Family of Germanyโ€™s last emperor ends 99-year legal dispute over who owns art treasures


Thousands of cultural treasures from Germanyโ€™s former Hohenzollern imperial family will remain on permanent display in museums in Berlin and Brandenburg, the countryโ€™s new minister of state for culture, Wolfram Weimer, has announced..

After a dispute lasting almost 100 years, the descendants of the last German emperor have reached a landmark agreement with the federal government and with the states of Berlin and Brandenburg, he said.

โ€œThis agreement is a tremendous success for Germany as a cultural location and for the art-loving public,โ€ Weimer said in Berlin.

โ€œFor a hundred years, there has been ongoing uncertainty about objects that are central to the art and collection history of Prussia and thus to German history as a whole.โ€

German Minister of State for Culture Wolfram Weimer. Photo: dpa
German Minister of State for Culture Wolfram Weimer. Photo: dpa

The treasures include a portrait of Elector Joachim I of Brandenburg by painter Lucas Cranach the Elder and a table service for the Breslau City Palace acquired by Emperor Frederick II..

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