The Chancellor's Office wants to prevent with the help of the cultural property protection law that precious items from the controversial Hohenzollern heritage are sold abroad. The heritage is about a few thousand works of art, whose release the formerly imperial family demands from the public purse.
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Settlement negotiations have been ongoing since 2013 between the Hohenzollern and the Bund, Berlin and Brandenburg; It is foreseeable that the Hohenzollern will get back numerous objects. But only 19 of the controversial works are in the "National Register of valuable cultural assets" and are thus subject to an export ban, such as the carcass of the Prussian royal crown in Charlottenburg Palace.
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In order to protect further objects from being exported, the Chancellor's Office now wants to use an authorization requirement, which provides for the Cultural Property Protection Act. If a work of art that exceeds a certain age and value limit, classified by the respective state authorities "as particularly significant for the cultural heritage of Germany," an export in the assessment of the Chancellery "not possible" - regardless of whether it contained in the directory is.
The Hohenzollern had declared after their disclosure requirements, it was their "primary goal to preserve the collections in the existing museums." However, the credibility of the family has suffered since they created important pieces such as the ceremonial armor of the Brandenburg Elector in London shortly before the introduction of the Cultural Property Protection Act in 2015 and later had it auctioned there.
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