Stolen Nazi Art Online

Germany launched an Internet Web site Monday, listing thousands of works of art seized by the Nazis from museums and victims during World War II.

"The Web site will let victims and their heirs advertise, search for, and find their cultural property," German Cultural Affairs Commissioner Michael Naumann said at the launch.

It includes unclaimed treasures accrued by Hitler for the lavish "Fuehrer Museum" he dreamed of building in the Austrian town of Linz, near where he grew up.

As the Third Reich grew, Hitler and officials like Marshal Hermann Goering commanded Nazi dealers to tour Europe and plunder, or purchase at gunpoint, art works from museums and private collectors, such as the wealthy Rothschild family.

Hitler, a budding artist who was turned down by the Viennese Academy of Fine Arts, devoted an inordinate amount of time and resources to the collection, even in the final years of the war.

Acquiring works of art for him became a way for aides to secure favor in court. Looted pieces classified by Hitler as "degenerate" were sold by Nazi art dealers, many of whom became fabulously wealthy with private trade on the side.

The collection, which ultimately included celebrated works by Rembrandt, Rubens and Vermeer, fell into Allied hands at the end of the war, and its contents were mostly handed back to their original owners.

A section, including some canvases by 16th and 17th century Italian and Dutch masters, went unclaimed and are now in storage in government depots in Berlin or on temporary loan to museums.