GDR Paintings Return

(Die Bilder von Dresden)

GDR, 1955, 18 min, b&w
In German; no subtitles
Credits:
Director
Script
Editor
Camera
Music (Score)
Sound

Synopsis

Black-and-white flashbacks to Dresden's baroque past appear alongside Agfacolor footage of the city in the mid-1950s, after the fire bombings of WWII. In order to trace the journey of paintings in famous Dresden museum collections, the documentary takes viewers through the cities and museums of Florence and Paris, as well as in St. Petersburg and Moscow, where they had been taken by Soviet forces as looted art.

On June 3, 1956, the city of Dresden would eventually get 1,200 of these paintings back. Until 1960, when the Semper Gallery had been restored and reopened to the public, the Old Masters were temporarily displayed in the National Gallery in Berlin.

 

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