Windowpanes are returned
Six stained-glass windowpanes missing since World War II returned home Monday to a church in the eastern German town of Frankfurt an der Oder, 67 years after they were removed to protect them from war damage.
The 600-year-old Gothic windows of the St. Marienkirche were packed in boxes and sent to Potsdam for safekeeping in 1941, according to a statement from the city of Frankfurt an der Oder, which is about 60 miles east of Berlin on the Polish border. After the war, Soviet troops shipped them home as booty. In 2002, Russia sent back 111 stained-glass panels that were stored in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg.
The last six panels unexpectedly turned up in storage at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow in 2005. The German government, city authorities and the church have been negotiating for their return ever since.
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