Two bronze horse statues which once flanked the entrance of the Third Reich's headquarters in Berlin have been recovered. Photo / AP
Two bronze horse statues which once flanked the entrance of the Third Reich's headquarters in Berlin have been recovered. Photo / AP
A pair of horses which once stood outside Adolf Hitler's grandiose Reich Chancellery in Berlin has been recovered by police probing a Nazi black market art ring.
Other artworks lost since the collapse of Nazism seven decades ago were also seized in police raids in five German states. One ofthem was a 5m by 10m mammoth granite relief by favoured Nazi artist Arno Breker.
The horses once stood on either side of the stairs into the chancellery that Hitler had built in Berlin as the centre of Third Reich power. It was reduced to rubble by Allied bombing and shells of the invading Red Army.
What remained of its collapsing walls was plundered by the Soviets to make a war memorial to its fallen soldiers in Berlin before they blew it up. The horses, constructed by artist Josef Thorak, were seized by the Red Army. It was assumed they had long ago been melted down.
Now estimated to be worth 3 million ($6.3 million), they were found with the other valuables in a warehouse in Bad Duerkheim in the state of Rhineland Palatinate.
Other raids on homes were carried out in Berlin, Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein.
It is not known how the art ended up in Bad Duerkheim but it is reported that the criminal gang was headquartered there.
The artworks remain the property of the German Federal Republic and charges of embezzling the state are expected to be laid against a number of suspects.
