World Notes

If plunder is the price of defeat in war, what price recovery of the booty? An answer came last week in the controversial case of an American who "liberated" a cache of art treasures from the medieval town of Quedlinburg, where they were hidden by the SS at the end of World War II. The pieces, which include rare manuscripts and a reliquary reputed to contain a lock of hair from the head of the Virgin Mary, ended up back in G.I. Joe Meador's home in Whitewright, Texas. There they remained unnoticed until after Meador's death in 1980, when his heirs tried to sell them.

Last year the German government reasserted its ownership, setting off a legal battle. Now it has decided to settle the dispute and pay the heirs $1 million to recoup the artworks. Several museum curators criticized the decision. Robert T. Buck, director of the Brooklyn Museum, told the New York Times, "The timing is horrible as a lesson to every American G.I. There's a . lot of art over there in Iraq." Klaus Maurice of the Cultural Foundation of the States in Germany, defended the deal his agency made. "Had we pursued the lawsuit," he argued, "the legal fees would have greatly exceeded the amount we agreed to pay."