"Lost" Third Reich art treasures come to light

Some top-notch famous sculptures by Adolf Hitler's two favorite artists, for whom he built gigantic studios for their super-large works to be created for public buildings and public spaces, have been confiscated by the Berlin State Office of Criminal Investigation. It is the preliminary determination that the rightful owner of this artwork is the German State, or German government.

Among the masterpieces discovered and expropriated from their current owners are (click on images to enlarge):

"Die Wehrmacht," one of two sculptures created by Arno Breker for the main courtyard of Hitler's New Reich Chancellery in 1939 was discovered on a large estate near Kiel in northern Germany.

"Der Wächter" (The Watchman) relief scuilpture by Arno Breker

The two magnificent Josef Thorak bronze horses resting in their safe place before discovery.

The horses adorned the terrace of Hitler's study in the New Reich Chancellery after it was completed in 1939.

Close up of one of the imperious Thorak "Nazi" horses in captivity, being transferred to a new location.

While the German art investigative office spent years looking for these masterpieces, the politically corrent numbskull who wrote the article for Der Spiegel dated May 26th, Konstantin von Hammerstein, referred to the lost works as from "the Nazis' ghoulish collection of art treasures." Haha, but he can't fool anyone who has eyes to see with that trash-talk.

He also wrote that Arno Breker's huge studio where a great deal of National Socialist sculpture was stored (including Thorak's horses) and was destroyed in 1945, was "full of Nazi kitsch."

But in spite of the usual asinine attempts to downgrade everything to do with the Third Reich, we do learn from this article what other fabulous Third Reich art has been "discovered" and seized by the German government:

In Bad Dürkheim in southwestern Germany, officers found three gigantic granite reliefs -- which Breker had produced for the triumphal arch in Germania, Hitler's planned world capital -- outside a warehouse. The pieces, titled "Der Rächer" (The Avenger), "Der Wächter" (The Watchman -shown above -cy) and "Kameraden" (The Comrades), are each 10 meters (33 feet) tall, five meters wide, weigh 40 tons and are divided into 49 pieces. They fell into the hands of Soviet troops after World War II.

The reliefs were part of the collection of businessman Rainer Wolf, on whose extensive property the investigators also discovered six large bronze figures: two female nudes by Fritz Klimsch, "Olympia" and "Galathea," Breker's "Der Künder" (The Herald) and "Berufung" (Mission), as well as two giant horses Josef Thorak had had cast in 1939 for the New Reich Chancellery.

You can read the full article and see a few more pictures at Der Spiegel International.