‘Looted’ art spat overshadows Merkel visit to Putin
“Uproar about looted art”, “Putin is a miserable diplomat”, “Looted art scandal overshadows Russia trip”, wrote Germany’s incensed media, calling it a sign of deteriorating relations between the two countries.
Merkel flew to Russia to address an economic forum in St Petersburg hosted by Putin and was going to join him last night to open an exhibition entitled The Bronze Age of Europe: Europe Without Borders at the Hermitage museum.
But German government spokesman Georg Streiter said Russia had called off the event arguing that “it was impossible for the host to find the time”.
Asked what Merkel had planned to say when she inaugurated the show, Streiter said: “She would perhaps have once more referred to the German position on the issue of ‘looted art’.”
According to Berlin’s Humboldt University, the Soviets plundered more than a million books and thousands of pieces of “Beutekunst”, or “looted art”, at the end of the World War Two. Many pieces have still not been tracked down.
The exhibition was to include “trophy art”, items carried off by the Soviet Union as war reparations that Germany would now like back.
“The opening of the exhibition... would have been a lovely occasion to highlight our close cultural co-operation,” said Streiter. The exhibition opens to the public today, the anniversary of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.
Tension between Berlin and Moscow was apparent when Putin visited the Hanover trade fair in April.
Merkel, who grew up in communist East Germany, criticised his crackdown on foreign NGOs saying: “A lively civil society can only emerge when individuals can operate without fear or worry, of course on the basis of law.”
Her openly gay foreign minister Guido Westerwelle, also protested about a new law against homosexual “propaganda”.
But Germany has to keep up good ties with Russia because of its dependency on Russian natural gas. Merkel says maintaining a dialogue is the best way to improve civil rights in Russia.
Meanwhile, Putin said he had no recollection of allegedly stealing the Super Bowl ring belonging to the National Football League’s New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft.
The New York Post reported on June 14 that Kraft told a US audience that he had met Putin in 2005 and showed him the $25,000 (€19,000) ring team players and owners are awarded for winning the US football league final.
Kraft said Putin took the ring and slipped it in his pocket after first joking that “I could kill someone with this ring”.
