The Federal Government of Germany’s newly established arbitration court commenced its operations on Monday, aiming to streamline the return of cultural property seized during the Nazi era.
The court replaces the long-standing Advisory Commission, commonly known as the Limbach Commission, which was launched in 2003. It introduces unilateral appealability, allowing either party to appeal without the other’s consent. This marks a departure from the previous framework, under which both sides has to agree before an appeal could proceed. For the first time, Holocaust survivors and their legal heirs can directly initiate arbitration proceedings to reclaim artworks and other cultural assets, particularly from public collections.
Created through an administrative agreement between the federal government, the German states, and municipal associations on March 26, the court comprises 36 arbitrators. It is co-chaired by former European Court of Human Rights judge Elisabeth Steiner and former Saarland minister-president and Federal Constitutional Court judge Peter Müller. Based in Berlin, the arbitration office functions as a formal secretariat and operates under strict procedural rules intended to ensure transparency and consistency throughout the process.
The arbitration panels will issue binding decisions guided by a structured evaluation framework that allows for evidentiary simplifications and legal presumptions. This framework is aimed at the quick resolution of long-standing restitution disputes, nearly eight decades after the end of the Second World Word.
During the Nazi regime, countless Jewish families were dispossessed of cultural property, including paintings, books, furniture, and other personal items. In 1998, Germany, along with 43 other countries, signed the Washington Principles to address the restitution of art and cultural property. Since then, provenance research in German museums, libraries, and archives has resulted in the return of more than 7,700 artworks, 27,500 books, and thousands of archival objects. Yet the Advisory Commission provided limited scope: in over 20 years, it resolved just 26 cases. Hans-Jürgen Papier, who chaired the Commission in 2017 and previously served as president of Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court described the process as “unworthy quarrel over works of art,” citing the Commission’s lack of authority to issue binding decisions.
Among the notable cases now affected by the reform is Picasso’s Madame Soler. After 16 years of unsuccessful attempts to recover the painting from the Bavarian State Painting Collections, the heirs of Jewish banker Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy are now able to pursue their claim directly against the museums, which had previously resisted. Federal and state museums, including the Bavarian State Painting Collection, the Hamburger Kunsthalle, and the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, have endorsed the new system. However, thus far fewer than 50 of Germany’s 11,000 municipalities have formally joined the initiative.
Meanwhile, Max Beckmann’s The Night and numerous other restitution claims are pending before the new tribunals. Lawyers remain divided over what the tribunal’s first judgments will signal for the future of Nazi-era restitution in Germany.
