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CRIME

German church seeks return of €1 million in stolen art

German church officials are demanding the return of two pieces of Reformation-era altar art worth an estimated €1 million and stolen out of a village church almost 30 years ago.

Published: 9 April 2008 16:59 CEST
German church seeks return of €1 million in stolen art
The stolen altar art by Lucas Cranach. Photo:DPA

The two altar wings by Lucas Cranach, a contemporary of Martin Luther, turned up in a Bamberg antique shop last year after being stolen 28 years ago from a church in Klieken, a small town near Wittenberg.

Wolfgang Philipps, a senior official at the regional Protestant church in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, told MDR Info news radio on Wednesday the church would negotiate with the antique dealer to get the pictures back.

Philipps said church officials would be willing to compensate the dealer – but declined to say how much. Though valued by police in Bavaria at €1 million, the works were priced in the shop at €100,000.

“I don’t think it the art dealer would be particularly comfortable advertising a picture labeled as ‘stolen from the Klieken Church,’” Philipps said.

The regional daily Mitteldeutsche Zeitung quoted Bamberg’s senior prosecutor as saying the statute of limitations had expired on the original theft and that it would be impossible to prove the dealer had concealed stolen goods. The works had been passed down from the antique shop’s previous owner.

CRIME

Teenager turns self in after attack on German politician

A 17-year-old has turned himself in to police in Germany after an attack on a lawmaker that the country's leaders decried as a threat to democracy.

Published: 5 May 2024 12:52 CEST
Teenager turns self in after attack on German politician

The teenager reported to police in the eastern city of Dresden early Sunday morning and said he was “the perpetrator who had knocked down the SPD politician”, police said in a statement.

Matthias Ecke, 41, European parliament lawmaker for Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD), was set upon by four attackers as he put up EU election posters in Dresden on Friday night, according to police.

Ecke was “seriously injured” and required an operation after the attack, his party said.

Scholz on Saturday condemned the attack as a threat to democracy.

“We must never accept such acts of violence,” he said.

Ecke, who is head of the SPD’s European election list in the Saxony region, was just the latest political target to be attacked in Germany.

Police said a 28-year-old man putting up posters for the Greens had been “punched” and “kicked” earlier in the evening on the same Dresden street.

Last week two Greens deputies were abused while campaigning in Essen in western Germany and another was surrounded by dozens of demonstrators in her car in the east of the country.

According to provisional police figures, 2,790 crimes were committed against politicians in Germany in 2023, up from 1,806 the previous year, but less than the 2,840 recorded in 2021, when legislative elections took place.

A group of activists against the far right has called for demonstrations against the attack on Ecke in Dresden and Berlin on Sunday, Der Spiegel magazine said.

According to the Tagesspiegel newspaper, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser is planning to call a special conference with Germany’s regional interior ministers next week to address violence against politicians.

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