WARSAW - The son of a Nazi official has returned three artworks that his family had looted from the southern Polish city of Krakow during World War II.

Polish officials said on Monday they hoped the gesture by Horst von Waechter of Austria would inspire other Nazi descendants to follow suit.

In the ceremony on Sunday in Krakow, von Waechter returned an 18th century map of Poland built into a small table and two historic drawings that his mother, Charlotte von Waechter, had appropriated there in late 1939.