QUICK TAKES - March 14, 2009

Germany has appealed a court ruling that would have returned thousands of rare posters to a Jewish man whose father lost the collection to the Nazis, the federal culture minister said Friday.

Bernd Neumann said Germany has never shirked its “moral responsibility” for restitution to the victims of the Nazi government, but that the ruling in the case of Hans Sachs’ poster collection was overly broad.

The court ruled last month that Sachs never gave up ownership of the collection of 12,500 posters taken from his home on the orders of Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels in 1938.

His son, Peter, who lives in Florida, had sued for the return of two of the posters, but the ruling set the stage for the likely return of the entire collection, worth at least $5.85 million. They are currently in the possession of the German Historical Museum.