Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.life From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Dutch find treasure trove of stolen art Date: Sat, 14 Nov 92 16:22:11 EST Message-ID: \SE B;LIFE \SS (WS) \HD Dutch find treasure trove of stolen art \BY Ben Hirschler \CR REUTERS NEWS AGENCY \DT AMSTERDAM, Netherlands AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - After a short drive to a secret Moscow location last week, Dutch ambassador Joris Vos was shown into a room in a museum and told to begin opening boxes. Inside lay hundreds of old master drawings snatched by the Nazis from Rotterdam during World War II and not seen in public for more than 50 years. It was a bittersweet moment. The drawings were in excellent condition - but more than a quarter were missing. Mr. Vos had hoped to find 490 works by artists including Rembrandt, Rubens, Titian and Durer. There were just 360. The end of the Cold War and the spirit of "glasnost" is at last opening doors in the search for art treasures looted by Soviet troops in the dark days at the end of the war. But after such a long time, art experts fear many pieces have been spirited away by corrupt officials. Some are believed to have fallen into the hands of unscrupulous private collectors in the West. Robert de Haas, director of the Netherlands Office for Fine Arts, has spearheaded the hunt for the Rotterdam drawings collected in the 1920s by Haarlem businessman Franz Koenigs. After decades of detective work, he has long been convinced the drawings ended up in the Soviet Union after they were taken by the Red Army from a castle near Dresden, Germany. Some losses probably were inevitable, given the value of the works and the temptation of illicit sales, he says. "We realized that quite a lot of drawings would be missing. I believe they probably went missing decades ago, and it's quite possible some of them ended up in private collections," he says. Alexei Rastorguyev, art historian at Moscow State University, believes many were sold by army officers or Soviet officials shortly after the war. "I have seen with my own eyes two drawings from the collection in a private collection," Dutch newspapers quoted him as saying. "These people paid money for them at the time. And they are not planning to give them back for nothing just because of the Dutch claim." But Mr. de Haas prefers to look on the bright side, emphasizing the important precedent set by Moscow in finally admitting it has the bulk of the drawings after denying it for decades. "Over two-thirds have been found, which is the most important thing," he says. The news has raised hopes for the return of other treasures, including the gold of King Priam of Troy, excavated by German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann in 1873. This priceless collection of crowns, jewels and artifacts probably was the most valuable booty taken by the Red Army at the end of World War II. Mr. de Haas is optimistic that what remains of the Koenigs collection will return to the Netherlands next year after being exhibited in Moscow next month or early in 1993. He says he received a guarantee from Russian Culture Minister Yevgeny Sidorov during talks in Moscow last month that the works will go to their rightful owners according to international law. And on that basis he is convinced the Netherlands has a cast-iron claim, thanks to a 1943 decree by the allied powers annulling all transactions with the Germans in occupied countries. A total of 526 drawings were originally removed from Rotterdam's Museum Boyman in March 1941 by Hans Posse, Adolf Hitler's personal art collector. They were destined for a planned Fuehrer Museum in the Austrian town of Linz where Hitler spent part of his youth. But they never got there. Dutch investigators believe the Germans stored them in Castle Weesenstein outside Dresden, from where they were looted by Soviet troops in May 1945. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM