Born into a Jewish family in Vienna, Austria, in 1906, Deutsch managed to flee abroad after Anschluss with Hitler's Third Reich in 1938, however his parents were murdered in Auschwitz.
According to the German news magazine Der Spiegel, Deutsch was "the most committed and successful champion of hope, entitlement and demand on the front line of compensation for victims of National Socialist persecution".
[5] The German Federal Office of Criminal Investigation accused him of having forged evidence in the case of the compensation claim of the Hungarian art collector Ferenc von Hatvany.
[6] Deutsch's arrest caused intense concern on the part of Holocaust experts and advocates of victims of Nazi persecution in Austria, Switzerland, France, Germany and Israel.
The nature of the charges and the manner in which they had been filed were criticized as "unusual" in numerous newspapers including Le Monde in France[8][9] Deutsch spent 18 months in jail and had his property confiscated and career destroyed.
After nine years of legal battle, the proceedings ended with an acquittal for Deutsch and numerous questions about the false testimonies against him and scandalous conduct of the German police and justice system.
In 2003, El Greco's "Mount Sinai" reappeared in New York and was sold with a false provenance at Sotheby’s in Greece, triggering a renewed discussion about whether Deutsch had been deliberately denounced by former SS members and their heirs, who are in possession of the stolen pictures.