The German owner of more than 1,400 art works, many believed to have been stolen by the Nazis, says he will not give them up voluntarily. Cornelius Gurlitt, who inherited the hoard, told Der Spiegel magazine the paintings were "acquired legally".

Investigations are continuing to establish who the original owners might be. The haul, estimated to be worth $1.35bn (£846m), was discovered in Mr Gurlitt's apartment last year. The trove includes works, long thought to have been lost or destroyed, by Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Otto Dix and Max Liebermann.

"I'm giving nothing up voluntarily," he told the magazine when asked whether he would return any works to their original owners. Mr Gurlitt said his father obtained the works "legally".

Cornelius Gurlitt never married, never made friends, and eventually moved to Munich with his mother when he was 27. Until she and his sister Benita died in recent years, he had never lived alone. He remains cross with Benita for dying ahead of him. "She could have inherited everything, and she would have known how to deal with everything. Now everything is so miserable," he says.

Gurlitt says he has no lawyers, and no one to help him. "They are portraying everything wrongly. I will not talk to them, and I will not return anything voluntarily, no, no. The prosecutor has enough evidence to exonerate me."

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/legal-issues-complicate-munich-art-treasure-trove-find-a-934071.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24977814
http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/18/world/europe/germany-art-interview/