Returning protected cultural property
International protection of cultural property is based on the principle that cultural property which has been illegally removed from its country of origin cannot be legally imported into Germany. If cultural property nonetheless reaches Germany illegally, the country of origin is entitled to restitution under certain conditions defined by law. Returns of cultural property are vital to preserving the cultural heritage and cultural identity of countries of origin and societies of origin.
With the entry into force of Germany’s Act on the Protection of Cultural Property (Kulturgutschutzgesetz, KGSG) in 2016, a new legal framework was established, which has led to a substantial increase in returns: while not a single return took place under the 2007 Act on the Return of Cultural Property (Kulturgüterrückgabegesetz, KultGüRückG) because it set too high a threshold for entitlement to restitution, more than a thousand objects have already been returned to their countries of origin in just a few years since the KGSG entered into force. These include both returns made on the basis of the new law and returns that were made on the basis of an agreement reached despite the lack of legal entitlement to return.
Successful return processes require close international and interdisciplinary cooperation among the relevant authorities. The following selected returns of cultural property offer examples of this successful cooperation:
On 18 March 2022, Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth returned to Italy five artefacts that had been illegally traded in Germany. At the Italian Embassy in Berlin, she handed over a small solid-gold coin, a large-format painting, a medieval manuscript, an ancient wine-mixing vessel (known as a krater) and a miniature parchment from the 16th century. The five objects were smuggled out of their home country, Italy; some had been missing for decades before they were finally discovered in Germany.
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: Various cultural objects returned to Italy …
In the course of investigative excavations conducted in November 2020, the Saxony-Anhalt Criminal Police Office unearthed a plastic tank with a volume of one cubic metre which had lain buried under a residential house for fourteen years. Among other things, the tank contained thirteen Mayan artefacts from present-day Mexico and Guatemala, the authenticity of which was scientifically verified.
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: Mayan artefacts returned to Mexico and Guatemala …
During a routine traffic control in Bavaria in April 2011, two police officers discovered a bag containing more than one hundred ancient coins in the glove compartment of a car. In the engine compartment, they found another seven hundred coins, a vase and a cloak pin (known as a fibula). Subsequent scientific research revealed that all of the objects were original antiquities stemming from an illicit excavation in Bulgaria.
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: Ancient coins returned to Bulgaria …
In June 2023, at an official ceremony at the Carabinieri headquarters in Rome, the German Ambassador to Italy and representatives of the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media and the Bavarian Criminal Police Office returned artefacts to Italy. The artefacts had been illegally removed from Italy and some of them had been stolen or illegally excavated.
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: Bronze helmet and additional artefacts returned to Italy …
Two burial masks and two limestone reliefs apparently stemming from the Late Period of ancient Egypt were discovered by chance in southern Germany in the summer of 2017. An expert opinion confirmed that the reliefs, which feature hieroglyphs, were formerly part of the rock tomb of the vizier Bakenrenef in Saggara and originated from the 26th dynasty (740 to 525 BC). The two burial masks, which represent two heads, are significantly older and date from the time between 1300 and 1500 BC.
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: Burial masks and stone reliefs returned to Egypt …
A Roman bust from circa AD 50, which portrays Antonia Minor (“Antonia the Younger”), was stolen from the Castle-Palace (Castillo-Palacio de los Ribera) in the Andalusian village of Bornos in 2010. Eight years later, a Spanish archaeology professor discovered the stolen bust by chance in an exhibition.
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: Ancient marble bust of Antonia Minor returned to Spain …
On 14 March 1994, inhabitants of the Czech village of Kozojedy discovered that an angel figure was missing from the 18th-century altar of the baroque Chapel of St. Wenceslas, which the figure had adorned for hundreds of years.
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: Wooden angel will once again adorn Czech church …
In September 2021, two clay figures, a figurine and a handled vessel were returned to the United Mexican States. The figures are attributed to the Teotihuacán culture of the Valley of Mexico and are presumed to date from between AD 200 and 600.
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: Clay figures returned to Mexico …
In 1990, an icon depicting the archangel Michael was stolen from the Museum of Warmia and Masuria in Poland; the icon’s elaborate frame, which was decorated with silver and precious stones, was also stolen. In summer 2020, an employee of the Museum of Warmia and Masuria happened upon an object on the website of the Recklinghausen Icon Museum in Germany.
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: Icon of archangel Michael returned to Poland …
