Art theft from the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt 1994
The art theft from the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt in 1994 is regarded as the most sensational art theft in German post-war history. Responsible for this is in particular the fact that the stolen works of art later in a spectacular secret action by the museums of fences were repurchased and the perpetrators were never convicted for the robbery.
The robbery
.jpg)
.JPG)
On July 28, 1994, three oil paintings by famous Romantic painters were stolen from the exhibition "Goethe and Art" in the Kunsthalle Schirn in Frankfurt. Three perpetrators locked themselves in the museum that evening, then overpowered a security guard during the night and screwed the following paintings from the walls: Light and Color and Shade and Darkness from a series of pictures by William from 1843 Turner , which were on loan from the Tate Gallery in London for the exhibition, as well as the painting Nebelwaden by Caspar David Friedrich , created in 1818/1820, on loan from the Kunsthalle Hamburg .
Failure of law enforcement officers
Two members of the gang of thieves and a fence were quickly caught, were sentenced in 1999 to sentences of up to eleven years, but refused to testify about their clients and the whereabouts of the loot. The suspect as the main mastermind was a certain "Stevo", a member of the Frankfurt "Yugoslav Mafia" from the area of their "godfather" Rade "Ćenta" Ćaldović (Ćaldović was killed in 1997 in clashes between rival clans). Stevo tried to sell the paintings to a member of the underworld in Marbella , but was unable to agree on the price with him. In 1995, undercover investigators from the German police intervened in the business as allegedly interested buyers. Their attempt failed because the negotiator from Stevo doubled the previously agreed down payment price at the last minute. Stevo was arrested as a result, but in the absence of sufficient evidence, a later conviction in court failed. The German law enforcement authorities then closed the case. As a result, an insurance sum of around 40 million euros had to be paid out to the owners of the three paintings.
Operation Cobalt
However, the then director of the Tate Gallery, Sir Nicholas Serota , did not give up, but instead, after consulting his governing body and the British law enforcement authorities, drafted an initially secret plan to buy back the works of art from the robbers, the so-called "Operation Cobalt". In 1998 he agreed with the insurance company, to which the ownership of the Turner paintings had initially been transferred by paying out the insurance sum of £ 24 million , that the Tate would get the ownership back for £ 8 million if the paintings were ever to reappear.
An undercover agent from Scotland Yard next contacted Stevo's attorney, Edgar Liebrucks, to hire him as a middleman. Liebrucks had excellent connections to the Yugoslav mafia milieu through clients he had already taken over. At the end of 1999 Liebrucks began negotiations on behalf of the gallery. They agreed on a price of five million DM per picture. According to research by WDR journalists, a deposit was handed over in July 2000 under the supervision of Scotland Yard on a park bench in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe . At the last minute, however, Stevo doubled the amount of the down payment from the initially agreed million marks to two million, whereupon Liebbrucks advanced the difference privately in order not to let the return break. The return of the first work of art, the oil painting Shade and Darkness , was also successfully completed. In July 2000, it returned to London and Liebrucks received around 320,000 euros from Tate for its mediation.
The further negotiations came to a halt, however, because Stevo had apparently got "cold feet". In autumn 2002, however, Liebrucks was contacted by two auto repair shop owners (the Vienna-based auto mechanic Josef S. and his friend Hartmut K.) who claimed they had the other two paintings and were ready to sell them. It later turned out that Stevo had initially had the works of art deposited in her workshop near the Frankfurt Zoo (later they were brought to Erlensee near Hanau) and that they now apparently wanted to do the business themselves without his knowledge. The Tate Gallery has now also bought back the second Turner painting from them for two million euros. The painting was returned to London around Christmas 2002. The two fences then spent six months on vacation in Cuba, completely unmolested .
Taking into account the fact that the Tate Gallery received more money from the insurance company than it had to pay to them "for information that led to the replacement of the paintings" - as the Tate itself diplomatically put it in retrospect - resulted in the Gallery from the secret operation a surplus of around 20 million euros. They are said to have been used later for an extension. According to the Tate Gallery, all payments had previously been coordinated with German and British authorities, but this was at least denied by the German side.
The Kunsthalle Hamburg has now also given Liebrucks permission to buy back the masterpiece from CD Friedrich. After the two fences returned from Cuba, Liebbrucks was able to reduce the price from the initially requested one and a half million euros to around 250,000 euros. According to research by the WDR, the sum was initially made available by an undisclosed sponsor of the Kunsthalle, who later withdrew its offer. Liebrucks therefore advanced the sum again from his own funds, trusting that he would receive appropriate compensation later, as before. In return, he received the picture and initially kept it with him. In August 2003 he returned it to the Kunsthalle. The two fences then went to Brazil to avoid extradition and the revenge of the Frankfurt “Yugoslav Mafia”. However, the Kunsthalle initially refused to pay Liebrucks on the grounds that he could have made common cause with the thieves. The lawyer then filed a lawsuit against the Kunsthalle with the Hamburg district court in 2005 , which he won in June 2006. In addition to the advanced 250,000 euros, he received a further 20,000 euros agency fee.
literature
- Nora Koldehoff, Stefan Koldehoff: Aktenzeichen Kunst - The most spectacular art thefts in the world . DuMont, Cologne 2004, ISBN 3-8321-7435-4 .
- Egmont R. Koch , Nina Svensson: Unbelievable! . Press report on the 1994 art theft, in: Süddeutsche Zeitung . Magazine, November 4, 2005.
- Sandy Nairne : Art Theft and the Case of the Stolen Turners . London 2011, ISBN 978-1-86189-851-7 ; German by Werner Richter: The empty wall. Museum theft. The fall of the two Turner pictures . Piet Meyer, Bern 2012, ISBN 978-3-905799-19-4 .
Television documentary
- Secret behind the fog. The greatest art theft in German history. Documentation by Egmont R. Koch and Nina Svensson, Phoenix / WDR 2005 (see announcement) .
Web links
- The case of the stolen Turner pictures. Interview with Sandy Nairne in art - Das Kunstmagazin , August 10, 2011.
- Heike Borufka , Basti Red: Condemned (23): The great art theft, podcast, 65:55 minutes, hr-iNFO .de, June 17, 2020, accessed on June 29, 2020.