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Sumpflegende was formerly owned by German art historian Sophie Lissitzky-Kueppers. Lissitzky-Kueppers loaned it, along with 15 other works, to the Provinzialmuseum in Hanover in 1926 and then left for the Soviet Union, where she married Russian artist El Lissitzky. She was later banished to Siberia by Stalin, and the painting was seized by the Nazis for its "Degenerate Art" exhibition and eventually sold.

Ude rejected the claim of Lissitzky-Kueppers's heirs to the painting, arguing that artworks taken by the Nazis for the "Degenerate Art" exhibition are not included in international guidelines for the restitution of looted art. But in his letter, Culture Minister Neumann suggested that a government panel headed by the former Constitutional Court judge Jutta Limback should rule on the matter.

“I think the moral authority of the advisory commission would be a good basis for a pragmatic conclusion,” he wrote, adding, “Against the backdrop of the international debate, we must carefully examine all signals that we send in restitution cases to avoid damaging Germany’s image abroad.”