© Alina Simmelbauer
Under National Socialism, hundreds of thousands of cultural assets were forcibly sold, stolen, expropriated. The Allied restitution legislation attempted to reverse this theft. The project examines the principles practiced at the time and their afterlife in the so-called "Handreichung".
A commentary on restitution practice
Taking into account historical jurisprudence and results of current research, the normative foundations of restitution since the 1998 Washington Conference are analyzed to provide a historically informed commentary on the "Handreichung".
Sensitization with multidisciplinary access
The project adopts the legal method of commentary, but expands it in an interdisciplinary way. Only the systematic combination of legal, art historical and economic historical approaches facilitates a comprehensive evaluation of the current restitution practice.
The results of this research will not just be published, but also made the subject of a continuing education program in order to achieve a lasting sensitization of the players in the field of "provenance research and restitution".
The project is based at the Chair of Civil Law and Modern Legal History at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder). Viadrina stands for research and teaching which reflects and transcends the boundaries of disciplines.