Visitors admire stolen and returned pieces of jewelry in the Green Vault

One day after the official presentation, the first visitors to the Historic Green Vault took a look at the jewelry stolen in 2019 and later returned in their wall display case. He felt "great joy", said a Dresden resident who was showing friends from France around Saxony's Treasury Museum.

He is still shocked by the brutality and disrespect shown to the art treasures and the museum. "But the joy outweighs it all," the 65-year-old confessed and showed his friends how the jewel thieves used axes to smash holes in the special glass of the display case to get at the sparkling diamonds and diamonds - and then tore them out of their mountings or apart.

Spectacular art theft in November 2019

The art theft on November 25, 2019 is considered one of the most spectacular in Germany. The perpetrators stole 21 unique historical pieces of jewelry from the 18th century jewel collection and caused over one million euros in damage. Five young men from the Remmo clan were sentenced to prison by the Dresden Regional Court in May 2023 for theft and arson of a getaway car in the underground garage of a residential building and an electricity distribution board. At the end of the hearing of evidence shortly before Christmas 2022, they had returned most of the loot through their defense lawyers.

History of the criminal case as part of the exhibition

In front of the wall display case with the diamond rose and diamond set and the brilliant-cut jewelry of the queens, an almost reverent silence prevailed on Wednesday shortly after the world-famous museum on the first floor of the Residenzschloss opened. People read with interest the story of the criminal case, which made international headlines, described digitally on a stele next to it, and looked at the loot for a long time. From Thursday, the opening hours are extended until 8.00 pm. Access is only possible with timed tickets and is timed to protect the exhibits from several centuries, some of which are standing freely on consoles. 1,000 free tickets for September, which SKD drew online, were gone on Tuesday evening, as a spokeswoman reported.

Some prominent objects still missing

The historical display case, which was badly looted by the jewel thieves on the night of November, had already been repaired and reinstalled almost a year and a half later. Only the pieces of the diamond and diamond sets that the thieves spared, or that they were unable to get hold of through the holes carved into the glass with an axe, were left in their original places: buttons, buckles and pearl necklaces. Now many gaps have been filled, but three prominent objects with large stones have continued to disappear - including the epaulette with the "Saxon White", a brilliant-cut diamond of almost 50 carats, which experts consider to be one of the world's most important diamonds.