BERLIN — The German government says it favors releasing information on artworks seized from a Munich apartment that may have been taken decades earlier from people persecuted by the Nazis.

But prosecutors investigating the surprising tax case have so far declined to provide even a partial list of the 1,400 artworks found in a private apartment in early 2012, citing their ongoing probe.

Jewish groups have called for the works to be made public immediately so the families of Holocaust victims could locate and recover art that was taken from them.

German government spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters Wednesday that "the government is in favor of publishing information about those artworks where there are already indications that they may have been confiscated from people persecuted by the Nazis."