Prof. Dr. Hans-Jürgen Papier appointed as member of the Advisory Commission for the clarification of restitution issues relating to cultural property seized as a result of Nazi persecution

Prof. Moni­ka Grüt­ters, Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment Com­mis­sion­er for Cul­ture and Me­dia, has ap­point­ed Prof. Dr Hans-Jür­gen Pa­pi­er, con­sti­tu­tion­al law ex­pert and for­mer pres­i­dent of the Fed­er­al Con­sti­tu­tion­al Court, as a mem­ber of the Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mis­sion, which was formed in 2003.

Moni­ka Grüt­ters said: “With the ap­point­ment of Prof. Pa­pi­er, the Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mis­sion has gained a dis­tin­guished in­di­vid­u­al of high moral stand­ing for its work. Thanks to his many years as pres­i­dent of the Fed­er­al Con­sti­tu­tion­al Court, Prof. Pa­pi­er has a wealth of renowned and wide­ly val­ued ex­per­tise in deal­ing with com­plex cir­cum­stances.”

The Min­is­ter of State con­tin­ued: “The Fed­er­al Re­pub­lic of Ger­many’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to crit­i­cal­ly in­ves­ti­gate and pro­vide in­for­ma­tion on the crim­i­nal acts com­mit­ted by the Na­tion­al So­cial­ists is an on­go­ing obli­ga­tion of the State; one we owe to the mil­lions of vic­tims of the Nazi reign of ter­ror. The Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mis­sion set up by the Ger­man gov­ern­ment is a cru­cial in­stru­ment of key im­por­tance when it comes to find­ing fair and just so­lu­tions in line with the Wash­ing­ton Prin­ci­ples re­gard­ing cul­tur­al prop­er­ty seized as a re­sult of Nazi per­se­cu­tion, es­pe­cial­ly Jew­ish prop­er­ty. It im­ple­ments the Joint Dec­la­ra­tion of the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment, the fed­er­al states and the lead­ing mu­nic­i­pal as­so­ci­a­tions in cas­es where resti­tu­tion is­sues are dif­fi­cult to re­solve.”

The Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment Com­mis­sion­er for Cul­ture and Me­dia nom­i­nates the Com­mis­sion mem­bers in agree­ment with the Stand­ing Con­fer­ence of Min­is­ters of Ed­u­ca­tion and Cul­tur­al Af­fairs (KMK) and the lead­ing mu­nic­i­pal as­so­ci­a­tions.Fol­low­ing his ap­point­ment, Hans-Jür­gen Pa­pi­er is the sec­ond for­mer pres­i­dent of the Fed­er­al Con­sti­tu­tion­al Court to sit on the Com­mis­sion, the first be­ing the chair of the Com­mis­sion, Jut­ta Lim­bach. The ap­point­ment be­came nec­es­sary fol­low­ing the death of the pre­vi­ous Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mis­sion mem­ber, for­mer Fed­er­al Pres­i­dent Richard von Weizsäck­er, on Jan­uary 31, 2015.

The Com­mis­sion may be called up­on to in­ter­vene in the event of dis­putes con­cern­ing the re­turn of cul­tur­al goods seized from their own­ers, who were most­ly Jew­ish, in the Third Re­ich. The Com­mis­sion me­di­ates be­tween those cur­rent­ly in pos­ses­sion of the art­works and the for­mer own­ers of these items, or their heirs, if re­quest­ed to do so by both par­ties. It then makes a bind­ing rec­om­men­da­tion as an in­de­pen­dent body. The ad­min­is­tra­tive head­quar­ters of the Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mis­sion are lo­cat­ed at the new­ly found­ed Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion in Magde­burg.

The oth­er mem­bers of the Com­mis­sion are: Prof. Ri­ta Süss­muth, Dr. Hans-Ot­to Bräutigam, Prof. Di­et­mar von der Pfordten, Prof. Rein­hard Rürup, Prof. Wolf Tegeth­off and Prof. Ur­su­la Wolf.