Thieves in Germany have stolen priceless jewels from one of Europe's largest treasure collections at Dresden Museum.
Video / CNN
Thieves broke into Dresden's Green Vault, one of the world's oldest museums, early Monday morning, making off with three "priceless" sets of 18th century jewellery that German officials said would be impossible to sell on the open market.
The treasury of Augustus the Strong of Saxony was established in 1723 and today contains around 4000 objects of gold, precious stones and other materials on display in Dresden's Royal Palace.
Authorities said it appeared the thieves had broken open only one glass case containing three sets of Baroque jewelry made up of dozens of gems each.
"This is a bitter day for the cultural heritage of Saxony," the state's interior minister, Roland Woeller, told reporters.
Some of the priceless jewels that were stolen from the Green Vault in Dresden, Germany. Photos / Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden / Juergen Karpinski via AP
He said the thieves "stole cultural treasures of immeasurable worth — that is not only the material worth but also the intangible worth to the state of Saxony, which is impossible to estimate."
Police are still carrying out forensic exams of the crime scene and museum officials said they have not yet been able to determine whether all the 100-or-so pieces were missing, but that the sets included intricate and dazzling brooches, buttons, buckles and other items.
Part of the collection at the Jewellery Room of Dresden's Green Vault. Photo / AP
Green Vault director Dirk Syndram stressed that the collections in the museum have "invaluable cultural value" — particularly their completeness.
"Nowhere in any other collection in Europe have jewels or sets of jewels been preserved in this form and quantity," he said. "The value is really in the ensemble."
Police said they were alerted shortly before 5am by unarmed museum security guards who had spotted two burglars inside the downtown museum on video surveillance cameras.
The first officers arrived on the scene within minutes but the thieves had already fled in a waiting getaway car, which managed to elude immediate attempts to find it in the surrounding area and on the nearby highway, Dresden police chief Joerg Kubiessa told reporters.
"It's not just the State Art Collections that was robbed, but us Saxons," Michael Kretschmer, the governor of Saxony, where Dresden is located, tweeted. "One can't understand the history of Saxony without the Green Vault."
Investigators are currently looking into whether a fire at an electrical junction box near the museum, which took out the streetlights at the time of the robbery was linked to the crime, said Volker Lange, the police officer leading the probe.
He said the outage affected lights in front of a window through which the thieves gained entrance, somehow getting through bars and safety glass.
Lange said they were also trying to determine whether an unregistered car, found on fire nearby with all four doors open and smelling of gasoline, may have been the getaway car.
The entrance to catacombs under the August Bridge, where a fire destroyed the power supply for the State Art Collection with the Green Vault. Photo / AP
Dresden's State Art Collections director, Marion Ackermann, said it was impossible to estimate the value of the items.
"We cannot give a value because it is impossible to sell," she said, appealing to the thieves not to break the ensembles into pieces. "The material value doesn't reflect the historic meaning."
A special team of investigators has been established to pursue the case, Woeller said.
"We will do everything in our power not only to bring the cultural treasures back, but to capture the perpetrators," he said.
Exhibition rooms at the museum focus on treasures featuring jewels, ivory, silver and amber among other objects.
One of its most famous and precious treasures, the Dresden Green Diamond, is currently on loan with other valuable pieces to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York for an exhibit.
The 41-carat green diamond was acquired by Augustus III, the son of Augustus the Strong, in 1742, according to the museum.
The museum said that at the time of its purchase it cost 400,000 thalers, compared to the 288,000 thalers it cost to build Dresden's lavish Frauenkirche church at around the same time.
Thieves smashed into a glass cabinet and made off with three sets of jewellery which were made for Augustus the Strong, the elector of Saxony in the 18th century, she explained.
Augustus competed with French monarch Louis XIV to assemble the most extravagant jewellery, she explained, describing the items stolen as "state treasures of the 18th century".
Augustus, who was elector of Saxony from 1694 to 1733 and also king of Poland for much of that time, established Dresden as a cultural centre and founded the museum which was targeted today.
The material worth of the jewellery was less important than the fact that the jewels had come as a set, Ackermann said.
People stand in front of the Residenzschloss, Residence Palace, building with the Green Vault. Photo / AP
Asked about the suggested value of a billion euros ($1.7bn), she said the value of the items stolen could not be quantified.
"We're dealing with priceless artistic and cultural treasures," she told reporters in Dresden. "We cannot give a value because it is impossible to sell."
Pleading with the thieves not to destroy the objects or melt them down, she said the jewellery was of "inestimable cultural and historical value" and could never be sold on the open market.
Dirk Syndram, another director at the museum, said the sets amounted to "a kind of world heritage", totalling about 100 jewellery items.
He explained that the stolen sets were part of a 10-set collection which includes not only diamonds, but also sapphires, rubies and emeralds.
One expert has already warned that it will be difficult to trace the diamonds if they are not found in the next few days.
The thieves may well break them up and sell them in separate parts as trying to sell a whole ensemble would look too suspicious, said Tobias Kormind of jewellery firm 77Diamonds.
