The former royal family of Germany and the government have reached a settlement over ownership of thousands of artworks.
On Tuesday, Wolfram Weimer, Germany’s newly-appointed Minister of State for Culture, announced that a settlement had been reached between the federal government and the states of Berlin and Brandenburg. According to the deal, the nearly 27,000 artworks in the collection would remain in the public domain of the country. Museums like the Prussian Central Heritage Foundation and German Historical Museum would continue displaying some of the most spectacular works from the collection, like an 18th-century table service commissioned by Frederick II.
In 1918, as World War I ended, Germany also saw the collapse of the royal family. In 1926, the House of Hohenzollern and the government (then-state of Prussia) reached a settlement over property ownership. However, the property that was seized before this settlement remained contentious, and its ownership was never firmly established.
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In 2014, Georg Friedrich, who holds the title of Prince of Prussia and is a great-great-grandson of Kaiser Wilhelm II, took a legal approach for restitution and financial compensation over the artworks. In 2023, the royal family took back the lawsuits but continued the discussions via backchannels. It has now reached a settlement, though it was not disclosed what the royal family got in return.
