Tapestry from Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest returning to Germany
DALLAS — Growing up, Cathy Hinz and her five siblings would run up and down the stairs at their Minneapolis home, one hand on the banister, the other skimming a memento hanging on the wall that their father had brought back after fighting in World War II: a 16th century tapestry that once graced Adolf Hitler’s retreat perched high in the Bavarian Alps.
On Friday, that tapestry, purchased for Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest the year before the war began from a Munich art gallery owned by a Jewish family, will be formally returned in a ceremony in Germany. It will eventually be displayed at the Bavarian National Museum in Munich.
“The tapestry has been on a journey, and now it’s going home,” Hinz said.
The tapestry’s trip back to Germany began when Hinz gave it to the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. Enough was known about its past that Gordon “Nick” Mueller, president and CEO of the museum, and Robert Edsel, a board member and founder of the Dallas-based Monuments Men Foundation for the Preservation of Art, knew it needed to be returned to its rightful owner.