Master Forger

In Luebeck, Germany, 500 spectators crowded into a local courtroom last week for the end of one of the most spectacular trials the town had ever seen. Star performer was Lothar Malskat, 41, the accomplished art forger who confessed that he and his accomplice Dietrich Fey had faked the murals in Luebeck's medieval St. Mary's Church (TIME, Oct. 27,1952). In his rush to put himself and partner in jail, Forger Malskat seemed determined to involve Luebeck's most respected burghers and much of the German art world as well.

The forgery team that had so successfully fooled the experts. Malskat told the court, started when he and Fey found that there was more money to be made in selling Malskat's fakes than in Malskat's originals. The two partners soon swamped the German market with up to 2,000 expert imitations of 71 ancient and modern masters. Then came the idea of "restoring" St. Mary's Gothic murals. Recalled Malskat: "I was allowed to stop fabricating French impressionists. Fey had a better job for me: I had to go back to the Middle Ages." But when "that crook Fey took all the credit and most of the money," Malskat admitted, he decided to reveal the hoax.

The Magic Eye. Even getting arrested had been an ordeal, Malskat testified. No one wanted to believe him, and for good reason. The recent 700th anniversary of Luebeck's St. Mary's, centered around the "restored" church murals, had been the civic event of a generation, attended by Germany's Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, and celebrated, with 2,000,000 special anniversary stamps showing a detail from Malskat's forged work. Luebeck winced as Malskat described how he had blithely gone about his work, perched on top of a 90-ft. scaffold inside the church. Only scattered patches of the original paint remained, said Malskat, and "even that turned to dust when I blew on it." Malskat decided to fill in the blank walls with pictures of historical figures, schoolmates and local laborers, modeled figures of the Virgin based on photographs of his sister and former German Movie Queen Hansi Knoteck.

Artist Malskat was delighted when he heard visiting experts point to "the magic eye of yonder prophet," refrained from pointing out: "Yonder prophet was my father, a Koenigsberg secondhand clothing dealer." Malskat watched visitors gaze in rapt concentration at "the peaceful lines in the face of the old Gothic King," unaware that they were actually looking at Malskat's portrait of Rasputin. "I learned a lot of things about my art," Malskat told the court. A student, basing her doctor's thesis on the murals, wrote: "The splendid figure of Mary bears the brush marks of Gothic genius." When the forgery was revealed, the student indignantly pointed out that they were still remarkably like the Gothic murals in the Luebeck Holy Ghost Hospital. Explained Malskat: "I also painted those."

The Delicate Decision. Malskat's testimony soon brought other reputations tumbling down. The red-faced church superintendent asked to be retired. Luebeck's art director suddenly decided to move to Germany's East Zone. His assistant was abruptly pensioned.

Last week the court found both Malskat and Fey guilty of "fraud and forgery," sentenced them to 18 and 20 months in prison. But for church officials there still remained a delicate problem: whether to destroy the murals because of "the ethical smudge," or to keep them intact. The forgeries had already brought Luebeck more fame than any anonymous Gothic originals ever had.

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