Art dealer Saemy Rosenberg signed on behalf of himself and other art dealers for the sale. The objects were at the time in a bank vault in Amsterdam and were shipped to Berlin. Via Amsterdam and London, Rosenberg himself ended up in New York, where he set up an art dealership. A grandson of Rosenberg is the driving force behind the current business.
Lower US courts decided that the US could indeed judge the case. But Germany challenged those decisions and the case ended up in the US Supreme Court.
Victims of slavery
In America there are fears that the ruling will open a Pandora’s box. If the Supreme Court allows sovereign states in the US to be prosecuted, it could happen in many more cases, writes the LA Times.
And it is possible that America will be charged in other countries for things that America has done to its own nationals, Judge Gregory Katsas of Washington suspected, who disagreed with colleagues who ruled that the US could make a ruling in the Welfenschatz case: victims of US slavery or systemic racial discrimination. “
Katsas said it could lead to diplomatic tensions with other countries if the Supreme Court rules in favor of the next of kin in this case. The Solicitor General, the US government’s state attorney at the Supreme Court, also wants the case dismissed. According to Jeffrey Wall, the legal exception does not apply because in this case Germany expropriated property from its own citizens and not from citizens of other countries.
Lawyer Nicholas O’Donnell, who assists the next of kin, thinks this reasoning is nonsense: “It is indisputable that Nazi Germany violated international law by looting property. power came and explicitly stated that Jews were not ‘German’. “
–
