Zurich, Switzerland – Paintings from a Swiss bank safe linked to a notorious Nazi art thief have been confiscated as part of an investigation into whether the heir of a Jewish art collector was blackmailed, authorities said.
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The Zurich prosecutor’s office said it raided the safe as part of a three-nation probe of a German art dealer accused of conspiring with an American art historian to withhold a painting from its rightful owner unless she paid a finder’s fee equal to 18 percent of its value.
Prosecutor Ivo Hoppler said the safe was rented by a trust based in the neighboring principality of Liechtenstein and was accessed by Bruno Lohse, who spirited away art from all over Europe during World War II on behalf of Hermann Goering, Hitler’s top aide.
Lohse died two months ago in Munich.
Zurich officials were acting on a judicial assistance request from Munich prosecutors, who are investigating how the unidentified art dealer obtained some paintings.
The painting was stolen from Jewish publisher Samuel Fischer in 1938. The investigation began on a complaint from his niece, who was not identified. The estimated the value of the painting at $6.7 million. That would put the fee demanded by the men at $1.2 million. [Haaretz]