Nazi ‘theft’ probe in Madrid

THE Prado Museum in Madrid has been asked by a Jewish family for help in tracing a set of paintings it claims were stolen by a ‘Hitler collaborator’.
The collection contains works by Goya, Rubens and Tintoreto and lent to the museum by Amrosius Wolfgang Bauml.
The heirs to the art claim it was stolen by Hans Hoffman, German consul in Malaga until his death in 1998. Hoffman was a prominent member of the Gestapo, Germany’s secret police during Nazi times, according to a report published in El Mundo.
“We need the museum to help us find the paintings. We have been looking for 19 years,” said Giselheide Sutor, one of the heirs to the collection and a descendant of the Wertheims, who founded a famous German department store.
The heirs travelled to Madrid to meet Prado bosses, accompanied by a lawyer specialising in cases relating to the Holocaust to find out whether the paintings are stored at the museum or were transferred to other galleries.