Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Nazi ‘Looted Art’ Hoarder Cornelius Gurlitt Launches Web Site

Cornelius Gurlitt, whose stash of art in Munich was revealed to the world last fall, has launched a web site.

In English and German, Gurlitt explains that he is both duty bound “to preserve and maintain his father’s collection” and “open to historic responsibility” in a post on the gurlitt.info site.

At issue is whether the 1,406 works of art confiscated from his home in 2012 as part of a tax evasion investigation were stolen or forcibly purchased from Jewish collectors or museums during the Nazi era.

Gurlitt, 81, said online that he would consider claims by possible heirs, but only “after the rightful return of the entire collection by the Augsburg public prosecutors and the customs authorities.” He also said he was willing to consider market-value offers by museums interested in purchasing works.

The collection, inherited from his father, Hildebrand Gurlitt, contained works by famous artists whom the Nazis considered ”degenerate.” A worldwide clamor for transparency and investigation followed. Since then, hundreds of works have been posted at the official German lostart.de website and a task force has been created to research the provenance of certain works.

Gurlitt had tried to stay under the radar after Focus magazine first reported on the discovered stash.

Meanwhile, the Bavarian minister of justice, Winfried Bausback, is expected to present his proposal on Friday to the upper house of the German Parliament that would eliminate the statute of limitations in cases where individuals are trying to keep art that was looted or forcibly sold during the Nazi years.

Bausback’s proposal was applauded recently by World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder in Berlin.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.