German court gives seized poster collection back to son of Jewish collector
A German court ruled Tuesday that a Jewish man from Florida is the rightful owner of a rare poster the Gestapo seized from his father in 1938.
The ruling set the stage for the return of the entire collection of thousands of posters taken by the Nazis, which are now worth at least €4.5 million, or $5.9 million.
The Berlin administrative court ruled that Hans Sachs never gave up ownership of the collection of 12,500 posters taken from his home on the orders of the Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels.
His son Peter Sachs, 71, of Sarasota, Florida, sued in a test case for the return of two items - a 1932 poster for "The Blonde Venus" starring Marlene Dietrich, and one for Simplicissimus, a satirical German weekly magazine. The court ruled that it was unclear whether "The Blonde Venus" was part of his father's collection, but that there was no doubt about the Simplicissimus poster and that it must be returned to him.
The ruling means that the court has backed Peter Sachs's claim on the surviving portion of his father's collection - 4,000 posters at the German Historical Museum in Berlin, said his attorney, Matthias Druba...
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The ruling set the stage for the return of the entire collection of thousands of posters taken by the Nazis, which are now worth at least €4.5 million, or $5.9 million.
The Berlin administrative court ruled that Hans Sachs never gave up ownership of the collection of 12,500 posters taken from his home on the orders of the Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels.
His son Peter Sachs, 71, of Sarasota, Florida, sued in a test case for the return of two items - a 1932 poster for "The Blonde Venus" starring Marlene Dietrich, and one for Simplicissimus, a satirical German weekly magazine. The court ruled that it was unclear whether "The Blonde Venus" was part of his father's collection, but that there was no doubt about the Simplicissimus poster and that it must be returned to him.
The ruling means that the court has backed Peter Sachs's claim on the surviving portion of his father's collection - 4,000 posters at the German Historical Museum in Berlin, said his attorney, Matthias Druba...