As soon as the story broke, embarrassed officials in Berlin turned the job of investigating the provenance of the works in Gurlitt's collection over to an international taskforce, and the German culture minister, Monika Grütters, assured the public that Gurlitt was "committed to the voluntary return of any looted art".

But what did the public really think? Most of my colleagues were simply flabbergasted, while a few, more deeply involved in the art scene, speculated that those in the know must have heard that Gurlitt had a big collection of looted art. But the general reaction was more subtle, and this is what makes the case so interesting.

There was a peculiar reluctance to turn the case into a moral issue — unimaginable to Americans and Britons used to common sense. But even those who stressed that it was important to discuss the issue first and foremost on legal grounds couldn't help but be fascinated by the man who had lived his life hidden in plain sight of the authorities. Gurlitt seemed oddly apolitical, professing an innocence no other German could get away with, as if haunted by an inability to part from a past that was both his personal past, that of his country, and that of perpetrators and victims alike.

Did he have a moral responsibility to return the works? As with many of his generation, he died before taking his share of responsibility for the past.

Gurlitt did, however, answer the question indirectly. He appointed the Museum of Fine Arts in Bern as his sole heir. This came as news to the museum, as well as the rest of us, since Gurlitt had no known connection with Bern. While the task force set up in Berlin to establish the rightful owners will continue its work, to Germans it feels like a somewhat bitter twist that the biggest collection of looted art will go to a private foundation based in Switzerland, a country that remained safely neutral during the Nazi era. The moral responsibility for resolving the legal and moral ramifications of this extraordinary story now lies in Bern.