On the morn­ing of his twen­ty-fourth birth­day, Octo­ber 1, 1995, Bre­itwieser embarks on a trip to New Cas­tle in Ger­many with his moth­er, Anne-Cather­ine, and one of her dachs­hunds. They take in the beau­ti­ful scenery of the Black For­est and vis­it a Sothe­by’s auc­tion pre­view held in the his­toric cas­tle. Cov­ered in fall foliage, the cas­tle is a majes­tic site filled with auc­tion items across its 106 rooms. Although Bre­itwieser is excit­ed to see a spe­cif­ic six­teenth-cen­tu­ry por­trait of Sibylle of Cleves by Lucas Cranach the Younger, he feels a ten­sion in the air, stem­ming from the fact that they rarely dis­cuss his ille­gal activ­i­ties dur­ing their time togeth­er.

Bre­itwieser reflects on their past when he and his moth­er were very close, but now, despite shar­ing a res­i­dence, he asserts that they do not inter­act much. His moth­er, Mireille Sten­gel, remains most­ly cryp­tic about his activ­i­ties and has declined inter­views with reporters, leav­ing many details of her life and his crim­i­nal­i­ty con­cealed. She stays out­side with the dog while Bre­itwieser and Anne-Cather­ine enter the cas­tle. Inside, he gapes at the art­work’s extra­or­di­nary detail, mes­mer­ized by the vibrant por­trait. It is secured under a plex­i­glass dome, sur­round­ed by vig­i­lant guards, and as they nav­i­gate the cas­tle, he acknowl­edges the dif­fi­cul­ty of steal­ing such a valu­able piece with­out trig­ger­ing alarm.

Even with the thrill of a poten­tial heist, humor and prac­ti­cal­i­ty keep him ground­ed as they assess the sit­u­a­tion. They agree not to risk steal­ing the paint­ing that day, as it would bring unwant­ed atten­tion and scruti­ny from author­i­ties. How­ev­er, as they revis­it the room hous­ing the por­trait lat­er on when the secu­ri­ty is slight­ly relaxed, an oppor­tu­ni­ty presents itself.

Await­ing the right moment, Bre­itwieser deft­ly takes the por­trait and hides it with­in his auc­tion cat­a­log. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, in his hur­ried escape, he knocks over the easel that held the paint­ing, caus­ing a jar­ring noise. To his sur­prise, their swift exit goes unno­ticed amidst the chat­ter sur­round­ing them. Main­tain­ing a calm demeanor, he exits with Anne-Cather­ine, still full of adren­a­line and exhil­a­ra­tion as they join his wait­ing moth­er, con­vinced that they suc­cess­ful­ly exe­cut­ed the dar­ing theft with­out rais­ing any sus­pi­cions. The cel­e­bra­tion of a birth­day din­ner with his grand­par­ents awaits, but now Bre­itwieser has a hid­den trea­sure to com­mem­o­rate his spe­cial day.