Back

The Spoils: A Fight for Nazi-Looted Art and the Weight of the Burden of Proof

February 25, 2026

Poster for The Spoils (2024), directed by Jamie Kastner

By Savannah Weiler

Jamie Kastner’s 2024 documentary The Spoils explores the complex negotiations and setbacks Nazi-era restitution claimants face today, with negotiations and legal battles taking on increasingly politically motivated formats. The documentary follows the restitution negotiations between the Max Stern Art Restitution Project (MSARP) and the Stadtmuseum and Kunstpalast Düsseldorf for two paintings by the German painter Friedrich Wilhelm von Schadow. According to the MSARP, these were both owned by Max Stern before the forcible liquidation of his gallery in 1937.^{^[1]} The documentary presents a series of protagonists and antagonists in the MSARP’s legal battles for restitution, laying bare the complex, often obscured, allegiances of some of the parties involved. We learn about the life of Max Stern, German-Jewish art dealer from Düsseldorf, and through the use of archival cinema and materials, are painfully reminded of the extent and methodicism with which German-Jewish business owners were stripped of their businesses and civil rights in the period of 1933 to 1945.

The Spoils was first released in January 2024 at the New York Jewish Film Festival, and has since been screened at a variety of other film festivals across the globe. Jamie Kastner has created a wide range of other films and documentaries, amongst them There Are No Fakes, a documentary narrating the forgery scandal surrounding the work of Canadian Indigenous artist Norval Morrisseau. The raw footage for this film was used by the Ontario Police in its investigation into the forgeries. It seems Kastner has again set his sights on scandals in the art world with The Spoils, in which he showcases many voices from the MSARP, as well as lawyers, politicians and curators. It uses footage filmed both in Canada and Düsseldorf taken over a period of ten years, as well as archival footage of Nazi-era Germany and voice recordings of Max Stern. All together, this results in a solid argument in favour of the case of the Max Stern Restitution Project, while faithfully showcasing the nuances and challenges involved in restitution cases such as these.

Max Stern and the Max Stern Art Restitution Project

The documentary retells the life of Max Stern, focusing on his art dealership in Düsseldorf and the events that led to sale of his entire stock of paintings under duress at Kunsthaus Lempertz in Cologne in 1937. Born into an art-dealing family and having inherited Stern Gallery in 1934 from his father, MSARP’s Willi Korte describes the works Stern sold as more “middle class” pieces that would “match your wallpaper”.^{^[2]} Perhaps this is why they have become so difficult to trace, he speculates.^{^[3]} Other expert voices featured in the film are that of Dr Clarence Epstein of the MSARP; Philip Dombrowsky, the principal archivist of the Max Stern Archives held at the National Gallery of Canada, and Marc Masurovsky of the MSARP, who has also been a guest speaker at the Center’s 2025 Nazi-Era Disputed Art: Research and Restitution Conference.

These speakers make a compelling case that Max Stern did not dispose of his collection of art voluntarily. He was made to sell it all under immense financial and political duress in the aftermath of being faced with a berufsverbot, barring him and many other German Jews from practicing their professions, as well as the imposed aryanization of his assets. He sold his entire collection of paintings at Lempertz auction house at below-market prices and never saw the profits of this, as his assets and bank account were frozen by the Nazi administration. Henrik Rolf Hanstein, current owner of Lempertz whose grandfather was in charge of Lempertz during the auction of Max Stern’s estate, recounts that Stern was present at this auction, and that Stern and Hanstein’s grandfather had an amicable relationship.^{^[4]} Representatives of the MSARP disagree.

Stern left Germany for Canada, via the United Kingdom, in 1937^{^[5]}. He opened the successful Dominion Gallery in Montreal, and went on to donate several tableaus to Canadian art institutions and support a new generation of Canadian artists.^{^[6]} After his death in 1987, he donated his estate to the McGill and Concordia University in Canada and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. These universities came together to form the Max Stern Art Restitution Project in 2002, aiming to resume Stern’s efforts to recover his lost paintings, which Stern himself had begun in 1948.^{^[7]}

The Spoils (2024) and The Proposed Max Stern Exhibition

The film begins by portraying the very amicable relationships between Dr Susanne Anna, director of the Stadtmuseum Düsseldorf, and the MSARP. At a restoration ceremony for Wilhelm von Schadow’s Selfportrait, hosted at the Stadtsmuseum Düsseldorf in 2014, Dr Anna proudly presents this painting as the first restitution of its kind by a German museum and goes on to further wholeheartedly support museums’ cooperation in restitution efforts. After this, the MSARP and Stadtmuseum enter a partnership to host a large exhibition on Max Stern and his life, including documenting every painting that is still lost. This, however, is brought to an abrupt end, when the exhibit is cancelled by Düsseldorf’s mayor without clear reason weeks before it was meant to open.

What follows is a series of interviews with local politicians, including the town’s mayor Thomas Geisel, as well as the lawyer Ludwig von Pufendorf, who has represented a string of museums in various restitution cases. The shock termination of the exhibition is met with questions and indignation from the international art and Jewish community. Interviews reveal the confusing, and ever-changing reasoning given behind the exhibition’s termination, and it becomes clear that Dr Anna did not have much say in the matter. Though agreeing to sit with the film crew for the documentary for a maximum of thirty minutes, Geisel spends the first twenty minutes talking about the history of Düsseldorf and the other ten evading questions asked by the film crew. Under the direction of staff appointed by Geisel and Pufendorf, a new Max Stern Exhibition is planned without support from the MSARP, the Düsseldorf Jewish Community, and with what seems to be deliberate omission of Dr Anna from the entire process. Throughout the film, it becomes more and more difficult to understand who is making the decisions in this process.

Die Kinder des Künstlers

Center for Art Law Savannah Weiler KINDER DES KUNSTLER KUNSTPALAST — Painting on display in Düsseldorf.

The film also narrates the MSARP’s restitution case against the Kunstpalast Düsseldorf for Schadow’s Die Kinder des Künstlers. The MSARP’s long negotiations with varying civil servants and museum officials again make clear how many competing motivations are at play during these negotiations. The museum, represented by Herr Pufendorf, finally agrees to a restitution for Die Kinder der Künstlers, though stating specifically that this is done as a gesture of goodwill. According to Pufendorf and the Kunstpalast, there was no concrete evidence that the painting was in the possession of Stern at the time of the Lempertz auction, thus not legally obliging them to restitute the painting.

The film presents the varying cases that are being made against restitution of paintings to Jewish heirs and organisations, particularly that these cases are brought for financial motives. Pufendorf especially, seems to feel particularly strong about this. Through portraying the famously absurd German bureaucratic processes, we are presented with the sometimes comical reasonings against restitution given by the city of Düsseldorf. Finally, the case for restitution of Die Kiner des Künstlers is brought to a vote in the town council. The vote, coincidentally taking place on Hitler’s birthday, is almost unanimously voted in favour of restitution. The only party to abstain is the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland).^{^[8]}

In these final scenes, Willi Korte emphasises how pressing matters of restitution are becoming, especially in a society with rising anti-semitism. An increasing number of museums are assembling in-house provenance and restitution teams, and the debates around restitution, especially regarding sales under duress, are becoming more complex. It is clear that there is still much work to be done, and The Spoils highlights that this work can only be done in direct collaboration with heirs.

Die Kinder des Künstlers and Max Stern’s Legacy Today

Center for Art Law Savannah Weiler STERN ERRINENRUNGSRAUM Today, Die Kinder der Künstlers remains on display in the Kunstpalast in Düsseldorf. In the museum’s recently done up rooms with modern, snazzy curatorial approaches and multicoloured backdrop, the painting shares its display room with other artworks curatorially linked by their communal theme of peoples’ relationship with nature in the 19th century. A plaque under it briefly mentions the MSARP legal battle and its subsequent reacquisition from the foundation, though there is still a remaining emphasis on lack of proof. It reads:

“In the period between 1931 and 1941 it may have been in the possession of the Düsseldorf gallery owner Max Stern […] As the circumstances surrounding the ownership of the picture at that time could not be fully determined, the state capital decided to restitute it to the Max Stern Foundation and reached a repurchase agreement in 2023.”^{^[9]}

This extract mirrors the same tone as that used by those involved in the legal battle against its restitution, continuing the argument presented by lawyers and government officials. The Kunstpalast still presents the restitution of Die Kinder des Künstlers as an act of goodwill, not obligation.

Meanwhile in the Stadtmuseum, there is no trace of the former revised Max Stern exhibition. However, tucked in a small back room accessible via a room narrating the city’s history during and after World War 2, there is the Max Stern Errinerungsraum, a small room dedicated to Max Stern. Various paintings restituted and repurchased from the MSARP, some as late as in 2023, are displayed, including Schadow’s Self-Portrait. Perhaps surprisingly, The Spoils is also played on a tv in the room. Has Dr Anna finally been regranted her authority in designing exhibitions for the museum? Is this her small way of showing solidarity? It does seem odd for a documentary clearly not painting certain people involved in the museum in a good light to be shown. Then again, the curator brought in for the revised Max Stern exhibition, Dieter Vorsteher is back in Berlin, and Geisel is no longer mayor.

Conclusion

The Spoils’ absurdist representation of how complex and deceitful restitution cases can become reminds us of the importance of collaboration between archives, heirs and museums to make available the records that are needed in legal battles to give proof of ownership during times of Nazi persecution. With the burden of proof being laid on the plaintiff, claimants are left searching through vast databases and archives for shreds of proof relating to a time where evidence like this was both systematically and accidentally erased. For example, Lempertz states that its auction records from Nazi-era auctions were destroyed during bombing by the Allied Forces.

Recent developments, such as the Jewish Digital Recovery Project’s new Legacy Explorer, show promising developments in the world of provenance research, where various archival records become searchable in one database. Furthermore, perhaps the newly adopted German Court of Arbitration for Nazi-Looted Cultural Property will make it more straightforward for claimants to directly address and negotiate suspected Nazi-looted art with museums. As The Spoils makes painfully clear, some figures and museums still have a vested interest in retaining these stolen works.

About the Author

Savannah Weiler (Center for Art Law Intern, Spring 2026) is a Dutch graduate who attained her MA in History of Art and Fine Art from the University of Edinburgh in 2025 and later attended a course in Art & Cultural Heritage Law at Oxford University. She has worked in collections care, media outreach, and as a research assistant, where she developed her interest in provenance research and art market studies. This led her to write her dissertation on the impact of World Heritage Listing on the illicit trade of artefacts from the Island of Mozambique. She aims to apply these interests to support increased global cooperation and provenance research within the art market, auction houses and in cultural heritage management.

Select References

Disclaimer: This article is for educational purposes only and is not meant to provide legal advice. Readers should not construe or rely on any comment or statement in this article as legal advice. For legal advice, readers should seek a consultation with an attorney.