Sunday 17th November
Art, Nazis & a £1 Billion Fraud: Degenerate Profiteering on a Grand Scale
When news of a billion pound art theft broke last week the entire world paid attention. As more details come to light the story looks set to run for quite some time…
She is a strange and gurning lady
Red cheeks, hair, scarf and lips,
There’s scarlet plumage on her hat
And she’s by Otto Dix
In a flat in deepest Munich
His art and more was found
Unearthed by tax inspectors
Nearly a billion pounds
We hear there were old bean cans
Stacked in front of these great works
Matisse, Picasso, Mark Chegalls,
The media’s going berserk
These paintings simply vanished
Back in the mid war
Post ‘Degenerate Exhibition’
A Nazi spoof which toured
This lesson in cultural warfare
Saw paintings hung awry
With a string of dodgy captions
Containing stinking Nazi lies
Then this art hit the possession
Of Cornelius Gurlitt
A man who hid a treasure trove
And lived like a hermit
He’d got it from his father
A sneaky profiteer
Who died back in the 50s
When his car failed to steer
Now the son’s had his comeuppance too
When his stash was seized last year
Angela Merkel hoards it now
And it’s safe from the auctioneer
He told the press with some gusto
That the works were all his!
“Dad loved the art and fought for it”
This is a mouldy swizz
Last week the Kornfield Gallery
Which flogged without a backwards glance
Declared: “This was no Nazi crime,
Merely untaxed inheritance.”
How nice for the descendants
Of those who died or fled abroad
There is no need to claim your art
You’re not victims of fraud
Thankfully for the rightful owners
The Germans are on the case
Now they’ve been forced to reveal their stash
They need to save some face
So they’ve listed up the paintings
On a website called Lost Art
Ten million chancers logged on at once
The server fell apart
So the art fans grabbed their telephones
And all made the same demands
“Errrr Do you still have that Picasso?
It was my great great aunts”
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