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Outlook: Cracking Germany’s 'biggest' art theft case

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The Stolen Friedenstein paintings

09/11/2022 GMT

Cracking Germany’s 'biggest' art theft case

BBC World Service - Outlook, Cracking Germany’s 'biggest' art theft case

The mayor and the top art theft detective who unravelled a 40-year-old German crime

How a mayor and Germany's top art theft detective cracked a decades-old crime.

Five Old Master paintings were stolen from the Friedenstein Gallery, in Gotha, Germany in 1979. Despite interviewing hundreds of people at the time, East Germany's feared secret police, the Stasi, couldn't work out who did it. 

Then in 2019 the paintings resurfaced and the mayor of Gotha, Knut Kreuch negotiated their return. He spoke to Jo Fidgen in 2020, but he didn't know who had taken them and why.

Now Jo has interviewed Detective Chief Inspector Rene Allonge, Germany's top art theft detective, who has finally cracked the cold case and found clues that led to the culprit.

Get in touch: outlook@bbc.com

Presenter: Jo Fidgen
Producer: Deiniol Buxton 

(Photo: The recovered Friedenstein paintings. Credit: Lutz Ebhardt / Stiftung Schloss Friedenstein Gotha)

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