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Vandals have damaged more than 70 works of art and artifacts in some of Berlin’s most famous museums, police said, in a targeted attack that authorities kept silent for more than two weeks.
Valuable paintings, stone sculptures and sarcophagi from three institutions on the German capital’s Museum Island, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, were doused with an “oily liquid”, leaving visible stains, Berlin police told the AFP.
The German media called it “one of the greatest attacks on art and antiquities in postwar German history.”
“The state criminal investigation office of the Berlin police opened an investigation into property damage to works of art and artifacts on display,” spokesman Martin Dams said in a statement.
Dams said police believe the vandalism occurred on October 3, Germany’s Unity Day, during the opening hours of the Pergamon Museum, the Neues Museum and the Alte Nationalgalerie.
He did not say why neither museums nor police had previously reported on the attack, which was first reported last night in the German media.
Dams did not provide any information on a possible motive.
However, a report by the weekly Die Zeit and the public broadcaster Deutschlandfunk noted that Attila Hildmann, an activist who has criticized government measures to contain the coronavirus, spread outlandish conspiracy theories about Museum Island in August and September. .
Using his Telegram channel, Mr. Hildmann claimed that the Pergamon Museum, closed for part of the summer due to the pandemic, had the “throne of Satan.”
He said the institution was the center of a “world crown and Satanist crime scene” where they “sacrifice humans at night and abuse children”, in an echo of the international conspiratorial movement QAnon.
The Berlin daily Tagesspiegel said museum visitors who had booked tickets for October 3 had been contacted by police for help with the investigation.
Berlin’s Museum Island, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is home to precious artifacts, including a legendary bust of Egyptian Queen Nefertiti and Babylon’s Ishtar Gate.
It attracts around three million visitors each year and is undergoing a major renovation and expansion.
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