Abstract
Maria Altmann, the plaintiff of the Supreme Court case Republic of Austria v. Altmann, sought to recover six of her family's Nazi-looted Gustav Klimt paintings. Having belonged to the upper echelons of Viennese society in the interwar period, these paintings came to represent national ownership of Maria's Jewish heritage: if Austria was forced to return the artworks, their national myth would falter. Certain voices within the United States, meanwhile, would bolster their existing sense of self (and their global standing) by claiming to fight for a neutral, 'objective,' and individualist value set upon the world stage.
This project begins with an historiographical analysis of the American state's views towards Holocaust restitution (from the early postwar years to the early 2000's) before examining Maria Altmann's life and legal battle, and her narrative's particular appeal towards U.S. audiences. The paper then moves towards each legal team's strategies and rhetoric as well as the Supreme Court's various rulings. Finally, respective investigations of the journalistic coverage and popular cultural representations of Mrs. Altmann's narrative elucidate how the subversive elements within one woman's story became subject to mass interpretation and integrated into existing cultural thought.