Baldin immediately realized their value, carefully packed them in a suitcase and took them home to the Soviet Union, on the way gathering several more paintings from Soviet soldiers. For three years he kept the collection at home and in 1948 presented it to a state museum. In 1991 it was transferred to the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.
In the early 1970s Baldin – at that time a museum director – wrote to the Soviet leaders asking them to return the collection to Germany. However, his requests were ignored. In the 1990s the Bremen authorities made Baldin an honorary citizen for preserving the paintings.
Finally, in 2003 the Russian government moved to restore historic justice and to return the paintings to the Bremen Kunsthalle, where the collection belongs by law, since it was taken out of Germany not on the orders of Soviet high command, and therefore could not be considered a war trophy.
But the State Duma, in particular, the chairman of the Duma’s committee for culture and tourism Nikolai Gubenko, who is infuriated by the decision, on March 7 sent an inquiry to the Culture Ministry, demanding that the minister shed light on his agency’s plans to transfer the Baldin collection to Germany.
On the eve of International Women’s Day (March 8) the deputies’ initiative went unnoticed, but on Wednesday, March 12, it transpired that the lawmakers were serious: the State Duma unanimously passed an appeal to Vladimir Putin urging him to block the Culture Ministry’s plans to return the collection to Bremen. On Thursday both sides in the conflict held news conferences to explain their positions.
Nikolai Gubenko, a Communist and a former culture minister in the Soviet government, told reporters that the return of paintings was illegal. At least, he said, the authorities could demand up to $1.5 million in compensation, or ask Germany to remit part of Moscow’s enormous debt.
''If your purse was stolen and then returned, you can give a quarter of what was inside out of gratitude, or you can just say thank you. This is your right,'' Mikhail Shvydkoi retorted.
Gubenko said he intends to contest the ministry’s decision and has already lodged a protest to the General Prosecutor’s Office, claiming that the ministry has been acting in secrecy in order to sidestep the legislature. Gubenko said the collection has already been brought from St. Petersburg to Moscow, and in the near future Russia may lose the paintings for good.
However, Shvydkoi is standing firm on his decision to return the artworks. He dismissed the deputy’s allegation as groundless, and explained that the Baldin collection was quite different from works confiscated in postwar Germany on the orders of the Soviet high command, hence, the 1997 restitution law does not apply to the Bremen case. Baldin took the works at his own initiative, Shvydkoi said, however thankful we are to Captain Baldin, in effect the drawings were stolen, and must now be returned to where they belong.
The minister said the collection was due to go on display in the Kunsthalle on March 29 and he hopes the prosecutors, who must decide whether or not the government's decision breaks any laws, will give their approval to get the paintings there on time.
14 МАРТА 17:48
