The Cranach Connection (4/4)

The Cranach Connection (4/4)

"X-Files History" unravels mysterious cases of the past. In "The Cranach Connection" a historian and a profiler track down stolen artworks by German Renaissance master Lucas Cranach. What makes Cranach so unique? And how were his paintings going to save a bankrupt Communist state?

In May of 1980, two priceless Cranach paintings disappeared from a small-town church in East Germany. The thieves left lots of evidence in the town of Klieken, but none of the clues lead to the arrest of the culprits. Why not? The investigations were quickly taken over by the infamous Stasi secret service. Was the struggling Communist state really behind the theft? Was the East Berlin department of arts & antiquities involved? Or was it just a mundane act of vandalism?

Profiler Dr. Michael Baurmann and historian Natalie Akbari follow the trail of the altarpieces, which resurfaced 2007 in the West German art trade. The try to find out who the thieves were - and discover whether it really was the original altarpieces that returned to Klieken and whether they were even original Lucas Cranach paintings in the first place...