Eight renowned paintings
belonging to the heritage of the Italian state are "prisoners of
war" in Belgrade, on display in the halls of the Serbian
National Museum: for many years, the Bologna prosecutor's office
has been asking in vain for their return, after the carabinieri
discovered by chance, and then reconstructed this incredible
affair.
Now a journalistic investigation reveals that the paintings
that should be returned to Italy because they were illegally
exported and then stolen from the Munich Collection Center,
where the Allies had crammed all the artworks looted by the
Nazis, are not just eight, but more than twice as many.
The fraud, as the book "Spoils of War." (Mursia) by
journalists Tommaso Romanin and Vincenzo Sinapi recounts, had
been prepared for months and was committed in two days, on June
2 and June 10, 1949, when 50 paintings, 8 icons, and a large
amount of ancient and precious objects, including carpets,
tapestries, candelabras, coins, 166 items in all, left the
Collecting point in Munich.
Croatian businessman Ante Topic Mimara pulled off the heist
with the collaboration of a young German official at the Center,
Wiltrud Mersmann, who would shortly after that become his wife.
The assets reached Yugoslavia by train and were forfeited by the
National Museum in Belgrade.
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