Supreme Court Says Germany Can’t Be Sued In Nazi-Era Art Case

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In this picture taken in 2014 the medieval portable altar of Eilbertus a part of the Guelph treasure, is displayed at the Bode Museum in Berlin. The precious collection of medieval Christian art was at the center of a complicated ownership dispute at the U.S. Supreme Court.





Markus Schreiber/AP



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Markus Schreiber/AP



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Looted Nazi Art Again Before Supreme Court

«This was purchased by Hermann Goering, perhaps one of the most notorious art thieves of all time for his pal, Adolf Hitler, the monster who killed 6 million people, Leiber said in in interview last December.

In 2015, the heirs sued in the U.S. for return of the collection, but the Republic of Germany, backed by the Trump administration, sought to block the lawsuit, and on Wednesday prevailed.

Writing for the unanimous court, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that in a case like this one involving international law as well as domestic law, «We do not look to the law of genocide … we look to the law of property. And under both U.S. law and international law, a taking of property can be «wrongful only where a country deprives an «alien, a foreigner, of property.

Wednesday’s decision involved the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which establishes the rules of the road for how the Unites States treats other countries in litigation. As Roberts put it, the FSIA has long recognized that U.S. «law governs domestically but does not rule the world. And he pointedly observed that the U.S. might well balk too if some of its historically bad behavior — say slavery or the internment of the Japanese in World War II — were punished by courts in other countries.

In a statement, Hermann Parzinger, the president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation that owns the collection, welcomed the decision, saying it was his organization’s «long-held belief that this case should not be heard in U.S. court.

The justices, however, did not put a complete end to the Nazi art case. Instead, they sent it back to the lower court for arguments as to whether the Nazis’ unique criminal treatment of German Jews put this claim outside the norm because the Jewish victims were no longer considered German citizens.

Parzinger, in his statement, said: «We look forward to presenting robust legal arguments for the dismissal of this lawsuit.