Schriften zum Kulturgüterschutz / Cultural Property Studies

This thesis comparatively investigates into the cross-border enforcement of claims to misappropriated cultural objects initiated by states. It identifies and categorises sovereign rights in cultural property, and discusses the legal mechanisms to successfully implement these rights in foreign courts. The results may be used by government officials, museum officials, lawyers, art historians, archaeologists, art dealers, academics.

This text provides an overview of the regulations and other applications which refer to the legal term: the nationality of works of art. In this context, criteria relevant for determining nationality are identified by means of legal discussion as well as art history-based discussion. This work concludes with an explanation of the application of such criteria.

Throughout the world, there are cultural assets held in government ownership and storage for which no owner has been determined. In Germany, as elsewhere, various circumstances can lead to a situation where cultural assets whose provenance cannot be determined end up in government custody. The present work is devoted to the examination of legal problems related to these so-called “dormant” cultural assets. The study specifically addresses transportable cultural assets held in government custody in Germany.

There continues to be numerous unsettled legal issues surrounding stolen artwork nearly 60 years after the end of the Second World War. This book presents the actual and legal proceedings regarding restitution by the Western Allies based on numerous documents that were viewed in diverse archives.

This work focuses on the set of problems surrounding the classification of movable state cultural goods under cultural property law in the event of state succession. What happens to a state's cultural goods when it loses part of its territory or if the state ceases to exist? To whom do these goods belong and under what conditions must they be released?

Following an introduction to the development of cultural property protection and a definition of terms, this work addresses international and European provisions in order to provide an overview of the current instruments and regulatory options relating to cultural property protection. An analysis of the legal position in the Federal Republic of Germany regarding cultural property protection follows, which confirms that this legal position continues to contain a series of severe flaws. Lastly, future developments within the scope of international cultural property protection are considered.

The subject of this examination is the issue of whether and to what extent the Member States of the European Community may classify privately owned cultural assets as national cultural assets and if the transfer of such assets abroad can be prohibited if the owner of such cultural asset exercises its right of free movement. The aim of this study is to highlight the conflict between national cultural asset protection and the European directives.

The book deals with the question if the demand for restitution of Jewish collectors can be based on the prescription of § 985 of the BGB.

In the past decade the art market has grown steadily. Participation at art shows has become a matter of survival for the exhibiting art dealers. Whether they are in Germany or abroad, galleries and promoters are fighting over admission. The present study focuses on the legal effects of restrictions on admission and cartel law on art shows. The study brings out that “normal” law cannot be applied simply to art. Moreover, knowledge of established procedure in the art trade and of the actual events in the art market are required in order to find appropriate solutions that satisfy all parties and at the same time fulfil the needs of the work of art.

Due to their uniqueness cultural assets require a particular protection which must not only be implemented through financial and actual resources but also through the legal process. This work presents the possibility of legal protection of cultural assets using the UNIDROIT Convention on stolen or unlawfully executed cultural assets of 24.06.1995. The passing of this Convention was a milestone on the route to solving the problems of illegal trade in cultural assets.

The work is divided into three main areas. First of all there is an overview of the legal framework of cultural asset protection from international treaties and European legal acts. This is followed by an individual analysis of the regulations of the UNIDROIT Convention and then by a comparison of the convention and national legal regulations in selected European countries and a voluntary code of practice in which there is a detailed section on cultural asset protection in Germany.

Therefore this work shows that an effective cultural asset protection requires the cooperation of states and cultural institutions which must be supported through international regulations and national legislation. The ratification of the UNIDROIT Convention has also proven to be extremely desirable especially as the review possibilities of the Convention text relating to the establishment of an international register of stolen cultural assets and a general obligatory registration for thefts of significant cultural assets have been discussed.

[Art Theft in War and Persecution. The Restitution of Looted and Stolen Art in the Conflict of Laws Provisions and International Law]

In the course of the Second World War, the National Socialist persecution of the Jews in the German Reich and throughout the occupation period, an art theft to an extent previously unknown occurred. The predominantly international law debate concerning the return of the looted art from the Russian Federation and its neighbouring states to Germany is for the most part unsolved to this day. International conferences in London, Washington and Vilnius have formulated recommendations and declarations of intent (soft law) for dealing with this markedly civil law problem with regard to the restitution of cultural assets from Jewish ownership. In the Federal Republic of Germany, officials have made explicit endeavours aimed at the mutual declaration of the federal government, the states and the municipalities from 1999, and also to arrive at fair and equitable solutions within the scope returning cultural assets from public ownership that were removed under the aegis of National Socialism persecution.

As a comprehensive compendium, the work applies to all individuals as well as institutions which are still affected today by these problems – in museums, collections, insurance companies, and also on the international art market in galleries and auction houses. It describes in a systematic presentation – in historical as well as juridical terms – the extremely complex subject matter of art theft in the Second World War (so-called “looted art”), in marked contrast to persecution-related dispossession of cultural assents from mostly Jewish provenience. In these frequently sensitive matters concerning the restitution of war-related, expropriated and/or persecution-related, removed cultural assets, questions arising from the realm of (international) private law, the intertemporal law of restitution and indemnification as well as international law are to be answered first and foremost.

The work comprehensively treats the implications which were associated with the sale of Italian cultural assets to significant personalities of the German Reich – particulary Hitler und Göring – between 1937 and 1942. First of all, the processes within the Italian leadership hierarchy which generally enabled the sale of artworks to Germany – partially in circumvention of the prevailing art protection laws – will be described. The losses of cultural assets after the Italian neutrality declaration in the autumn of 1943 will also be mentioned.

["Restrictions of trade with cultural property and ownership guarantee"]
Cultural assets such as paintings, sculptures and archaeological objects are commodities - merchandise if you will. The trade with cultural assets is not free; indeed, it is governed by numerous national and supranational provisions. The work intends to clarify the relationship of such trade restrictions and the constitutionally stipulated ownership guarantee. For this purpose the author scrutinizes the legal systems as well as the practice of European countries.

In Bibliophiles and Bibliothieves, Opritsa Popa has documented what might justifiably be described as the most celebrated case of looting of two German cultural treasures by a member of the U.S. Army at the end of World War II and their subsequent odyssey across both an ocean and a continent: the pilfering from a cellar in Bad Wildungen of the ninth-century Liber Sapientiae, containing the two leaves of the oldest extant German heroic poem, the Old High German Hildebrandslied, along with the fourteenth-century illuminated Willehalm codex, both of which had been removed from the State Library in Kassel for protection from bombing raids.

Kunst und Antiquitäten GmbH, a company in the shade of the GDR export trade generated foreign exchange with the export of works of art. The book works off the occurrences ten years after the reunification from a jurisprudential point of view. How was art export organised and where did the works of art come from? The book is about the prosecution of private art dealers and collectors in the GDR in the seventies and eighties on the one hand and the export of cultural possessions especially from GDR museums on the other hand.

Gegenstand der Untersuchung ist das Recht des Staates auf Restitution von Kulturgütern, die illegal aus dem staatlichen Territorium ausgeführt wurden. Die rechtspolitischen Forderungen der Exportstaaten haben sich in drei bedeutenden internationalen Dokumenten durchgesetzt: Neben der Unesco-Konvention von 1970 in der Unidroit-Konvention von 1995 und der Richtlinie der EU von 1992. Zahlreichen Entscheidungen nationaler Gerichte liegen Restitutionsklagen ausländischer Staaten zugrunde. Die Arbeit zielt auf das dogmatische Verständnis des Restitutionsrechts, wie es in den genannten Konventionen, in der Judikatur sowie weiteren Regelungen und Regelungsvorschlägen zum Ausdruck kommt.

Im 1. Teil werden die völkerrechtlichen Grundlagen untersucht. Im Kontext der Regelung der völkerrechtlichen Sachzuordnung werden Inhalt und Voraussetzungen des spezifischen Restitutionsrechts für Kulturgüter erörtert. Im Zentrum des 2. Teils stehen das Eigentum als Rechtsgrundlage eines staatlichen Herausgaberechts und die Auswirkungen des Restitutionsrechts auf die kollisionsrechtliche Problematik. Im 3. Teil folgt eine Analyse der Verträge und Regelungsvorschläge zur Restitutionsproblematik hinsichtlich der Eigentumsfrage und im Hinblick auf die konkrete Ausgestaltung des Rechts auf Restitution in das Territorium.

Das Werk stellt die nationalen Rechtsordnungen der Schweiz, Deutschlands, Frankreichs, Italiens und Englands in Bezug auf besonders geschützte Kulturgüter dar und berücksichtigt das Kulturgüterrecht der Europäischen Union, das Völkerrecht sowie das Internationale Privatrecht.

Im ersten Teil untersucht der Verfasser die sachen- und schuldrechtlichen Besonderheiten von Kulturgütern als res extra commercium in den genannten Rechtsordnungen. Er unterscheidet "herkömmliche" Kulturgüter, archäologische Objekte sowie kirchliche Kulturgüter. Der zweite Teil ist der Ausfuhrgesetzgebung gewidmet, wobei mit einer historischen Einleitung auf das römische Recht und auf die Rechtslage im Kirchenstaat eingegangen wird. Der dritte Teil behandelt den internationalen Rechtsverkehr mit unveräußerlichem Kulturgut. Der Verfasser analysiert kritisch die internationale Rechtsprechung anhand bekannter, aber auch bisher unbesprochen gebliebener Gerichtsentscheidungen. Schließlich wird das Kulturgüterrecht der Europäischen Union und der einschlägigen Staatsverträge wie die UNESCO-Konvention von 1970 und die UNIDROIT-Konvention von 1995 behandelt. Der Verfasser zeigt Lösungsansätze auf, wie ausländisches Kulturgüterrecht im Inland durchgesetzt werden könnte.

Einen Schwerpunkt bildet die Darstellung der Situation von unveräußerlichem Kulturgut im französischen und italienischen Recht. Der Verfasser greift dabei auf die Entstehung dieser sachenrechtlichen Besonderheit von Kulturgut als Bestandteil des sog. domaine public bzw. demanio pubblico zurück und vergleicht diese mit dem schweizerischen und deutschen Recht.

Walter I. Farmer, the former US Army officer in the American occupation zone, earned special merits in 1945 regarding the preservation of important European cultural treasures for Germany and Europe when he prevented the strict order from Washington to remove valuable paintings, in particular from the collection of the Berlin Painting Gallery. With other "Officers for the Protection of Art" from the US Army stationed in Germany, he drafted the "Wiesbaden Manifest" in 1945, which lead to the fact that the treasures can still be admired in German museums, today. In 1996 he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit.

In addition to the report on personal experiences, this autobiography is an important document of contemporary history. The book has an extensive appendix of documents and archives.

Kulturgüter werden in vielen Rechtsordnungen als res extra commercium behandelt, also als Sachen, die nicht Gegenstand des Rechtsverkehrs sein können. Obwohl in Abhandlungen zum internationalen Kulturgüterschutzrecht auf diese Regelungen häufig hingewiesen wird, sind die Besonderheiten dieser kulturgutschutzrechtlichen Maßnahmen bislang nicht umfassend erörtert worden.

Das vorliegende Werk stellt die historische Entwicklung und den dogmatischen Hintergrund von Vorschriften, welche Kulturgüter zu res extra commercium erklären, dar. Daneben wird ein rechtsvergleichender Überblick über die Rechtsordnungen verschiedener Länder gegeben.

Schwerpunkt des Werkes ist die Behandlung von ausländischen res extra commercium-Bestimmungen im internationalen Privatrecht. Es werden verschiedene Lösungsmöglichkeiten aufgezeigt, wie der Extrakommerzialität von Kulturgut auch im Ausland Geltung verschafft werden kann. Hierbei setzt sich die Autorin intensiv mit den in der Rechtsprechung und Lehre verschiedener Länder (Frankreich, Italien, Spanien, USA) vertretenen Ansichten auseinander.

Die Behandlung von Kulturgütern als res extra commercium stellt auch für das deutsche Kulturgüterschutzrecht, welches - wie jüngste Rechtsprechungsfälle zeigen - erhebliche Schutzlücken aufweist, einen diskussionswürdigen Ansatz dar.