Quedlinburg - a well-hidden German gem

It was in Quedlinburg that in 1945 one of the biggest art thefts in the 20th century occurred. An American soldier had stolen several medieval artifacts from the Collegiate Church of St. Servatius and mailed them back to his home in Texas. For years, these treasures (now worth about $200 million) remained hoarded in obscurity. But after some of the relics surfaced on the international arts market in the late 1980’s, a waterfall of events led to a United States District Court case against the soldier’s brother and sister, who had attempted to sell the stolen items. By 1993, the looted relics had been restored to the Quedlinburg church.