Monuments Men, Hidden Treasures, and the Restitution of Looted Art

Amineddoleh, Leila (2014), ‘Monuments Men, Hidden Treasures, and the Restitution of Looted Art’, New York State Bar Association, Entertainment, Arts and Sports Law Journal 25 (1): 16-22.

The recent discovery of a hidden art trove is the stuff of which movies are made. In fact, similar stories have been featured in films. The recent announcement of Cornelius Gulritt’s art cache involves a familiar cast of players: Hitler, Goebbels, Nazi commanders, Allied forces, political figures, and even the Monuments Men (a group featured in the 2014 release of George Clooney’s “The Monuments Men,” based on a book of the same title). On November 3, 2013, in what some called “one of the largest and most significant discoveries of masterpieces plundered by the Nazis,” a major piece of news was announced: “A Modernist art haul, ‘looted by Nazis’ recovered by German police.”