Cultural property of national significance
Since 1919, Germany has operated a register-based system for preventing the exodus of cultural property from the country. Each Land maintains a register of cultural property of national significance, and entries can be made in these registers only if the criteria provided for in this connection have been met and an expert committee has voted in favour of the entry.
The previous 1955 German Act to Prevent the Exodus of German Cultural Property (Gesetz zum Schutz deutschen Kulturgutes gegen Abwanderung, KultgSchG) did not, however, define cultural property “of national significance”. The only reference points were to be found in a recommendation by the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Länder that did not have binding legal force.
Statutory criteria for entry
The Länder have always taken a restrictive approach to the entry of cultural objects. Over 60 years after the introduction of the system, the registers contain only around 2,700 entries in total, some of which originate from the lists in existence before 1955.
The legislator included fixed legislative criteria in the German Act on the Protection of Cultural Property (Kulturgutschutzgesetz, KGSG) that are of decisive importance when categorizing cultural property as being “of national significance”. Pursuant to Section 7 (1) KGSG, the supreme Land authority must enter cultural property in a register of cultural property of national significance:
“[…] if it is particularly significant for the cultural heritage of Germany, its Länder or one of its historical regions and thus formative for Germany’s cultural identity; and […] if its removal would be a significant loss for Germany’s cultural heritage so that keeping it in the federal territory is of outstanding cultural public interest.”
It is explicitly stated that these provisions do not extend the scope of the criteria for entry that applied until 2016; instead, they merely clarify them.
Cultural property qualifies as being of national significance only if it is particularly significant and formative for Germany’s cultural identity. This special individual protection is not automatically conferred upon all cultural objects of major historical, artistic or scientific significance; only individual works that are particularly outstanding come under consideration for entry.
Source: Landesamt für Denkmalpflege und Archäologie Sachsen-Anhalt, Juraj Lipták
The very select number of objects bearing witness to cultural life and creation that fall under this heading include extremely rare archaeological artefacts such as the Nebra Sky Disc, unique documentary works such as Alexander von Humboldt’s handwritten travel journals, or individual Gutenberg Bibles that serve as evidence of the early stages of letterpress printing.
Detailed information on the history of the register-based system, the criteria for entry and the legal context can be found in the Guidance on the Act on the Protection of Cultural Property (available in German), from page 131 onwards.
The cultural objects currently deemed by Germany to be cultural property of national significance can be inspected in the database of protected cultural property on this website.
More transparent procedures
The Act on the Protection of Cultural Property increased the transparency of the entry procedure:
- Only a restricted group of parties have the right to submit an application for initiation of an entry procedure; such applications can be submitted only on an ex officio basis or by the owner himself or herself. Institutions responsible for preserving cultural property, for example museums to which an object has been loaned, are no longer eligible to submit applications.
- The expert committees are not obliged to follow instructions. These committees are made up of equal numbers of qualified representatives of institutions responsible for preserving cultural property, academics, art dealers, antiquarians and private collectors.
- Details of the composition of the expert committees are published on this website.
- Involvement of the expert committee and consultation of the owner are both mandatory.
- Works by living creators or originators may be entered only with their consent. This applies both to works that are in the possession of a living creator or originator and to those that have since passed into the private ownership of third parties.
- A decision for or against entry must be taken no later than six months after the entry procedure is initiated. If a decision is not taken within this period, the procedure will be deemed to have been closed without an entry. There are only a limited number of cases in which a new entry procedure can then be initiated.
- Cultural property that has been entered into a register of cultural property of national significance can be deleted again if there has been a significant change in the circumstances that led to its entry.
Additional safeguards for owners
The Act on the Protection of Cultural Property also contains further options for increasing the level of certainty. For example, under certain circumstances and if a legitimate interest can be proven, the owner can apply for it to be established in a binding manner that the cultural objects belonging to him or her do not meet the statutory criteria for entry in a register of cultural property of national significance (“confirmation of exempt status”, Section 14 (7) KGSG).
The Act on the Protection of Cultural Property also contains provisions that grant similar protection for lenders based abroad. A binding assurance that the cultural object will not be entered into a register of cultural property of national significance can be provided for the duration of a loan agreement with an institution responsible for preserving cultural property in Germany (Section 10 (7) KGSG).
Further related information can be found in the section entitled What are the implications of the Act on the Protection of Cultural Property for ... collectors?