Federal Government returns cultural property to Poland

At the 17th German–Polish intergovernmental consultations in Berlin, State Minister for Culture and the Media Wolfram Weimer handed over cultural property to his Polish counterpart Marta Cienkowska on 1 December 2025.

The 73 charters from the Central Archives of Historical Records in Warsaw

The 73 charters dating from the time of the Teutonic Order are archival materials that were removed from the Warsaw Central Archives of Historical Records in 1941 following the occupation of Poland by the German Wehrmacht; these found their way into the holdings of the Secret State Archives of Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation via several intermediate stages.

The valuable parchment charters, some of them up to 800 years old, were handed over in 1525 by Albrecht of Brandenburg-Ansbach, the last Grand Master of the Teutonic Order in Prussia and the first Duke of Prussia, to the Kingdom of Poland. They include important papal charters as well as numerous other documents relating to diplomatic and military conflicts between the Teutonic Order and Poland.

The transfer of the archival materials to the Crown in Kraków following the subjugation of Prussia under Polish feudal sovereignty in 1525 was in line with legal practices customary in the 16th century. Under the new balance of power, the papal and imperial privileges of the Teutonic Order recorded in the charters were no longer valid in their existing form, nor were treaties that had been concluded between Poland and the Order. The transfer therefore symbolised the submission of the Teutonic Order following centuries of conflict with Poland.

Following the occupation of Poland by the German Wehrmacht, a commission composed of archivists from Königsberg enforced the removal of the archival materials from the Warsaw Central Archives of Historical Records in 1941. The charters taken were incorporated into the holdings of the State Archives of Königsberg. When the State Archives of Königsberg were evacuated, the charters were first moved in 1944/45 to the storage sites at Grasleben and Goslar, then in 1953 to the Göttingen archival depot, and from there in 1979 to the Secret State Archives of Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (GStA PK). However, during the relocation of the Königsberg archival materials to the Grasleben mine in 1944/45 or during the subsequent storage period there, one of the original 74 charters – an imperial privilege issued by Emperor Louis IV in 1338 – was lost. It did not arrive with the other Königsberg archival materials in 1953 at the State Archival Depot in Göttingen, where an (undated) note of loss was recorded in the finding aid. Accordingly, the charter is currently missing from the holdings of the Secret State Archives.

The head of St. James the Greater

The stone head originally belonged to a life-size full-length figure of St. James the Greater, which itself formed part of a sculptural cycle in the chapel of Malbork Castle near Gdańsk – formerly the seat of the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order. Standing on consoles beneath the vaulting of the chapel, the sculptures of Christ, the twelve Apostles and other saints were integrated in the architectural structure of the chapel as part of the compound piers and were firmly attached to it. The sculpture of St. James the Greater is attributed to a West Prussian artist. It is dated to around 1340, when the chapel was consecrated as a church.

Malbork Castle was severely damaged during the Second World War, in the spring of 1945, with the chapel being almost completely destroyed. It is likely that the sculpture was damaged at its original location during these events. During the clearance and reconstruction work carried out by the Polish state after the end of the Second World War, the head of St. James the Greater was recovered from the rubble before subsequently being lost under circumstances that remain unclear, probably in the 1950s.

In 1958, the Germanic National Museum in Nuremberg acquired the head of St. James the Greater from a Munich art dealer with funds provided by the Federal Republic of Germany. As a federal loan, the object remained part of the museum’s holdings until its return.

Malbork Castle is now a museum and has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 7 December 1997. The body belonging to the stone head of St. James the Greater remains in its original location in the chapel at Malbork Castle.