Moscow -- The Russians and Germans went at it again yesterday over the question of "trophy art" from World War II -- this time in Moscow, where the Pushkin Museum opened its own display of masterworks that have been hidden from view since they were taken during the fall of Nazi Germany 50 years ago.
The Russians congratulated themselves for restoring the art and preserving it all these years. Loss of the artwork, they say, is the penalty the Germans have to pay for their unprecedented reign of death and destruction on the Soviet Union during the war.
The Germans denounced the paintings' rescue and added that if Russia were to act like a civilized nation, it would simply return the paintings.
The Germans say they have the law on their side.
The Russians say they have morality on theirs.
The Hermitage museum in St. Petersburg opened the debate with a preview earlier this month of an astonishing exhibit of Impressionist and post-Impressionist painting that had been lost to the art world for half a century. The show here at the Pushkin -- 63 European paintings from the 14th to the 19th centuries -- is perhaps less overwhelming, but the management of the museum has made up for that with sheer pugnacity.
Unlike the Hermitage, the Pushkin refused to let German diplomats know ahead of time what would be shown. The director, Irina Antonova, talked emotionally about the extent of looting by "the German fascists" during the war, "so we think of course this demands compensation," she said.
The museum was also careful to include several paintings -- including a Degas -- that the Germans themselves had stolen from a Hungarian Jewish family named Herzog.
The paintings unveiled yesterday include "St. John the Baptist" by El Greco, two Goyas (which are Ms. Antonova's favorites), two by Honore Daumier ("The Revolt" and "Laundresses on Stairs"), two by Manet and two by Renoir, as well as several from the early Italian Renaissance and a number by minor Dutch painters.
A particularly arresting work of art is the "Fall of Man," painted by the German Lucas Cranach in 1527. A beguiling Eve offers a pomegranate-sized apple to a not completely innocent-looking Adam, while a stag, a lion, a lamb and assorted other creatures look on peaceably, and the snake curls on a branch of the tree of knowledge overhead.
The art fell into the hands of the Soviet Army as it swept across eastern Germany in 1945. Literally millions of artworks were taken, of which more than 1 million were given back to the East German government in the 1950s and 1960s. But the best stayed in Russia, under wraps.
The Pushkin show is named "Twice Saved," on the theory that Soviet soldiers first saved the paintings from the chaos and destruction of the fall of Nazi Germany, and that Russian experts then painstakingly restored the damage already incurred.
"Most of these paintings didn't have to be saved," said Rainhold Frickhinger, press officer of the German Embassy here. "Most of them were quite safe. There wasn't much need to rescue them."
Ms. Antonova said it was impossible to determine whether the paintings had been damaged before or after they fell into Soviet hands.
Mr. Frickhinger reiterated that in the German view the paintings were taken illegally, and that it is beside the point to talk about German compensation for their return.
"In the civilized Western world we don't pay anyone to respect the law, do we?" he asked.
When it was pointed out that German museums hold priceless Egyptian and Middle Eastern antiquities, which were taken from their original locations in the 19th century, he retorted, "These were not robbed."
Ms. Antonova said an advantage of the Soviet system was that most of the looted paintings ended up in state museums, where they could be kept track of. Most of the art that the Germans stole, she said, slipped out of Germany after the war and ended up in private hands the world over.
A disadvantage of the Soviet system, she freely pointed out, was that secrecy concerns kept these works of art hidden for so many years.
"We are a different country now," said Mikhail Shvydkoi, deputy ZTC minister of culture. "We are happy to have people see all these works of art that had been thought to be lost or destroyed."
But not completely different -- the "trophy" paintings that went on display at the Pushkin yesterday "are only part of those we have in our museum," said Ms. Antonova, who then declined to elaborate further.
What will actually happen to the paintings in the end is a complicated legal and political issue that could take years to resolve, Mr. Shvydkoi said.