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'Vorderasiatisches [Middle Eastern] Museum Berlin Loses World War II Trophy Art Case in New York; First German Cultural Institution to Fail on Claim for Return in United States Court"'

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Title

Vorderasiatisches [Middle Eastern] Museum Berlin Loses World War II Trophy Art Case in New York; First German Cultural Institution to Fail on Claim for Return in United States Court"

Author

Thomas Kline

Date

July 2010

Description

Published in the journal, Kunst und Recht, Tom Kline writes about the implications of a New York judge's ruling in March 2010 that a Berlin museum could not recover a gold tablet from Iraq lost during World War ll and now in private possession on the grounds that:
1.  The museum had failed to notify authorities of the loss both immediately after the war and extending through the fall of the Berlin Wall, the reunification of Germany to today 
2.  The Museum failed to respond to a potential sighting of the tablet on the New York art market in the 1954.

The Court concluded that the passage of time had unduly prejudiced the current owner's ability to defend itself and awarded the tablet to the current owner.  

This is the first ruling in a US court to go against German museums seeking to recover their WW2 losses.  To read the article, click here

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