A British officer in search of art confiscated by the Nazis in a mansion of Westphalia.
Nearly 1,500 paintings by masters , Jewish collectors properties were discovered in the apartment of an octogenarian in Munich, the German weekly Focus. Among the paintings , worth a total of nearly one billion euros , include works by Picasso, Matisse , Chagall, and great German names like Emil Nolde , Franz Marc , Max Beckmann Max Liebermann .
According to Focus , the octogenarian father of a famous German collector , Hildebrand Gurlitt , had bought the paintings in the thirties and forties : paintings or confiscated by the Nazis to the Jews and then resold or sold at low prices by fleeing Jews . Or carried by agents of the Third Reich because being considered " degenerate art " - as opposed to the official art prized by Hitler - and then resold by the Nazis.
Hildebrand Gurlitt , disliked the Nazis at the start because of a Jewish grandmother , made himself indispensable to the officials of the Third Reich with its innumerable contacts and vast artistic knowledge . He was thus appointed by the Minister of Propaganda , Joseph Goebbels, to sell in foreign countries tables of " degenerate art " displayed in German museums. After World War II , the collector was able to defend his suspicious acquaintances , highlighting his Jewish origins and non-membership organizations of the Reich. He also claimed to have helped the Jews and persecuted artists by buying their goods .
For nearly fifty years, the son had kept the tables in dark room of his apartment. Over the years , he had lived and sold the fruit of these sales. Among the findings works is a painting by Henri Matisse that had previously belonged to Jewish collector Paul Rosenberg, forced to abandon his collection when he fled Paris .
Quoted by the German news agency DPA , the floor of Augsburg, competent in this case, would not comment on the report .
