Merkel visit overshadowed by arts row

(Vatican Radio) Germany's Angela Merkel and Russia's Vladimir Putin have agreed to visit an exhibition featuring disputed artwork, despite reports of a row between the two leaders. Earlier, German sources with close knowledge about the situation, said their planned opening of the exhibition in St Petersburg had been cancelled.

The German chancellor had reportedly planned to mention the seizure of German art by the former Soviet Union during the Second World War.

However, Putin told reporters, at a news conference with the German leader: "In the evening we are visiting the exhibition at the Hermitage Museum. We had not cancelled anything, we just wanted to see if we would have enough time."

Merkel added: "We have agreed to go to the Hermitage. It is an important exhibition." It appeared as somewhat of a U-turn, after even a German government spokesman said in a statement that the visit was ditched after Russia made clear
there wasn’t enough time for Merkel to give her opening remarks.

ECONOMIC FORUM

The controversy overshadowed Merkel's visit to St Petersburg, where she was due to address the annual St Petersburg International Economic Forum, before the opening of the exhibition.

The two countries are in an ongoing dispute over whether works of art taken by Soviet forces during the Second World War should be returned to Germany.


The exhibition, “Bronze Age -- Europe Without Borders”, at the Hermitage from June 21 to Sept. 8, includes about 600 objects taken to Russia from Berlin either during or at the end of the war, when Joseph Stalin’s Red Army rolled into the defeated Third Reich’s capitol. After the war, museums in Soviet-occupied eastern Germany were left with almost nothing.

About 2.5 million items were packed
up and sent to the then-Soviet Union.

TRAIN CARS

In an act of friendship to communist East Germany in 1958, 300 train cars from Moscow and St Petersburg brought back art treasures. Yet one million pieces are still missing, including the Bronze-Age gold treasure of Eberswalde, which is to be
exhibited at the Hermitage exhibit for the first time since the war ended in 1945.

One gallery alone in Berlin lost 441 pictures, including masterworks by Rubens and Caravaggio.

Russia has defended its reluctance to return the artworks, saying they were paid for with the blood of Russian soldiers and that it also lost many paintings that were looted by the Nazis.

The controversy comes at a time when Merkel will run for re-election on 22 September and wants to be seen as a determined politician.

Written by Stefan Bos