According to the ANSA media outlet, in 1944 the Nazis tried to steal the bones of Dante Alighieri from his tomb in Ravenna, Italy.
Fortunately, the local priest, with the help of the Resistance, replaced the bones of the poet with those of another man on the night of 22 March 1944.
An article written for the 700th anniversary of the poet's death by the son and brother of two of the people who took part in the bone swap operation says that US intelligence warned the Resistance about Adolf Hitler's order to steal the bones for a grand new museum in Germany.
Poet Dante Alighieri was buried in a sarcophagus located outside the basilica next to the walls of a Franciscan convent.