Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Dresden Green Vault Burglary

Episode Date: January 20, 2022

Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ In the early morning of November 29, 2019, a team of thieves broke into the Green Vault Museum in Dresden, Germany.  Their target was jeweled treasures of Saxony which were some of the most valuable gems in Europe.  In under an hour, they had left with items that were worth a staggering sum of money. Learn more about the Dresden Green Vault Burglary, the greatest heist in world history, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. -------------------------------- Associate Producers: Peter Bennett & Thor Thomsen   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh   Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/EEDailyPodcast/ Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/everything-everywhere-daily-podcast/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the earlier morning of November 29, 2019, a team of thieves broke into the Green Vault Museum in Dresden, Germany. Their target was jewel treasures of the state of Saxony, which were some of the most valuable gems in all of Europe. In under an hour, they had left with items that were worth a staggering sum of money. Learn more about the Dresden Green Vault burglary, the greatest heist in world history, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Do you ever climb into bed ready to sleep, only to have your mind start racing the moment your head hits the pillow? Thoughts bouncing around, replaying the day or jumping ahead to tomorrow. That is exactly why Catherine Nikolai created Nothing Much Happens. Each episode is a gentle,

cozy bedtime story where, well, nothing much happens. No drama, no tension, nothing you need to follow closely. Just soft narration, calming repetition, and soothing sensory details designed to help your mind slow down and your body relax. It's not about entertainment, it's about rest. And millions of listeners around the world use it every night to quiet the their thoughts and finally fall asleep. If you've ever struggled to shut your brain off at night, this might be exactly what you've been missing. You can listen to Nothing Much Happens wherever you get your podcasts.

Episodes are every Monday and Thursday. Before I get into the details of the Dresden Green Vault burglary, it's probably necessary to explain exactly what the Dresden Green Vault is and why someone would want to break into it. The Dresden Green Vault is, as the name would suggest, in Dresden Germany. and Dresden is the capital of the German state of Saxony. For the purpose of this episode, the story begins in the early 18th century, with the ruler of Saxony August 2nd, the Strong. Augustus was, as his name would imply, strong.

He was known as the Saxon Hercules, and he reportedly could bend horseshoes with his bare hands. Augustus held the titles of King of Poland, the Grand Duke of Lithuania, and the Elector of Saxony. Electors were people who selected the Holy Roman Emperor. It was an extremely important title and one that I'll probably be doing an episode on in the future. He ruled from Dresden Castle. Within the castle, there was a vault that had been built in 1547 by a previous elector of Saxony.

The vault was built to house all of the treasures of the castle, primarily jewelry and documents. It became known as the green vault because of the coloring used on the tops and bottoms of some of the columns in the first room you would enter. In 1723, Augustus the Strong converted the vault into a music. to showcase to the public the treasures that it held. Depending on how you date the opening of the Vatican Museum, the Dresden Green Vault is either the oldest or second oldest museum in the world. And if you know anything about Dresden, you probably know that it was almost destroyed totally from Allied bombing in World War II.

Prior to the bombing, all of the treasures from the Green Vault were moved out of the city, and during the bombing of February 13, 1945, three of the eight rooms of the vault were destroyed. The Soviets confiscated all of the treasures. in 1945, but returned them in 1958. And in addition, the entire vault building was rebuilt. And just as an aside, Dresden is a really interesting city. If you didn't know it had been destroyed beforehand, you'd probably never guess it.

It was rebuilt to look almost exactly as it did before. I also realized in the course of doing research for this episode that I had in fact been to the green vault in Dresden back in 2011. Definitely worth seeing if you happen to be in a city. So to summarize, the Dresden Green Vivalry. vault is one of the oldest museums in the world, and it housed many priceless artifacts pertaining to the history of the region. The heist took place on the morning of November 25, 2019. The first thing that the thieves did was start a fire on the nearby Augustus Bridge, which is located right in

front of the museum, and which crosses the Elbe River. The fire started at 4 a.m. The fire was set such that it knocked out the main power to the museum. All of the nearby streetlights were disabled, as were the museum alarms. However, a backup power supply did manage to keep the closed-circuit TV cameras inside the museum functioning. They gained access to the museum by cutting through the bars over a window. The bars actually created a sort of fence around the window, so there were several that they had to cut through. If you look at an image of the cut bars, they only create a very small hole in the corner, which would have been difficult for any adult to get through. From there, they smashed the safety glass in the window and climbed through. They clearly knew what they were doing as they headed directly to a particular display case and smashed the glass protecting it with an axe.

Their targets were three sets of jewelry dating back to the 18th century. Two security guards witnessed the robbers, but they were unarmed and by protocol they were not allowed to confront them. They called the police at 4.56 a.m. The thieves then emptied two fire extinguishers into the room, which was probably done to hide any evidence that they might have left. The thieves then slipped out of the museum the same way that they could. came in and replaced the bars in the windows to delay detection. They then sped away in a blue Audi S6, which was captured on camera. The Audi was later found in a Dresden parking garage burned out, and it turned out the blue color was actually just a wrapper put on the car. So,

what did the thieves manage to get away with? It turns out quite a bit. One of the items was a breastpin called the Star of the Order of the White Eagle. The Order of the White Eagle was a Chevalric order created by Augustus II. The item is encrusted with diamonds as well as rubies, gold, and silver. Another item was a sword made of silver with a hilt that was encrusted with over 770 diamonds. A shoulder piece was stolen that contained the 50-carat Dresden White Diamond. In total, 21 items were taken that had a total of over 4,300 encrusted diamonds. The total fair market value of everything stolen was estimated to be one billion euros. The police showed up only minutes after the robbers had left.

The investigation into the heist began immediately. One of the things that stuck out was the robbery seems to have been very similar to a robbery that occurred in 2017 at the Bodie Museum in Berlin. There, the thief stole a giant gold maple leaf coin about the size of a tire that was created by the Canadian Mint in 2007. Three men were caught and convicted in conjunction with the 2017 Maple Leaf Heist. they were all members of the Berlin Remo Crime Family. The Remo Crime Family are sort of like the German equivalent of the mafia, but instead of having migrated from Sicily, they migrated from northern Lebanon. In March of 2020, the police announced that they thought there were seven people involved in the Dresden robbery.

On November 17, 2020, 1,638 police conducted raids in Berlin, resulting in the arrest of three members of the Remo Crime family. One of the men was a suspect in the 2017 robbery of the giant gold coin in Berlin. In December 2020, a fourth arrest was made. In May of 2021, they arrested a fifth suspect, and in September they arrested his twin brother. In total, the six men range in age from 21 to 27 and are all in custody now awaiting trial. In January of 2020, supposedly an offer was made on the dark web to sell several of the items for $9 million. 9 million euro was far below what it was probably worth, but it all was.

also affected the problem with stealing historical objects. They are almost impossible defense because everybody knows that they're stolen. To date, no one has been able to verify if that offer was legitimate. It's believed the reason why they went after jewels is that they can easily be taken apart and sold individually, which makes them all but impossible to trace back, the same reason why the giant gold coin was stolen in 2017. This is one of the reasons why there are so few art heists. Even if you manage to pull off the robbery, what do you do with it?

Despite what you see on movies and television, there isn't a huge market of millionaires who want to buy stolen art. One of the interesting things about the heist is that several items inside the display case weren't taken, simply because they were sewn into place. The extra effort required to remove them made them not worth taking. Since the robbery, there have been a reassessment of security, both in the Green Vault Museum and in other museums around the world. It was a shock to so many museums just how easily so much was taken so quickly. As of the recording of this episode, none of the items have been recovered. Based on the value of what was stolen, the Dresden Green Vault burglary remains the largest heist in human history.

Everything Everywhere Daily is an airwave media podcast. The associate producers are Thor Thompson and Peter Bennett. Today's review comes from listener Peppery One on Apple Podcasts in the United States. They write, Fab Quick Podcast. I love this show. It's a nice pallet cleanser after listening to depressing news podcasts. My kids like it also. It's lighthearted and engaging. I also really like it when it's sponsored by Audible. I appreciate Gary's book recommendations related to the topic he's discussing.

Well, thank you, peppery one. I will definitely pass this on to the powers that be over at Audible, and hopefully they will take your words to heart. Remember, if you leave a review or send in a question, you two can have it read on the show.