While looted artworks are meant to be returned to the heirs of their owners, there is only a non-binding "moral obligation" to return those pieces which were confiscated as "degenerate art" and then sold on.
The 800-mile border is now irrelevant, with Isis able to freely move looted military hardware between the two states and gather new backers.
Picassos, Matisses, Chagalls, Klees, Munchs – all of them believed to have been looted or confiscated by the Nazis: modernist masters hidden behind grey modernist concrete.
Most of the residents think the artworks should be returned to their rightful owners, though establishing who they are may take some time: many of the remaining records from galleries looted by the Nazis are sketchy and incomplete.
The owner of an electrical goods shop in Handsworth – one of the first businesses in the area to be looted – said he had heard rumours a day before the riot took place.
However, the shop was then looted during Monday's unrest, said the shop owner, who is Korean and speaks little English.
The next day it was looted, property vandalised and equipment taken.
Given that one painting in Gurlitt's possession, Henri Matisse's Sitting Woman, had already been proven to be looted from Rosenberg's collection, Marinello didn't expect it to end up in Bern, he told the Guardian.
Several works in the collection, which was originally assembled by Gurlitt's father Hildebrand, are suspected of having been looted from Jewish families during the Nazi era.
Some vandalised businesses, including a Mercedes Benz dealership, and looted stores.
He was later appointed dealer for the planned Führermuseum in Linz, where Hitler intended to display looted art, and was personally instructed by the minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels.
