The Nazi Art Trove: Law on the Side of Property Theft? Statutes of Limitation, Legal Unconscionability (Sittenwidrigkeit) in Germany

Yes, the paintings were stolen, but time has run....

Since when is a statute of limitations a protection against the unconscionability (Sittenwidrigkeit) of the retention of stolen property, knowingly, unknowingly, or "any sane person would have known it was stolen - situation"?

This issue turns up for this author in the face of the following article at ABC News: Claims on German Art Trove Face Legal Hurdles.

These kinds of situations show how far from the objective of simple "justice" the provisions of the laws are, with falsely legislated, wrongly understood and stupidly enforced statutes of limitation among the worst offenders, hardly ever protecting victims, but often serving the interests of wrongdoers.

Christie's Auctioned Francis Bacon TripTych Sets Money Record for Artwork

You know the financial system and the order of values in the country are totally out of whack when one "art" piece fetches more money at a Christie's auction than the TOTAL annual Congressional appropriation for the National Endowment for the Arts.

This also shows just how misinformed the people in Congress and state legislatures are, who are quick to cut government expenses by starting especially at the doors of the arts and sciences, without having any conception of how value is created in society, how the markets work and what the rich spend their money on, when the have that money

Legislatures are full of people long on theory and short on pragmatism.

If political reactionaries are going to support a society totally skewed toward the top in terms of the distribution of income and wealth, then they had better support the disciplines that create the people who produce the products that the wealthy purchase -- mirroring market forces that thus serve as a voluntary form for the "redistribution" of money toward the poorer sectors.

The rich do not "buy" poverty -- but they do buy what poverty produces, and art is at the top of the list.

Rather than reading the partisan dailies, the misguided might be better off reading the leading publications on art news.

For a starter, take a look at the New York Times: Art Is Hard to See Through the Clutter of Dollar Signs.