Three historic paintings won by an American tank commander during the war were returned to the Anhaltische Gemäldegalerie Dessau collection in East Germany.

In the summer of 2014 the Foundation received a call from James Hetherington who stated that he had several paintings that had been in Europe during the war. Mr. Hetherington had recently learned of the Monuments Men Foundation after seeing information provided at the end of The Monuments Men film. Hetherington's step-father, Major William Oftebro, a World War II officer who died many years ago, mailed the paintings home to his wife, James' mother, after the war. Major Oftebro served in the 750th Tank Battalion and received the Bronze Star on April 28, 1945. He informed his family that he had won the paintings in a poker game. After several interviews Mr. Hetherington brought the paintings to the office of the Foundation for examination.

Determining the rightful owner proved straightforward: all three paintings preserved museum labels and identifying marks of the Joachim-Ernst-Stiftung, a German Foundation whose art collections had been placed on loan to museums and historic houses in and around the city of Dessau. That collection is now part of the Anhaltische Gemäldegalerie Dessau collection.

​

These paintings were inventory numbers 57, 205 and 273 and were stored since 30 August 1943 together with other artistic treasures from the Gemäldegalerie in a potassium mine called Solvayhall near Bernburg (Anhalt). They were in crate no. 31 in which a total of 16 paintings were packed. All 16 paintings from this crate are part of our war losses.