The Mayor of Düsseldorf Stephan Keller has ordered the immediate release of Franz Marc's “Füchse” from the city's Kunstpalast museum to the heirs of the previous owner Kurt Grawi, who died in 1944 while emigrating to Chile. With this instruction, Keller is responding to a regulatory complaint from the heirs' lawyers and to a letter from the President of the World Jewish Congress, Ronald Lauder, who accused the city of the former Limbach and today's paper commission recommended by the city council on April 29 To procrastinate restitution. Keller explained to the FAZ: “Of course we are following the recommendation of the advisory commission and the decision of the council in respect of the fate of Kurt Grawis and his family. I have instructed that the delivery of the picture,in coordination with lawyer Stötzel, now done immediately and the return agreement is concluded at short notice. "
Patrick Bahners
Features correspondent in Cologne and responsible for “humanities”.
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The city explains that no agreement on the change of ownership has yet been signed by the fact that the Düsseldorf public prosecutor received a report at the beginning of June that criminal charges had been filed against representatives of the city and the members of the council. In the opinion of the complainant, the retired Berlin administrative judge Friedrich Kiechle, the publication of the painting, which the department store magnate Helmut Horten had given the city in 1962, would be an illegal donation. According to the city, the reasons for the criminal complaint also raised questions of tax law. This chapter of the affair is not yet completely closed: A complaint has now been filed against the prosecution's discontinuation of the proceedings. The city advisesthat, unlike, for example, the Austrian Art Restitution Act, there is no express regulation in German law that exempts restitutions from taxation (gift tax). Lord Mayor Keller said to the FAZ: “A restitution is never a gift, but always a return to the rightful owner. Taxing this process would reduce the basic idea of restitution to absurdity. "Taxing this process would reduce the basic idea of restitution to absurdity. "Taxing this process would reduce the basic idea of restitution to absurdity. "
The supervisory complaint complains that the mayor wrote to the elderly chief heir on August 27 using her private letter and thus disregarded her request to only communicate with her through her lawyer, the Marburg restitution specialist Markus Stötzel. The city explains that in the course of the correspondence with the lawyer, she received a handwritten letter from the old lady, which she only answered indirectly via the lawyer, because the latter had expressly stated in the accompanying letter, “that our client is asking for it, directly from us No contact by the city ”. After a month, an email was reported that the letter writer had not yet received a response from the mayor. A spokeswoman for the city explains:“Since the time was already advanced, we took this as an opportunity to apologize directly for the late response with a bouquet of flowers and a letter. This was meant as an appreciative gesture. Of course, the city always corresponds through the lawyer deployed. "
Who was looking for prospective buyers?
Regarding the question posed in the supervisory complaint about how the city of Düsseldorf got to the client's address, the city informed that it had an address in the files through the proof of inheritance, which it checked to ensure that it was up-to-date.
The spokeswoman rejects the suspicion that the city passed on the address and thereby committed data protection and reporting violations.
On August 12th, the head of the cultural affairs department, Hans-Georg Lohe, wrote to Stötzel: "At the same time, we are also trying to find potential buyers who would make the painting available to the city on permanent loan." Corrected: “The city did not act proactively, but was asked whether they would be interested in a repurchase or a loan. Mayor Dr. Stephan Keller neither instigated nor supported. ”Keller rates it as“ worthy of criticism ”that, as evidenced by a letter available to the city, the managing director of the Cologne Kunsthaus Lempertz, Henrik Hanstein,the main heir is said to have written at her home address as well as her son-in-law, instead of submitting his request to the heirs through their lawyer.
Hanstein informed the FAZ that he had been corresponding with the heir family for a long time and that he did not need a lawyer’s approval for this. He did not get the addresses from the city, but through personal contacts in Chile. He reported that a collector was interested in buying it and that he was willing to leave the painting on loan at the Kunstpalast and bequeath it to the city.