“Museums are morally obligated to return Nazi-looted art”

Frankfurt’s Staedel Museum has investigated its role in the Third Reich. Its art history expert and provenance researcher Nicole Roth told Deutsche Welle in an interview how she goes about examining the museum’s collection for stolen pieces.

In 1999, Germany’s Representative of the Federal Government for Culture, Michael Naumann, sent a letter to the directors of all the museums in the country, requesting that they determine and reveal the origin of any works acquired between 1933 and 1945. Shortly before Naumann’s appeal, the German federal government and state and municipal leaders had pledged to return to the rightful owners any works of art dispossessed by the Nazis. In order to make that happen, many museums hired provenance researchers, experts specially trained in critically examining the history behind works of art.