Is the Guelph Treasure Nazi-looted art after all?

Reliquaries, crosses, images of saints, finely embossed in gold and silver, set with mother-of-pearl, quartz and ivory: The Guelph Treasure is undoubtedly one of the most important church treasures of the Middle Ages.

The Guelphs are the oldest princely house in Europe and the family amassed a trove of valuables.

The treasure comprises 44 masterpieces of medieval church art and has a value of hundreds of millions of euros.

It can currently be admired in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin — but that might change soon. Whether the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (SPK), which currently holds the objects, is the rightful owner or whether they are Nazi-looted art is now once again an open question.

But the case had long seemed clear: During the Nazi era, the Guelph Treasure was sold to the Prussian state by a consortium of Jewish Frankfurt art dealers who had acquired it from the princely house in 1929.

After World War II, it became the property of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation.

Ten years ago, the Advisory Commission on the return of cultural property seized as a result of Nazi persecution (also known as the Limbach Commission) decided the Guelph Treasure was not looted art. The panel of experts apparently found no evidence that the sale had been forced by the Nazis. A lawsuit filed by the descendants in US courts for the return of the Guelph Treasure was dismissed in 2023.

Legal tug-of-war over the Guelph Treasure

The Jewish heirs had been demanding restitution since 2008, and a legal tug-of-war began. The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation estimated the value of the treasure at €100 million, the claimant heirs at €260 million. Documents uncovered in the Hessian State Archives in 2022 suggest that the sale of the Guelph Treasure was not as voluntary as previously assumed.

Was the sale under duress after all?

According to those documents, Alice Koch — a Jewish co-owner of the Guelph Treasure, who owned a quarter share of it — was paid 1,115,000 Reichsmark in 1935, but the sum was immediately extorted from her again as a "Reich Flight Tax."

"The Reich Flight Tax was an instrument used to siphon off the assets of Jewish citizens who wanted to leave the country," Berlin victims' lawyer Jörg Rossbach told broadcaster RBB. "Without payment of the Reich Flight Tax there was no tax clearance certificate; without a tax clearance certificate there was no exit permit."

A previously unknown document shows that Alice Koch received a Reich Flight Tax assessment for one million Reichsmarks. Without it, she would not have been able to flee Nazi Germany. Just four days after receiving the tax assessment, Alice Koch paid it, received a "clearance certificate" from the tax office and was able to leave the country.

Will the case now be reopened?

Is this a turning point in the Guelph Treasure case? Not quite: The looted art commission can only reopen the case if the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation agrees. After months of hesitation, it seems ready to do so.

"The SPK would agree to a referral," the foundation says in a statement, "provided the requirements are clarified in accordance with the rules of procedure." To do so, it would have to contact the commission and the lawyers of Alice Koch's heirs again "in order to clarify the outstanding issues."

The chairman of the commission, lawyer Hans-Jürgen Papier, on the other hand, wants to bring more speed to the matter: "The SPK is (...) obliged to agree to a referral to the commission without delay. The examination of admissibility is the sole responsibility of the Commission."

Although there is still no restitution law in Germany, the country is committed to the principles of the Washington Declaration of 1998. According to this, "just and fair solutions" are to be found for Nazi-looted art.

This has so far been the task of what's known as the Limbach Commission, named after its first chairwoman, the late constitutional judge Jutta Limbach. But in the future, disputed cases will be decided by arbitration tribunals, which can be called upon by a single party, unlike in the past.

This article was originally published in German.