Czechoslovakia seized the Prince of Liechtenstein's estates as German property in 1945, and when one of his paintings was lent to Cologne, every court turned him away

The princely house of Liechtenstein held estates in Bohemia and Moravia, including the Lednice and Valtice chateaux, now a UNESCO site. In 1945 and 1946 Czechoslovakia confiscated the property of Prince Franz Josef II under the Beneš decrees, which took the land of people of German and Hungarian nationality. Czech authorities said he had declared German nationality in the 1930s. The family says he was a citizen of neutral Liechtenstein and head of a sovereign state. In 1991 the Brno Historical Monuments Office lent Pieter van Laer's Scene around a Roman Lime Kiln, in the family collection since at least 1767, to the city of Cologne. His son, Prince Hans-Adam II, sued in Cologne for it. German courts from 1995 to 1998 refused to hear him under the 1952 Settlement Convention, and the painting went back to Brno. The European Court of Human Rights ruled unanimously against him on 12 July 2001. Liechtenstein sued Germany at the International Court of Justice, which found on 10 February 2005 that it lacked jurisdiction. The family foundation filed suits in 26 Czech district courts in 2018, and none succeeded. The Czech Constitutional Court rejected a complaint in 2024. Liechtenstein's own application against the Czech Republic, filed in August 2020, had no reported ruling by October 2026.