[MSN] A Nazi-era painting which has been at the National Maritime Museum since it was looted by British troops in 1945 may have to be returned to Germany.

[Museum Security Network Mailinglist]

Nazi painting may be returned to Germany 
By Nigel Reynolds, Arts Correspondent
Last Updated: 8:30am GMT 05/01/2007

A Nazi-era painting which has been at the National Maritime Museum since it
was looted by British troops in 1945 may have to be returned to Germany.
 
The painting shows a wreath emblazoned with a swastika on the sea:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/01/05/nazi05.xml

The giant picture, painted in 1936 by Claus Bergen, a Nazi sympathiser,
commemorates the German sailors who died at the Battle of Jutland, the
biggest naval engagement in the First World War. Glorifying German
militarism, it shows a wreath emblazoned with a swastika on a featureless
sea. The work, Wreath in the North Sea in Memory of the Battle of Jutland,
is thought to have been seized by British soldiers from the Mürwik Naval
Academy near Flensburg on the Baltic Coast at the end of the Second World
War. It was allocated to the Greenwich museum by the UK Naval War Trophies
Committee.

The Art Newspaper reported yesterday that it had informed Mürwik of the
painting's whereabouts last month. The academy was now considering making a
claim on Britain.

Lt Cmdr Rüdiger Schiel, of the academy, said: "It's good news to hear there
is a chance of getting things back which were taken during the Second World
War."

Ironically, if the Germans pursue the case, the painting, which measures
12ft by 6ft, may have to be returned under rules introduced in 1998
requiring British museums to hand back art to descendants of, primarily,
Jews, who had them confiscated by the Nazis.

A number of treasures seized by Nazis found their way into museums in this
country after the war and have recently been returned to families after a
review by a committee under the National Museums' 1998 statement of
principles on spoliation. Claimants can seek the return of any object
"wrongly taken" during the war and the Holocaust. The Art Newspaper said it
believed that the principles could apply equally to an object removed from
Germany as to a work stolen from a Holocaust victim.

The National Maritime Museum admitted that it suspected the picture may have
come from Mürwik, though it had no evidence.

A spokesman said: "We are planning to complete our research as far as
possible before contacting any other organisations."