Advancing north from Frankfurt, the US 3rd Army cut into the future Soviet zone when it occupied the western tip of Thuringia. On 4 April 1945 the 90th Infantry Division took Merkers, a few kilometres inside the border in Thuringia. On the morning of the 6th, two military policemen, Pfc. Clyde Harmon and Pfc. Anthony Kline, enforcing the customary orders against civilian circulation during an evening curfew, stopped two women on a road outside Merkers. Since both were French displaced persons, with one of them pregnant attempting to find a doctor, the military policemen decided to bring them back to Pfc. Richard C. Mootz. Luckily for Mootz, he and the women had something in common: they could all speak German. While getting to know them better and escorting them back into the town, they passed the entrance to the Kaiseroda salt mine in Merkers.

The two women told Mootz that the mine contained gold stored by the Germans, along with other treasures.

The 90th Infantry Division engineers blasted a hole in the vault wall to reveal on the other side a room 23 meters (75 ft) wide and 46 meters (150 ft) deep. They found 3,682 bags and cartons of German currency, 80 bags of foreign currency, 8,307 gold bars, 55 boxes of gold bullion, 3,326 bags of gold coins, 63 bags of silver, one bag of platinum bars, eight bags of gold rings and 207 bags and containers of German loot that included artwork.

Note: This painting was German-owned, not looted. The painting was returned to the German Government 31 May 1949. It is on display today at the Alte Nationalgalerie. ARC Identifier: 5757184. Colorizer of historical photos.