Italy Rejects German Museum’s Request For ‘Aryan’ Statue Bought By Hitler

A bronze reconstruction of a lost Greek work (L) and a Roman copy of Myron’s Discobolus (C) are displayed during a press preview of the British Museum’s “Defining beauty: the body in ancient Greek art” in central London on March 24, 2015. AFP PHOTO / LEON NEAL (Photo by LEON NEAL/AFP via Getty Images)

OAN’s Elizabeth Volberding
1:35 PM – Monday, December 4, 2023

Italy’s culture minister has declined a request by the German State Antiquities Collection in Munich, Germany, asking for an ancient Roman statue that purportedly represented Hitler’s Aryan methodology.

Italy’s culture minister, Gennaro Sangiuliano, refused the request, and his reasoning was that it was a “national treasure.”

The statue, called the “Discobolus Palombara,” is a second-century Roman replica of a long-lost Greek bronze original model.

Hilter, the leader of the infamous Nazi Party in Germany, bought the statue from its private Italian owner in 1938 due to intimidation from Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, and against the desires of the education minister and cultural authorities.

The Discobolus Palombara, which was exhumed at a Roman villa in 1781, was given back to Italy in 1948 as part of artworks unlawfully acquired by the Nazis.

The altercation began when the director of the National Roman Museum asked for the ancient Roman statue’s 17^th-century marble foundation to be returned from the Staatliche Antikensammlungen state antiquities collection.

The Staatliche Antikensammlungen is a museum in Munich, Germany, that contains collections of antiquities from Greece, Etruria, and Rome.

The German museum instead requested for the return of the Discobolus Palombara, claiming that it had been “illegally transported” to Italy in 1948, according to Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.

However, Sangiuliano expressed skepticism that the German culture minister, Claudia Roth, knew about the German request.

“They’ll have to step over my dead body,’’ Sangiuliano told Italian Rai state TV on Saturday evening.

In his response, Sangiuliano denounced the German request for the statue’s return as “inadmissible.”

“This work was obtained fraudulently by the Nazis, and it’s part of our national heritage,’’ Sangiuliano added. He also showed hope that the base would be returned.

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