The German Culture Ministry in Berlin says negotiations for the return of the windows have been underway for some time. But the director of the Hermitage, Mikhail Piotrovskii, has said he first wants to exhibit them to the Russian public. The windows are important for art historians for their depiction of the life of the Antichrist in a parody of the life of Jesus. The German Culture Ministry says it still hopes that Russia will act generously because of the help given by Germany in the restoration of the famous Amber Room at Tsarskoye Selo near St. Petersburg. It was dismantled by German troops in 1941 and sent to Kaliningrad, where many pieces disappeared after heavy fighting near the end of the war.
Most experts believe the bulk of the room was probably destroyed in a fire.
The Moscow conference also heard from Hungarian cultural experts seeking the return of books, paintings, porcelain, statues, and other goods taken from the collections of wealthy families and from banks, museums, churches, and museums. The Culture Ministry in Budapest has published a list of more than 3,000 items known to have been taken. By chance, the conference happened to coincide with an exhibition in Moscow of some of these valuable old Hungarian books and manuscripts. They were once the pride of the library at the protestant college at Szaroszpatak in northeast Hungary. They have been stored since the war in the Volga River city of Nizhnii Novgorod.