While it is morally reprehensible to keep the art if he was aware of the circumstances of it changing owners (him being 12 years old at the end of world war 2), the law is on his side. There’s a statute of limitations on this kind of crime of a few decades in Germany. That time has passed in the early nineties AFAIK, so his treatment by German justice is actually on the brink of illegality. Is want the at in the hands of its rightful owners but not in a way that laws get bent just because of one unfortunate case. Law is the foundation of our society, there can’t be any exceptions from one moment to the next - nulla poena, sine legis.
The government has to approach him and work out a deal for the art. But they stigmatize him (it’s easy in this case) and try to just take it, because it’s the right thing to do, yet it’s unlawful.
