Senators Blumenthal and Cornyn File Amicus Brief in Case of Heirs Suing for Nazi-Looted Egon Schiele Works

Democratic senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and his Republican counterpart John Cornyn of Texas have filed an amicus (or “friend of the court”) brief defending their own Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery (HEAR) Act, which was signed into law in 2016, against claims of unconstitutionality by Austrian defendants seeking to hold on to Nazi-looted works by Egon Schiele.

The senators filed the brief on September 18 in the Southern District of New York in the case Reif v. Republic of Austria, in which Timothy Reif, a descendant of Austrian Jewish performer Fritz Grünbaum, who was killed at the Dachau concentration camp in 1941, sued the government of Austria along with the Albertina Museum and the Leopold Museum, both in Vienna, for the return of a dozen artworks. Reif and fellow descendants David Fraenkel and Milos Vavra filed the case in December 2022, saying that Austria had become “a haven for traffickers in Nazi looted art” by imposing “impossible financial barriers” on claimants.

Grünbaum had a collection of over 440 works stolen from his Vienna home following the Nazis’ entry into Austria on March 13, 1938. The HEAR Act “aids in the recovery of Nazi-looted art and helps deliver justice for Holocaust survivors and their families,” as the senators describe it. The law was amended in 2025, with the senators stating that courts had “frustrated” the intent of the 2016 law by dismissing lawsuits on procedural and technical grounds. The amendments expanded the law’s reach by removing a December 2026 expiration date on claims as well as other time-related defenses. After the amendments, the only time bar is that plaintiffs must sue within six years of discovering the identity and location of the work in which they have an ownership interest. The new version also expanded the law’s ability to reach foreign states, granting jurisdiction to US courts.

The Austrian defendants argue that the HEAR Act is wholly or partially unconstitutional under the Tenth Amendment, which says that powers not explicitly granted to the federal government by the Constitution are reserved for the states or the people, or Article III of the Constitution, which established the US Supreme Court and empowers the judicial branch of the federal government.

The HEAR Act “is a valid exercise of Congress’ enumerated powers, including its powers with respect to war and the regulation of foreign and interstate commerce,” write Blumenthal and Cornyn in the amicus brief. “It neither violates the Tenth Amendment nor offends separation-of-powers principles.”