Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption More than 1,400 works were found in Cornelius Gurlitt's Munich apartment 
 
 German Nazi-era art hoarder Cornelius Gurlitt, who died on Tuesday, has made the Bern Art Museum in Switzerland his "sole heir". 
 
 The reclusive son of Adolf Hitler's art dealer is estimated to have amassed a collection worth up to a billion euros. 
 
 The museum said the news struck "like a bolt from the blue", given that it had had no relationship with Mr Gurlitt. 
 
 The collection was the subject of a long legal dispute over works that may have been taken illegally by the Nazis. 
 
 Analysis The Bern Art Museum now gets ownership of the collection but lawyers for Cornelius Gurlitt indicated that paintings shown to be looted would be returned to the present-day heirs of the victims, an arrangement which still stands. There is no argument over works which were acquired by Mr Gurlitt's father before the Nazis came to power so they can go to Bern. But in between the two categories are hundreds of paintings which may be disputed. The authorities will give potential claimants a year to come forward. At the end of it all, the name Gurlitt may be remembered in some title like the Gurlitt Bequest at the museum in Bern. It would be a bland title belying a tragic human story. 
 
 The Bern Art Museum said that it was delighted at the news that it had been made Mr Gurlitt's "unrestricted and unfettered sole heir", but added that the bequest also posed some questions. 
 
 "The Board of Trustees and directors of Kunstmuseum Bern are surprised and delighted, but at the same time do not wish to conceal the fact that this magnificent bequest brings with it a considerable burden of responsibility and a wealth of questions of the most difficult and sensitive kind, and questions in particular of a legal and ethical nature", it said in a statement. 
 
 Mr Gurlitt's father, Hildebrand Gurlitt, was ordered to deal in works that had been seized from Jews, or which the Nazis considered "degenerate" and had removed from German museums. 
 
 The priceless collection was confiscated in 2012 by Bavarian authorities from the apartment of his son. 
 
 Image caption A beach scene by German impressionist Max Liebermann was one of the important discoveries 
 
 Image copyright AFP / CHRISTOF STACHE Image caption Matisse's Femme Assise is the subject of an ownership claim 
 
 Image caption The hoard of paintings includes Pierre-Auguste Renoir's Man Seated 
 
 After initially refusing to give up the paintings, Mr Gurlitt changed his position, agreeing to co-operate with the German authorities on establishing the paintings' provenance, and returning them if they were shown to be stolen. 
 
 'Wild speculation' 
 
 Mr Gurlitt, who had no close relatives, wrote the will within the last few weeks shortly before undergoing heart surgery, according to his spokesman, Stephan Holzinger. 
 
 "It now falls to the probate court to determine if the will is valid and whether a contract of inheritance exists," he told the BBC earlier on Wednesday. 
 
 "I can understand that there is now wild speculation, but I don't want to comment on that at this stage." 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The BBC's Stephen Evans was granted exclusive access to look at some of the long-lost masterpieces 
 
 The German government said earlier that the collector's death would not affect the investigation into ownerships claims on the paintings. 
 
 Mr Gurlitt's collection only came to light after a routine check found he was carrying wads of cash on a train from Switzerland, triggering a tax inquiry. 
 
 Investigators found more than 1,400 works in his flat in Munich in February 2012 - though they only revealed the discovery in late 2013 - and a further 60 in his house near Salzburg, Austria, earlier this year. 
 
 Among them were works by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Emil Nolde and Max Liebermann. 
 
 The collection is estimated to be worth up to a billion euros (£850m; $1.35bn). 
 
 Under German law, Cornelius Gurlitt was not compelled to return any paintings because the incidents happened more than 30 years ago. ||||| Several works in his collection suspected of having been looted from Jewish families during Nazi era 
 
 A Swiss museum has inherited one of the most controversial art collections in recent European history. Kunstmuseum Bern confirmed on Wednesday it has been named the "unrestricted and unfettered sole heir" in the will of the reclusive collector Cornelius Gurlitt, who died on Tuesday. 
 
 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. A taskforce of art experts is examining the provenance of the works in a secret location in Germany until the end of the year. 
 
 Kunstmuseum Bern's director, Matthias Frehner, said in a statement: that the news had come "like a bolt from the blue", since Gurlitt had at no time had any connection to the museum. Already boasting works by Pablo Picasso and Paul Klee, the museum could soon be showing paintings and sketches by Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Marc Chagall, Oskar Kokoschka and Max Liebermann among others. 
 
 Frehner said: "The Board of Trustees and Directors of Kunstmuseum Bern are surprised and delighted, but at the same time do not wish to conceal the fact that this magnificent bequest brings with it a considerable burden of responsibility and a wealth of questions of the most difficult and sensitive kind, and questions in particular of a legal and ethical nature." 
 
 Chris Marinello, a London-based art recovery expert representing the descendants of the Jewish art dealer Paul Rosenberg, welcomed the news: "We see it as a positive development that Mr Gurlitt left his collection to a museum, which is bound by international codes of ethics regarding looted artworks as well as the Washington principles on Nazi-confiscated art". 
 
 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. ||||| MUNICH, Germany – Reclusive art collector Cornelius Gurlitt left his entire trove of works concealed for decades to the Kuntsmuseum in Bern, Switzerland, the museum said Wednesday. 
 
 Gurlitt, who died on Tuesday, hoarded more than 1,000 works believed to be lost in World War II or destroyed by the Nazi regime in his apartment and in a house outside Salzburg, Austria. The collection, which was amassed by Gurlitt's father, Hildebrand Gurlitt, includes paintings and drawings by Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. 
 
 German tax authorities discovered the pieces in February 2012 in Gurlitt's apartment. 
 
 Gurlitt's lawyer Christoph Edel confirmed by telephone and in writing that Gurlitt had "appointed the private-law foundation Kuntsmuseum Bern his unrestricted and unfettered sole heir," the museum said in a statement. 
 
 The news "came like a bolt from the blue, since at no time has Mr. Gurlitt had any connection with Kuntsmuseum Bern," it said. 
 
 The Nazis had labeled the avant-garde artworks as “degenerate” and plundered them from museums or forced owners, many of them Jewish, to sell them for below their real prices. Hildebrand Gurlitt, an art dealer close to the Nazi regime, built up the collection that today rivals those of many of the world’s modern art museums. 
 
 His son then concealed them for decades. 
 
 CHRISTOF STACHE / AFP - Getty Images A picture shows the building in Munich's Schwabing district where hundreds of masterpieces thought to have been stolen by the Nazis were discovered in an apartment of Cornelius Gurlitt. 
 
 “[Cornelius Gurlitt's] heirs can decide how to proceed with the art work, but they will have to abide by the agreement that was reached,” Edel told NBC News earlier on Wednesday. 
 
 He was referring to a deal struck with government last month that established a task force to research the provenance of works suspected of having been stolen by the Nazis. A website has been set up for potential claimants to see the collection. 
 
 "[Gurlitt] is committed to the voluntary return of any looted art," German Culture Minister Monika Grütters said at the time. 
 
 The find of nearly 1,300 paintings and drawings last fall delighted the art world, but also brought doubt about the rightful ownership and restitution claims. 
 
 Matthias Henkel, director of communications for the task force appointed by the government, told NBC News that the experts were continuing in their fact-finding mission and acting on the assumption that whoever inherited the art would abide by the agreement. 
 
 “We also have a moral obligation to clarify the historical circumstances,” he said. 
 
 German media had reported earlier that Gurlitt wanted to pass the ownership of the artworks to “a foreign institution.” 
 
 He reportedly was upset with German authorities over the investigation and had contacts with art institutions in Austria and Switzerland, home to the Kuntsmuseum Bern. 
 
 First published May 7 2014, 5:49 AM
– A Nazi-era art hoarder who died yesterday has left his entire $1.3 billion collection to the Bern Art Museum—which now has the unenviable task of deciding who owns which paintings, the BBC reports. Cornelius Gurlitt, the son of Adolf Hitler's art dealer, had no close relatives and named the museum his "unrestricted and unfettered sole heir." The museum said the news struck "like a bolt from the blue"—especially since it had no relationship with Gurlitt—but the "magnificent bequest" comes with "a considerable burden and a wealth of questions." Gurlitt had already agreed that paintings known to be looted must go to the victims' present-day heirs; other works, acquired before the Nazis took power, can stay with the museum. "But in between the two categories are hundreds of paintings which may be disputed," writes Stephen Evans in a BBC analysis. A website has been created for claimants to see the art collection, NBC News reports, and an art recovery expert representing claimants in the case says he likes Gurlitt's will—because, he tells the Guardian, "the museum is bound by international codes of ethics regarding looted artworks as well as the Washington principles on Nazi-confiscated art."