Subject: Austria Hangs On To Hitler's Vermeer
From: "E. Randol Schoenberg" <[email-masked]>
To: "E. Randol Schoenberg" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2011 14:40:27 -0700

http://www.laopus.com/2011/03/austria-hangs-on-to-hitlers-vermeer.html

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Austria Hangs On To Hitler’s Vermeer

[Note from LA Opus Publisher: This is a second article by Los Angeles attorney E. Randol Schoenberg on a painting by Jan Vermeer tainted with Nazi associations. Today's posting comments on the decision last Friday by an Austrian governmental review agency ruling against a claim by the heirs of a family pressured to sell it to Adolf Hitler during the Second World War.]

By E. Randol Schoenberg. Esq.

Last week, Austria once again refused to return the famous painting by Jan Vermeer, The Artist in His Studio, that Hitler managed to wrangle from its prior owner Jaromir Czernin-Morzin. The history of the dispute was described in the March 16, 2011 posting Will Austria Part With Hitler’s Vermeer. On March 18, 2011, a committee of political appointees issued a unanimous 33-page recommendation to the Minister of Culture and Education Claudia Schmied, asking her not to return the painting under Austria’s 1998 art restitution law. The decision, issued with a press release just minutes after the seven-member committee met in closed session to discuss the case -- supposedly for the very first time -- leaves no doubt that there is little will left in Austria for confronting its Nazi past.

Austria’s 1998 art restitution law allows the government to return artworks from federal museums that should have been returned under Austria’s prior restitution laws. But no claims can be filed, and victims or their heirs are not permitted to take part in the process or appear before the advisory committee. The entire operation is conducted behind closed doors and in secret, until a decision is announced with no opportunity for comment or recourse. Although hundreds of Nazi-looted artworks have been returned under the 1998 law, occasionally this opaque process has led to egregious errors. In the case of the famous and valuable Klimt paintings taken from the Bloch-Bauer family, a mistaken recommendation by the advisory committee was overturned only after eight years of litigation and a US Supreme Court decision that resulted in an independent arbitration award ordering Austria to return the paintings. The advisory committee seems to save its biggest blunders for the most valuable artworks.

The case of Hitler’s Vermeer, valued at over $200 million, is complex, but the errors of the advisory committee are easy to see. The decision hinges on a determination that Jaromir’s wife Alix-May was never persecuted by the Nazis. Under Austria’s restitution laws, a sale entered into by a spouse of a persecuted individual is voidable, unless the purchaser can prove that the transaction would have occurred independent of the Nazi takeover -- a tough chore in a case where Hitler himself put a hold on the painting and later purchased it at a reduced price. Despite devoting 25 pages to the history of the painting, most of the facts related to the key issue of Alix-May’s persecution were glossed over or omitted.

Alix-May was one quarter Jewish, but her grandfather Eduard Oppenheim was a famous Jewish-born banker in Cologne and his family was an early target of the Nazis. In 1933 Alix-May was married to the aristocrat Roland Faber-Castell. For this she was viciously attacked in Der Stürmer, the infamous Nazi periodical published by Germany’s number one Jew-baiter Julius Streicher. (Streicher’s incessant anti-Semitic attacks on Jews in Der Stürmer led to his conviction and execution at the Nuremberg Trials for inciting crimes against humanity.)

About Alix-May, Streicher wrote:

"The matron of the house in the town of Stein has a Jew for a mother. Jewish blood can never be concealed. It finds somewhere its expression. . . . She did not appear at the hearing. Probably her Jewish blood forbids her to appear in court before “Goyim” [Yiddish: non-Jews]. Her blood is closer to the Jews. When recently she had to stay in Switzerland with her sick child, she called for her Jewish doctor, Dr. Neuland from Nuremberg, who treats her children. . . .The fact that the matron of the house in Stein belongs to the Jewish race makes many things understandable that until now were a riddle."

Faber-Castell was subsequently removed from the board of directors of his own business because of his wife's Jewish background. The Nazis even tried to have him committed. His fortunes improved only after he divorced Alix-May in 1935. A post-war court found in 1946 that he had been politically persecuted because of his relationship to her.

Thanks to Streicher, Alix-May’s Jewish background was well-known to the entire community. At one point in the 1930s, Alix-May’s home was graffitied with the slogan “Oppenheim, the Jewish swine, must get out of Stein." The epithet was repeated, when, in 1940, after Alix-May had married Jaromir, the Gestapo [Nazi secret police] intervened in Alix-May's custody battle with Faber-Castell.

“From state police principles,” the Gestapo reported to the court, “she appears to be unfit to raise children. In any case, because of her overall orientation, which may also be a result of her Jewish background and upbringing, she is on National Socialist principles politically unacceptable.”

As a result, Alix-May lost custody of her children. Finally, in September 1940, just weeks before Hitler’s emissaries came to her home to negotiate with her husband Jaromir to purchase the painting (for 65% the price that he wanted before the Nazis took over), the Gestapo and the Racial-Political Office determined that Alix-May should be treated as a “Jew and an enemy of the State” and her passport was ordered to be taken away.

The advisory committee made no mention of the article in Der Stürmer, and obliquely referred to the graffiti as “anti-Semitic words.” The problems faced by Alix-May’s prior husband Faber-Castel went unmentioned, as was the official finding that he had been “politically persecuted” as a result of his wife’s Jewish background. Her problems with the Gestapo are treated as minor incidents of no real consequence. Rather, the committee blithely concluded: “Alix Czernin was indeed subject to anti-Semitic hostilities by the Nazis, but not political persecution.”

As grounds for this improbable conclusion, the committee relied on the fact that ordinarily, people with only one Jewish grandparent were not persecuted by the Nazis. Alix-May was permitted to marry Jaromir in 1938, which would not have been possible if she had really been treated as a Jew. When she briefly was divorced from Jaromir in 1943, her Jewish background was not an issue and she was allowed to keep custody of their child. She was permitted to remarry Jaromir in 1944. Because she managed to avoid persecution in these proceedings, the committee declared that Alix-May was not a member of the class of systematic or individually persecuted persons.

The author Hilde Spiel used to say that Austrians live in a world “between dream and reality.” When it comes to Austria’s Nazi past, many still have a blind spot. Underlying the committee’s verdict is the continuing Nazi practice of euphemistic public lies covering up private truths. For example, in Nazi parlance Jews were not deported and murdered; they were “resettled” for “special treatment.” Similarly, Alix-May was not persecuted when she was attacked in Der Stürmer, the Gestapo interfered in her custody hearing or declared her an enemy of the State; she merely suffered the indignity of some “hostilities” – as if all she endured were some rude remarks at a dinner party. The reality of her situation, the actual torment and persecution she suffered over a course of years, the completely natural fear she testified to when in 1940 the Nazis arrived at her home to make a deal with her husband to purchase his painting for Hitler, all those facts were not recognized by the advisory board seeking to justify its decision to hold on to the Vermeer painting.

The restitution laws that Austria enacted under pressure from the Allies are quite clear. Property taken from persecuted individuals or their spouses must be returned. Once it was established that a person was a member of a persecuted class, or had been persecuted, all transactions were considered void. As one restitution tribunal explained shortly after the war:

“It must suffice that proof of political persecution is set forth, for in the uncertain legal conditions that prevailed under the German regime, a onetime subject of political persecution ran the danger that the persecution would start up again without any special reason. Whoever once was politically persecuted, lived always under pressure in the Third Reich; he could also not operate so freely in economic matters, as those persons who were never persecuted.”

The advisory committee could only justify holding on to Hitler’s Vermeer by finding that Jaromir’s wife was never politically persecuted. But the truth has a way of seeping out, and public lies work only for so long. At some point, reality must prevail over fantasy.

E. Randol Schoenberg is an attorney in Los Angeles, California. He represents Helga Conrad, the step-daughter of Jaromir Czernin-Morzin. During the past decade, he has litigated several prominent Nazi-looted art cases, including Republic of Austria v. Altmann, which resulted in the return of five paintings by Gustav Klimt valued at over $300 million.

http://diepresse.com/home/kultur/kunst/644222/Vermeer_Kommt-Prozess-in-USA?_vl_backlink=/home/kultur/kunst/index.do

Vermeer: Kommt Prozess in USA?

23.03.2011 | 18:47 |  von BARBARA PETSCH (Die Presse)

Restitution. Zivilrechtsprofessor kritisiert Entscheidung gegen Rückgabe der „Malkunst“. Erbenanwalt Theiss: Das Bild „bleibt nicht auf ewig im KHM“. von BARBARA PETSCH

Meiner Einschätzung nach wird es in letzter Konsequenz zu einem Prozess in Amerika kommen, wenn die Erben in Österreich nicht zu ihrem Recht gelangen. ,Die Malkunst‘ wird nicht auf ewig im Kunsthistorischen Museum hängen“, sagt Anwalt Andreas Theiss. Er vertritt die Erben nach Jaromir Czernin, dem das wertvolle Vermeer-Gemälde gehörte.

Vergangenen Freitag beschloss der österreichische Rückgabe-Beirat unter dem Vorsitz von Clemens Jabloner, Präsident des Verwaltungsgerichtshofes, die Rückgabe nicht zu empfehlen. Jabloner wollte auf Anfrage der „Presse“ keine weitere Stellungnahme zu dem Fall abgeben. Entscheidungen der Rückgabe-Kommission können nicht angefochten werden. Die Rückstellungswerber haben keine Parteienstellung, die Ministerin, in diesem Fall Claudia Schmied, folgt in der Regel der Empfehlung der Rückgabe-Kommission, die ihrerseits auf Basis der Kommission für Provenienzforschung urteilt. Noch ein weiterer Anwalt kämpft um die Rückstellung des Vermeer: E. Randol Schoenberg, der Anwalt Maria Altmanns (1916–2011). Schoenberg gewann in den USA den Prozess um fünf Klimt-Gemälde aus dem Österreichischen Belvedere – die nach dem Entscheid eines Schiedsgerichtes in Österreich Altmann zurückgegeben wurden. Ein solches Schiedsgericht fordert Schoenberg nun auch für den Vermeer. Eine Entscheidung, ob in den USA ein Prozess um „Die Malkunst“ stattfinden werde, sei noch nicht gefallen, so Schoenberg, der Recherchen zu dem Fall machte.

Mögliche Erbin in den USA: Helga Conrad

Er vertritt in der Causa Helga Conrad. Ihre Mutter war von 1951–1955 mit Jaromir Czernin verheiratet, die Tochter brachte sie in die Ehe mit. Jaromir und sie sollen den Anspruch auf das Bild an Frau Conrad übertragen haben, darüber soll es Unterlagen geben. Für Theiss ist Helga Conrad keine Erbin. Sie hätte also, falls doch noch für die Rückgabe entschieden werden sollte, einen Rechtsstreit mit den von Theiss vertretenen Erben zu führen, meint Theiss. Schoenberg sieht das anders: Für ihn ist Helga Conrad die berechtigte Erbin. Wie stehen nun überhaupt die Chancen für einen Prozess in den USA? Wie lautet der Vorwurf? Raubkunst.

Der Linzer Universitätsprofessor für Zivilrecht Meinhard Lukas hat über die Vermeer-Causa ein Gutachten erstellt – für Theiss. Auf die Frage, ob ein Gutachter nicht gewissermaßen automatisch die Ansicht seines Auftraggebers vertrete, sagt Lukas: „Die Ansicht, die ich im Gutachten vertreten habe, vertrete ich auch als Wissenschaftler.“ Sein Rechtsgutachten sei „zu einem anderen Ergebnis gelangt als der Beirat. Der wesentliche Unterschied besteht beim Sachverhalt. Mein Gutachten beruht auf dem Dossier von Michael Wladika, der Beschluss des Beirats auf dem Dossier der Kommission für Provenienzforschung, deren Vorsitzende Eva Blimlinger ist. Das Dossier trifft zwei wesentliche Feststellungen: Die Gattin Jaromir Czernins sei politisch nicht verfolgt worden; überdies sei Jaromir Czernin an Hitler herangetreten, um das Bild zu verkaufen. Beide Annahmen sind überaus strittig.“

Lukas weiter: „Es ist daher bedenklich, dass den Erben eine Einsicht in das Dossier verweigert wird. Früher war das möglich, nun nicht mehr. Das ist nicht verständlich, weil sich auf diese Weise die Rückstellungswerber kein seriöses Bild von der Richtigkeit der Entscheidung des Beirats machen können. Dazu kommt, dass die Betroffenen notwendigerweise mit einer quasi ,staatlichen‘ Einschätzung ihres Vaters, Jaromir Czernin, konfrontiert werden, ohne die Grundlagen zu kennen. Aus Sicht der Erben ist im Übrigen völlig offen, ob und inwieweit die von ihnen vorgelegten Urkunden berücksichtigt wurden. Damit entsteht eine für Österreich überaus ungünstige Optik“, die sich im Fall, dass der Prozess in die USA wandert, auswirken würde. Lukas: „Sollte es zu einer Klage in den USA kommen, ist von Bedeutung, ob der Umgang mit den Rückstellungswerbern als fair eingeschätzt wird. Dabei werden auch die in der Adele-Causa schon geschaffenen Präjudizien eine Rolle spielen.“

Jaromir Czernin suchte einen Käufer

Die Entscheidung selbst hat der Beirat übrigens veröffentlicht: Im ersten Absatz heißt es, dass „Vermeers ,Malkunst‘ nicht an die Rechtsnachfolger von Todes wegen nach Jaromir Czernin bzw. allenfalls in Betracht kommender Dritter zu übereignen ist“. Der Beirat wälzte tonnenweise Dokumente und Gutachten, da es schon mehrere Versuche gegeben hat, das Gemälde zurückzubekommen. Besonders pikant ist die aus Wiener Erbenkreisen verlautete Geschichte, dass Jaromir Czernin unmittelbar nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg versuchte, das Gemälde aus einem Zentraldepot abzuholen. Er durfte aber nicht an einem Tag zwei Zonen im von den Alliierten besetzten Österreich überschreiten. Als er endlich ankam, hatte das KHM das Gemälde bereits abholen lassen.

Dass Jaromir Czernin das Gemälde an Hitler verkaufte, erklärte Anwalt Theiss 2009 der „Presse“ so: „Er hatte sonst nichts. Er musste seine Geschwister auszahlen.“

„Die Malkunst“ vom Delfter Meister Jan Vermeer (1632–1675) entstand zwischen 1664 und 1673. Nur 37 Bilder von ihm sind anerkannt. Das Gesamtwerk ist also klein und daher umso wertvoller. Die Familie Czernin ist eine der ältesten österreichischen Adeligen-Familien. Jaromir Czernin (1908–1966) wollte das Bild an US-Finanzminister Andrew M. Mellon verkaufen. Er verhandelte auch mit dem Unternehmer Philipp Reemtsma. Hitler erwarb das Gemälde für 1,65 Mio. Reichsmark. Der österreichische Staat erklärte nach dem Krieg Hitlers Anspruch auf den Vermeer für verfallen, daraufhin kam das Bild ins KHM.

("Die Presse", Print-Ausgabe, 24.03.2011)

http://www.essentialvermeer.com/interviews_newsletter/schoenberg_interview.html

An Interview with E. Randol Schoenberg
The Art of painting, Johannes Vermeer

E. Randol Schoenberg is the Los Angeles lawyer who represents Helga Conrad, the step-daughter of Jaromir Czernin, in the ongoing dispute for the ownership of Johannes Vermeer's Art of Painting now housed in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. The following interview intends to bring forward detailed information and legal evaluations regarding the dispute so that the reader might acquire a more informed opinion regarding such an important and complicated case which has, unfortuantely, largely unfolded out of the public view.

Mr. Schoenberg kindly provided a link (Burris, Schoenberg & Walden, LLP archival material regarding the Art of Painting legal dispute) where the reader can access the archival sources regarding the case. The material includes the Legal Analysis of the Vermeer Die Malkunst Under the Kunstrückgabe G of 1998 Submitted by E. Randol Schoenberg, Esq. On behalf of Helga Conrad Step - daughter of Jaromir Czernin-Morzin March 14, 2011, the Austrian recommendation presented by the Commission for Provenance Research and a vast variety of legal statements concerning the Czernin family and the family of Alix (Czernin's second wife) as well as that of Gertrude Czernin-Morzin, the mother of Helga Conrad. The single documents are listed according to the respective year (from 1926 to 2009).

Mr. Schoenberg has specialized in cases involving looted art and the recovery of property stolen by the Nazi authorities during the Holocaust and has litigated the prominent Republic of Austria v. Altmann case where Mr. Schoenberg won the return of six Klimt paintings to his client valued at over $325 million. In 2007, Mr. Schoenberg received the California Lawyer Attorney of the Year award for outstanding achievement in the field of litigation.

March 20, 2011

ESSENTIAL VERMEER : Can you briefly describe the background of the dispute between Austria and the Jaromir Czern regarding the ownership of Vermeer’s “Art of Painting”?

RANDOL SCHOENBERG: Austria came into possession of the Vermeer by nationalizing the painting at the end of World War II. It currently hangs in Vienna’s famed Kunsthistorisches Museum. Hitler had obtained it in 1940 and planned to have it as the centerpiece of his museum in his hometown of Linz, Austria. The museum was never built.

Prior to World War II, the Vermeer was owned for many years by the aristocratic Czernin family. Count Jaromir Czernin-Morzin inherited the painting. He considered selling it. The American industrialist Andrew Mellon offered to pay $1 million, which would have made it the most expensive painting in the world. But the Austrian authorities wouldn’t allow the painting to leave the country, and so Czernin held onto it.

When Hitler marched into Austria in March 1938, Czernin was put in a difficult position. His new wife, Alix-May, was the granddaughter of a famous Jewish banker named Oppenheim. As a result, she and her former husband, Roland Faber-Castell, had been subjected to vicious anti-Semitic attacks in the popular Nazi tabloid, Der Stürmer. Czernin’s sister was also married to Hitler’s chief opponent in Austria, former chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg, who was kept imprisoned from 1938-1945. Czernin had to be careful not to run afoul of the new Nazi bosses.

In 1939, a cigarette manufacturer from Hamburg, Philipp Reemtsma, who was also a close friend of Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, offered to purchase the Vermeer for RM 1.8 million (about $720,000). Although Göring gave his support to the deal, Austrian officials managed to block it by begging Hitler to intervene. Hitler’s secretary sent a telegram declaring that the painting could not be moved without Hitler’s approval.

Jaromir’s wife was still suffering anti-Semitic attacks. In February 1940, the Gestapo (Nazi secret police) intervened in her child custody dispute with her former husband, stating that she was unfit to be a mother. Later that year, she was officially declared “Jewish and an enemy of the State” and her passport was ordered to be taken away.

Hitler had his heart set on obtaining the Vermeer. In September, he set his henchmen in motion. Hitler’s private secretary, Martin Bormann, asked around if any outstanding taxes could be used to take the painting away. Hans Posse, Hitler’s special envoy in charge of obtaining artworks for the planned museum in Linz, was dispatched to Czernin’s home to negotiate the purchase of the painting at Hitler’s price. Posse told Czernin he might as well sell, because Hitler would get the painting “one way or another.” Hitler set the price at RM 1.65 million, or about $660,000 and Czernin had no choice but to agree.

Even after selling the painting to Hitler, Czernin and his wife did not escape persecution. Alix-May was driven from their home in Bohemia in 1942 and Czernin was forced out a year later. In 1944, Czernin was arrested by the Gestapo. He was held in prison and forced to do manual labor, but was never charged with any crime.

After the war, Czernin sought to recover his painting. But the Austrians, having nationalized the painting, balked at returning it. They claimed that Czernin and his wife could not have been persecuted because Alix-May had only been one quarter Jewish. The restitution tribunal determined that Czernin had “freely chosen” to sell to Hitler. Czernin’s appeals fell on deaf ears, and, betrayed by his own country, he died a broken man.

from:  http://www.laopus.com/2011/03/will-austria-part-with-hitlers-vermeer_16.html

In Austria, how are the questions of disputed ownership of works of art looted during WWII  currently addressed?

In 1998 Austria passed a law allowing the government to return artworks in federal collections under certain circumstances.  An advisory committee was appointed to recommend which paintings to return.  Unfortunately, the advisory committee established rules that do not permit claimants to be involved in the process.  The decision-making is done in secret, based on provenance reports generated by the federal monument agency, and internal recommendations prepared by lawyers working for the culture ministry.  Quite often in tough cases, this process leads to big mistakes, as was the case in the Bloch-Bauer Klimt case.  I know of several other cases where obvious mistakes have been made, but it is very difficult to get the Austrian government to address these errors.
In your opinion why had the former appeals of Jaromir Czernin been rejected by the Austrian art restitution tribunal of looted  art works?

In every case (1949, 1955, 1960 and 2011), the tribunals refused to apply the correct legal standard, which would have favored restitution, because they would not find that Czernin had been married to someone who had been subject to political persecution.

How did you receive the legal representation of Helga Conrad’s (step-daughter of Jaromir Czernin)  interest concerning Vermeer’s painting?

Jaromir Czernin's step-daughter contacted me several years ago and we have been working together since that time to collect all the relevant documents from various archival sources.

Will you please describe the grounds for which you believe Vermeer’s “Art of Painting” should be returned to Ms Conrad and how they differ from those of the former appeals?

We have this time presented evidence further supporting the claim that Alix-May Czernin had been subject to systematic anti-Semitic attacks and persecution from 1933 through the sale of the painting in 1940. In previous cases, the 1933 attack on Alix-May in Der Stürmer had not been presented, nor was there the evidence that her prior husband, Roland Faber-Castell had been the subject of political persecution as a result of his marriage to Alix-May. This new evidence, unfortunately completely ignored by the advisory committee, further supported the claim that Alix-May was subject to persecution and that therefore, as required under Austrian law, her husband should also be presumed to have been under pressure at the time of the sale to Hitler.

You have to understand the purpose of the old restitution laws. Very early on in the war, the allies determined and warned Germany that transactions with persecuted individuals would have to be reversed. When the war was over, the allies made Germany and Austria enact laws that were designed to effectuate a return of property. These laws greatly favored the claimants and placed the burden of proof on the purchasers. If a claimant was a member of a persecuted class, return of the property was almost automatic. The only defense was if the purchaser could show that the transaction would have happened in the same manner even if the Nazis had not taken over. The restitution courts devised rules to accomplish the purposes of these laws. So, for example, the spouse of a persecuted individual was also deemed to be persecuted and could take advantage of the presumptions and shift in burden of proof. A Jewish or half-Jewish person was automatically deemed to be a member of the persecuted class.

The issue in this case is that Alix-May Czernin was only one-quarter Jewish, due to her grandfather the Jewish banker Oppenheim from Köln. Therefore she was not deemed to be automatically a member of a persecuted class (and her husband therefore also not). But even without the automatic presumption, it is clear from the evidence that Alix-May actually did face tremendous persecution. For example, she was herself personally attacked in the anti-Semitic Nazi periodical Der Stürmer in 1933 ("The matron of the house in Stein has a Jew for a mother. Jewish blood can never be concealed. It finds somewhere its expression. . . . Her blood is closer to the Jews."). Her prior husband, Faber-Castell, was removed from his own business because of his wife's Jewish background, and a post-war court found in 1946 that he had been politically persecuted because of his relationship to Alix-May. At one point in the 1930s, their home was graffittied with "Die Oppenheim, Das Judenschwein, Muss raus aus Stein" (Oppenheim, the Jewish pig, Must leave the town of Stein") In 1940, the Gestapo intervened in Alix-May's custody battle with Faber-Castell and said that because of her Jewish background, she was "politically unacceptable". This resulted in her loss of custody of her children. Finally, in September 1940, just weeks before her new husband Jaromir Czernin-Morzin agreed to sell his painting to Hitler (for 65% the price that he wanted before the Nazis took over), Alix-May was declared by the Gestapo and the Racial-political Office to be "Jewish and an enemy of the state" and her passport was ordered to be taken away.

Unfortunately, the Austrian tribunals have been deaf to this evidence and you again won't find most of it in the recent opinion by the advisory committee. They concluded, incoherently and without any explanation or citation of support: "Alix-Czernin was indeed was indeed subject to anti-Semitic hostilities by the Nazis, but not political persecution." What more evidence of political persecution does someone need?

On March 18, 2011, the Austrian restitution tribunals rejected your appeal. Can you please describe the panel’s motives and why you believe they are incorrect?

I can only speculate on the motives of the members of the advisory board.  Unfortunately, there is very little understanding in Austria of the old restitution laws, nor is there any constituency that is sympathetic to the specific problems that aristocrats married to converted Jews faced under the Nazis.  We have had a very hard time getting people to even look at the evidence.  The Jewish community does not want to get involved, as this does not involve a typical Jewish victim.  The socialists are generally anti-aristocrat, and don't like the idea of taking artwork out of public museums to give to aristocratic families.  The conservatives and right wing are anti-restitution, anti-Jewish or anti-aristocrat, or some combination of the three.  Most aristocrats don't have any Jewish connection and so aren't supportive of families like Czernin.  There is really no one in Austria who is willing to sympathize with someone like Jaromir Czernin.  That seems to be the main problem.

How did MS Conrad react to this latest pronouncement by the tribunal?

She was of course very disappointed, but this has been a 65 year battle for restitution and she is determined to fight on.

In your opinion, do there exist any extra-legal motivations for which the tribunal rejected MS Conrad’s claim and maintains that the painting should remain in Austria?
Frankly, the people making these decisions are anti-restitution to begin with.  They spend their intellectual energy dreaming up excuses for not returning artworks, rather than trying to read the evidence or understand the old restitution laws.  This may sound overly harsh, but unfortunately it is true.  And I decided long ago that when dealing with Nazis or their present-day defenders, politeness is really not appropriate.

What is your next step?  And what are your chances of success?
We wil continue to search for more evidence, and I am confident we will find more.  This is too important a case for it to be just pushed under the rug based on the decision of low-level bureaucrats who obvious have little or no understanding of the restitution laws or the complicated facts of this case.

Are you aware of what Ms Conrad intentions might be in the case the “Art of Painting” is returned to her?

That would be premature to discuss at this point.

E. Randol Schoenberg, Of Counsel
Burris, Schoenberg & Walden, LLP
12121 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 800
Los Angeles, California 90025-1168
Tel: (310) 442-5559
Fax: (310) 442-0353
eFax: (425) 740-0483
E-mail: [email-masked]
http://www.bslaw.net