Arts and Cultural Heritage Restitution

This report summarizes an Institute for Security Studies (ISS) seminar held on June 17, 2009, in Pretoria. The session, featuring historian Stefan August Lütgenau and respondent Issake Souaré, examined the complexities of arts and cultural heritage restitution, focusing on Austria's post-WWII experience with Nazi-looted assets and the broader challenges of returningCS colonial looting in Africa.

• Austria's post-1945 restitution efforts were initially delayed by the 'victim theory,' which posited that Austria was the 'first victim of Hitlerism' and therefore not responsible for Nazi-regime unlawful acts. This discourse, combined with a structural underestimation of the scale of Nazi dispossession, limited early restitution to properties physically present in Austria, such as real estate, while neglecting those forced into exile or murdered in the Shoah.
• External pressures, including US pressure in 1946, class action lawsuits in 1998 regarding 'dormant accounts,' and the 1998 confiscation of Schiele paintings in New York, forced a shift in Austrian policy. This led to a 1998 art restitution law requiring federal museums to conduct provenance research on holdings with a Nazi looting history and a 2001 process toS to address neglected cases like forced labour and leasehold rights.

APA

Kleingeld, J., Larsen, J., & Mbadlanyana, T. (2009). Arts and Cultural Heritage Restitution. Institute for Security Studies. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/ARTSEMREPJUN09.PDF

Chicago

Kleingeld, Jesper, Jimmi Larsen, and Thembani Mbadlanyana. Arts and Cultural Heritage Restitution. Institute for Security Studies, 2009. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/ARTSEMREPJUN09.PDF.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Kleingeld |first1=Jesper |last2=Larsen |first2=Jimmi |last3=Mbadlanyana |first3=Thembani |title=Arts and Cultural Heritage Restitution |publisher=Institute for Security Studies |date=June 2009 |url=https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/ARTSEMREPJUN09.PDF |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{kleingeld2009arts, author = {Kleingeld, Jesper and Larsen, Jimmi and Mbadlanyana, Thembani}, title = {{Arts and Cultural Heritage Restitution}}, institution = {Institute for Security Studies}, year = {2009}, month = jun, url = {https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/ARTSEMREPJUN09.PDF}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }