In 1938, Hitler conceived the megalomaniac idea of creating the largest art center in Europe in his home town of Linz. At the beginning of the war, not only did his armies advance but also his art thieves began to fan out in their great foray. When the war's tide finally turned, Stalin also had countless works of art taken from German art collections to the East. This documentary relates the long and eventful journey of an exceptional masterpiece of European art: the Ghent Altar, created by van Eyck, which for the Belgian people represents a national shrine. Hardly another European work of art was brought to so many places and passed through so many hands after it had been stolen.