Lost masterpieces among huge Nazi art haul unearthed in flat

Investigators searched the apartment in an upmarket Munich district in February 2012, as part of a tax probe that started with a routine check on a Zurich-Munich train in late 2010.

Authorities said they found 121 framed and 1,285 unframed works – including paintings by 20th century masters such as Pablo Picasso, Max Liebermann and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and earlier works by artists including Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Gustave Courbet, Auguste Renoir and Canaletto. The oldest work dates back to the 16th century.

Prosecutor Reinhard Nemetz told reporters that investigators had turned up “concrete evidence” that at least some of the works were seized by the Nazis from their owners or classed by them as “degenerate art” and seized from German museums in 1937 or shortly after.

“Degenerate art” was largely modern or abstract works that Hitler’s regime considered as corrupting to the German people. Their “deviant” racteristics were often attributed to Jewish corruption.

Officials are investigating whether the suspect in the case was in wrongful possession of the paintings. They wouldn’t identify him and said they don’t know where he is.

The paintings were found in one room at the flat, where they were “professionally stored and in a very good condition,” said Siegfried Kloeble, head of the customs investigations office in Munich. He said it took a specialist company three days to remove the paintings from the apartment. Officials refused to specify where they are being kept.

Meike Hoffmann, an expert on “degenerate art” at Berlin’s Free University who is helping the investigation, presented pictures of a selection of works from the collection. They included a Chagall painting that Ms Hoffmann said isn’t included in lists of his work.

“These cases are, of course, of particularly high art history significance for researchers,” she said.

An unlisted painting by Matisse, apparently dating back to the 1920s, was also presented.

Works such as an unknown self-portrait by 20th-Century German artist Otto Dix and a woodcut by Kirchner add new breadth to what’s known about them, Ms Hoffmann said.

Experts haven’t yet been able to determine where the Chagall came from, she added.

“When you stand in front of the works, see the ones that were long thought to have been lost or destroyed and in a relatively good state – some of them dirty but not damaged – you have an incredible feeling of happiness,” Ms Hoffmann said.

Some 500 works have undergone at least preliminary examination. Some correspond to known works that appear to have been legally sold, although their recent whereabouts may have been unknown.

For instance, a painting by Courbet, previously in lists of his work, of a girl with a goat was found to have made its way into the collection through an auction in 1949. A Franz Marc work, Landscape with Horses, was identified as coming from an art museum in Moritzburg, Germany.

Mr Nemetz defended the delay in making the find public. He rejected calls to make images available on the internet to help potential owners, citing copyright and security concerns.