1,500 lost works of art worth perhaps €1billion found in Munich flat

"The current issue of the German magazine Focus carries the story of this extraordinary find, made in spring 2011 by tax authorities who went to a flat in the Schwabing neighbourhood of Munich. According to the magazine, the discovery was treated as a “highly political secret” by the Munich authorities, who knew that its announcement would provoke a flood of restitution claims. Apparently claims were already on record for 200 of the works by people hopeful that they would one day turn up. These include TV journalist Anne Sinclair, granddaughter of the Jewish art dealer Paul Rosenberg and wife of the French banker and politician Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Three hundred of the works belonged to the list of “Degenerate Art” compiled by the Nazis. Meike Hoffmann of the Freie Universität, Berlin, is currently studying the provenance of all 1500 pieces and assessing their value."

Anna Somers Cocks, The Art Newspaper, November 4, 2013, http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/I-lost-works-of-art-worth-perhaps-billion-found-in-Munich-flat/30999.