Germany and Poland in dispute over looted cultural assets

Germany and Poland have been in discussions since 1992 about the mutual handover of numerous cultural assets that were either confiscated or destroyed during World War II. Former Polish Foreign Minister Władysław Bartoszewski says he is outraged about yesterday's article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung under the headline, "The last German prisoners of war": "That is a particularly irritating matter. I myself have been dealing with it. If the talks fell apart, it wasn't Poland's fault. The blame can be placed on Germany's former Red-Green coalition government. In fact, we rescued a lot of German cultural assets from being destroyed or stolen by the Red Army. And then for many years we worked on restoration, and preserved documents and books. This article is even worse when you realize that the Germans themselves have never returned the cultural assets they stole from Poland."

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