Germany and the US express joint commitment to intensifying efforts to implement the Washington Principles

To mark the 20th an­niver­sary of the Wash­ing­ton Con­fer­ence in De­cem­ber, Moni­ka Grüt­ters, Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment Com­mis­sion­er for Cul­ture and Me­dia, and Michelle Mün­te­fer­ing, Min­is­ter of State at the Fed­er­al For­eign Of­fice, have em­pha­sized how im­por­tant im­ple­ment­ing the Wash­ing­ton Prin­ci­ples of 1998 con­tin­ues to be for both coun­tries.

Up­on sign­ing a Joint Dec­la­ra­tion with Stu­art Eizen­stat, Spe­cial Ad­vis­er for Holo­caust Is­sues at the US State De­part­ment, and Thomas Yazdger­di, US Spe­cial En­voy for Holo­caust Is­sues, Min­is­ter of State Moni­ka Grüt­ters is­sued the fol­low­ing state­ment: “Twen­ty years ago, on the ini­tia­tive of the Unit­ed States, the Wash­ing­ton Con­fer­ence took place. At the con­fer­ence, Ger­many, the Unit­ed States and 42 oth­er coun­tries agreed to con­duct re­search in­to cul­tur­al ob­jects seized as a re­sult of Nazi per­se­cu­tion and to find just and fair so­lu­tions. In­ves­ti­gat­ing art theft by the Na­tion­al So­cial­ists is a last­ing obli­ga­tion, es­pe­cial­ly for Ger­many. And in twen­ty years from now, we will not cease our ef­forts to ful­fill this re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.”

The Min­is­ter of State, Michelle Mün­te­fer­ing, is­sued the fol­low­ing state­ment: “Ger­many’s for­eign pol­i­cy is con­duct­ed in aware­ness of the his­tor­i­cal re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the un­prece­dent­ed crimes of Na­tion­al So­cial­ism. For Ger­many, it is par­tic­u­lar­ly im­por­tant to pro­mote aware­ness of the Holo­caust and to learn lessons from this—for our sake and for the sake of fu­ture gen­er­a­tions. Great ef­forts are be­ing made in this area, es­pe­cial­ly in the field of ed­u­ca­tion, and these are be­ing sup­ple­ment­ed by the new pro­gram ‘Ju­gend erin­nert’ (Young peo­ple re­mem­ber). Pro­vid­ing com­pen­sa­tion for the in­jus­tices suf­fered un­der the Na­tion­al So­cial­ist regime con­tin­ues to be an im­por­tant is­sue for the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment. Twen­ty years af­ter the Wash­ing­ton Con­fer­ence, in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to Nazi art theft are still on­go­ing.”

From Novem­ber 26 to 28, the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion, to­geth­er with the Prus­sian Cul­tur­al Her­itage Foun­da­tion and the Cul­tur­al Foun­da­tion of the Ger­man Fed­er­al States, will host an in­ter­na­tion­al sym­po­sium in Berlin en­ti­tled “20 Years of the Wash­ing­ton Prin­ci­ples: Roadmap for the Fu­ture” to mark the an­niver­sary of the Wash­ing­ton Con­fer­ence. The con­fer­ence is in­tend­ed to pro­vide an op­por­tu­ni­ty to take stock of what has been achieved so far and to de­vel­op the next steps to­wards im­ple­ment­ing the Wash­ing­ton Prin­ci­ples.

Moni­ka Grüt­ters said: “We will use this con­fer­ence to ini­ti­ate fur­ther mea­sures to fa­cil­i­tate fair and just so­lu­tions for the ben­e­fit of the vic­tims and their fam­i­lies. Our Joint Dec­la­ra­tion is an ex­pres­sion of our de­ter­mi­na­tion and our will to make fur­ther progress pos­si­ble. We there­by ac­knowl­edge what has been achieved so far and reaf­firm our re­solve to con­tin­ue to shed light on Nazi art theft.”

The joint­ly signed dec­la­ra­tion is avail­able at www.kul­turstaatsmin­is­terin.de (Ger­man on­ly).