The Gotha Art Heist

Show notes

On the night of December 14, 1979, a group of unidentified individuals executed a daring art
heist at Friedenstein Castle, resulting in the theft of five valuable paintings. The stolen
artworks included:
"Portrait of an Unknown Gentleman with a Hat" by Frans Hals
"Country Road with Farm Cart and Cows" attributed to Jan Brueghel the Elder
"Self-Portrait with Sunflower" by Anthonis van Dyck (Copy; the original is privately owned by
the Duke of Westminster)
"Old Man" by Ferdinand Bol (Copy after Rembrandt)
"Saint Catherine" by Hans Holbein the Elder
The stolen paintings were displayed in various rooms of the museum located within
Friedenstein Castle. They were taken along with their corresponding frames, leaving only
black and white photographs as evidence of their existence. Prior to the theft, a color
photograph had been taken of "Self-Portrait with Sunflower," but it was only rediscovered in
the late 2000s during research by the television magazine "ttt – titel, thesen, temperamente."
At the time, the value of the stolen paintings was estimated to be around five million East
German Marks.
The museum's installed alarm system was not yet operational at the time of the break-in.
The theft was believed to have been carried out around 2 a.m., as indicated by temperature
drop data recorded by a climate recorder.

The circumstances of the theft, which suggested a deliberate selection of the stolen
artworks, pointed to the possibility of an organized heist. The manufacturing process of a
found climbing iron and the alloy of the steel used in it indicated, according to the
investigations at that time, that the climbing irons were not produced in East Germany.
Potential suspects at the time included the high-wire artists known as the Geschwister
Weisheit, who were based in Gotha, as well as museum staff, the Sachsen-Coburg and
Gotha royal family, and after the fall of the Berlin Wall, SED economic functionary Alexander
Schalck. The statute of limitations for the claim of return expired in December 2009,
prompting the city of Gotha and the museum to hope for new leads regarding the
whereabouts of the stolen paintings. The current value of the artworks is estimated to be
around 50 million euros. In December 2019, it was revealed th...