Proveana's terms of use

In accordance with its statute, the German Lost Art Foundation (hereinafter: the Foundation) is the central point of contact, nationally and internationally, for all matters pertaining to cultural goods which were unlawfully confiscated and are now located in the collections of German cultural heritage institutions.

The Foundation’s primary focus is on cultural goods confiscated as a result of persecution during the National Socialist era, especially property owned by Jewish citizens (so-called “Nazi-looted property”). Its work in this area is based on the Washington Principles adopted in 1998, which Germany pledged to implement as part of its historical and moral commitment (Common Statement, 1999). The foundation’s areas of activity also cover cultural property displaced as a result of war (so-called “wartime losses”) and cultural goods lost in the Soviet Occupation Zone and in the GDR. Since 2018, the Foundation has also dealt with the issue of cultural goods and collections from colonial contexts.

According to its statute, the main responsibilities of the Foundation are the initiation, support, strengthening and funding of provenance research. To realize its purposes, the Foundation funds projects upon application, maintains publicly accessible databases and fosters transnational networking.

To that end, the Foundation provides the Proveana website under the following terms of use. Its primary objective is to make the results of provenance research supported by the Foundation available to victims and their descendants and to the scientific community. In the context of Nazi-looted art, this is done in the spirit of the Washington Principles of 1998 and the Common Statement of 1999.

1. Website content and its use

Accessing and using the content of this website is permitted only within the framework of the statutory purposes of the Foundation. The statute can be accessed here.

Any commercial use of this website is expressly prohibited, unless the consent of the respective rights holder has been obtained. In case that there are no impeding third part rights, usage is admissible, especially for academic and historical research purposes, journalistic, media and statistical purposes, as well as for searching seized cultural goods. In the event that there is doubt about  permitted usage, please contact the Foundation in advance. You can reach us using this link.

When using the content of this website, the data source (e.g. www.proveana.de, data record PURL, final report) must be cited. Please click here for recommendations on how to cite: FAQ.

When you use the content of this website, you are solely responsible for observing your own contractual and/or legal obligations regarding the use of the content of this website.

2. Registration and user account

Registration is not required to use the website.

A user account is needed to use the convenience functions (e.g. commenting on content) of this website.

For additional access to the research reports, a so-called extended access is necessary. You must have a “legitimate interest” to request this type of access from the Foundation. Further information is available in the detailed instructions.

There is no entitlement to registration. User accounts can only be assigned to natural persons. Companies or other legal entities cannot set up user accounts. Multiple registrations by one person are prohibited.

Prerequisite for setting up a user account is a minimum age of 16 or consent by a legal guardian, which is confirmed by accepting these terms of use.

During registration, you are required to enter a valid e-mail address and your full name (together referred to as your user data). The user data may not be given to third parties and must be protected from third-party access.

Users can cancel their user accounts without notice. In the event of violations of the terms of use, the Foundation has the right to block and delete the user account.

3. Comments

Users are obliged not to compose any comments that violate the terms of use as well as German and/or European law. This applies above all to content that is copyright or trademark protected and content which is not permitted to be published on this website.

Comments that contain untruthful facts, are offensive, invective, degrading, pornographic or advertising in nature, contain discriminating, racist, dehumanizing statements, incite to or condone criminal acts, will not be published by the Foundation. The same applies to links to such content.

Comments must always be free of values and judgments.

The Foundation generally reserves the right not to publish comments as well as to edit them, move them or delete them. Entitlement to publication, deletion or editing of comments is only possible if the Foundation is contractually or legally obligated to do so.

Before sending your comments to the website, please check them for information that is not meant to be published. The Foundation cannot conduct such checks.

If comments contain claims of fact, these must be backed by a source citation.

If comments are copyright protected, the Foundation is granted simple user rights to the work in question, which will remain intact beyond the existence of the user account. The Foundation is therefore entitled to maintain published comments on this website independently of the existence of a user account and to continue to use such comments within the framework of its statutory purposes.

4. Legal notice

The legal notices (in particular the disclaimer) are part of these terms of use and apply unless otherwise stipulated in the terms of use themselves.

Research through Proveana does not exempt the user from their obligation to carry out their own research and verify sources independently if necessary.

5. Data Protection

The processing of personal data is regulated by the privacy statement.