As the Allies stormed through Germany in 1945, museum officials in Dessau scurried to hide their art treasures in a nearby salt mine, where they would soon be discovered by American soldiers.

Much of the art was preserved, but three paintings by old masters somehow ended up in a poker game won by an American tank commander, Maj. William S. Oftebro, who quietly mailed them home.

For the past seven decades, they have been with his family, most recently on the wall of his widow’s room in an assisted living center in Texas.

On Tuesday, the poker winnings began their journey home.

In a ceremony at the State Department in Washington, the three works from Dessau and two other paintings taken by American G.I.’s were handed over by the soldiers’ heirs to the German ambassador to the United States, Peter Wittig, in an event organized by the Monuments Men Foundation, based in Dallas. “I just couldn’t keep them,” the major’s stepson, James Hetherington, 71, of Dallas, said. “Whether he won them in a poker game or not, they were stolen property.”