A fragment of the Bayeux tapestry found in Germany

A fragment of the Bayeux tapestry has just been found in the State Archives of Schleswig-Holstein in Schleswig (Germany). And it reveals another section of the history of the 70 -meter long frieze preserved at the Bayeux Tapestry Museum (Normandy): the looting of works of art orchestrated by the Nazis.

The found fragment was part of the succession of the German archaeologist Karl Schlabow (1891-1984), pioneer of textile archeology and member of the Ahnenerbe, a multidisciplinary research center created in 1935 by Heinrich Himmler (1900-1945) in order to prove the scientific foundations of the Nazi ideology.

In 1941, Karl Schlabow was responsible for going to France to examine and re -maid the Bayeux tapestry, then kept at Mondaye Abbey (a few kilometers from Bayeux), because the Germans wanted to find in the frieze of the evidence of the supremacy of the Nordic race and had planned to take it in 1944. Karl Schlabow had taken advantage of the opportunity Removed from the lower part of the tapestry – a fragment which had found itself in the archives of the Land of Schleswig -Holstein after his death in 1984.

The discovered fragment should be repatriated to Bayeux before the end of the year. More details on the object and the circumstances of his discovery will be communicated during a press conference on March 25.

At the same time, the project of a new tapestry museum in Bayeux takes shape. The current museum is expected to close in the summer of 2025 for renovation and extension work and reopen in 2027, the year of celebration of the millennium of the birth of Guillaume the Conqueror (c. 1027-1087). The project provides for the construction of an extension of 3,350 m2, attached to the Grand Séminaire building (17th century) which currently houses the tapestry.

The tapestry, classified as a historic monument since 1840 and registered in the “Memory of the World” register of UNESCO since 2007, should be restored after the completion of the site. It remains to be seen whether the newly discovered fragment will be integrated into the frieze. Over the 70 meters of the tapestry, about 2.5 m x 3 m have disappeared.