Visitors to Nuremberg can tour the art storage facility (Historischer Kunstbunker) that once contained the Veit Stoss altarpiece, stolen by the Nazis from Cracow, Poland in 1939. The art bunker ironically sits directly across the street from the home of one of Germany’s greatest artists, Albrecht Dürer, which is located at Albrecht-Dürer-Strasse 39.

This photo, taken by Ray D’Addario who so kindly made it available to us, shows the same entrance as it appeared when Allied soldiers entered the city in 1945. The extent of destruction to Nuremberg delayed for almost a year the removal and return by Monuments Officers of the Veit Stoss and other stolen works of art stored in this bunker.

Only in 1946 were workers able to remove one of the three frames of the Veit Stoss altarpiece that supported its extraordinary carved wooden figures.