Lothar Malskat

Lothar Malskat (May 3, 1913 – February 10, 1988) was a German painter and art restorer who repainted medieval frescoes of the Marienkirche in Lübeck, critically damaged during WWII.

However, Malskat made several anachronistic mistakes including turkeys (which were unknown in 14th century Europe) and modeling the Virgin Mary's face after Austrian movie star Hansi Knoteck.

Alfred Stange, art historian at the University of Bonn, praised it as “the last, deepest, final word in German art.”[2] In 1951 he was employed by Dietrich Fey, whose firm was commissioned to restore the frescoes of cathedral of Marienkirche in Lübeck.

The church had received donations worth DM 150,000 for restoration and Fey's company did the work behind closed doors.

[2] The West German government printed 2 million postage stamps depicting the frescoes.

A fictionalised version of Malskat's painting of the Marienkirche frescoes appears in the Günter Grass novel The Rat.