Hitler with Nazi officers in 1939
Photo: AP
Paintings seized by Nazis to return to owners
Austrian court rules Gustav Klimt paintings worth an estimated 360 million euros that were confiscated by Nazis to be returned to their Jewish owners
Six paintings by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt that were confiscated by the Nazis are expected to be returned to their Jewish owners, Israel’s leading newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported on Tuesday.
Klimt was an acquaintance of the family of prominent Jewish industrialist Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, specifically with the tycoon’s wife Adele.
Klimt’s two portraits of Adele are considered to be his most famous paintings.
Bloch-Bauer and his wife acquired six of Klimt’s paintings, some of which were offered to them as a gift by the artist. Adele died in 1925, and according to her will the paintings were to be transferred to the Austrian government; but World War two disrupted her plans, and when the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938, Ferdinand fled to Switzerland and the paintings were confiscated.
With the war’s conclusion the paintings were finally transferred to the Austrian government, which, in turn, handed hem over to the Belvedere Museum.
Following Bloch-Bauer’s death, his beneficiaries worked toward retrieving the paintings, and last Monday, after six years of deliberations, an Austrian court ruled that the paintings are to be transferred to Bloch-Bauer’s cousin, Maria Altman, an 89-year-old Jewish woman who resides in Los Angeles.
The Austrian museum’s director has already asked his government to purchase the paintings from Altman, but this scenario is highly doubtful, as the paintings are worth an estimated 360 million euros.
