Russia to return wartime art loot to Bremen

Russia is going to return items from the so-called “Baldin collection” to Germany, Minister of Culture Mikhail Shvydkoi told reporters. When asked what Russia would get in return, Mr. Shvydkoi said: “If your purse is stolen and then returned, you can give back a quarter of its contents or just say, ‘Thank you’ in gratitude, it is up to you.”

The Minister noted that the restitution bill did not apply to this collection, because it was not taken from Germany on the orders of the Soviet military command. Viktor Baldin, a Soviet Army captain, took 362 paintings from the Bremen museum in a suitcase. For three years he kept them under his bed in his home in Zagorsk near Moscow. In 1948, Mr. Baldin presented the collection to a state museum, and in 1991 it was transferred to the State Hermitage Museum.

Read the full article here. A more extensive account is here. The paintings include works by Titian, Rembrandt, Rubens, Delacroix, Manet, Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Durer, and Goya.

Posted by David on March 18, 2003 8:46 PM