Recovered stolen antique jewelries now on public showcase at Dresden Green Vault Museum

By Simona Block, dpa I Tuesday, August 13, 2024

 

SAXONY  – The antique jewelries stolen from Dresden’s Green Vault museum in a spectacular robbery almost five years ago is back on display in the eastern German city on Tuesday.

The jewelries are now on display in the natural condition they were during recovery in December 2022.

“We are happy and extremely grateful. Today is a beautiful day for us,” Michael Kretschmer, premier of the state of Saxony said on opening the display once more.

Marion Ackermann, head of the Dresden State Art Collections, says it is a “particularly beautiful moment.”

The jewelries are on display under special lights in its case alongside other ornaments that survived the heist. Close examination reveals damage to the pieces.

“We are currently assuming that all the pieces can be restored,” Ackermann said. International experts are to be called in, but the jewelries are currently evidence in ongoing trials.

They will be on view to the general public beginning Wednesday, with extended evening hours to start on Thursday. The break-in at Saxony’s famous museum on November 25, 2019 is considered one of Germany’s most spectacular art thefts.

The burglars stole 21 pieces of jeweleries stored at the Dresden Royal Palace, one of the oldest buildings in the city and home to one of Europe’s largest collections of treasures.

They caused more than $1 million worth of damage when they set fire to an electricity distribution box in Dresden’s Old Town and to a getaway car in the underground car park of a residential building to cover their tracks.

In May 2023, the Dresden District Court sentenced five young men from the Berlin Remmo clan to several years in prison.

The sentencing was preceded by an agreement between the parties involved in the trial, which involved the return of a large part of the loot, but there is still no trace of some of the most valuable items. Kretschmer and Ackermann expressed the hope that they would one day be returned.