An American soldier gards the entrance of one of the chambers in the salt mine of Altaussee

During WWII, the Ghent Altarpiece was kept by the Germans in the Altaussee mine, Austria, along with many other masterpieces seized all across Europe by the Nazi administration. On this archive picture, an American soldier gards the entrance of one of the chambers in mine, after the intervention of the Monuments Men.

At the beginning of the war, the masterpiece had been transferred to the French city of Pau. On August 3, 1942, the Germans robbed the panels and brought them over to the Bavarian Neuschwanstein Castle, from where they were transferred to the Salt Mine Altaussee in Austria, in 1944.