Attorney Nicholas O'Donnell said in an clients decided to file the suit in Wash interview in Berlin that the suit asks the ington because they feel "US federal courts Washington court to declare an American are the best suited to sort out these owner and a British descendant ofa consortium ship rights" based on the Foreign Sover that owned the collection in when eign Immunities Act it was sold to the German state of Prus- The plaintiffs are identified in the suit sia the rightful owners today as Alan Philipp from London and Gerald Any transaction in 1935 where the Stiebel from Santa Fe, New Mexico. sellers on the one side were Jews and the The Welfenschatz collection, originally buyer on the other side was the Nazi state 82 pieces, ended up in the hands of con itself is by definition a void transaction sortium of Jewish art dealers from Frank Mr O'Donnell said. furt in 1929 when they purchased it from The organisation that oversees Berlin's a Braunschweig duke. With the onset of museums, the Prussian Cultural Herit the Great Depression, they were not able age Foundation, says that the collectors to resell all the relics as quickly and profit ably as expected. in the early 1930s they were not forced t e pieces, arguing among other things thatthe collection w still owned half of the collection After Adolf Hitler's rise to power in not even in Germany at the time ofits sale Last year a German government com 1933, the story becomes murky What is undisputed is that Jewish mission created to help resolve restitution claims evaluated both arguments and rec- owners sold the remaining 42 pieces to the state of Prussia, which at the time was ommended that the collection stay in Ger many. The commission wrote that after governed by top Nazi Hermann Goering thoroughly investigating th sale process The lawyers for the heirs said the art it came to the conclusion that it was not a dealers had to sell the treasure signifi forced sale due to persecution'. cantly below its actual value because they But Mr O'Donnell called the recom were under massive pressure, exposed mendation "flawed" and said that his daily to the terrors of the Nazi regime. AP