This Doesn’t Look Like Pismo Beach

Looks like somebody is channeling Daffy Duck

BERLIN—The Munich man from whom German authorities confiscated an art trove they believe includes Nazi-looted works broke his silence, saying he isn’t willing to return any of the art to previous owners, including pieces taken from Jews.

“I will not speak with them, and I won’t freely give anything back, no, no,” Cornelius Gurlitt, 80, said to German weekly Der Spiegel of reports that government officials are working to negotiate settlements for many of the works. “When I’m dead they can do with them what they want.”

Mr. Gurlitt’s comments—the first he has made on the wartime art stash discovered in his apartment and his intentions—came after Bavaria’s justice minister, whose office is overseeing the investigation, said Friday he hoped to reach a settlement with Mr. Gurlitt to avoid a lengthy legal fight and expedite restitution.

Here’s a nice chilling line from the article

He became the subject of a Bavarian tax probe after authorities in autumn 2010 searched him as part of a routine border check on a train from Switzerland to Germany and noted he was carrying €9,000 ($12,140) in cash?just below the €10,000 legal limit, prosecutors have said.

Think about that.

And think about how politicized the IRS has become.

categories Fun, Morality | | datetime November 18, 2013 7:06 am

4 Responses to “This Doesn’t Look Like Pismo Beach”

  1. leelu says:
    November 18, 2013 at 10:13 am

    Soooo, not ten thousand, but ten thousand-ish??

    It would be a wonderful thing to get the art back to its original owners (or their heirs), but it seems his detention was shall we say “shaky”.

  2. Skyler says:
    November 18, 2013 at 1:01 pm

    So, hast du nicht verstehen? Ven ve say das it is verboten to have €10,000, what you should understand is that we do not want you to have €9,000. Und if you want to have €8,000 then you will be also a suspect. In fact, if you have €7,000 then you muss auch show deine papiere.

    Ve have vays of making you talk.

  3. Greg Newsom says:
    November 19, 2013 at 12:37 am

    Aren’t all the Nazis dead? If he’s 85, then he was 27 when the war ended.
    This is all about selling magazines and books.Anything Nazi still means big news and money.

  4. JeffS says:
    November 19, 2013 at 9:43 am

    Greg, it seems that he “inherited” this collection from his father, who was a major player in the Nazi looting scheme.

Image | WordPress Themes