decade ago
returning valuable art objects looted by the Nazis.

Austrian government officials were not immediately available for comment.
But E. Randol Schoenberg, the lawyer for Maria Altmann, the California woman
claiming the paintings, said the decision "matches all of hopes and
expectations."

"It will make Mrs. Altmann very happy," he told the Austria Press Agency.

The paintings include a gold leaf-clad portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, one of
the most reproduced pictures of all time.

Lawyers for the Austrian government and Altmann, 90, who is Bloch-Bauer's
niece, have fought since 1998 to over rights to that and four other
paintings -- a lesser-known Bloch-Bauer portrait as well as "Apfelbaum"
("Apple Tree"), "Buchenwald/Birkenwald ("Beech Forest/Birch Forest) and
"Haeuser in Unterach am Attersee" (Houses in Unterach on Attersee Lake").

The two sides began mediation in March, following an earlier U.S. Supreme
Court decision that Altmann could sue the Austrian government.

The case stems from a 1998 law passed in Austria that required federal
museums to review their holdings to see if they included works seized by the
Nazis after they took over Austria in 1938, and to find out whether the
works were obtained by the museums without remuneration.

Schoenberg contended the art work was looted by the Nazis, and as such, U.S.
law mandates its return. Attorneys for Austria have argued Altmann's aunt
clearly intended to give the works to the Austrian Gallery, where they are
now displayed, and, in any case the conflict should be settled in an
Austrian court.

The decision is painful for Austria, even as it seeks to show it is ready to
comply with all serious restitution claims arising from wrongs during the
Nazi era.

The nation considers the paintings part of its national identity and Klimt
an Austrian icon. He was a founder of the Vienna Secession art movement that
for many became synonymous with Jugendstil, the German and central European
version of Art Nouveau.

Aside from its returning valuable art objects, Austria also has returned
properties in government possession that were looted by the Nazis.

The country also began paying compensation to Nazi victims from a $210
million fund endowed by contributions from the federal government, the city
of Vienna and Austrian industries.

The fund was created in 2001 to compensate those stripped of businesses,
property, bank accounts and insurance policies under the Third Reich.

Austria was among the most fervent supporters of Adolf Hitler. But
recognition of the need for restitution was delayed because for decades
history books depicted the country as Nazi Germany's first victim, through
annexation in 1938.

Vienna was home to a vibrant Jewish community of some 200,000 before World
War II. Today, it numbers about 7,000.