(Q105092498)
Statements
Panel urges return of Hitler’s Bellotto paintings to heirs of Jewish retail magnate (English)
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Two paintings by the 18th-century painter Bernardo Bellotto that Adolf Hitler purchased should be returned to the descendants of Max James Emden, a Jewish department-store magnate from Hamburg who lost much of his wealth as a result of Nazi persecution, a German government panel has ruled.Emden’s heirs have been fighting for 15 years to recover the paintings, which were seized by Allied troops and entered the German federal government collection in the 1960s. One of the founders of Berlin’s famous KaDeWe department store, Emden owned stores around Germany and as far afield as Italy, Hungary and Scandinavia. He left Hamburg and withdrew to his island property on the Swiss side of Lake Maggiore in 1933. His businesses, properties and financial assets in Germany were seized by the Nazis in 1934 and 1935. (English)