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If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Salt mines and castles - The discovery and restitution of looted European art - -Author: Thomas Carr Howe - -Release Date: May 22, 2022 [eBook #68150] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at - https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images - made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SALT MINES AND CASTLES *** - - - - - - -SALT MINES AND CASTLES - - - - -[Illustration: The Special Evacuation Team. Lieutenants Kovalyak, Moore -and Howe, who removed the Göring Collection from Berchtesgaden to Munich, -were photographed in the Luftwaffe Rest House at Unterstein.] - -[Illustration: Hermann Göring, his daughter Edda, Frau Göring and Adolf -Hitler. This photograph was taken at Karinhall, the Reichmarschall’s -estate near Berlin.] - - - - - Salt Mines - AND - Castles - - The Discovery and Restitution of - Looted European Art - - _By_ - THOMAS CARR HOWE, JR. - - THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY - _PUBLISHERS_ - _INDIANAPOLIS_ · _NEW YORK_ - - COPYRIGHT, 1946, BY THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY - PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - - _First Edition_ - - - - -TO MY MOTHER - - - - -NOTE - - -From May 1945 until February 1946, I served as a Monuments, Fine Arts -and Archives Officer in Germany. During the first four months of this -assignment, I was engaged in field work which included the recovery of -looted works of art from such out-of-the-way places as a monastery in -Czechoslovakia, a salt mine in Austria, and a castle in Bavaria. Later, -as Deputy Chief of the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section, Office -of Military Government, U. S. Zone, I participated in the restitution of -recovered art treasures to the countries of rightful ownership. - -This book is primarily an account of my own experiences in connection -with these absorbing tasks; but I have also chronicled the activities of -a number of my fellow officers, hoping thereby to provide the reader with -a more comprehensive estimate of the work as a whole than the _resumé_ of -my own duties could have afforded. - -For many helpful suggestions, I am indebted to Captain Edith A. Standen, -Lieutenant Lamont Moore and Mr. David Bramble; and for invaluable -photographic material, I am particularly grateful to Captain Stephen -Kovalyak, Captain P. J. Kelleher, Captain Edward E. Adams and Lieutenant -Craig Smyth, USNR. - -For permission to reproduce three _International News Service_ -photographs, I wish to thank Mr. Clarence Lindner of the San Francisco -_Examiner_. - - THOMAS CARR HOWE, JR. - - San Francisco - July 1946. - - - - -CONTENTS - - - CHAPTER PAGE - - 1 PARIS—LONDON—VERSAILLES 13 - - 2 ASSIGNED TO FRANKFURT 35 - - 3 MUNICH AND THE BEGINNING OF FIELD WORK 54 - - 4 MASTERPIECES IN A MONASTERY 80 - - 5 SECOND TRIP TO HOHENFURTH 104 - - 6 LOOT UNDERGROUND: THE SALT MINE AT ALT AUSSEE 130 - - 7 THE ROTHSCHILD JEWELS; THE GÖRING COLLECTION 171 - - 8 LOOTERS’ CASTLE: SCHLOSS NEUSCHWANSTEIN 219 - - 9 HIDDEN TREASURES AT NÜRNBERG 243 - - 10 MISSION TO AMSTERDAM; THE WIESBADEN MANIFESTO 259 - - APPENDIX 297 - - INDEX 321 - - - - -LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS - - - The Special Evacuation Team. Lieutenants Kovalyak, - Moore and Howe _Frontispiece_ - - Hermann Göring, his daughter, Frau Göring and Hitler _Frontispiece_ - - FACING - PAGE - - The Residenz at Würzburg 30 - - Ruined Frankfurt. The Cathedral 30 - - The Central Collecting Point at Munich 31 - - A typical storage room in the Central Collecting Point 31 - - The bronze coffin of Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia 40 - - Canova’s life-size statue of Napoleon’s sister 40 - - The administration buildings at the Alt Aussee salt mine 41 - - Truck at the mine being loaded with paintings 41 - - Sieber and Kern view Michelangelo’s Madonna and Child 56 - - The Madonna being packed for return to Bruges 56 - - The famous Ghent altarpiece 57 - - Sieber, Kern and Eder examine the altarpiece 57 - - Vermeer’s _Portrait of the Artist in His Studio_ 64 - - One of the picture storage rooms at Alt Aussee 64 - - Panel from the Louvain altarpiece, _Feast of the Passover_ 65 - - The Czernin Vermeer 65 - - Major Anderson supervising removal of the Göring Collection 96 - - One of the forty rooms in the Rest House 96 - - The GI Work Party which assisted the Evacuation Team 97 - - Truck loaded with sculpture from the Göring Collection 97 - - German altarpiece from the Louvre Museum 128 - - The panel, _Mary Magdalene_, by van Scorel 128 - - Wing of an Italian Renaissance altarpiece by del Garbo 129 - - _The Magdalene_, by Erhardt 129 - - _Mary Magdalene_, by Cranach 160 - - _The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine_ by David 160 - - _Diana_, by Boucher, from the Rothschild Collection 161 - - _Atalanta and Meleager_, by Rubens 161 - - _Portrait of a Young Girl_ by Chardin and _Young Girl with - Chinese Figure_ by Fragonard 192 - - _Christ and the Adulteress_, the fraudulent Vermeer 193 - - _Portrait of the Artist’s Sister_ by Rembrandt 193 - - Removal of treasures from Neuschwanstein 224 - - Neuschwanstein—Ludwig II’s fantastic castle 224 - - Packing looted furniture at Neuschwanstein 225 - - Typical storage room in the castle 225 - - The Albrecht Dürer house—before and after the German collapse 256 - - The Veit Stoss altarpiece from the Church of Our Lady at Cracow 257 - - The Hungarian Crown Jewels 288 - - Treasure Room at the Central Collecting Point, Wiesbaden 289 - - The celebrated sculpture, Queen Nefertete 289 - - - - -SALT MINES AND CASTLES - - - - -(1) - -_PARIS—LONDON—VERSAILLES_ - - -“Your name’s not on the passenger list,” said Craig when I walked into -the waiting room of the Patuxent airport. “You’d better see what you can -do about it.” It was a hot spring night and I had just flown down from -Washington, expecting to board a transatlantic plane which was scheduled -to take off at midnight. - -“There must be some mistake,” I said. “I checked on that just before I -left Washington.” Craig went with me to the counter where I asked the -pretty WAVE on duty to look up my name. It wasn’t on her list. - -“Let’s see what they know about this at the main office,” she said with -an encouraging smile as she dialed Naval Air Transport in Washington. -The next ten minutes were grim. The officer at the other end of the -line wanted to know with whom I had checked. Had it been someone in his -office? I didn’t know. All I knew was that I had to get on that plane. -I had important papers which had to be delivered to our Paris office -without delay. Was I a courier? Yes, I was—well, that is, almost, I -faltered to the WAVE ensign who had been transmitting my replies. “Here, -you talk to him,” she said, adding, as she handed me the receiver, “I -think he can fix it up.” - -After going through the same questions and getting the same answers a -second time, the officer in Washington asked to speak to the yeoman who -was supervising the loading of the plane. He was called in and I waited -on tenterhooks until I heard him say, “Yes, sir, I can make room for the -lieutenant and his gear.” Turning the phone over to the WAVE, he asked -with a reassuring grin, “Feel better, Lieutenant?” - -I was so limp with relief that I scarcely noticed the tall spare man in -civilian clothes who had just come up to the counter. “That’s Lindbergh,” -said Craig in a low voice. “Do you suppose he’s going over too?” - -Half an hour later we trooped out across the faintly lighted field to -the C-54 which stood waiting. Lindbergh, dressed now in the olive-drab -uniform of a Naval Technician, preceded us up the steps. There were ten -of us in all. With the exception of three leather-cushioned chairs, there -were only bucket seats. Craig and I settled ourselves in two of these -uninviting hollows and began fumbling clumsily with the seat belts. -Seeing that we were having trouble, Lindbergh came over and with a -friendly smile asked if he could give us a hand. After deftly adjusting -our belts, he returned to one of the cushioned seats across the way. - -Doors slammed, the engines began to roar and, a few seconds later, we -were off. We mounted swiftly into the star-filled sky and, peering -out, watched the dark Maryland hills drop away. We dozed despite the -discomfort of our bent-over positions and didn’t come to again until -the steward roused us several hours later with coffee and sandwiches. -Afterward he brought out army cots and motioned to us to set them up if -we wanted to stretch out. As soon as we got the cots unfolded and the -pegs set in place, he turned out the lights. - -Craig was dead to the world in a few minutes but I couldn’t get back to -sleep. To the accompaniment of the humming motors, the events of the past -weeks began to pass in review: that quiet April afternoon at Western Sea -Frontier Headquarters in San Francisco when my overseas orders had come -through—those orders I had been waiting for so long, more than a year. It -was in March of 1944 that I first learned there was a chance of getting -a European assignment, to join the group of officers working with our -armies in the “protection and salvaging of artistic monuments in war -areas.” That was the cumbersome way it was described. The President had -appointed a commission with a long name, but it came to be known simply -as the Roberts Commission. Justice Roberts of the Supreme Court was the -head of it. It was the first time in history that a country had taken -such precautions to safeguard cultural monuments lying in the paths of -its invading armies. - -It was the commission’s job to recommend to the War Department servicemen -whose professional qualifications fitted them for this work. I had -been in the Navy for two years. Before that I had been director of the -California Palace of the Legion of Honor, one of San Francisco’s two -municipal museums of the fine arts. The commission had recommended me, -but it was up to me to obtain my own release. I had been in luck on that -score. My commanding officer had agreed to let me go. And more important, -my wife had too. Only Francesca had wanted to know why Americans should -be meddling with Europe’s art treasures. Weren’t there enough museum -directors over there to take care of things? Of course there were in -normal times. But now they needed men in uniform—to go in with the armies. - -And after all that planning nothing had happened, until three weeks ago. -Then everything had happened at once. The orders directed me to report to -SHAEF for duty with the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section, G-5, -and additional duty with the Allied Control Council for Germany. - -The papers had been full of stories about German salt mines—the big one -at Merkers where our troops had found the Nazi gold and the treasures -from the Berlin museums. I was going to Germany. Would I find anything -like that? - -I had flown to Washington to receive last-minute instructions. I was -to make the trip across by air and was given an extra allowance of -twenty-five pounds to enable me to take along a dozen Baedekers and a -quantity of photographic paper for distribution among our officers in the -field. I had been introduced to Craig Smyth while in the midst of these -final preparations. Like me, he was a naval lieutenant and his orders -were identical with mine. He was a grave young Princetonian, formerly on -the staff of the National Gallery of Art in Washington. - -It was raining when we reached Stevensville, Newfoundland, early the -next morning. After an hour’s stop we were on our way again. Shortly -before noon we struck good weather and all day long sea and sky remained -unvaryingly blue. Late in the afternoon we landed on the island of -Terceira in the Azores. We had set our watches ahead two hours at -Stevensville. Now we set them ahead again. We took off promptly at seven. -This was the last lap of the journey—we’d be in Paris in the morning. -Presently our fellow passengers settled down for the night. Two of the -cushioned chairs were empty, so Craig and I took possession. They were -more comfortable than the cots, and as soon as the steward turned out the -lights I dropped off to sleep. - -It was still dark when I awoke hours later, but there was enough light -for me to distinguish two black masses of land rising from the sea. On -one, the beacon of a lighthouse revolved with monotonous regularity. We -had just passed over two of the Channel Islands. The dawn came rapidly -and a pink light edged the eastern horizon. It was not long before we -sighted the coast of France. We flew into rosy clouds and, as they -billowed about the plane, we caught tantalizing glimpses of the shore -line below. The steward pointed out one promontory and told us it was -Brest. Soon we had a spectacular view of Mont St. Michel and the long -causeway over which I had driven years before on a sketching tour in -Normandy. I wondered what had become of Mère Poulard and her wonderful -omelettes and lobster. Some people said they had brought more visitors to -Mont St. Michel than the architecture. Very likely she was dead and the -Germans had probably disposed of her fabulous cuisine. - -We had lost two more hours in the course of the night, so it was only -seven-thirty when we swooped down at Orly field, half an hour from -Paris. It was a beautiful morning and the sun was so bright that it -took us a few minutes to get accustomed to the glare. As we walked over -to the airport office, we had our first glimpse of war damage at close -range—bombed-out hangars and, scattered about the field, the wreckage -of German planes. But the airport was being repaired rapidly. Trim new -offices had been built and additional barracks were nearing completion. -Craig and I booked places on the afternoon plane for London and then -climbed onto the bus waiting to take us into Paris. - -Thanks to various delays in getting out of Washington, we had missed -the Paris celebration of VE-Day by a margin of three days. So we were -about to see the wonderful old city at the beginning of a period of -readjustment. But a peaceful Sunday morning is no time to judge any -city—least of all Paris. Everything looked the same. The arcades along -the right side of the Rue de Rivoli and the gardens at the left were -empty, as one would expect them to be. We turned into the Rue Castiglione -and came to a halt by the column in the Place Vendôme. - -After we had checked our bags at the ATC office, we walked over to the -Red Cross Club on the Place de la Concorde. We shaved, washed and then -had doughnuts and coffee in the canteen. - -Our next move was to call Lieutenant Colonel Geoffrey Webb, the British -officer who was head of the MFA&A Section at SHAEF headquarters in -Versailles. Before the war, Colonel Webb had been Slade Professor of -Art at Cambridge. I explained to him that Smyth and I had arrived but -that our orders directed us to report first to Naval Headquarters in -London—ComNavEu—and that as soon as we had complied with them we would -be back. That was all right with the colonel. He said that Lieutenant -Kuhn, USNR, his deputy, was away on a three-day field trip and wouldn’t -be returning before the middle of the week. And we were primarily Charlie -Kuhn’s problem. - -With that formality out of the way, we retrieved our luggage and -wheedled the ATC into giving us transportation to the Royal Monceau, -the Navy hotel out near the Étoile. It was time to relax and luxuriate -in the thought that it was May and that we were in Paris—that climatic -and geographic combination so long a favorite theme of song-writers. I -thought about this as we drove along the Champs Élysées. The song writers -had something, all right—Paris in May was a wonderful sight. But they -had been mooning about a gala capital filled with carefree people, and -the Paris of May 1945 wasn’t like that. Architecturally, the city was -as elegant as ever, but the few people one saw along the streets looked -anything but carefree. And there were no taxis. Taxis have always seemed -to me as much a part of Paris as the buildings themselves. In spite of a -superficial sameness, Paris had an air of empty magnificence that made -one think of a beautiful woman struck dumb by shock. I wondered if my -thoughts were running away with me, but found that Craig’s impressions -were much the same. - -These musings were cut short by our arrival at the hotel. The Navy had -done all right for itself. The same efficient French staff that had -presided over this de luxe establishment in prewar days was still in -charge. I left the Baedekers and photographic paper for Charlie Kuhn, and -then Craig and I walked to Naval Headquarters in the Rue Presbourg. There -we attended to routine matters in connection with our orders. It was -almost noon by the time we got squared away, so we retraced our steps to -the Monceau. Lunch there was a demonstration of what a French chef could -do with GI food. - -Midafternoon found us headed back to Orly in a Navy jeep. Our plane was -scheduled to leave at four. This was no bucket-seat job, but a luxurious -C-47 equipped with chairs of the Pullman-car variety, complete with -antimacassars. We landed at Bovingdon less than two hours later and -from there took a bus up to London. Naval Headquarters was in Grosvenor -Square. With the American Embassy on one side of it, the Navy on another, -and the park in the center used by the Navy motor pool, the dignified old -square was pretty thoroughly Americanized. - -London was still crowded with our armed forces. The hotels were full, so -we were assigned to lodgings in Wimpole Street. These were on the third -floor of a pleasant, eighteenth century house, within a stone’s throw -of No. 50, where Elizabeth Barrett had been wooed and won by Robert -Browning. An inspection of our quarters revealed that the plumbing was -of the Barrett-Browning period; but the place was clean and, anyway, it -wasn’t likely that we’d be spending much time there. It had been a long -day and we were too tired to think of anything beyond getting a bite to -eat and hitting the sack. - -For our two days in London we had “Queen’s weather”—brilliant sunshine -and cloudless skies. Our first port of call early the next morning -was the Medical Office, where we were given various inoculations. From -there Craig and I went across the square to the American Embassy for -a long session with Sumner Crosby, at that time acting as the liaison -between the Roberts Commission and its British counterpart, the Macmillan -Committee. Sumner provided us with a great deal of useful information. -The latest reports from Germany indicated that caches of looted art -were being uncovered from day to day. The number of these hiding places -ran into the hundreds. The value of their contents was, of course, -incalculable. Only a fraction of the finds had as yet been released to -the press. - -Craig and I began licking our chops at the prospect of what lay ahead. -Had we made a mistake in planning to stay two days in London? Perhaps -we could get a plane back to Paris that evening. Sumner thought not. -There were several things for us to do on the spot, things that would be -of use to us in our future activities. One was to call on Colonel Sir -Leonard Woolley, the British archaeologist who, with his wife, was doing -important work for the Macmillan Committee. Another was to see Jim Plaut, -a naval lieutenant at the London office of OSS. He would probably have -valuable information about German museum personnel. It would be helpful -to know the whereabouts of certain German scholars, specifically those -whose records were, from our point of view, “clean.” - -Sumner made several appointments for us and then hurried off to keep one -of his own. Craig and I stayed on at the office to study the reports. -Sumner had already given us the glittering highlights. By noon our heads -were filled with facts and figures that made E. Phillips Oppenheim seem -positively unimaginative. And _The Arabian Nights_—that was just old -stuff. - -It was late afternoon when we finished calling on the various people -Sumner had advised us to see, but plenty of time remained to do a little -sightseeing before dinner. The cabbie took us past Buckingham Palace, -along the Embankment, Birdcage Walk, the Abbey, the Houses of Parliament -and finally to St. Paul’s. What we saw was enough to give a cruel picture -of the damage the Germans had inflicted on the fine old monuments of -London. - -Craig and I flew back to Orly the following evening, arriving too late -to obtain transportation into Paris. We spent an uncomfortable night in -the barracks at the airport and drove to the Royal Monceau early the -next morning. It was stiflingly hot and I was in a bad humor in spite of -the soothing effect of a short haircut—the kind Francesca said needed a -couple of saber scars to make it look right. My spirits fell still lower -when Craig and I were told that we could stay only two nights at the -hotel. Since we were assigned to SHAEF, it was up to the Army to billet -us. It seemed rather unfriendly of the Navy, but that’s the way it was -and there wasn’t anything we could do about it. - -After lunch we set out for Versailles in a Navy jeep. It was a glorious -day despite the heat, and the lovely drive through the Bois and on -past Longchamps made us forget our irritation at the Navy’s lack of -hospitality. The office of the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section -was in two tiny “between-floor” rooms in the Grandes Écuries—the big -stables which, together with their matching twin, the Petites Écuries, -face the main palace. - -When we arrived Colonel Webb was deep in conference with a lady war -correspondent. The tall, rangy colonel, who reminded me of a humorous -and grizzled giraffe, came out to welcome Craig and me. His cordiality -was overwhelming at first, but we soon learned the reason. Miss Bonney, -the correspondent, was giving the colonel a bad time and he needed moral -support. She was firing a rapid barrage of searching questions, and in -some cases the colonel didn’t want to answer. I was fascinated by his -technique. He obviously didn’t wish to offend his inquisitor, but on the -other hand he wasn’t going to be pressed for an expression of opinion -on certain subjects. At times he would parry her query with one of his -own. At others he would snort some vague reply which got lost in a -hearty laugh. Before the interview was over, it was Miss Bonney who was -answering the questions—often her own—not the colonel. - -Neither Craig nor I could make much of what we heard, but after Miss -Bonney’s departure the colonel took us into his confidence. Somewhere -this indomitable lady had got hold of stray bits of information which, -properly pieced together, made one of the most absorbing stories of the -war, as far as Nazi looting of art treasures was concerned. The time was -not yet ripe to break the story, according to the colonel, so it had been -up to him to avoid giving answers which would have filled in the missing -pieces of the puzzle. - -Then the colonel proceeded to tell us about the _Einsatzstab Rosenberg_, -the infamous “task force”—to translate the word literally—organized -under the direction of Alfred Rosenberg, the “ideological and spiritual -leader” of the Reich, for the methodical plundering of the great Jewish -collections and the accumulated artistic wealth of other recognized -“enemies of the state.” Rosenberg was officially responsible for cultural -treasures confiscated in the occupied countries. He had virtually -unlimited resources at his command. In the fall of 1940, not long after -his appointment, Rosenberg received a congratulatory letter from Göring -in which the Reichsmarschall promised to support energetically the work -of his staff and to place at its disposal “means of transportation and -guard personnel,” and specifically assured him the “utmost assistance” -of the Luftwaffe. Even before the war, German agents had accumulated -exhaustive information concerning collections which were later to be -confiscated. The whereabouts of every object of artistic importance was -known. Paintings, sculpture, tapestries, furniture, porcelain, enamels, -jewels, gold and silver—all were a matter of record. When the Nazis -occupied Paris, the Rosenberg Task Force was able to go into operation -with clocklike precision. And so accurate was their information that -in many instances they even knew the hiding places in which their more -foresighted victims had concealed their valuables. - -The headquarters of the E.R.R.[1] had been set up in the Musée du Jeu -de Paume, the little museum in the corner of the Tuileries Gardens -overlooking the Place de la Concorde. The large staff was composed mainly -of Germans, but some of the members were French. Looted treasures poured -into the building, to be checked, labeled and shipped off to Germany. -But it was more than a clearing house. The choicest things were placed -on exhibition and to these displays the top-flight Nazis were invited—to -select whatever caught their fancy. Hitler had first choice, Göring -second. - -It did not occur to the members of the E.R.R. staff that their every move -was watched. A courageous Frenchwoman named Rose Valland had ingratiated -herself with the “right people” and had become a trusted member of the -staff. During the months she worked at the museum, she had two main -objectives. One was to sabotage the daily work as much as possible by -making intentionally stupid mistakes and by encouraging the French -laborers, engaged by the Germans, to do likewise. The other, and far and -away the more important, was the compilation of a file, complete with -biographical data and photographs, of the German personnel at the Jeu -de Paume. How she ever accomplished this is a mystery. The colonel said -that Mlle. Valland, now a captain in the French Army, was working with -the official French committee for Fine Arts. She had already provided -our Versailles office with a copy of her E.R.R. file. Later in the -summer I met Captain Valland, a robust woman with gray hair and the most -penetrating brown eyes I have ever seen. I asked her how she had ever -had the courage to do what she had done. She said with a laugh, “I could -never do it again. The Gestapo followed me home every night.” - -After regaling us with this account of the E.R.R., Colonel Webb whetted -our appetites still further with an outline of what his deputy, Charlie -Kuhn, was up to. As the result of a “signal,” he had taken off by plane -for Germany, and at the moment was either in the eastern part of Bavaria -or over the Austrian border, trying to trace two truckloads of paintings -and tapestries which two high-ranking Nazis had spirited away from the -Laufen salt mine at the eleventh hour. Latest information indicated -that the finest things from the Vienna Museum had been stored at -Laufen, which was in the mountains east of Salzburg; and it was further -believed that the “top cream” of the stuff—the Breughels, Titians and -Velásquezes—was in those two trucks. These pictures were world-famous -and consequently not marketable, so there was the appalling possibility -that the highjackers had carried them off with the idea of destroying -them—Hitler’s mad Götterdämmerung idea. There was also the possibility -that they intended to hold the pictures as a bribe against their own -safety. - -Back at the hotel that night, Craig and I reviewed the events of the day. -What we had learned from Colonel Webb was only an affirmation of the -exciting things we had gleaned from the reports in the London office. -We were desperately anxious to get into Germany where we could be a -part of all these unbelievable adventures instead of hearing about them -secondhand. Strict censorship was still in force, so we weren’t able to -share our exuberance with our respective families in letters home. But we -could at least exult together over the fantastic future shaping up before -us. - -We found Charlie Kuhn at the office the next morning. He was a tall -quiet fellow with a keen sense of humor, whom I had first known when -we had been fellow students at Harvard back in the twenties. During -the intervening years we had met only at infrequent intervals. He had -remained to teach and had become an outstanding member of the Fine Arts -faculty in Cambridge, while I had gone to a museum. His special field -of scholarship was German painting and it was this attribute which had -led the Roberts Commission to nominate him for his present assignment as -Deputy Chief of the MFA&A Section. He had already been in the Navy for -two years when this billet was offered him. Notwithstanding his obvious -qualifications for his present job, he had so distinguished himself in -the earlier work upon which he had been engaged—special interrogation -of German prisoners—that it had required White House intervention to -“liberate” him for his new duties. No closeted scholar, Charlie chafed -under the irritations of administrative and personnel problems which -occupied most of his time. - -That morning at Versailles he was fresh from his adventures in the field, -and we buttonholed him for a firsthand account. Yes, the trucks had been -located. They had been abandoned by the roadside, but everything had -been found intact. The reports had not been exaggerated: the trucks had -contained some of the finest of the Vienna pictures and also some of -the best tapestries. They were now in a warehouse at Salzburg and would -probably remain there until they could be returned to Vienna. As to -their condition, the pictures were all right; the tapestries had mildewed -a bit, but the damage wasn’t serious. - -It was hard to settle down to the humdrum of office routine after his -recital of these adventures. Charlie said he wanted to ship us off to -Germany as soon as possible because there was so much to be done and so -few officers were available. - -It turned out that we weren’t destined for nearly so swift an invasion of -Germany as we had hoped. Later that afternoon Charlie received a letter -from the Medical Officer at Naval Headquarters in Paris informing him -that Lieutenants Howe and Smyth had not completed their course of typhus -shots, and that he would not recommend their being sent into Germany -until thirty days after the second and final shot. Charlie wanted to know -what this was all about, and we had to admit that we had not been given -typhus injections before leaving the States, and had only received the -first one in London. After deliberating about it most of the following -morning, Colonel Webb and Charlie decided that, if we were willing to -take the chance, they’d cut the waiting period to ten days. We were only -too willing. - -Craig and I made good use of the waiting period. We were put to work on -the reports submitted at regular intervals by our officers in the field. -These reports contained information concerning art repositories. It was -our job to keep the card file on them up to date; to make a card for each -new one; to sort out and place in a separate file those which had become -obsolete; to check duplications. Each card bore the name of the place, a -brief description of the contents, and a map reference consisting of two -co-ordinates. In Germany there was much duplication in the names of small -towns and villages, so these map references were of great importance. - -There was also a file on outstanding works of art which were known to -have been carried off by the Germans or hidden away for safekeeping, but -the whereabouts of which were as yet unknown—such things, for example, as -the crown jewels of the Holy Roman Empire, the Michelangelo _Madonna and -Child_ from Bruges, the Ghent altarpiece, the treasure from the Cathedral -of Metz, the stained glass from Strasbourg Cathedral, and the Veit Stoss -altarpiece. The list read like an Almanach de Gotha of the art world. - -So far as our creature comforts were concerned, they suffered a great -decline when we moved out to Versailles. Our lodging there was a barren, -four-story house at No. 1 Rue Berthier. Craig had a room on the ground -floor, while I shared one under the eaves with Charlie Kuhn. Judging from -the signs still tacked up in various parts of the house, it had been -used as a German billet during the occupation; and judging by its meager -comforts, only the humblest ranks had been quartered there. No spruce -Prussian would have put up with such austerity. A couple of British -soldiers also were living there. They were batmen for two officers -quartered in a near-by hotel and, for a hundred francs a week, they -agreed to do for us as well. They brought us hot water in the morning, -polished our shoes each day and pressed our uniforms. - -Outwardly our life was rather magnificent, for we usually had our meals -at the Trianon Palace Hotel just inside the park grounds. It was a -pleasant walk from the Rue Berthier, and an even pleasanter one from -the office, involving a short cut behind the main palace and across the -lovely gardens. On the whole the gardens had been well kept up and a -stroll about the terraces or through the long _allées_ was something to -look forward to when the weather was fine. Craig and I got into the habit -of retiring to a quiet corner of the gardens after work with our German -books. There we would quiz each other for an hour or two a day. We made -occasional trips into Paris but, more often than not, we followed a -routine in which the bright lights—what few there were—played little part. - -At the end of our ten-day “incubation” period, Charlie gave us our -instructions. We were to go to Frankfurt by air and from there to Bad -Homburg by car. At Bad Homburg we were to report to ECAD headquarters, -that is, the European Civil Affairs Division, where we would be issued -further orders. As members of a pool of officers attached to ECAD, we -could be shifted about from one part of Germany to another. - -Charlie told us that he and Colonel Webb would be moving to Frankfurt in -a few days as SHAEF Headquarters was soon to be set up there. The MFA&A -office would continue to function with a joint British and American -staff until the dissolution of SHAEF later in the summer. But that would -not take place, he said, until the four zones of occupation had been -established. - -We left for the airport at six-thirty in the morning. Our French driver -asked us which airport we wanted. Craig and I looked at each other in -surprise. What field was there besides Orly? The answer was Villacoublay. -We had never heard of it, so we said Orly. We couldn’t have been more -wrong. When we finally reached Villacoublay we found great confusion. We -couldn’t even find out whether our plane had taken off. - -After making three attempts to get a coherent answer from the second -lieutenant who appeared to be quietly going mad behind the information -counter, I gave up. - -“This is where you take over, Craig,” I said. I had suddenly developed an -evil headache and had lost all interest in going any place. I walked over -to my luggage, which I had dumped in front of the building, and plunked -myself down on top of it, put on dark glasses and went to sleep. An hour -later, Craig shook me. - -“Come on,” he said. “I’ve found a B-17 that’s going to Frankfurt.” We -piled our gear onto a truck and rumbled out over the bumpy field for a -distance of half a mile. One of the B-17’s crew was sitting unconcernedly -in the grass. - -“We’d like to go to Frankfurt,” said Craig. - -“Okay,” he said, “we’ll be going along pretty soon.” He was -disconcertingly casual. But the trip wasn’t. We ran into heavy fog -and got lost, so it took us nearly three hours to make the run which -shouldn’t have taken more than two. - -We finally landed in a green meadow near Hanau. Craig said he’d look for -transportation if I’d stand guard over our luggage. It was an agreeable -assignment. The day was warm, the meadow soft and inviting. I took out my -German book and a chocolate bar, curled up in the grass and hoped he’d be -gone a long time. - -Craig came back an hour and a half later with a jeep. We were about -twenty miles outside Frankfurt. On the way in the driver said that the -city had been eighty percent destroyed. He hadn’t exaggerated. As we -turned into the Mainzer Landstrasse, we saw nothing but gutted buildings -on either side. We continued up the Taunus Anlage and I recognized the -Opera House ahead. At first I thought it was undamaged. Then I saw -that the roof was gone, and only the outer walls remained. Most of the -buildings were like that. This was just the shell of a city. - -Our first stop was SHAEF headquarters, newly established in the vast I. -G. Farben building which, either by accident or design, was completely -undamaged. There we got another car to take us to Bad Homburg. - -The little resort town where the fashionable world of Edward VII’s day -had gone to drink the waters and enjoy the mineral baths consisted -mostly of hotels. Some of them were occupied by our troops. Others were -being used as hospitals for wounded German soldiers. The big Kurhaus -had received a direct hit, but the rest of the buildings appeared to be -undamaged. - -At ECAD headquarters we were assigned a billet in the Grand Hotel Parc. -That sounded pretty snappy to us—another Royal Monceau, maybe. The -billeting officer must have guessed our thoughts, because he shook his -head glumly and said, “’Tain’t anything special. Don’t get your hopes up.” - -It was nice of him to have prepared us for the rat hole which was the -Grand Hotel Parc. This shabby structure, built around three sides of -a narrow courtyard, had an air of vanished refinement about it, but -it could hardly have rated a star in Baedeker. Yet it must have had a -certain cachet fifty years ago, for in the entrance hallway hung a white -marble plaque. Its dim gold letters told us that Bismarck’s widow had -spent her declining years “in peaceful happiness beneath this hospitable -roof.” - -Our room was on the fourth floor. The stairs, reminiscent of a -lighthouse, might have been designed for a mountain goat. We thought we -had struck the ultimate in drabness at the Rue Berthier, but this was -worse. The room itself was worthy of its approach. When I opened the -big wardrobe I half expected a body to fall out. Two sofas masquerading -as beds occupied corners by the window. The window gave onto the dingy -courtyard. We silently made up our beds with Army blankets and sprinkled -them lavishly with DDT powder. - -“Do you suppose there’s such a thing as a bathroom?” Craig asked. - -“I’d sooner expect to find one in an igloo,” I said. “Maybe there’s a -pump or a trough somewhere out in back. Why don’t you go and see?” - -[Illustration: The Residenz at Würzburg. The palace of the Prince-Bishops -was gutted by fire in March 1945. The magnificent ceiling by Tiepolo -miraculously escaped serious damage.] - -[Illustration: Ruined Frankfurt. In the center, the cathedral. Only the -tower and the walls of the nave remain standing. _International News -Photo_] - -[Illustration: The Central Collecting Point at Munich, formerly the -Administration Building of the Nazi Party. The director of the Central -Collecting Point was Lieutenant Craig Smyth, USNR.] - -[Illustration: A typical storage room in the Central Collecting Point at -Munich. The racks for pictures were built by civilian carpenters under -the direction of American Monuments officers.] - -When he returned fifteen minutes later he was in high spirits. “There’s -a bathroom all right and it’s got hot water,” he said, “but you have to -be a combination of Theseus and Daniel Boone to find it. Come along, I’ll -show you the way.” - -It was clever of him to find it a second time. I took a piece of red -crayon with me and marked little arrows on the walls to show which turns -to make. They were a timesaver to us during the next couple days. - -After breakfast the next morning, we telephoned 12th Army Group -Headquarters in Wiesbaden and talked with Lieutenant George Stout, USNR, -who, with Captain Bancel La Farge, was in charge of the advance office -of MFA&A in Germany. Stout suggested that we come on over. It was a -pleasant drive along the Autobahn, with the blue Taunus mountains in the -distance. Parts of Wiesbaden had been badly mauled, but the destruction -was negligible compared with Frankfurt. Although many buildings along the -main streets had been hit, the colonnaded Kurhaus, now a Red Cross Club, -was intact. So was the Opera House. - -We found George on the top floor of a dingy building in the center of -the town. I hadn’t seen him for fifteen years but he hadn’t changed. -His face was a healthy brown, his eyes were as keen and his teeth as -dazzlingly white as ever. George was in his middle forties. His oldest -boy was in the Navy but George didn’t look a day over thirty. The Roberts -Commission had played in luck when they had got him. Of course he was an -obvious choice—tops in his field, the technical care and preservation -of pictures. He was known and respected throughout the world for his -brilliant research work at Harvard, where he presided over the laboratory -of the Fogg Museum. - -“Bancel’s got jobs lined up for you fellows, but I think he’d like to -tell you about them himself,” George said. “He ought to be back tonight.” - -“Can’t you tell us in a general way what they are?” I asked. - -“I think one of them is going to be in Frankfurt and the other will -probably be in Munich. You see, all the stuff from the Merkers mine is in -the vaults of the Reichsbank at Frankfurt and it ought to be moved to a -place where it can be permanently stored.” - -The “stuff” he referred to was the enormous collection of paintings and -sculpture—comprising the principal treasures of the Berlin museums—which -George himself had brought out of the Merkers mine in Thuringia. He had -carried out the operation virtually singlehanded and in the face of -extraordinary difficulties just before the end of hostilities. - -“As for Munich,” he continued, “repositories are springing up like -mushrooms all through Bavaria. Most of it is loot and we’re going to have -to set up some kind of depot where we can put the things until they can -be returned to the countries from which the Nazis stole them.” - -“What are your plans?” I asked. - -“Well, if the trucks show up,” he said, “I want to get started for Siegen -this afternoon. That’s in Westphalia. It’s another mine—copper, not -salt—and it’s full of things from the Rhineland museums. I’ve got to take -them up to Marburg. We have two good depots there.” - -We lunched with George and then returned to Bad Homburg. There wasn’t -anything for us to do but wait around until we heard from Captain La -Farge. To fill in the time we took our German books and spent the -afternoon studying in the Kurpark. - -The telephone was ringing in the entrance lobby as we walked in at five. -It was Captain La Farge. He had just returned and wanted to see us at -once. I said I didn’t know whether we could get transportation. He -chuckled and said, “Tell them a general wants to see you.” Craig and I -dashed over to the Transportation Office and tried it out. It worked. -So, for the second time that day, we found ourselves on the road to -Wiesbaden. - -Captain La Farge was waiting for us in the office where we had seen -George that morning. He was a tall, slender man in his early forties. -With a high-domed head and a long, rather narrow face, he was the classic -New Englander. His eyes were hazel and, at that first meeting, very -weary. But he had one of the most ingratiating smiles and one of the -most pleasant voices I had ever heard. He reminded me of an early Copley -portrait. - -Without much preamble he launched into a detailed explanation of the -plans he had for us. - -“I want you to take over the Frankfurt job,” he said to me, “and I am -sending you down to Munich, Smyth. As George probably told you, we’ve -got to set up two big depots. The one in Frankfurt will be mainly for -German-owned art which is now coming in from repositories all over this -part of Germany. The one in Munich will be chiefly for loot, though there -will be German-owned things down in Bavaria too. Both jobs are equally -interesting, equally important and, above all, equally urgent.” - -We were to get started without delay. Craig would be attached to the -Regional Military Government office in Munich, I to the Military -Government Detachment in Frankfurt. Captain La Farge suggested that I -investigate the possibility of requisitioning the university buildings -for a depot, and advised Craig to consider one of the large Nazi party -buildings in Munich which he had been told was available. - -On the way home that night Craig and I compared notes on our new -assignments. I was frankly envious of Craig, not only because there was -something alluring about all that loot, but because I loved Munich and -the picturesque country around it. In turn, Craig thought I had drawn -a fascinating job—one that involved handling the wonderful riches of -Berlin’s “Kaiser Friedrich,” admittedly one of the world’s greatest -museums. - -The following morning we parted on the steps of the Grand Parc Hotel. -Craig took off first, in a jeep with trailer attached, a crusty major for -his companion. Half an hour later a jeep appeared for me. On the way over -to Frankfurt I thought about the experiences of the past three weeks. -It had been fun sharing them with Craig and I wished that we might have -continued this odyssey together. I didn’t realize how soon our paths were -to cross again. - - - - -(2) - -_ASSIGNED TO FRANKFURT_ - - -The Military Government Detachment had its headquarters in a gray stone -building behind the Opera House. It was one of the few in the city that -had suffered relatively little damage. I reported to the Executive -Officer, a white-haired major named James Franklin. After I had explained -the nature of the work I was expected to do, he took me around to the -office of Lieutenant Julius Buchman, the Education and Religious Affairs -Officer, who had also the local MFA&A problems as part of his duties. -Buchman couldn’t have been more pleasant, and said he’d do everything -he could to help. There was an air of quiet good humor about him that I -liked at once. I learned that he was an architect by profession and had -studied at the Bauhaus in Dessau before the war. He spoke fluent German. -I told him that first of all I’d like to get settled, so he guided me to -Captain Wyman Ooley, the Billeting Officer. - -Ooley was a happy-go-lucky fellow, the only Billeting Officer I ever -met who was always cheerful. He had been a schoolteacher in Arkansas. -Together we drove out to the residential section where a group of houses -had been set aside for the Military Government officers. This part of the -city had not been heavily bombed and each one of the houses had a pretty -garden. - -“I’ll tell you, I’ve got a real nice room in that house over there,” he -said, pointing to a gray stucco house partly screened by a row of trees. -“But it’s for lieutenant colonels. It’s empty right now, but I might have -to throw you out later.” Thinking that lieutenant colonels would be very -likely to have ideas about good plumbing, I quickly said I’d take the -chance. - -The front door was locked. Ooley called, “Lucienne!” One of the upper -windows was instantly flung open and a woman, dust-cloth in hand, -leaned out, waved and disappeared. A moment later she reappeared at the -front door. Lucienne, all smiles, was as French as the tricolor. Ooley -explained in pidgin French, with gestures, that I was to have a room on -the second floor, wished me luck and departed. Lucienne bustled up to the -second floor chattering away at a great rate, expressing surprise and -delight that I was “officier de la Marine” and also taking considerable -satisfaction in having recognized my branch of the service. - -She threw open a door and then dashed off to the floor above, still -chattering and gesticulating. I was left alone to contemplate the -splendor before me—an enormous, airy bedroom looking out on a garden -filled with scarlet roses. This couldn’t be true. Even lieutenant -colonels didn’t deserve this. The room had cream-colored walls, paneled -and decorated with chinoiserie designs. A large chest of drawers and -a low table were decorated in the same manner. In one corner was an -inviting chaise longue, covered in rose brocade. Along the end wall -stood the bed—complete with sheets and a pillow. The built-in wardrobe -had full-length mirrors which reflected the tall French windows and the -garden beyond. - -As I stood there trying to take it all in, Lucienne appeared again. With -her was a dapper little fellow whom she introduced as her husband, René. -He acknowledged the introduction and then solemnly introduced Lucienne. -After this bit of mock formality, he explained that he and Lucienne had -charge of all the houses in the block. If anything was not to my liking I -was to let them know and it would be righted at once. - -Further conversation revealed that the two of them had been deported from -Paris early in 1941 and been obliged to remain in Frankfurt, working -for the Germans, ever since. All through the bombings, I asked? But of -course, and they had been too terrible. During one of the worst raids -they had been imprisoned in the bomb shelter. The falling stones had -blocked the exit. They had had to remain under the ground for forty-eight -hours. They had been made deaf by the noise, yes, for two months. And the -concussion had made them bleed from the nose and the ears. I asked if -they expected to go back to Paris. Yes, of course, but they were in no -hurry. It was very nice in Germany, now that the Americans were there. -With that they left me to unpack and get settled. - -When I had finished, I decided to explore a bit. There were two other -bedrooms on the second floor. Neat labels on the doors indicated that -they were occupied by lieutenant colonels. There were two other doors at -the end of the hall. Neither one was labeled, so I peered in. They were -the bathrooms. And what bathrooms! Marble floors, tiled walls, double -washbasins and built-in tubs. Although it was only the middle of the -morning, I had to sample one of those magnificent tubs. And as a kind of -tribute to all this elegance, I felt constrained to discard my khakis and -put on blues. - -Captain La Farge had stressed the urgency of setting up an art depot, so -the next ten days were given over to that project. Buchman generously -shelved his own work to help me with it. Together we inspected the -University of Frankfurt. The newest of the German universities, it -had opened its doors at the outbreak of the first World War. The main -administration building, an imposing structure of red sandstone, had -been badly damaged by incendiaries but could be repaired. It would be a -big job, but we could worry about that later. The first step was to have -it allocated for our use. That had to be done through the proper Army -“channels.” Buchman steered me through. Then we had to obtain an estimate -of the repairs. It took three days to get one from the university -architect. It was thorough but impractical and had to be completely -revised. We took the revised estimate to the Army Engineers and asked -them to make an inspection of the building and check the architect’s -figures. They were swamped with work. It would be a week before they -could do anything. I said it was a high priority job, hoping to speed -things along. But the Engineers had heard that one before. We’d have to -be patient. - -Charlie Kuhn and Colonel Webb had moved up to Frankfurt and were -established at SHAEF headquarters in the I. G. Farben building. Their -office was only a few blocks from mine, and during my negotiations for -the use of the university building I was in daily communication with them. - -While waiting for the Engineers to make the promised inspection, I made -a couple of field trips with Buchman. The first was a visit to Schloss -Kronberg, a few kilometers from Frankfurt. It was a picturesque medieval -castle, unoccupied since the first part of the seventeenth century. -Valuable archives were stored there. We wanted to see if they were in -good condition, and also to make sure that the place had been posted with -the official “Off Limits” signs. - -A flock of geese scattered before us as we drove up to the entrance -at the end of a narrow, winding road. We knocked on the door of the -caretaker’s cottage and explained the purpose of our visit to the old -fellow who timidly appeared with a large bunch of keys. He limped ahead -of us across the cobbled courtyard, and we waited while he fitted one of -the keys into the lock. - -A wave of heavy perfume issued from the dark room as the door swung -open. When our eyes had become accustomed to the dim light, we saw that -we were in the original _Waffenraum_ of the castle. But, in addition to -the clustered weapons affixed to the walls, there were five sarcophagi -in the center of the vaulted room. Around them stood vases filled with -spring flowers. On the central sarcophagus rested a spiked helmet of the -first World War. The others were unadorned. - -The old caretaker explained that the central tomb was that of the -Landgraf of Hesse who had died thirty years ago. Those on either side -contained the remains of his two sons who had likewise died in the first -World War. The other two coffins were those of the elder son’s wife and -of a princess of Baden who had been killed in one of the air raids on -Frankfurt in 1944. All five sarcophagi had originally stood in the little -chapel across the courtyard. It had been destroyed by an incendiary bomb -the winter before. - -We left this funerary chamber with a feeling of relief and continued -our inspection of the castle. A winding ramp in one of the towers led -to the floors above. From the top story we had a superb view of the -broad Frankfurt plain spread out below. The caretaker told us he had -watched the bombings from that vantage point. The great banqueting -hall, with a musicians’ gallery at one end, had been emptied of its -original furnishings and was now a jumble of papers stacked in piles of -varying heights. These were part of the Frankfurt archives. Others were -stored in two rooms on the ground floor. All of the rooms were dry and -weatherproof, so there was nothing further to be done about them for the -present. There was no place in Frankfurt as yet to which they could be -moved. “Off Limits” signs had been posted. They would discourage souvenir -hunters from unauthorized delving. - -On our way back to the car the caretaker told us that the castle still -belonged to Margarethe, Landgräfin of Hesse, the youngest sister of the -last Kaiser. Although she was now in her seventies, she came every day -to put fresh flowers beside the tombs of her husband and her two sons. -She lived at a newer castle, Schloss Friedrichshof, only a few kilometers -away. He apparently didn’t know that Schloss Friedrichshof had been -taken over by the Army and was being used as an officers’ country club. -The old Landgräfin was living modestly in one of the small houses on -the property. Her scapegrace son, Prince Philip, as I learned later, -had played an active role in the artistic depredations of the Nazi -ringleaders. I was to hear more of the Hesse family before the end of the -year. - -A second excursion took us still farther afield. On an overcast morning -two days later, Buchman, Charlie Kuhn, Captain Rudolph Vassalle (who was -the Public Safety Officer of the detachment) and I set out in the little -Opel sedan which had been assigned the MFA&A office. We struck out to the -east of Frankfurt on the road to Gelnhausen. We stopped at this pleasant -little town with its lovely, early Gothic church and went through the -formality of obtaining clearance from the local Military Government -Detachment to make an inspection in that area. - -From there we continued by a winding secondary road which led us through -increasingly hilly country to Bad Brückenau. Our mission there was -twofold: Captain Vassalle wanted to track down a young Nazi officer, -reportedly a member of the SS, and to find a warehouse said to contain -valuable works of art. I had gathered from Buchman that many such reports -petered out on investigation. Still, there was always the chance that -the one you dismissed as of no importance would turn out to be something -worth while. - -[Illustration: The bronze coffin of Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia was -found in a mine near Bernterode.] - -[Illustration: Canova’s life-size marble statue of Napoleon’s sister was -found at the monastery of Hohenfurth.] - -[Illustration: The administration buildings at the salt mine at Alt -Aussee, Austria. Removal of stolen art treasures from the mine was -carried out late in 1945.] - -[Illustration: Truck at entrance to the main building of the mine is -being loaded with paintings, to be taken to Munich for dispersal to their -owner nations.] - -After making several inquiries, we eventually located a small house on -the edge of town. In response to our insistent hammering, the door of -the house was finally opened by a pallid young man probably in his late -twenties. If he was the object of the captain’s search he had certainly -undergone a remarkable metamorphosis, for he bore little resemblance to -the dapper officer of whom Captain Vassalle carried a photograph for -identification. The captain seemed satisfied that he was the man. So -leaving them in conversation, the three of us followed up the business -of the reported works of art. The other two occupants of the house—an -old man and a young woman who may have been the wife of the man who -had opened the door—responded to our questions with alacrity and took -us to the cellar. There we were shown a cache of pictures, all of them -unframed and none of them of any value. They appeared to be what the old -man claimed—their own property, brought to Bad Brückenau when they had -left Frankfurt to escape the bombings. In any case, we made a listing of -the canvases, identifying them as best we could and making notations of -the sizes, and also admonishing the couple not to remove them from the -premises. - -After that the old man took us across the back yard to a large modern -barn which was heavily padlocked. Once inside he unshuttered a row of -windows along one side of the main, ground-floor room. It was jammed to -the ceiling with every conceivable item of household furnishings: chairs, -tables, beds, bedding, kitchen utensils and porcelain. But no pictures. -We poked around enough to satisfy ourselves that first appearances were -not deceiving. They weren’t, so, having made certain that the old fellow, -who claimed to be merely the custodian of these things, understood the -regulations forbidding their removal, we picked up Captain Vassalle. He -had completed his interrogation of the alleged SS officer and placed him -under house arrest. - -Our next objective was an old Schloss which, according to our map, was -still a good hour’s drive to the northeast. As it was nearly noon and we -were all hungry, we decided to investigate the possibilities of food in -the neighborhood. On our way back through Bad Brückenau we stopped at -the office of a small detachment of troops and asked where we could get -some lunch. The hospitable second lieutenant on duty in the little stucco -building, which had once been part of the Kurhaus establishment, gave us -directions to the sprawling country hotel, high up above the town, where -his outfit was quartered. He said that he would telephone ahead to warn -the mess sergeant of our arrival. - -For a little way we followed along the Sinn, which flows through the -grassy valley in which Bad Brückenau nestles. Then we began to mount -sharply and, for the next fifteen minutes, executed a series of hairpin -turns and ended abruptly beside a rambling structure which commanded a -wonderful view of the valley and the wooded hills on the other side. Our -hosts were a group of friendly young fellows who seemed delighted to have -the monotony of their rural routine interrupted by our visit. They asked -Charlie and me the usual question—what was the Navy doing in the middle -of Germany—and got our stock reply: we are planning to dig a canal from -the North Sea to the Mediterranean. - -We had a heavy downpour during lunch, and we waited for the rain to let -up before starting out again. Then we took the winding road down into -town, crossed the river and drove up into the hills on the other side of -the valley. An hour’s drive brought us to upland meadow country and a -grove of handsome lindens. At the end of a long double row of these fine -trees stood Schloss Rossbach. “Castle” was a rather pompous name for the -big seventeenth century country house with whitewashed walls and heavily -barred ground-floor windows. - -We were received by the owners, a Baron Thüngen and his wife, and -explained that we had come to examine the condition of the works of -art, which, according to our information, had been placed there for -safekeeping. They ushered us up to a comfortable sitting room on the -second floor where we settled down to wait while the baroness went off to -get the keys. In the meantime we had a few words with her husband. His -manner was that of the haughty landed proprietor, and he looked the part. -He was a big, burly man in his sixties. He was dressed in rough tweeds -and wore a matching hat, adorned with a bushy “shaving brush,” which he -hadn’t bothered to remove indoors. That may have been unintentional, but -I idly wondered if it weren’t deliberate discourtesy and rather wished -that I had kept my own cap on. I wished also that I could have matched -his insolent expression, but thought it unlikely because I was frankly -enjoying the obvious distaste which our visit was causing the old codger. - -However, his attitude was almost genial compared with that of his waspish -wife, who reappeared about that time, armed with a huge hoop from which -a great lot of keys jangled. The baroness, who was much younger than -her husband, had very black hair and discontented dark eyes. She spoke -excellent English, without a trace of accent. I felt reasonably sure that -she was not German but couldn’t guess her nationality. It turned out that -she was from the Argentine. She was a sullen piece and made no effort to -conceal her irritation at our intrusion. She explained that neither she -nor her husband had anything to do with the things stored there; that, in -fact, it was a great inconvenience having to put up with them. She had -asked the young woman who knew all about them to join us. - -The young woman in question arrived and was completely charming. She -took no apparent notice of the baroness’ indifference, which was that -of a mistress toward a servant whom she scarcely knew. Her fresh, open -manner cleared the atmosphere instantly. She introduced herself as Frau -Holzinger, wife of the director of Frankfurt’s most famous museum, the -Staedelsches Kunstinstitut. Because of conditions in Frankfurt, and more -particularly because their house had been requisitioned by the American -military authorities, she had come to Schloss Rossbach with her two young -children. Country life, she continued, was better for the youngsters and, -besides, her husband had thought that she might help with the things -stored at the castle. I had met Dr. Holzinger when I went one day to -have a look at what remained of the museum, so his wife and I hit it off -at once. I was interested to learn that she was Swiss and a licensed -physician. She smilingly suggested that we make a tour of the castle and -she would show us what was there. - -The first room to be inspected was a library adjoining the sitting room -in which we had been waiting. Here we found a quantity of excellent -French Impressionist paintings, all from the permanent collection of the -Staedel, and a considerable number of fine Old Master drawings. Most of -these were likewise the property of the museum, but a few—I remember one -superb Rembrandt sketch—appeared to have come from Switzerland. Those -would, of course, have to be looked into later, to determine their exact -origin and how they came to be on loan at the museum. But for the moment -we were concerned primarily with storage conditions and the problem of -security. In another room we found an enormous collection of books, the -library of one of the Frankfurt museums. In a third we encountered an -array of medieval sculpture—saints of all sizes and description, some of -carved wood, others of stone, plain or polychromed. These too were of -museum origin. - -The last storage room was below ground, a vast, cavernous chamber beneath -the house. Here was row upon row of pictures, stacked in two tiers down -the center of the room and also along two sides. From what we could make -of them in the poor light, they were not of high quality. During the -summer months they would be all right in this underground room, but we -thought that the place would be very damp in the winter. Frau Holzinger -assured us that this was so and that the pictures should be removed -before the bad weather set in. - -The baroness chipped in at this point and affably agreed with that idea, -undoubtedly happy to further any scheme which involved getting rid of -these unwelcome objects. She also warned us that the castle was far from -safe as it was, what with roving bands of Poles all over the countryside. -As we indicated that we were about to take our leave, she elaborated upon -this theme, declaring that their very lives were in danger, that every -night she and her husband could hear prowlers in the park. Since they—as -Germans—were not allowed to have firearms, they would be at the mercy -of these foreign ruffians if they should succeed in breaking into the -castle. By this time we were all pretty fed up with the whining baroness. -As we turned to go, Charlie Kuhn, eyeing her coldly, asked, “Who brought -those Poles here in the first place, madam? We didn’t.” - -To our delight, the weather had cleared and the sun was shining. Ahead -of us on the roadway, the foliage of the lindens made a gaily moving -pattern. Our work for the day was done and we still had half the -afternoon. I got out the map and, after making some quick calculations, -proposed that we could take in Würzburg and still get back to Frankfurt -at a reasonable hour. We figured out that, with the extra jerry can of -gas we had with us, we could just about make it. We would be able to fill -up at Würzburg for the return trip. So, instead of continuing on the road -back to Bad Brückenau, we turned south in the direction of Karlstadt. - -It was pleasant to be traveling a good secondary road instead of the -broad, characterless Autobahn, on which there were no unexpected -turns, no picturesque villages. There was little traffic, so we made -very good time. In half an hour we had threaded our way through -Karlstadt-on-the-Main. In this part of Franconia the Main is a capricious -river, winding casually in and out of the gently undulating hills. -A little later we passed the village of Veitschöchheim where the -Prince-Bishops of Würzburg had an elaborate country house during the -eighteenth century. The house still stands, and its gardens, with a tiny -lake and grottoes in the Franco-Italian manner, remain one of the finest -examples of garden planning of that day. As we drove by we were glad that -this inviting spot had not attracted the attention of our bombers. - -Alas, such was not the case with Würzburg, as we realized the minute we -reached its outskirts! The once-gracious city, surely one of the most -beautiful in all Germany, was an appalling sight. Its broad avenues -were now lined with nothing but the gaping, ruined remnants of the -stately eighteenth century buildings which had lent the city an air of -unparalleled distinction and consistency of design. High on its hilltop -above the Main, the mellow walls of the medieval fortress of Marienberg -caught the rays of the late afternoon sun. From the distance, the -silhouette of that vast structure appeared unchanged, but the proud city -of the Prince-Bishops which it overlooked was laid low. - -We drove slowly along streets not yet cleared of rubble, until we came -to the Residenz, the great palace of the Prince-Bishops, those lavish -patrons of the arts to whom the city owed so much of its former grandeur. -This magnificent building, erected in the first half of the eighteenth -century by the celebrated baroque architect, Johann Balthasar Neumann, -for two Prince-Bishops of the Schönborn family, was now a ghost palace, -its staring glassless windows and blackened walls pathetic vestiges of -its pristine splendor. - -We walked up to the main entrance wondering if it could really be true -that the crowning glory of the Residenz—the glorious ceiling by Tiepolo, -representing Olympus and the Four Continents—was, as we had been told, -still intact. With misgivings we turned left across the entrance hall to -the Treppenhaus and mounted the grand staircase. We looked up and there -it was—as dazzling and majestically beautiful as ever—that incomparable -fresco, the masterpiece of the last great Italian painter. Someone with -a far greater gift for words than I may be able to convey the exaltation -one experiences on seeing that ceiling, not just for the first time -but at any time. I can’t. It leaves artist and layman alike absolutely -speechless. I think that, if I had to choose one great work of art, it -would be this ceiling in the Residenz. You can have even the Sistine -ceiling. I’ll take the Tiepolo. - -For the next half hour we examined every corner of it. Aside from a few -minor discolorations, the result of water having seeped through the lower -side of the vault just above the cornice, the fresco was undamaged. -Considering the destruction throughout the rest of the building, I -could not understand how this portion of the palace could be in such a -remarkable state of preservation. The explanation was an interesting -example of how good can sometimes come out of evil. Some forty years -ago, as I remember the story, there was a fire in the Residenz. The -wooden roof over a large portion, if not all, of the building was burned -away. When it came to replacing the roof, the city fathers decided -it would be a prudent idea to cover the part above the Tiepolo with -steel and concrete. This was done, and consequently, when the terrible -conflagration of March 1945 swept Würzburg—following the single raid of -twenty minutes which destroyed the city—the fresco was spared. As we -wandered through other rooms of the Residenz—the Weisser Saal with its -elaborate stucco ornamentation and the sumptuous Kaiser Saal facing the -garden, once classic examples of the Rococo—I wished that those city -fathers had gone a little farther with their steel and concrete. - -We stopped briefly to examine the chapel in the south wing. Here, -miraculously enough, there had been relatively little damage, but the -caretaker expressed concern over the condition of the roof and said that -if it weren’t repaired before the heavy rains the ceiling would be lost. -Knowing how hard it was to obtain building materials for even the most -historic monuments when people didn’t have a roof over their heads, we -couldn’t reassure him with much conviction. - -The spectacle of ruined Würzburg had a depressing effect upon us, so we -weren’t very talkative on our way back to Frankfurt. We passed through -only one town of any size, Aschaffenburg, which, like Würzburg, had -suffered severe damage. Although I had not been long in Germany and -had seen but few of her cities, I was beginning to realize that the -reports of the Allied air attacks had not been exaggerated. I was ready -to believe that there were only small towns and villages left in this -ravaged country. - -One morning Charlie Kuhn rang up to say that I should meet him at the -Reichsbank early that afternoon. This was something I had been looking -forward to for some time, the chance to look at the wonderful things -from the Merkers mine which were temporarily stored there. With Charlie -came two members of the MFA&A organization whom I had not seen since -Versailles and then only briefly. They had been stationed at Barbizon, as -part of the Allied Group Control Council for Germany (usually referred -to simply as “Group CC”) the top level policy-making body as opposed -to SHAEF, which dealt with the operational end of things. These two -gentlemen were John Nicholas Brown, who had come over to Germany with the -assimilated rank of colonel as General Eisenhower’s adviser on cultural -affairs, and Major Mason Hammond, in civilian life professor of the -Classics at Harvard. - -It had been decided, now that we were about to acquire a permanent -depot in which to store the treasures, to make one Monuments officer -responsible for the entire collection. By this transfer of custody, the -Property Control Officer in whose charge the things were at present, -could be relieved of that responsibility. Major Hammond had with him a -paper designating me as custodian. Knowing in a general way what was -stored in the bank, I felt that I was on the point of being made a sort -of director, pro tem, of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum. - -The genial Property Control Officer, Captain William Dunn, was all -smiles at the prospect of turning his burden over to someone else. But -before this transfer could be made, a complete check of every item was -necessary. Major Hammond knew just how he wanted this done. I was to have -two assistants, who could come over the next morning from his office in -Hoechst, twenty minutes from Frankfurt. The three of us, in company with -Captain Dunn, would make the inventory. - -We wandered through the series of rooms in which the things were stored. -In the first room were something like four hundred pictures lined up -against the wall in a series of rows. In two adjoining rooms were great -wooden cases piled one above another. In a fourth were leather-bound -boxes containing the priceless etchings, engravings and woodcuts from the -Berlin Print Room. Still another room was filled with cases containing -the renowned Egyptian collections. It was rumored that one of them held -the world-famous head of Queen Nefertete, probably the best known and -certainly the most beloved single piece of all Egyptian sculpture. It had -occupied a place of special honor in the Berlin Museum, in a gallery all -to itself. - -Still other rooms were jammed with cases of paintings and sculpture of -the various European schools. In a series of smaller alcoves were heaped -huge piles of Oriental rugs and rare fabrics. And last, one enormous -room with bookshelves was filled from floor to ceiling with some thirty -thousand volumes from the Berlin Patent Office. Quite separate and apart -from all these things was a unique collection of ecclesiastical vessels -of gold and silver, the greater part of them looted from Poland. These -extremely precious objects were kept in a special vault on the floor -above. - -Captain Dunn brought out a thick stack of papers. It was the complete -inventory. Major Hammond said that the two officers who would help -with the checking were a Captain Edwin Rae and a WAC lieutenant named -Standen. Aside from having heard that Rae had been a student of Charlie -Kuhn’s at Harvard, I knew nothing about him. But the name Standen rang -a bell: was she, by any chance, Edith Standen who had been curator of -the Widener Collection? Major Hammond smilingly replied, “The same.” I -had known her years ago in Cambridge where we had taken Professor Sachs’ -course in Museum Administration at the same time. I remembered her as -a tall, dark, distinguished-looking English girl. To be exact, she was -half English: her father had been a British Army officer, her mother a -Bostonian. Recalling her very reserved manner and her scholarly tastes, I -found it difficult to imagine her in uniform. - -Early the following morning, I met my cohorts at the entrance to the -Reichsbank. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Captain Rae was -an old acquaintance if not an old friend. He also had been around the -Fogg Museum in my time. Edith looked very smart in her uniform. She had -a brisk, almost jovial manner which was not to be reconciled with her -aloof and dignified bearing in the marble halls of the Widener house at -Elkins Park. We hunted up Captain Dunn and set to work. Our first task -was to count and check off the paintings stacked in the main room. We -got through them with reasonable speed, refraining with some difficulty -from pausing to admire certain pictures we particularly fancied. Then we -tackled the Oriental rugs, and that proved to be a thoroughly thankless -and arduous task. We had a crew of eight PWs—prisoners of war—to help us -spread the musty carpets out on the floor. Owing to the fact that the -smaller carpets—in some cases they were hardly more than fragments—had -been rolled up inside larger ones, we ended with nearly a hundred more -items than the inventory called for. That troubled Captain Dunn a bit, -but I told him that it didn’t matter so long as we were over. We’d have -to start worrying only if we came out short. By five o’clock we were -tired and dirty and barely a third of the way through with the job. - -The next day we started in on the patent records. There had been a fire -in the mine where the records were originally stored. Many of them were -slightly charred, and all of them had been impregnated with smoke. -When we had finished counting the whole thirty thousand, we smelled -just the way they did. As a matter of fact we hadn’t wanted to assume -responsibility for these records in the first place. Certainly they had -nothing to do with art. But Major Hammond had felt that they properly -fell to us as archives. And of course they were archives of a sort. - -On the morning of the third day, as I was about to leave my office for -the Reichsbank, I had a phone call from Charlie Kuhn. He asked me how the -work was coming along and then, in a guarded voice, said that something -unexpected had turned up and that he might have to send me away for a few -days. He told me he couldn’t talk about it on the telephone, and anyway, -it wasn’t definite. He’d probably know by afternoon. I was to call him -later. This was hardly the kind of conversation to prepare one for a -humdrum day of taking inventory, even if one were counting real treasure. -And for a person with my curiosity, the morning’s work was torture. - -When I called Charlie after lunch he was out but had left word that I was -to come to his office at two o’clock. When I got there he was sitting at -his desk. He looked up from the dispatch he was reading and said with -a rueful smile, “Tom, I am going to send you out on a job I’d give my -eyeteeth to have for myself.” Then he explained that certain developments -had suddenly made it necessary to step up the work of evacuating art -repositories down in Bavaria and in even more distant areas. For the -first time in my life I knew what was meant by the expression “my heart -jumped a beat”—for that was exactly what happened to mine! No wonder -Charlie was envious. This sounded like the real thing. - -Charlie told me that I was to fly down to Munich the next morning and -that I would probably be gone about ten days. To save time he had already -had my orders cut. All I had to do was to pick them up at the AG office. -I was to report to Third Army Headquarters and get in touch with George -Stout as soon as possible. Charlie didn’t know just where I’d find -George. He was out in the wilds somewhere. As a matter of fact he wasn’t -too sure about the exact location of Third Army Headquarters. A new -headquarters was being established and the only information he had was -that it would be somewhere in or near Munich. The name, he said, would be -“Lucky Rear” and I would simply have to make inquiries and be guided by -signs posted along the streets. - -I asked Charlie what I should do about the completion of the inventory -at the Reichsbank, and also about the impending report from the Corps of -Engineers on the University of Frankfurt building. He suggested that I -leave the former in Captain Rae’s hands and the latter with Lieutenant -Buchman. Upon my return I could take up where I had left off. - -That evening I threw my things together, packing only enough clothes to -see me through the next ten days. Not knowing where I would be billeted I -took the precaution of including my blankets. Even at that my luggage was -compact and light, which was desirable as I was traveling by air. - - - - -(3) - -_MUNICH AND THE BEGINNING OF FIELD WORK_ - - -The next morning I was up before six and had early breakfast. It was a -wonderful day for the trip, brilliantly clear. The corporal in our office -took me out to the airfield, the one near Hanau where Craig Smyth and I -had landed weeks before. It was going to be fun to see Craig again and -find out what he had been up to since we had parted that morning in Bad -Homburg. The drive to the airfield took about forty-five minutes. There -was a wait of half an hour at the field, and it was after ten when we -took off in our big C-47. We flew over little villages with red roofs, -occasionally a large town—but none that I could identify—and now and then -a silvery lake. - -Just before we reached Munich, someone said, “There’s Dachau.” Directly -below us, on one side of a broad sweep of dark pine trees, we saw a group -of low buildings and a series of fenced-in enclosures. On that sunny -morning the place looked deserted and singularly peaceful. Yet only a -few weeks before it had been filled with the miserable victims of Nazi -brutality. - -In another ten minutes we landed on the dusty field of the principal -Munich airport. Most of the administration buildings had a slightly -battered look but were in working order. It was a welcome relief to -take refuge from the blazing sunshine in the cool hallway of the main -building. The imposing yellow brick lobby was decorated with painted -shields of the different German states or “Länder.” The arms of Bavaria, -Saxony, Hesse-Nassau and the rest formed a colorful frieze around the -walls. - -A conveyance of some kind was scheduled to leave for town in a few -minutes. Meanwhile there were sandwiches and coffee for the plane -passengers. By the time we had finished, a weapons carrier had pulled -up before the entrance. Several of us climbed into its dust-encrusted -interior. It took me a little while to get my bearings as we drove toward -Munich. I had spotted the familiar pepper-pot domes of the Frauenkirche -from the air but had recognized no other landmark of the flat, sprawling -city which I had known well before the war. - -It was not until we turned into the broad Prinz Regenten-Strasse that -I knew exactly where I was. As we drove down this handsome avenue, I -got a good look at a long, colonnaded building of white stone. The roof -was draped with what appeared to be an enormous, dark green fishnet. -The billowing scallops of the net flapped about the gleaming cornice of -the building. It was the Haus der Deutschen Kunst, the huge exhibition -gallery dedicated by Hitler in the middle thirties to the kind of art -of which he approved—an art in which there was no place for untrammeled -freedom of expression, only the pictorial and plastic representation -of all the Nazi regime stood for. The dangling fishnet was part of the -elaborate camouflage. I judged from the condition of the building that -the net had admirably served its purpose. - -In a moment we rounded the corner by the Prinz Karl Palais. Despite the -disfiguring coat of ugly olive paint which covered its classic façade, it -had not escaped the bombs. The little palace, where Mussolini had stayed, -had a hollow, battered look and the formal garden behind it was a waste -of furrowed ground and straggling weeds. We turned left into the wide -Ludwig-Strasse and came to a grinding halt beside a bleak gray building -whose walls were pockmarked with artillery fire. I asked our driver if -this were Lucky Rear headquarters and was told curtly that it wasn’t, -but that it was the end of the line. It was MP headquarters and I’d have -to see if they’d give me a car to take me to my destination, which the -driver said was “’way the hell” on the other side of town. - -Before going inside I looked down the street to the left. The familiar -old buildings were still standing, but they were no longer the trim, -cream-colored structures which had once given that part of the city such -a clean, orderly air. Most of them were burned out. Farther along on -the right, the Theatinerkirche was masked with scaffolding. At the end -of the street the Feldherren-Halle, Ludwig I’s copy of the Loggia dei -Lanzi, divested of its statuary, reared its columns in the midst of the -desolation. - -It was gray and cool in the rooms of the MP building, but the place was -crowded. Soldiers were everywhere and things seemed to be at sixes and -sevens. After making several inquiries and being passed from one desk to -another, I finally got hold of a brisk young sergeant to whom I explained -my troubles. At first he said there wasn’t a chance of getting a ride out -to Lucky Rear. Every jeep was tied up and would be for hours. They had -just moved into Munich and hadn’t got things organized yet. Then all at -once he relented and with a grin said, “Oh, you’re Navy, aren’t you? In -that case I’ll have to fix you up somehow. We can’t have the Navy saying -the Army doesn’t co-operate.” - -He walked over to a window that looked down on the courtyard below, -shouted instructions to someone and then told me I’d find a jeep and -driver outside. “Think nothing of it, Lieutenant,” he said in answer to -my thanks. “Maybe I’ll be wanting a ship to take me home one of these -days before long. Have to keep on the good side of the Navy.” - -[Illustration: In the Kaiser Josef chamber of the Alt Aussee mine Karl -Sieber and Lieutenant Kern view Michelangelo’s Madonna and Child, stolen -from a church at Bruges.] - -[Illustration: Lieutenants Kovalyak, Stout and Howe pack the Michelangelo -Madonna for return to Bruges. The statue was restored to the Church of -Notre Dame in September of 1945.] - -[Illustration: The famous Ghent altarpiece by van Eyck was flown from -the Alt Aussee mine to Belgium in the name of Eisenhower as a token -restitution.] - -[Illustration: Karl Sieber, German restorer, Lieutenant Kern, American -Monuments officer, and Max Eder, Austrian engineer, examine the panels of -the Ghent altarpiece stored in the Alt Aussee mine.] - -On my way out I gathered up my luggage from the landing below and -climbed into the waiting jeep. We turned the corner and followed the -Prinz Regenten-Strasse to the river. I noticed for the first time that -a temporary track had been laid along one side. This had been done, the -driver said, in order to cart away the rubble which had accumulated -in the downtown section. We turned right and followed the Isar for -several blocks, crossed to the left over the Ludwig bridge, then drove -out the Rosenheimer-Strasse to the east for a distance of about three -miles. Our destination was the enormous complex of buildings called the -Reichszeugmeisterei, or Quartermaster Corps buildings, in which the -rear echelon of General Patton’s Third Army had just established its -headquarters. - -Even in the baking sunlight of that June day, the place had a cold, -unfriendly appearance. We halted for identification at the entrance, and -there I was introduced to Third Army discipline. One of the guards gave -me a black look and growled, “Put your cap on.” Startled by this burly -order, I hastily complied and then experienced a feeling of extreme -irritation at having been so easily cowed. I could at least have asked -him to say “sir.” - -The driver, sensing my discomfiture, remarked good-naturedly, “You’ll get -used to that sort of thing around here, sir. They’re very, very fussy now -that the shooting’s over. Seems like they don’t have anything else to -worry about, except enforcing a lot of regulations.” This was my first -sample of what I learned to call by its popular name, “chicken”—a prudent -abbreviation for the exasperating rules and regulations one finds at an -Army headquarters. Third Army had its share of them—perhaps a little -more than its share. But I didn’t find that out all at once. It took me -all of two days. - -My driver let me out in front of the main building, over the central -doorway of which the emblem of the Third Army was proudly displayed—a -bold “A” inside a circle. The private at the information desk had never -heard of the “Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section,” but said that -if it was a part of G-5 it would be on the fifth floor. I found the -office of the Assistant Chief of Staff and was directed to a room at the -end of a corridor at least two blocks long. I was told that the officer I -should see was Captain Robert Posey. I knew that name from the reports I -had studied at Versailles, as well as from a magazine article describing -his discovery, months before, of some early frescoes in the little -Romanesque church of Mont St. Martin which had been damaged by bombing. -The article had been written by an old friend of mine, Lincoln Kirstein, -who was connected with the MFA&A work in Europe. - -When I opened the door of the MFA&A office, George Stout was standing in -the middle of the room. The expression of surprise on his face changed to -relief after he had read the letter I handed him from Charlie Kuhn. - -“You couldn’t have arrived at a more opportune time,” he said. “I came -down from Alt Aussee today to see Posey, but I just missed him. He left -this morning for a conference in Frankfurt. I wanted to find out what -had happened to the armed escort he promised me for my convoys. We’re -evacuating the mine and desperately shorthanded, so I’ve got to get back -tonight. It’s a six-hour drive.” - -“Charlie said you needed help. What do you want me to do?” I asked. I -hoped he would take me along. - -“I’d like to have you stay here until we get this escort problem -straightened out. I was promised two half-tracks, but they didn’t show -up this morning. I’ve got a call in about them right now. It’s three -o’clock. I ought to make Salzburg by five-thirty. There’ll surely be some -word about the escort by that time, and I’ll phone you from there.” - -Before he left, George introduced me to Lieutenant Colonel William -Hamilton, the Assistant Chief of Staff, and explained to him that I had -come down on special orders from SHAEF to help with the evacuation work. -George told the colonel that I would be joining him at the mine as soon -as Captain Posey returned and provided me with the necessary clearance. -After we had left Colonel Hamilton’s office, I asked George what he meant -by “clearance.” He laughed and said that I would have to obtain a written -permit from Posey before I could operate in Third Army territory. As -Third Army’s Monuments Officer, Posey had absolute jurisdiction in all -matters pertaining to the fine arts in the area occupied by his Army. At -that time it included a portion of Austria which later came under General -Mark Clark’s command. - -“Don’t worry,” said George. “I’ll have you at the mine in a few days, and -you’ll probably be sorry you ever laid eyes on the place.” - -I went back to the MFA&A office and was about to settle down at Captain -Posey’s vacant desk. I looked across to a corner of the room where -a lanky enlisted man sat hunched up at a typewriter. It was Lincoln -Kirstein, looking more than ever like a world-weary Rachmaninoff. Lincoln -a private in the U. S. Army! What a far cry from the world of modern art -and the ballet! He was thoroughly enjoying my astonishment. - -“This is a surprise, but it explains a lot of things,” I said, dragging a -chair over to his desk. “So you are the Svengali of the Fine Arts here at -Third Army.” - -“You mustn’t say things like that around this headquarters,” he said -apprehensively. - -During the next two hours we covered a lot of territory. First of all, I -wanted to know why he was an enlisted man chained to a typewriter. With -his extraordinary intelligence and wide knowledge of the Fine Arts, he -could have been more useful as an officer. He said that he had applied -for a commission and had been turned down. I was sorry I had brought up -the subject, but knowing Lincoln’s fondness for the dramatic I thought it -quite possible that he had wanted to be able to say in later years that -he had gone through the war as an enlisted man. He agreed that he could -have been of greater service to the Fine Arts project as an officer. - -Then I asked him what his “boss”—he was to be mine too—was like. He said -that Captain Posey, an architect in civilian life, had had a spectacular -career during combat. In the face of almost insurmountable obstacles, -such as lack of personnel and transportation and especially the lack of -any real co-operation from the higher-ups, he had accomplished miracles. -Now that the press was devoting more and more space to the work the -Monuments officers were doing—the discovery of treasures in salt mines -and so on—they were beginning to pay loving attention to Captain Posey -around the headquarters. - -I gathered from Lincoln that the present phase of our activities appealed -to the captain less than the protection and repair of historic monuments -under fire. If true, this was understandable enough. He was an architect. -Why would he, except as a matter of general cultural interest, find -work that lay essentially in the domain of a museum man particularly -absorbing? It seemed reasonable to assume that Captain Posey would -welcome museum men to shoulder a part of the burden. But I was to learn -later that my assumption was not altogether correct. - -Eventually I had to interrupt our conversation. It was getting late, and -still no word about the escort vehicles. Lincoln told me where I would -find the officer who was to have called George. He was Captain Blyth, a -rough-and-ready kind of fellow, an ex-trooper from the state of Virginia. -The outlook was not encouraging. No vehicles were as yet available. -Finally, at six o’clock, he rang up to say that he wouldn’t know anything -before morning. - -Lincoln returned from chow, I gave him the message in case George called -while I was out and went down to eat. It was after eight when George -telephoned. The connection from Salzburg was bad, and so was his temper -when I told him I had nothing to report. - -Lincoln usually spent his evenings at the office. That night we stayed -till after eleven. Here and there he had picked up some fascinating -German art books and magazines, all of them Nazi publications lavishly -illustrated. They bore eloquent testimony to Hitler’s patronage of -the arts. The banality of the contemporary work in painting was -stultifying—dozens of rosy-cheeked, buxom maidens and stalwart, -brown-limbed youths reeking with “strength through joy,” and acres of -idyllic landscapes. The sculpture was better, though too often the -tendency toward the colossal was tiresomely in evidence. It was in -recording the art of the past, notably in the monographs dealing with -the great monuments of the Middle Ages and the Baroque, that admirable -progress had been made. I asked Lincoln enviously how he had got hold of -these things. He answered laconically that he had “liberated” them. - -Captain Blyth had good news for me the next morning. Two armored vehicles -had left Munich for the mine. I gave the message to George when he called -just before noon. - -“They’re a little late,” he said. “Thanks to the fine co-operation of -the 11th Armored Division, I am being taken care of from this end of the -line. I’ll try to catch your fellows in Salzburg and tell them to go -back where they came from. I am sending you a letter by the next convoy. -It’s about a repository which ought to be evacuated right away. I can’t -give you any of the details over the phone without violating security -regulations. As soon as Posey gets back, you ought to go to work on it. -After that I want you to help me here.” - -After George had hung up, I asked Lincoln if he had any idea what -repository George had in mind. Lincoln said it might be the monastery at -Hohenfurth. It was in Czechoslovakia, just over the border from Austria. -While we were discussing this possibility, Craig Smyth walked in. - -As soon as he had recovered from the surprise of finding me at Captain -Posey’s desk, he explained the reason for his visit. Something had to -be done right away about the building he was setting up as a collecting -point. He had been promised a twenty-four-hour guard. He had been -promised a barrier of barbed wire. So far, Third Army had failed to -provide either one. A lot of valuable stuff had already been delivered to -the building, and George was sending in more. He couldn’t wait any longer. - -“Let’s have a talk with Colonel Hamilton,” I said. As we walked down to -the Assistant Chief of Staff’s office, Craig told me that the buildings -he had requisitioned were the ones Bancel La Farge had suggested when we -saw him at Wiesbaden a month ago. - -“Can’t this matter wait until Captain Posey returns?” the colonel asked. - -“I am afraid it can’t, sir,” said Craig. “As you know, the two buildings -were the headquarters of the Nazi party. The Nazis meant to destroy them -before Munich fell. Having failed to do so, I think it quite possible -that they may still attempt it. Both buildings are honeycombed with -underground passageways. Only this morning we located the exit of one -of them. It was half a block from the building. We hadn’t known of its -existence before. The works of art stored in the building at present are -worth millions of dollars. In the circumstances, I am not willing to -accept the responsibility for what may happen to them. I must have guards -or a barrier at once.” - -The colonel reached for the telephone and gave orders that a cordon of -guards was to be placed on the buildings immediately. He made a second -call, this time about the barbed wire. When he had finished he told Craig -that the guard detail would report that afternoon; the barbed wire would -be strung around the building the next morning. We thanked the colonel -and returned to Posey’s office. - -We found two officers who had just come in from Dachau. They were waiting -to see someone connected with Property Control. They had brought with -them a flour sack filled with gold wedding rings; a large carton stuffed -with gold teeth, bridgework, crowns and braces (in children’s sizes); -a sack containing gold coins (for the most part Russian) and American -greenbacks. As we looked at these mementos of the concentration camp, I -thought of the atrocity film I had seen at Versailles and wondered how -anyone could believe that those pictures had been an exaggeration. - -I went back with Craig to his office at the Königsplatz. The damage to -Munich was worse than I had realized. The great Deutsches Museum by the -river was a hollow-eyed specter, but sufficiently intact to house DPs. -Aside from its twin towers, little was left of the Frauenkirche. The -buildings lining the Brienner-Strasse had been blasted and burned. Along -the short block leading from the Carolinen Platz to the Königsplatz, -the destruction was total: on the left stood the jagged remnants of the -little villa Hitler had given D’Annunzio; on the right was a heap of -rubble which had been the Braun Haus. But practically untouched were the -two Ehrentempel—the memorials to the “martyrs” of the 1923 beer-hall -“putsch.” The colonnades were draped with the same kind of green -fishnet that had been used to camouflage the Haus der Deutschen Kunst. -The classic façades of the museums on either side of the square—the -Glyptothek and the Neue Staatsgalerie—were intact. The buildings -themselves were a shambles. - -I followed Craig up the broad flight of steps to the entrance of the -Verwaltungsbau, or Administration Building. It was three stories high, -built of stone, and occupied almost an entire block. True to the Nazi -boast, it looked as though it had been built to “last a thousand -years.” And it was so plain and massive that I didn’t see how it could -change much in that time. There was nothing here that could “grow old -gracefully.” The interior matched the exterior. There were two great -central courts with marble stairs leading to the floor above. - -Although the building had not been bombed, it had suffered severely -from concussion. Craig said that when he had moved in two weeks ago -the skylights over the courts had been open to the sky. On rainy days -one could practically go boating on the first floor. There had been no -glass in the windows. Now they had been boarded up or filled in with a -translucent material as a substitute. All of the doors had been out of -line and would not lock. But the repairs were already well under way -and, according to Craig, the place would be shipshape in another month -or six weeks. He said that his colleague, Hamilton Coulter, a former New -York architect now a naval lieutenant, was directing the work and doing -a magnificent job. Even under normal conditions it would have been a -staggering task. With glass and lumber at a premium, to say nothing of -the scarcity of skilled labor, a less resourceful man would have given up -in despair. - -[Illustration: Vermeer’s _Portrait of the Artist in His Studio_ in the -Alt Aussee mine was purchased by Hitler for his proposed museum. It has -been returned to Vienna.] - -[Illustration: One of the picture storage rooms in the mine, constructed -with wooden partitions and racks. The temperature was constant, averaging -40° Fahrenheit in summer, 47° in winter.] - -[Illustration: Panel from the Louvain altarpiece, _Feast of the -Passover_, by Bouts, was stored at Alt Aussee.] - -[Illustration: Hitler acquired the Czernin Vermeer for an alleged price -of 1,400,000 Reichsmarks.] - -Craig was rapidly building up a staff of German scholars and museum -technicians to assist him in the administration of the establishment. -It would soon rival a large American museum in complexity and scope. -Storage rooms on the ground floor had been made weatherproof. Paintings -and sculpture were already pouring in from the mine at Alt Aussee—six -truckloads at a time. In accordance with standard museum practice, Craig -had set up an efficient accessioning system. As each object came in, it -was identified, marked and listed for future reference. Quarters had been -set aside for a photographer. Racks were being built for pictures. A -two-storied record room was being converted into a library. - -Craig had also requisitioned the “twin” of this colossal building—the -Führerbau, where Hitler had had his own offices. This was only a -block away on the same street and also faced the Königsplatz. It was -connected with the Verwaltungsbau by underground passageways. It was in -the Führerbau that the Munich Pact of 1938—the pact that was to have -guaranteed “peace in our time”—had been signed. Craig showed me the table -at which Mr. Chamberlain had signed that document. Craig was using it now -for a conference table. - -Repairs were being concentrated on the Administration Building, since its -“twin” was being held in reserve for later use. At the moment, however, a -few of the rooms were occupied by a small guard detail. The truck drivers -and armed guards who came each week with the convoys from the mine were -also billeted there. - -Just as Craig and I were finishing our inspection of the Führerbau, -a convoy of six trucks, escorted by two half-tracks, pulled into the -parking space behind the building. The convoy leader had a letter for -me. It was the one George Stout had mentioned on the telephone. Lincoln -was right. The repository George had in mind was the monastery at -Hohenfurth. In his letter he stressed the fact that the evacuation should -be undertaken at once. He suggested that I try to persuade Posey to send -Lincoln along to help me. - -Craig had a comfortable billet in the Kopernikus-Strasse, a four-room -flat on the fourth floor of a modern apartment building. The back windows -looked onto a garden. Over the tops of the poplar trees beyond, one could -see the roof of the Prinz Regenten Theater where, back in the twenties, I -had seen my first complete performance of Wagner’s _Ring_. Craig told me -that the theater was undamaged except for the Speisesaal where, in prewar -days, lavish refreshments were served during intermissions. That one room -had caught a bomb. - -I accepted Craig’s invitation to share the apartment with him while -in Munich and made myself at home in the dining room. It had a couch, -and there was a sideboard which I could use as a chest of drawers. The -bathroom was across the hall and he said that the supply of hot water -was inexhaustible. By comparison, the officers’ billets at Third Army -Headquarters were tenements. - -Ham Coulter had similar quarters on the ground floor. We stopped there -for a drink on our way to supper at the Military Government Detachment. -“Civilized” was the word that best described Ham. He was a tall, -broad-shouldered fellow with sleek black hair, finely-chiseled features -and keen, gray eyes. When he smiled, his mouth crinkled up at the -corners, producing an agreeably sarcastic expression. Ham poured out the -drinks with an elegance the ordinary German cognac didn’t deserve. They -should have been dry martinis. I liked him at once that first evening, -and when I came to know him better I found him the wittiest and most -amiable of companions. He and Craig were a wonderful combination. They -had the greatest admiration and respect for each other, and during -the many months of their work together there was not the slightest -disagreement between them. - -The officers’ dining room that evening was a noisy place. The clatter -of knives and forks and the babble of voices mingled with the rasping -strains of popular American tunes pounded out by a Bavarian band. As we -were about to sit down, the music stopped abruptly and a second later -struck up the current favorite, “My Dreams Are Getting Better All the -Time.” Colonel Charles Keegan, the commanding officer, had entered the -dining hall. I was puzzled by this until Ham told me that it happened -every night. This particular piece was the colonel’s favorite tune and he -had ordered it to be played whenever he came in to dinner. The colonel -was a colorful character—short and florid, with a shock of white hair. -He had figured prominently in New York politics and would again, it was -said. He had already helped Craig over a couple of rough spots and if -some of his antics amused the MFA&A boys, they seemed to be genuinely -fond of him. - -While we were at dinner, three officers came and took their places at -a near-by table. Craig identified one of them as Captain Posey. I had -been told that he was in his middle thirties, but he looked younger than -that. He had a boyish face and I noticed that he laughed a great deal as -he talked with his two companions. When he wasn’t smiling, there was a -stubborn expression about his mouth, and I remembered that Lincoln had -said something about his “deceptively gentle manner.” On our way out I -introduced myself to him. He was very affable and seemed pleased at my -arrival. But he was tired after the long drive from Frankfurt, so, as -soon as I had arranged to meet him at his office the next day, I joined -Ham and Craig back at the apartment. - -I got out to Third Army Headquarters early the following morning and -found Captain Posey already at his desk, going through the papers which -had accumulated during his absence. We discussed George’s letter at -considerable length, and I was disappointed to find that he did not -intend to act on it at once. Somehow it had never occurred to me that -anyone would question a proposal of George’s. - -For one thing, Captain Posey said, he couldn’t spare Lincoln; and for -another, there was a very pressing job much nearer Munich which he wanted -me to handle. He then proceeded to tell me of a small village on the road -to Salzburg where I would find a house in which were stored some eighty -cases of paintings and sculpture from the Budapest Museum. He showed me -the place on the map and explained how I was to go about locating the -exact house upon arrival. I was to see a certain officer at Third Army -Headquarters without delay and make arrangements for trucks. He thought I -would need about five. It shouldn’t take more than half a day to do the -job if all went well. After this preliminary briefing, I was on my own. - -My first move was to get hold of the officer about the trucks. How many -did I need? When did I want them and where should he tell them to report? -I said I’d like to have five trucks at the Königsplatz the following -morning at eight-thirty. The officer explained that the drivers would be -French, as Third Army was using a number of foreign trucking companies to -relieve the existing shortage in transportation. - -Later in the day I had a talk with Lincoln about my plans and he gave me -a piece of advice which proved exceedingly valuable—that I should go -myself to the trucking company which was to provide the vehicles, and -personally confirm the arrangements. So, after lunch I struck out in a -jeep for the west side of Munich, a distance of some seven or eight miles. - -I found a lieutenant, who had charge of the outfit, and explained the -purpose of my visit. He had not been notified of the order for five -trucks. There was no telephone communication between his office and -headquarters, so all messages had to come by courier, and the courier -hadn’t come in that day. He was afraid he couldn’t let me have any trucks -before the following afternoon. I insisted that the matter was urgent and -couldn’t wait, and, after much deliberating and consulting of charts, he -relented. I told him a little something about the expedition for which I -wanted the trucks and he showed real interest. He suggested that I ought -to have extremely careful drivers. I replied that I should indeed, as we -would be hauling stuff of incalculable value. - -Thereupon he gave me a harrowing description of the group under his -supervision. All of them had been members of the French Resistance -Movement—ex-terrorists he called them—and they weren’t afraid of God, -man or the Devil. Well, I thought, isn’t that comforting! “Oh, yes,” he -said, “these Frenchies drive like crazy men. But,” he continued, “one -of the fellows has got some sense. I’ll see if I can get him for you.” -He went over to the window that looked out on a parking ground littered -with vehicles of various kinds. Here and there I saw a mechanic bent over -an open hood or sprawled out beneath a truck. The lieutenant bellowed, -“Leclancher, come up here to my office!” - -A few seconds later a wiry, sandy-haired Frenchman of about forty-five -appeared in the doorway. Leclancher understood some English, for he -reacted with alert nods of the head as the lieutenant gave a brief -description of the job ahead, and then turned and asked me if I spoke -French. I told him I did, if he had enough patience. This struck him as -inordinately funny, but I was being quite serious. What really pleased -him was the fact that I was in the Navy. He said that he had been in -the Navy during the first World War. Then and there a lasting bond was -formed, though I didn’t appreciate the value of it at the time. - -Eight-thirty the next morning found me pacing the Königsplatz. Not -a truck in sight. Nine o’clock and still no trucks. At nine thirty, -one truck rolled up. Leclancher leaped out and with profuse apologies -explained that the other four were having carburetor trouble. There -had been water in the gas, too, and that hadn’t helped. For an hour -Leclancher and I idled about, whiling away the time with conversation -of no consequence, other than that it served to limber up my French. At -eleven o’clock Leclancher looked at his watch and said that it would -soon be time for lunch. It was obvious that he understood the Army’s -conception of a day as a brief span of time, in the course of which one -eats three meals. If it is not possible to finish a given job during the -short pauses between those meals, well, there’s always the next day. I -told him to go to his lunch and to come back as soon as he could round up -the other trucks. In the meantime I would get something to eat near by. - -When I returned shortly after eleven thirty—having eaten a K ration under -the portico of the Verwaltungsbau in lieu of a more formal lunch—my -five trucks were lined up ready to go. I appointed Leclancher “chef de -convoi”—a rather high-sounding title for such a modest caravan—and he -assigned positions to the other drivers, taking the end truck himself. -Since my jeep failed to arrive, I climbed into the lead truck. The driver -was an amiable youngster whose name was Roger Roget. During the next -few weeks he was the lead driver in all of my expeditions, and I took to -calling him “Double Roger,” which I think he never quite understood. - -To add to my anxiety over our belated start, a light rain began to fall -as we pulled out of the Königsplatz and turned into the Brienner-Strasse. -We threaded our way cautiously through the slippery streets choked with -military traffic, crossed the bridge over the Isar and swung into the -broad Rosenheimer-Strasse leading to the east. - -Once on the Autobahn, Roger speeded up. The speedometer needle quivered -up to thirty-five, forty and finally forty-five miles an hour. I pointed -to it, shaking my head. “We must not exceed thirty-five, Roger.” - -He promptly slowed down, and as we rolled along, I forgot the worries -of the morning. I dozed comfortably. Suddenly we struck an unexpected -hole in the road and I woke up. We were doing fifty. This time I spoke -sharply, reminding Roger that the speed limit was thirty-five and that we -were to stay within it; if we didn’t we’d be arrested, because the road -was well patrolled. With a tolerant grin Roger said, “Oh, no, we never -get arrested. The MPs, they stop us and get very angry, but—” with a -shrug of the shoulders—“we do not understand. They throw the hands up in -the air and say ‘dumb Frenchies’ and we go ahead.” - -“That may work with you,” I said crossly, “but what about me? I’m not a -‘dumb Frenchy.’” - -For the next hour I pretended to doze and at the same time kept an eye on -the speedometer. This worked pretty well. Now and again I would look up, -and each time, Roger would modify his speed. - -Presently we came to a bad detour, where a bridge was out. We had to -make a sharp turn to the left, leave the Autobahn and descend a steep -and tortuous side road into a deep ravine. That day the narrow road was -slippery from the rain, so we had to crawl along. The drop into the -valley was a matter of two or three hundred feet and, as we reached -the bottom, we could see the monstrous wreckage of the bridge hanging -drunkenly in mid-air. The ascent was even more precarious, but our five -trucks got through. - -We had now left the level country around Munich and were in a region of -rolling hills. Along the horizon, gray clouds half concealed the distant -peaks. Soon the rain stopped and the sun came out. The mountains changed -to misty blue against an even bluer sky. The road rose sharply, and when -we reached the crest, I caught a glimpse of shimmering water. It was -Chiemsee, largest of the Bavarian lakes. - -In another ten minutes the road flattened out again and we came to the -turnoff marked “Prien.” There we left the Autobahn for a narrow side -road which took us across green meadows. Nothing could have looked more -peaceful than this lush, summer countryside. Reports of SS troops still -hiding out in the near-by forests seemed preposterous in the pastoral -tranquillity. Yet only a few days before, our troops had rounded up a -small band of these die-hards in this neighborhood. The SS men had come -down from the foothills on a foraging expedition and had been captured -while attempting to raid a farmhouse. It was because of just such -incidents, as well as the ever-present fire hazard, that I had been sent -down to remove the museum treasures to a place of safety. - -The road was dwindling away to a cow path and I was beginning to wonder -how much farther we could go with our two-and-a-half-ton trucks, when we -came to a small cluster of houses. This was Grassau. I had been told -that a small detachment of troops was billeted there, so I singled out -the largest of the little white houses grouped around the only crossroads -in the village. It had clouded over and begun to rain again. As I entered -the gate and was crossing the yard, the door of the house was opened by a -corporal. - -He didn’t seem surprised to see me. Someone at Munich had sent down word -to Prien that I was coming, and the message had reached him from there. I -asked if he knew where the things I had come for were stored. He motioned -to the back of the house and said there were two rooms full of big -packing cases. He explained that he and one other man had been detailed -to live in the house because of the “stuff” stored there. They had been -instructed to keep an eye on the old man who claimed to be responsible -for it. That would be Dr. Csanky, director of the Budapest Museum, who, -according to my information, would probably raise unqualified hell when I -came to cart away his precious cases. The corporal told me that the old -man and his son occupied rooms on the second floor. - -I was relieved to hear that they were not at home. It would make things -much simpler if I could get my trucks loaded and be on my way before -they returned. It was already well after two and I wanted to start back -by five at the latest. I asked rather tentatively about the chances of -getting local talent to help with the loading, and the corporal promptly -offered to corral a gang of PWs who were working under guard near by. - -While he went off to see about that, I marshaled my trucks. There was -enough room to back one truck at a time to the door of the house. A few -minutes later the motley “work party” arrived. There were eight of them -in all and they ranged from a young fellow of sixteen, wearing a faded -German uniform, to a reedy old man of sixty. By and large, they looked -husky enough for the job. - -I knew enough not to ask my drivers to help, but knew that the work would -go much faster if they would lend a hand. Leclancher must have read my -thoughts, for he immediately offered his services. As soon as the other -four saw what Leclancher was doing, they followed suit. - -There were eighty-one cases in all. They varied greatly in size, because -some of them contained sculpture and, consequently, were both bulky and -heavy. Others, built for big canvases, were very large and flat but -relatively light. We had to “design” our loads in such a way as to keep -cases of approximately the same type together. This was necessary for -two reasons: first, the cases would ride better that way, and second, we -hadn’t any too much space. As I roughly figured it, we should be able to -get them all in the five trucks, but we couldn’t afford to be prodigal in -our loading. - -The work went along smoothly for an hour and we were just finishing the -second truck when I saw two men approaching. They were Dr. Csanky and -his son. This was what I had hoped to avoid. The doctor was a dapper -little fellow with a white mustache and very black eyes. He was wearing -a corduroy jacket and a flowing bow tie. The artistic effect was topped -off by a beret set at a jaunty angle. His son was a callow string bean -with objectionably soulful eyes magnified by horn-rimmed spectacles. They -came over to the truck and began to jabber and wave their arms. We paid -no attention whatever—just kept on methodically lifting one case after -another out of the storage room. - -The dapper doctor got squarely in my path and I had to stop. I checked -his flow of words with a none too civil “Do you speak English?” That drew -a blank, so I asked if he spoke German. No luck there either. Feeling -like an ad for the Berlitz School, I inquired whether he spoke French. -He said “Yes,” but the stream of Hungarian-French which rolled out from -that white mustache was unintelligible. It was hopeless. At last I simply -had to take him by the shoulders and gently but firmly set him aside. -This was the ultimate indignity, but it worked. At that juncture he and -the string bean took off. I didn’t know what they were up to and I didn’t -care, so long as they left us alone. - -Our respite was short-lived. By the time we had the third truck ready to -move away, they were back. And they had come with reinforcements: two -women were with them. One was a rather handsome dowager who looked out of -place in this rural setting. Her gray hair, piled high, was held in place -by a scarlet bandanna, and she was wearing a shabby dress of green silk. -Despite this getup, there was something rather commanding about her. She -introduced herself as the wife of General Ellenlittay and explained in -perfect English that Dr. Csanky had come to her in great distress. Would -I be so kind as to tell her what was happening so that she could inform -him? - -“I am removing these cases on the authority of the Commanding General -of the Third United States Army,” I said. If she were going to throw -generals’ names around, I could produce one too—and a better one at that. - -Her response to my pompous pronouncement was delivered charmingly and -with calculated deflationary effect. “Dear sir, forgive me if I seemed to -question your authority. That was not my intention. It is quite apparent -that you are removing the pictures, but where are you taking them?” - -“I am sorry, but I am not at liberty to say,” I replied. That too -sounded rather lordly, but I consoled myself by recalling that Posey had -admonished me not to answer questions like that. - -She relayed this information to Dr. Csanky and the effect was -startling. He covered his face with his hands and I thought he was going -to cry. Finally he pulled himself together and let forth a flood of -unintelligible consonants. His interpreter tackled me again. - -“Dr. Csanky is frantic. He says that he is responsible to his government -for the safety of these treasures and since you are taking them away, -there is nothing left for him to do but to blow his brains out.” - -My patience was exhausted. I said savagely, “Tell Dr. Csanky for me that -he can blow his brains out if he chooses, but I think it would be silly. -If you must know, Madame, I am a museum director myself and you can -assure him that no harm is going to come to his precious pictures.” - -I should never have mentioned that I had even so much as been inside -a museum, for, from that moment until we finished loading the last -truck, the little doctor never left my side. I was his “cher collègue,” -and he kept up a steady barrage of questions which the patient Madame -Ellenlittay tried to pass along to me without interrupting our work. - -As we lined the trucks up, preparatory to starting back to Munich, Dr. -Csanky produced several long lists of what the cases contained. He asked -me to sign them. This I refused to do but explained to him through -the general’s wife that if he cared to have the lists translated from -Hungarian and forwarded to Third Army Headquarters, they could be checked -against the contents and eventually returned to him with a notation to -that effect. - -Our little convoy rolled out of Grassau at six o’clock, leaving the group -of Hungarians waving forlornly from the corner. Just before we turned -onto the Autobahn, Leclancher signaled from the rear truck for us to -stop. He came panting up to the lead truck with a bottle in his hand. -With a gallant wave of the arm he said that we must drink to the success -of the expedition. It was a bottle of Calvados—fiery and wonderful. We -each took a generous swig and then—with a rowdy “en voiture!”—we were on -our way again. It was a nice gesture. - -The trip back to Munich was uneventful except for the extraordinary -beauty of the long summer evening. The sunset had all the extravagance -of the tropics. The sky blazed with opalescent clouds. As we drove into -Munich, the whole city was suffused with a coral light which produced -a more authentic atmosphere of Götterdämmerung than the most ingenious -stage Merlin could have contrived. - -It was nearly nine when we rolled into the parking area behind the -Führerbau—too late to think about unloading and also, I was afraid, too -late to get any supper. We had pieced out with K rations and candy bars, -but were still hungry. A mess sergeant, lolling on the steps of the -building, reluctantly produced some lukewarm stew. After we had eaten, I -prevailed on one of the building guards to take my five drivers out to -their billets south of town. It was Saturday night. I told Leclancher we -would probably be making a longer trip on Monday and that I would need -ten drivers. He promised to select five more good men, and we arranged to -meet in the square as we had that morning. But Monday, he promised, they -would be on time. - -After checking the tarpaulins on my five trucks, I sauntered over to the -Central Collecting Point on the off-chance that Craig might be working -late. I found him looking at some of the pictures which George had sent -in that day from the mine. The German packers whom Craig had been able to -hire from one of the old established firms in Munich—one which had worked -exclusively for the museums there—had finished unloading the trucks only -a couple of hours earlier. Most of the things in this shipment had -been found at the mine, so now the pictures were stacked according to -size in neat rows about the room. In one of them we found two brilliant -portraits by Mme. Vigée-Lebrun. Labels on the front identified them as -the likenesses of Prince Schuvalov and of the Princess Golowine. Marks -on the back indicated that they were from the Lanckoroncki Collection -in Vienna, one of the most famous art collections in Europe. Hitler was -rumored to have acquired it en bloc—through forced sale, it was said—for -the great museum he planned to build at Linz. In another stack we came -upon a superb Rubens landscape, a fine portrait by Hals and two sparkling -allegorical scenes by Tiepolo. These had no identifying labels other -than the numbers which referred to lists we didn’t have at the moment. -However, Craig said that the documentation on the pictures, as a whole, -was surprisingly complete. Then we ran into a lot of nineteenth century -German masters—Lenbach, Spitzweg, Thoma and the like. These Hitler had -particularly admired, but they didn’t thrill me. I was getting sleepy and -suggested that we had had enough art for one day. I still had a report of -the day’s doings to write up for Captain Posey before I could turn in, so -we padlocked the room and took off. - -Even though the next day was Sunday, it was not a day of rest for me. -The trek to Hohenfurth, scheduled for Monday, involved infinitely more -complicated preliminary arrangements than the easy run of yesterday. -Captain Posey got out maps of the area into which the convoy would be -traveling; gave me the names of specific outfits from whom I would have -to obtain clearance as well as escorts along the way; and, most important -of all, supplied information concerning the material to be transported. -None of it, I learned, was cased. He thought it consisted mainly of -paintings, but there was probably also some furniture. This wasn’t too -definite. Nor did we have a very clear idea as to the exact number of -trucks we would need. I had spoken for ten on the theory that a larger -number would make too cumbersome a convoy. At least I didn’t want to be -responsible for more at that stage of the game, inexperienced as I was. -In the circumstances, two seasoned packers might, I thought, come in -handy, so I was to see if I could borrow a couple of Craig’s men. There -was the problem of rations for the trip up and back. Posey procured a big -supply of C rations, not so good as the K’s, but they would do. While at -Hohenfurth we would be fed by the American outfit stationed there. It was -a good thing that there was so much to be arranged, because it kept me -from worrying about a lot of things that could and many that did happen -on that amazing expedition. - -In the afternoon I went out to make sure of my trucks and on the way back -put in a bid for the two packers. My request wasn’t very popular, because -Craig was shorthanded, but he thought he could spare two since it was to -be only a three-day trip—one day to go up, one day at Hohenfurth, and -then back the third day. Craig gloomily predicted that I’d never get ten -trucks loaded in one day, but I airily tossed that off with the argument -that we had loaded five trucks at Grassau in less than four hours. “But -that stuff was all in cases,” he said. “You’ll find it slow going with -loose pictures.” Of course he was right, but I didn’t believe it at the -time. - - - - -(4) - -_MASTERPIECES IN A MONASTERY_ - - -We woke up to faultless weather the following morning, and on the way -down to the Königsplatz with Craig I was in an offensively optimistic -frame of mind. All ten of my trucks were there. This was more like it—no -tiresome mechanical delays. We were all set to go. Leclancher had even -had the foresight to bring along an extra driver, just in case anything -happened to one of the ten. That was a smart idea and I congratulated him -for having thought of it. - -It wasn’t till I started distributing the rations that I discovered our -two packers were missing. But that shouldn’t take long to straighten -out. Craig’s office was just across the way. I found them cooling their -heels in the anteroom. They looked as though they had come right out of -an Arthur Rackham illustration—stocky little fellows with gnarled hands -and wizened faces as leathery as the _Lederhosen_ they were wearing. Each -wore a coal-scuttle hat with a jaunty feather, and each had a bulging -bandanna attached to the end of a stick. There was much bowing and -scraping. The hats were doffed and there was the familiar “Grüss Gott, -Herr Kapitän,” when I walked in. - -Craig appeared and explained the difficulty. Until the last minute, no -one had thought to ask whether the men had obtained a Military Government -permit to leave the area—and of course they hadn’t. With all due respect -to the workings of Military Government, I knew that it would take hours, -even days, to obtain the permits. So, what to do? I asked Craig what -would happen if they went without them. He didn’t know. But if anyone -found out about it, there would be trouble. I didn’t see any reason why -anyone should find out about it. The men would be in my charge and I said -I’d assume all responsibility. - -Meanwhile the two Rackham characters were shifting uneasily from one foot -to the other, looking first at Craig and then at me, without the faintest -idea what the fuss was all about. Craig reluctantly left it up to me. Not -wanting to waste any more time, I told the little fellows that everything -was “in Ordnung” and bundled them off to the waiting trucks. - -Again our way led out to the east, the same road we had taken two days -before; and again I was perched up in the lead truck with Double Roger. -The country was more beautiful than ever in the morning sunlight. -We skirted the edge of Chiemsee and sped on through Traunstein. The -mountains loomed closer, their crests gleaming with snow. Roger commented -that it was “_la neige éternelle_,” and I was struck by the unconscious -poetry of the phrase. - -To save time we ate our midday rations en route, pulling off to one side -of the Autobahn in the neighborhood of Bad Reichenhall. Farther on we -came to a fork in the highway. A sign to the right pointed temptingly -to Berchtesgaden, only thirty kilometers away. But our road was the one -to the left—to Salzburg. In another few minutes we saw its picturesque -fortress, outlined against the sky, high above the town. - -I had to make some inquiries in Salzburg. Not knowing the exact location -of the headquarters where I could obtain the information I needed, I -thought it prudent to park the convoy on the outskirts and go on ahead -with a single truck. It probably wasn’t going to be any too easy, even -with exact directions, to get all ten of them through the narrow -streets, across the river and out the other side. This was where a jeep -would have come in handy. I had been a fool not to insist on having one -for this trip. - -Leclancher asked if he might go along with Roger and me. The three of -us drove off, leaving the other nine drivers and the two little packers -to take their ease in the warm meadow beside which we had halted. It -was about three miles into the center of town and the road was full -of confusing turns. But on the whole it was well marked with Army -signs. Before the end of the summer I became reasonably proficient in -translating the cabalistic symbols on these markers, but at that time -I was hopelessly untutored and neither of my companions was any help. -After driving through endless gray archways and being soundly rebuked -by the MPs for going the wrong direction on several one-way streets, we -found ourselves in a broad square paved with cobblestones. It was the -Mozartplatz. - -The lieutenant colonel I was supposed to see had his office in one of the -dove-colored buildings facing the square. It was a big, high-ceilinged -room with graceful rococo decorations along the walls and a delicate -prism chandelier in the center. I asked the colonel for clearance to -proceed to Linz with my convoy. After I had explained the purpose of my -trip to Hohenfurth, he offered to expedite the additional clearance I -would need beyond Linz. - -He rang up the headquarters of the 65th Infantry Division which was -stationed there. In a few minutes everything had been arranged. The -colonel at the other end of the line said that he would send one of his -officers to the outskirts of the city to conduct us to his headquarters -on our arrival. There would be no difficulty about billets. He would -also take care of our clearance across the Czechoslovakian border -the following day. I thanked the colonel and hurried down to rejoin -Leclancher and Roger. - -Since the proposed Autobahn to Linz had never been finished, we had to -take a secondary highway east of Salzburg. Our road led through gently -rolling country with mountains in the distance. I was grateful for the -succession of villages along the way. They were a relief after the -monotony of the Autobahn and also served to control the speed of the -convoy. We wound through streets so narrow that one could have reached -out and touched the potted geraniums which lined the balconies of the -cottages on either side. Laughing, towheaded children waved from the -doorways as we passed by. Roger, intent on his driving, didn’t respond to -the exuberance of the youngsters, and I wondered if he might be thinking -of the villages of his own country, where the invaders had left a bitter -legacy of wan faces. - -It was after seven when we reached the battered outskirts of Linz, the -city of Hitler’s special adoration. He had lavished his attention on the -provincial old town, his mother’s birthplace, hoping to make it a serious -rival of Vienna as an art center. To this end, plans for a magnificent -museum had been drawn up, and already an impressive collection of -pictures had been assembled against the day when a suitable building -would be ready to receive them. - -We approached the city from the west—its most damaged sector. It was -rough going, as the streets were full of chuckholes and narrowed by piles -of rubble heaped high on both sides. There was no sign of an escort, -so we drew up beside an information post at a main intersection. Our -cavalcade was too large to miss, as long as we stayed in one place. -We waited nearly an hour before a jeep came along. A jaunty young -lieutenant came over, introduced himself as the colonel’s “emissary” -and said that he had been combing the town for us. The confusion of -the debris-filled streets had caused us to take a wrong turn and, -consequently, we had missed the main thoroughfare into town. The -lieutenant, whose name was George Anderson, led us by a devious route -to a large, barrackslike building with a forecourt which afforded -ample parking space for the trucks. Billets had already been arranged, -as promised, but to get food at such a late hour was another matter. -However, by dint of coaxing in the right quarter, Anderson even contrived -to do that. - -As we drove off in his jeep to the hotel where the officers were -billeted, he remarked with a laugh that he wouldn’t be able to do as -well by me but thought he could dig up something. The hotel was called -the “Weinzinger,” and Anderson said that Hitler had often stayed there. -Leaving me to get settled, he went off on a foraging expedition. He -returned shortly with an armful of rations, a bottle of cognac and a -small contraption that looked like a tin case for playing cards. This -ingenious little device, with a turn of the wrist, opened out into a -miniature stove. Fuel for it came in the form of white lozenges that -resembled moth balls. Two of these, lighted simultaneously, produced a -flame of such intensity that one could boil water in less than a quarter -of an hour. I got out my mess kit while Anderson opened the rations, and -in ten minutes we whipped up a hot supper of lamb stew. With a generous -slug of cognac for appetizer, the lack of variety in the menu was -completely forgotten. - -While we topped off with chocolate bars, I asked him about conditions up -the line in the direction of Hohenfurth. - -“You won’t have any trouble once you reach Hohenfurth, because it’s -occupied by our troops,” he said, “but before swinging north into -Czechoslovakia you’ll have to pass through Russian-held Austrian -territory.” - -This was bad news, for I had no clearance from the Russians. I hadn’t -foreseen the need of it. Captain Posey couldn’t have known about it -either because he was punctilious and would never have let me start off -without the necessary papers. - -I had heard stories of the attitude of the Russians toward anyone -entering their territory without proper authorization. An officer in -Munich told me that his convoy had been stopped. He had been subjected to -a series of interrogations and not allowed to proceed for a week. - -“Could your colonel obtain clearance for me from the Russians?” I asked. - -“He could try, but it would probably take weeks,” Anderson said. “If -you’re in a hurry, your best bet is to take a chance and go on through -without clearance. You never can tell about the Russians. They might stop -you and again they might not.” - -Then I mentioned my problem children—my German packers. Anderson didn’t -think the Russians would look on them with much favor, if my trucks were -stopped and inspected. I asked about another road to Hohenfurth. Perhaps -there was one to the west of the Russian lines. He didn’t know about any -other route but said that we could take a look at the big map in the -O.D.’s office on the next floor. - -To my great relief, it appeared that there was another road—one which ran -parallel with the main road, four or five miles to the west of it. But -Anderson tempered enthusiasm with the remark that it might not be wide -enough for my two-and-a-half-ton trucks. There was nothing on the map to -indicate whether it was much more than a cow path and the duty officer -didn’t know. One of the other officers might be able to tell me. I could -ask in the morning. - -That night I worried a good deal about the hazards that seemed to lie -ahead, and woke up feeling depressed. Things, I reflected, had been going -too well. I should have guessed that there would be rough spots here and -there. After early breakfast I called to thank the colonel, Anderson’s -chief, for his kindness, and while in his office had a chance to inquire -about the alternate route. - -“The back road is all right,” he said without hesitation. “Take it by -all means. You will cross the Czech frontier just north of Leonfelden. -A telephone call to our officer at the border control will fix that up. -You should be able to make Hohenfurth in about two hours. The C.O. at -Hohenfurth is Lieutenant Colonel Sheehan of the 263rd Field Artillery -Battalion.” - -On my way through the outer office I stopped for a word with Lieutenant -Anderson, and while there the colonel gave instructions about the call -to the border control post. That done, Anderson said, “If you’ve got a -minute, there’s something I want to show you.” I followed him down the -stairs and through the back entrance of the hotel to the broad esplanade -beside the Danube. The river was beautiful that morning. Its swiftly -flowing waters were really blue. - -We walked over to the river where a white yacht tugged at her moorings. -She was the _Ungaria_, presented by Hitler to Admiral Horthy, the -Hungarian Regent. Anderson took me aboard and we made a tour of her -luxurious cabins. She was about a hundred twenty feet over all and her -fittings were lavish to the last detail. The vessel was now in the -custody of the American authorities, but her original crew was still -aboard. - -After this unexpected nautical adventure, Anderson took me to my trucks -and saw us off on the last lap of the journey. Beyond Urfahr, the town -across the Danube from Linz, we turned north. It was slow going for -the convoy because the road was steep and winding. Our progress was -further impeded by an endless line of horse-drawn carts and wagons, all -moving in the direction of Linz. Most of them were filled with household -furnishings. Presently the road straightened out and we entered a region -of rolling, upland meadows and deep pine forests. After an hour and a -half’s drive we reached Leonfelden, a pretty village with a seventeenth -century church nestling in a shallow valley. Just beyond it was the -frontier. We identified ourselves to the two officers—one American, the -other Czech—and continued on our way. Our entry into Czechoslovakia had -been singularly undramatic. In another twenty minutes we pulled into -Hohenfurth. - -It was not a particularly prepossessing village on first sight. Drab, -one-story houses lined the one main street. The headquarters of the 263rd -Field Artillery Battalion occupied an unpretentious corner building. -Lieutenant Colonel John R. Sheehan, the C.O., was a big, amiable fellow, -with a Boston-Irish accent. - -“If you’ve come for that stuff in the monastery,” he said, “just tell -me what you need and I’ll see that you get it. I’m anxious to get the -place cleared out because we’re not going to be here much longer. When we -leave, the Czechs are going to take over.” The colonel called for Major -Coleman W. Thacher, his “Exec,” a pleasant young Bostonian, and told him -to see that I was properly taken care of. The major, in turn, instructed -his sergeant to show me the way to the monastery and to provide billets -for my men. - -It was after eleven, but the sergeant said we’d have time to take a look -at the monastery before chow. He suggested that we take the trucks to -the monastery, which was not more than three-quarters of a mile from -headquarters. We drove down a narrow side street to the outskirts of -town. The small villas on either side were being used for officers’ -billets. The street ended abruptly, and up ahead to the left, on a slight -eminence, I saw the cream-colored walls of the monastery. - -A curving dirt road wound around to the entrance on the west side. -The monastery consisted of a series of rambling buildings forming two -courtyards. In the center of the larger of these stood a chapel of -impressive proportions. An arched passageway, leading through one of the -buildings on the rim of the enclosure, provided the only means of access -to the main courtyard. It had plenty of “Old World charm” but looked -awfully small in comparison with our trucks. - -Leclancher pooh-poohed my fears and said he’d take his truck through. He -did—that is, part way through. With a hideous scraping sound the truck -came to a sudden stop. The bows supporting the tarpaulin had not cleared -the sloping sides of the pointed arch. This was a fine mess, for it was -a good two hundred yards from the entrance to the building, behind the -chapel, in which the things were stored. It would prolong the operation -beyond all reason if we had to carry them all that way to the trucks. -And what if it rained? As if in answer to my apprehension, it suddenly -did rain, a hard drenching downpour. I should have had more faith in the -resourcefulness of my Frenchmen; at that critical juncture Leclancher -announced that he had found the solution. The bows of the trucks could be -forced down just enough to clear the archway. - -As soon as this had been done, nine of the trucks filed through and lined -up alongside the buttresses of the chapel. The tenth remained outside to -take the drivers and the two packers to chow. After seeing to it that -they were properly cared for, the sergeant deposited me at the officers’ -mess. - -At lunch, Colonel Sheehan introduced me to the military Government -Officer of his outfit, Major Lewis W. Whittemore, a bluff Irishman, who -gave me considerable useful information about the setup at the monastery. - -“Mutter, an elderly Austrian, is in charge of the collections stored -there—a custodian appointed by the Nazis. He is a dependable fellow -so we’ve allowed him to stay on the job. You’ll find him thoroughly -co-operative,” said the major. “One of the buildings of the monastery is -being used as a hospital for German wounded.” - -“Are there any monks about the place?” I asked. - -“Hitler ran them all out, but a few have returned. When Hohenfurth -is turned over to the Czechs, it will make quite a change in this -Sudetenland community. Even the name is going to be changed—to its Czech -equivalent, Vysi Brod. All the signs in town will be printed in Czech, -too. It will be the official language. Except for a few families, the -entire population is German.” - -“How will that work?” I asked. - -The major apparently interpreted my question as an expression -of disapproval of the impending change-over, for he said rather -belligerently, “The Czechs in this region have had a mighty raw deal from -the Germans during the past few years.” I rallied weakly with the pious -observation that two wrongs had never made a right and that I hoped some -satisfactory solution to the knotty problem could be reached. - -By the time we had finished lunch the rain had dwindled to a light -drizzle. I started out on foot to the monastery, leaving word at the -colonel’s quarters for the sergeant to meet me in the courtyard of the -_Kloster_. He got there about the same time I did, and together we -started looking for Dr. Mutter, the Austrian custodian. We went first -to the library of the monastery—a beautiful baroque room lined with -sumptuous bookcases of burled walnut surmounted with elaborate carved and -gilded scroll-shaped decorations. The room was beautifully proportioned, -some seventy feet long and about forty feet wide. Tall French windows -looked out on the peaceful monastery garden, which, for lack of care, was -now overgrown with tangled vines and brambles. Along the opposite side -of the handsome room stood a row of massive sixteenth century Italian -refectory tables piled high with miscellaneous bric-a-brac: Empire -candelabra, Moorish plates, Venetian glass, Della Robbia plaques and -Persian ceramics. Across one end, an assortment of Louis Quinze sofas -and chairs seemed equally out of place. What, I wondered, were these -incongruous objects doing in this religious establishment? - -The explanation was soon forthcoming. The sergeant found Dr. Mutter in -a small room adjoining the library. He was a lanky, studious individual -with a shock of snow-white hair, prominent teeth and a gentle manner -which just missed being fawning. Hohenfurth’s Uriah Heep, I thought -unkindly. The moment he began to speak in halting English, I revised my -estimate of him. He was neither crafty nor vicious. On the contrary, he -was just a timid, and, at the moment, frightened victim of circumstance. -What German I know has an Austrian flavor, and when I trotted this out -he was so embarrassingly happy that I wished I had kept my tongue in -my head. But it served to establish an _entente cordiale_ which proved -valuable during the next few days. They were to be more hectic than I had -even faintly imagined. - -After a little introductory palaver, I explained that I had come to -remove the collections which had been brought to the monastery by the -Germans, and that I would like to make a preliminary tour of inspection. -I suggested that we look first at the paintings. - -“Paintings?” he asked doubtfully. “You mean the modern pictures? They -are not very good—just the work of some of the Nazi artists. They were -brought here—and quite a lot of sculpture too—when it was announced that -Hitler was coming to Hohenfurth to see the really important things.” - -Then I learned what he meant by the “really important things”—room after -room, corridor after corridor, all crammed with furniture and sculpture, -methodically looted from two fabulous collections, the Rothschild of -Vienna and the Mannheimer of Amsterdam. By comparison, the Hearst -collection at Gimbel’s was trifling. The things I had seen in the library -were only a small part of this mélange. In an adjoining chamber—a vaulted -gallery, fifty feet long—there were a dozen pieces of French and Dutch -marquetry. And stacked against the walls were entire paneled rooms, -coffered ceilings and innumerable marble busts. Next to that was a room -crowded with more of the same sort of thing, except that the pieces were -small and more delicate. In one corner I saw an extraordinary table made -entirely of tortoise shell and mounted with exquisite ormolu. - -It was an antique-hunter’s paradise, but for me quite the reverse. How -was I going to move all of this stuff? Dr. Mutter could see that I was -perplexed, and apologetically added that I had seen only a part of the -collections. Remembering that I had asked to see the pictures, he took -me to a corner room containing approximately a hundred canvases. As he -had said, they were a thoroughly dull lot—portraits of Hitler, Hess -and some of the other Nazi leaders, tiresome allegorical scenes, a few -battle subjects and a group of landscapes. The labels pasted on the -backs indicated that they had all been shown at one time or another -in exhibitions at the Haus der Deutschen Kunst in Munich. While I was -looking at them, Dr. Mutter shyly confessed that he was a painter but -that he didn’t admire this kind of work. - -On the floor below, there was a forest of contemporary German -sculpture—plaster casts, for the most part, all patinated to resemble -bronze. In addition there were a few portrait busts in bronze and one -or two pieces in glazed terra cotta. The terra-cotta pieces had some -merit. The sculpture occupied one entire side of a broad corridor which -ran around the four sides of a charming inner garden. The corridor had -originally been open but the archways were now glassed in. Turning a -corner, we came upon a jumble of architectural fragments—carved Gothic -pinnacles, sections of delicately chiseled moldings, colonnettes, -Florentine well-heads and wall fountains. At one end was a pair of -elaborate gilded wrought-iron doors and at either side were handsome wall -lanterns, also of wrought iron. These too were Mannheimer, Dr. Mutter -replied, when I hopefully asked if they were not a part of the monastery -fittings. - -As final proof of the looters’ thorough methods, I was shown a vaulted -reception hall, into the walls of which had been set a large and -magnificent relief by Luca della Robbia, a smaller but also very -beautiful relief of the Madonna and Child by some Florentine sculptor -of the fifteenth century, and an enormous carved stone fireplace of -Renaissance workmanship. The hall was stacked with huge cases as yet -unpacked, and from the ceiling were suspended two marvelous Venetian -glass chandeliers—exotic accents against a background of chaste plaster -walls. - -This partial tour of inspection ended with a smaller room across from the -reception hall where Dr. Mutter proudly exhibited what he considered the -finest thing of all—a life-sized, seated marble portrait by Canova. It -was indeed a distinguished piece of work. Hitler had bought the statue in -Vienna, so Dr. Mutter said, from the Princess Windischgrätz. It had been -destined for the Führer Museum at Linz. - -I learned afterward that the statue had belonged at one time to the -Austrian emperor, Franz Josef. Canova began the statue in 1812 as a -portrait of Maria-Elisa, Princess of Lucca—a sister of Napoleon. The -sculptor’s more celebrated portrait of Napoleon’s sister Pauline had been -carved a few years earlier. When Maria-Elisa lost her throne and fortune, -she was unable to pay for the portrait. But Canova was resourceful: he -changed the portrait into a statue of Polyhymnia, the Muse of poetry -and song. He accomplished this metamorphosis by idealizing the head and -adding the appropriate attributes of the Muse. Later the statue was -given to Franz Josef. Eventually it passed into the collection of his -granddaughter—the daughter of Rudolf, who died at Mayerling—the Princess -Windischgrätz. - -The statue was one of the most delicate and graceful examples of the -great neoclassic master’s style, and I marveled both at its cold -perfection and the fact that it had come through its travels completely -unscathed. For all her airy elegance, the Muse must weigh at least a -ton and a half, I calculated—suddenly coming down to earth with the -realization that I would be expected to take her back to Munich! - -Over Dr. Mutter’s protest that I had not yet seen everything, I said -that I should get my men started. There was no time to be lost. Colonel -Sheehan provided eight men and, after cautioning them about the value and -fragility of the objects, I detailed Dr. Mutter to supervise their work. -The first job was to bring some of the furniture down to the ground -floor. As yet we had no packing materials, so we could do no actual -loading. The next step was to show the packers what we were up against. -At first they went from room to room shaking their heads and muttering, -but after I had explained that we would only select certain things, they -cheered up and set to work. Luckily, some of the furniture had a fair -amount of protective padding—paper stuffed with excelsior—and that could -be used until we were able to get more. We had enough, they agreed, to -figure on perhaps two truckloads. Leaving them to mull over that, I went -off to round up a couple of the trucks. Here was another problem. Not -only did the furniture have to be brought down a long flight of stone -stairs, but to reach the stairs in the first place it had to be carried a -distance of two hundred yards. Once down the stairs it had to be carried -another two hundred yards down a long sloping ramp to the only doorway -opening onto the courtyard. I told Leclancher to bring one of the trucks -around to that doorway and then took off in search of paper, excelsior, -rope and blankets. In one of the near-by sheds I found only a small -supply of paper and some twine. We would need much more. - -Major Whittemore came to the rescue and drove me to a lumber and paper -mill several kilometers away. As we drove along he told me that he had -been having trouble with the German managers of the mill, but they knew -now that he meant business, so I was not to _ask_ for what I wanted, -I was to _tell_ them. At the mill I got a generous supply of paper, -excelsior and rope and, on my return to the monastery, sent one of the -trucks back to pick it up. But there wasn’t a spare blanket to be had in -all of Hohenfurth. - -When I got back, it looked like moving day. The ramp was already lined -with tables, chairs and chests. Dr. Mutter was running back and forth, -cautioning one GI not to drop a delicate cabinet, helping another with an -overambitious armful of equal rarity and all the while trying in vain to -check the numbers marked on the pieces as they flowed down the stairs in -a steady stream. Meanwhile, my two packers trudged up and down the ramp, -lugging heavy chests and monstrous panels which looked more than a match -for men twice their size. - -In spite of their concerted efforts, we didn’t have anything like enough -help, so I appealed to Leclancher. With discouraging independence, he -indicated that his men were drivers, not furniture movers, and that he -couldn’t order them to help. But he would put it up to them. After a -serious conference with them, Leclancher reported that they had agreed -to join the work party. Now, with a crew of twenty, things moved along -at a faster pace. With a couple of the GIs, the two packers and I set -to work loading the first truck. Here was where the little Rackhamites -shone. In half an hour the first truck was packed and ready to be driven -back to its place beside the chapel wall. The second truck was brought up -and before long joined its groaning companion, snugly parked against a -buttress. - -Presently, the eight GIs trooped out into the courtyard. It was half -past five and time for chow. The Frenchmen knocked off too, leaving -Dr. Mutter, the two packers and me to take stock of the afternoon’s -accomplishment. While we were thus engaged, Leclancher came to tell me -that my driver, the one I called “Double Roger,” was feeling sick and -wanted to see a doctor. In the confusion of the afternoon’s work I hadn’t -noticed that he was not about. We found him curled up in the back of the -truck and feeling thoroughly miserable. I drove him down to the Medical -Office in the village and there Dr. Sverdlik, the Battalion Surgeon, -examined him. Roger’s complaint was a severe pain in the midriff and the -doctor suggested heat treatments. He said that the German surgeon up at -the monastery hospital had the necessary equipment. - -That seemed simple enough, since the drivers were billeted in rooms -adjoining the hospital wing. But I reckoned without Roger. What? Be -treated by a German doctor? He was terrified at the prospect, and it -required all my powers of persuasion to talk him into it. Finally he -agreed, but only after Dr. Sverdlik had telephoned to the hospital doctor -and given explicit instructions. I also had to promise to stand by while -the doctor ministered to him. - -The German, Major Brecker, was methodical and thorough. He found -that Roger had a kidney infection and recommended that he be taken -to a hospital as soon as possible. I explained that we would not be -returning to Munich for at least two days and asked if the delay would -be dangerous. He said that he thought not. In the meantime he would -keep Roger under a “heat basket.” Roger eyed this device with suspicion -but truculently allowed it to be applied. When I went off to my supper, -twenty minutes later, he was sleeping peacefully—but not alone. Three of -his fellow drivers were sprawled on cots near by, just in case that Boche -had any intentions of playing tricks on their comrade. Maybe not, but -they were taking no chances! What a lot of children they were, I thought, -as I walked wearily down to supper. - -That evening I asked the colonel if I could get hold of some PWs to help -out with the work the following day. He said that there was a large camp -between Hohenfurth and Krummau and that I could have as many as I wanted. -So I put in a bid for sixteen. After arranging for them to be at the -monastery at eight the next morning, I went to my own quarters which were -in a house just across the way. - -[Illustration: At the Rest House at Unterstein near Berchtesgaden, Major -Harry Anderson supervises the removal of the Göring Collection, brought -from Karinhall, near Berlin. _International News Photo_] - -[Illustration: One of the forty rooms in the Rest House in which the -Göring pictures, 1,100 in all, were exhibited before their removal to -Munich for subsequent restitution. _International News Photo_] - -[Illustration: The GI Work Party which assisted the Special Evacuation -Team (Lieutenants Howe, Moore and Kovalyak) pack the Göring Collection -for removal from Berchtesgaden to Munich.] - -[Illustration: Truck loaded with sculpture from the Göring Collection at -Berchtesgaden. Statues were packed upright in excelsior for removal to -the Central Collecting Point in Munich.] - -I had one little errand of mercy to take care of before I turned in. -There was a recreation room on the first floor and adjoining it a -makeshift bar. Most of the officers had gone to the movies, so I managed -to slip in unobserved and pilfer two bottles of beer. Tucking them inside -my blouse, I made off for the monastery. There, after some difficulty -in finding my way around the dark passageways, I located the rooms -occupied by my two little packers. They were making ready for bed, but -when they saw what I had for them, their leathery old faces lighted -up with ecstatic smiles. If I had been a messenger from heaven, they -couldn’t have been happier. Leaving them clucking over their unexpected -refreshments, I went back to my own billet and fell into bed. I hadn’t -had exactly what one would call a restful day myself. - -That beer worked wonders I hadn’t anticipated. When I arrived at the -monastery a little before eight the next morning I found that my two -packers, together with Dr. Mutter, had been at work since seven. As -yet there was no sign of the Frenchmen, but I thought that they would -probably show up before long. At eight my gang of PWs appeared and the -sergeant who brought them explained that I wouldn’t be having the crew -of GIs who had helped out the day before. When I protested that I needed -them more urgently than ever, he informed me that the combination of GI -and PW labor simply wouldn’t work out; that I certainly couldn’t expect -to have them both doing the same kind of work together. I said that I -most certainly could and did expect it. Well, my protest was completely -unavailing, and if I had to make a choice I was probably better off with -the sixteen PWs. Perhaps my two packers could get enough work out of -them to compensate for the loss of the GIs. - -I had just finished assigning various jobs to the PWs when Leclancher -turned up. “May I have a word with you?” he asked. “It is about Roger.” - -“What about Roger? Is he any worse?” I asked. - -“No, but he is not any better either,” he said. “Is it possible that we -shall be returning to Munich tomorrow morning?” - -“Not the ghost of a chance,” I said. “We shan’t be through loading before -tomorrow night. We’re too shorthanded.” - -“But if we all pitched in and worked, even after supper?” he asked. - -“It would make a big difference,” I said. “But it’s entirely up to you. -It’s certainly worth a try if the drivers are willing.” - -I’ll never forget that day. I never saw Frenchmen move with such rapidity -or with such singleness of purpose. When five o’clock came, we had -finished loading the fifth truck. Taking into account the two from the -preceding day, that left only three more trucks to fill. Leclancher came -to me again. The drivers wanted to work until it got dark. That meant -until nine o’clock. Knowing that the two packers were equally eager to -get back to Munich, I agreed. I hurried off to call the sergeant about -the PWs. Special arrangements would have to be made to feed them if we -were keeping on the job after supper. Also, I had to make sure that -someone at Battalion Headquarters would be able to provide a vehicle to -take them back to their camp. - -While the drivers went off to chow and the PWs were being fed in the -hospital kitchen, I joined Dr. Mutter and the packers to discuss these -new developments. I felt sure that I would be returning to Hohenfurth in -another few days with additional trucks to complete the evacuation. That -being the case, some preliminary planning was necessary. I instructed -Dr. Mutter to call in a stonemason to remove the Della Robbia relief and -the other pieces which had been set into the walls, so that they would -be ready for packing when we came back. I gave him a written order which -would enable him to lay in a supply of lumber for packing cases which -would have to be built for some of the more fragile pieces. Lastly, the -four of us surveyed the storage rooms and made an estimate of the number -of trucks we would need for the things still on hand. - -To save time I had a couple of chocolate bars for my supper and was ready -to resume work when our combined forces reappeared. The next two hours -and a half went by like a whirlwind and by eight o’clock we knotted down -the tarpaulin on the last truck. Everybody was content. Even the PWs -seemed less glum than usual, but that was probably because they had been -so well fed in the hospital kitchen. - -If we were to make it through to Munich in the one day, we would have -to start off early the next morning. Accordingly I left word that the -trucks were to be lined up outside the monastery entrance at seven-thirty -sharp. Then I went down to the colonel’s quarters to see about an armed -escort for the convoy. I found Colonel Sheehan and Major Thacher making -preparations to “go out on the town.” They looked very spruce in their -pinks and were in high spirits. - -“We missed you at supper,” said the colonel. “How’s the work coming -along?” - -“My trucks are loaded and ready to roll first thing in the morning if I -can have an escort,” I said. - -“That calls for a celebration,” he said. “Pour yourself a drink. I’ll -make a bargain with you. You can have the escort on one condition—that -you join our party tonight.” - -I didn’t protest. I thought it was a swell idea. A few minutes later, the -captain with whom I was billeted arrived and the four of us set out for -an evening of fun. - -In the short space of two days I had grown very fond of these -three officers, although we had met only at mealtime. They were, -in fact, characteristic of all the officers I had encountered at -Hohenfurth—friendly, good-natured and ready to do anything they could -to help. That they were all going home soon may have had something -to do with their contented outlook on life, and they deserved their -contentment. As members of the 26th Division, the famous “Yankee -Division,” they had seen plenty of action, and as we drove along that -night in the colonel’s car, my three companions did a lot of reminiscing. - -While they exchanged stories, I had a chance to enjoy the romantic -countryside through which we were passing. We were, the colonel had said, -headed for Krummau, an old town about fifteen miles away. - -The road followed along the winding Moldau River, which had an almost -supernatural beauty in the glow of the late evening light. The bright -green banks were mirrored, crystal clear, on its unrippled surface, as -were the rose-gold colors of the evening clouds. - -We crossed the river at Rosenberg, and as we went over the bridge I -noticed that it bore—as do all bridges in that region—the figure of St. -John Nepomuk, patron saint of Bohemia. The castle, perched high above the -river, was the ancestral seat of the Dukes of Rosenberg who ruled this -part of Bohemia for hundreds of years. One of them murdered his wife and, -according to the legend, she still haunted the castle. Robed in white, -she was said to walk the battlements each night between eleven-thirty -and twelve. Major Thacher thought that we should test the legend by -paying a visit to the castle on our return from Krummau later that -evening. - -When we arrived in Krummau it was too dark to see much of the old town -except the outline of the gray buildings which lined the narrow streets. -Our objective was a night club operated by members of an underground -movement which was said to have flourished there throughout the years -of Nazi oppression. There was nothing in any way remarkable about -the establishment, but it provided a little variety for the officers -stationed thereabouts. My companions were popular patrons of the place. -They were royally welcomed by the proprietor, who found a good table for -us, not too near the small noisy orchestra. Two pretty Czech girls joined -us and we all took turns dancing. There were so many more men than girls -that we had to be content with one dance each. Then the girls moved on to -another table. - -We whiled away a couple of hours at the club before the colonel said that -we should be starting back. I hoped that we would be in time to pay our -respects to the phantom duchess, but the clock in the square was striking -twelve when we rumbled through the empty streets of Rosenberg. It had -begun to rain again. - -At six the next morning, I looked sleepily out the window. It was still -raining. We would have a slow trip unless the weather cleared, and -I thought apprehensively of the steep road leading into Linz. Fresh -eggs—instead of the usual French toast—and two cups of black coffee -brightened my outlook on the soggy morning and I was further cheered to -find the convoy smartly lined up like a row of circus elephants when I -reached the monastery at seven-thirty. Leclancher had taken the lead -truck and the ailing Roger was bundled up in the cab of one of the -others. - -Dr. Mutter waved agitated farewells from beneath the ribs of a tattered -umbrella as we slid slowly down the monastery drive. At the corner of -the main street of the village we picked up our escort, two armed jeeps. -They conducted us to the border where we gathered in two similar vehicles -which would set the pace for us into Linz. The bad weather was in one -respect an advantage: there was practically no traffic on the road. - -At Linz I stopped long enough to thank Anderson and his colonel for the -escort vehicles they had produced on a moment’s notice that morning -in response to a call from Colonel Sheehan. This third pair of jeeps -were very conscientious about their escort duties. The one in the -vanguard kept well in the lead and would signal us whenever he came to a -depression in the road. This got on Leclancher’s nerves, for I heard him -muttering under his breath every time it happened. But I was so glad to -have an escort of any kind that I pretended not to notice his irritation. - -When we reached Lambach, midway between Linz and Salzburg, we lost this -pair of guardians but acquired two sent on from the latter city. While -waiting for them to appear, I scrounged lunch for myself and the drivers -at a local battery. As soon as the new escorts arrived we started on -again and pulled into Salzburg at two-thirty. This time there were no -delays and we threaded our way through the dripping streets and out on to -the Autobahn without mishap. - -I now had only one remaining worry—the bad detour near Rosenheim. Again, -perhaps thanks to the weather, we were in luck and found this treacherous -by-pass free of traffic. As we rolled into Munich, the rain let up and by -the time we turned into the Königsplatz, the sun had broken through the -clearing skies. - -My first major evacuation job was finished. As soon as I got my drivers -fixed up with transportation back to their camp and the members of our -escort party fed and billeted I could relax with a clear conscience. It -was a little after five-thirty, and Third Army’s inflexible habits about -the hour at which all enlisted men should eat didn’t make this problem -such an easy one. Third Army Headquarters was a good twenty minutes -away, so I took the men to the Military Government Detachment where the -meal schedule was more elastic. Afterward I shepherded them to their -billets and went off to my own. I would have to write up a report of the -expedition for Captain Posey, but that could wait. - - - - -(5) - -_SECOND TRIP TO HOHENFURTH_ - - -The first order of business the next morning was a conference with -Captain Posey. I gave him a complete account of the Hohenfurth trip and -presented my recommendations for a second and final visit to complete -the evacuation. It was my suggestion that I return to the monastery with -the same trucks—as soon as they could be unloaded and serviced—and that -he send up another officer with at least eight additional trucks, the -second convoy to arrive by the time I had completed the loading of my -own. I proposed taking four packers this time instead of two, the idea -being that two of the packers could help me with the loading while the -others were building cases for the fragile objects which would have to -be crated. I mentioned also the impending withdrawal of our troops from -Hohenfurth, which would make later operations of such nature impossible. - -This was of course no news to Captain Posey as, presumably, it had been -the determining factor in the removal of the Hohenfurth things in the -first place. He approved my plan and advised me to get my trucks lined -up, and said he would see what he could do about sending an additional -officer. I didn’t like the sound of that. Too often I had used those -same words myself when confronted with a difficult request. Furthermore, -it had been my experience with the Army in general thus far—and with -Third Army in particular—that “out of sight, out of mind” was a favorite -motto. I had no intention of going back to Hohenfurth until I had a -definite promise that reinforcements would be forthcoming. I think -that my insistence piqued the captain a bit. But at that point I was -feeling exceedingly brisk and businesslike—a mood which I found new and -stimulating. It would be better to have a clear understanding now as to -who would join me in Hohenfurth; as I explained to Captain Posey, I would -like to give the officer some detailed instructions, preferably oral -ones, before I started off. - -I spent the rest of that day and most of the following one at the -Verwaltungsbau supervising the unloading of the ten trucks from -Hohenfurth and making trips out to the trucking company headquarters to -conclude arrangements for continued use of the vehicles. Also, I had to -put in a request for eight others. It was gratifying to find that every -piece we had packed at Hohenfurth came through without a scratch. My two -packers, to whom all credit for this belonged, were equally elated. My -request for the services of four packers was met with black looks, but -when I promised that we’d not be gone more than four or five days, Craig -acquiesced. - -Late in the afternoon of the second day, I went again to Posey’s office. -He was not there but I found Lincoln, as usual hunched morosely over his -typewriter. He said he had good news for me. Captain Posey had pulled a -fast one and snatched a wonderful guy away from Jim Rorimer, Monuments -Officer at Seventh Army—a fellow named Lamont Moore. Moore was already, -he thought, on his way down to Munich to make the trip to Hohenfurth. -When I said I didn’t know Moore, Lincoln proceeded to tell me about him. - -“Lamont was director of the educational program at the National Gallery -in Washington before he went into the Army. Before that he had a -brilliant record at the Newark Museum. The two of you ought to get along -famously. Lamont’s got a wonderful sense of humor. He’s exceedingly -intelligent and he’s had a lot of experience in evacuation work.” - -“Where did you know him?” I asked. - -“We were in France last winter. That was before he was commissioned. He’s -a lieutenant now,” Lincoln said. - -“That sounds perfect. But I want to ask you a question about something -else and I want a truthful answer. I have a sneaking notion that you knew -all the time what was in that monastery at Hohenfurth. How about it?” - -“Furniture and sculpture, you mean, instead of paintings?” he asked. “Of -course I didn’t.” - -“Well, maybe you didn’t, but perhaps you can imagine how I felt when -I found that the Mannheimer collection alone contained more than two -thousand items, and that the Rothschild pieces totaled up to a similar -figure.” - -Lincoln’s chuckle belied his protestations. “I’ve got another piece -of news for you,” he said. “John Nicholas Brown and Mason Hammond are -arriving tomorrow. I thought you might like to see them before you return -to Hohenfurth.” - -“You told me once that Captain Posey, like many another officer, doesn’t -relish visitors from higher headquarters,” I said. “Am I to infer a -connection between his absence from the office and the impending arrival -of these two distinguished emissaries from the Group Control Council?” - -He assured me that I was not, but I left the office wondering about it -all the same. - -That evening George Stout paid one of his rare and fleeting visits to -Munich. On these occasions he stayed either with Craig or Ham Coulter. -This time the four of us—all “strays” from the Navy—gathered in Ham’s -quarters. - -“The work at the mine,” George said, “is going along as rapidly as can be -expected in the circumstances. But it’s got to be stepped up. I came down -to find out how soon you could join me.” - -“I’m going back to Hohenfurth again,” I said. “Lamont Moore is to meet me -there.” - -George was glad to hear this and said that he and Lamont had worked -together at the Siegen mine in Westphalia. He confirmed all of the good -things Lincoln had told me about Lamont and said that he’d like to have -both of us at Alt Aussee. He promised to have a talk with Posey about -it, because he was of the opinion that these big evacuation jobs should -be handled by a team rather than by a single officer. According to -George, a team of at least three—and preferably four—officers would be -the perfect setup. Then the work could be divided up. Each officer would -have specific duties, assigned to him on the basis of his particular -talents. But all members of the team would have responsibilities of equal -importance. It would be teamwork in the real sense of the term. - -Like all of George’s proposals, this one sounded very sensible. At the -same time, when I recalled the haphazard way I had been obliged to -conduct operations thus far myself, I wondered if it weren’t Utopian. -That didn’t discourage George. When he had a good idea he never let go -of it. And, if we had only been a larger group, I am convinced that his -brain child about teams would have had wonderful results. As it was, the -events of the next few weeks were to demonstrate how effective the scheme -was on a small scale. - -When I got out to Third Army Headquarters the next morning, George had -already come and gone. I would have liked to ask Posey about their -conversation but he didn’t seem to be in a chatty mood—at least not on -that subject. However, he did have a few caustic things to say about -“people from high headquarters who have nothing better to do than travel -around and interrupt the work of others.” - -Knowing that he was referring to Messrs. Brown and Hammond—Lincoln’s -assurance of the night before to the contrary notwithstanding—I piously -observed that high-level visitors to the field might do quite a lot of -good. For one thing, the fact that they had taken the trouble to visit it -emphasized the importance of the work they had come to inspect; and, for -another, it pleased the officer in the field to have his job noticed by -the boys at the top. I thought I sounded pretty convincing, but sensing -that I was not, I turned to other topics. - -About that time John and Mason arrived. Our last meeting had taken place -in the vaults of the Reichsbank at Frankfurt several weeks before. Mason -referred to that and jokingly accused me of having run out on him. When -I told him that I was about to return to Hohenfurth he announced loudly -that that was perfect—he and John would drop in to see me there. I said -that would be fine but, when I noted the expression on Captain Posey’s -face, I added to myself, “fine, if they get the clearance.” Before coming -up to see me, they expected to visit one or two places south of Munich, -so they wouldn’t reach Hohenfurth before the end of the week. - -Captain Posey was a great believer in the old theory that the Devil -finds work for idle hands, at least as far as I was concerned. That same -afternoon he casually suggested that I take a “little run down into the -Tyrol” for him and inspect a castle about which he had been asked to -make a report. He proposed the trip with such prewar insouciance that it -sounded like a pleasant holiday excursion. As a matter of fact it was -an appealing suggestion, despite my plans for an early morning start to -Hohenfurth. - -It was a beautiful summer day and my jeep driver asked if a friend of -his, a sergeant who was keen about photography, might come along. I -agreed and the three of us headed out east of Munich on the Autobahn. It -was fun to be riding in an open jeep instead of an enclosed truck. - -We reached Rosenheim in record time and there struck south into the -mountains. Our objective was the little village of Brixlegg, between -Kufstein and Innsbruck. We were on the main road to the Brenner Pass. -Italy was temptingly close. We stopped from time to time so that the -sergeant could get a snapshot of some particularly dramatic vista. -But there was an embarrassment of riches—every part of the road was -spectacularly beautiful. - -Brixlegg was a tiny cluster of picturesque chalets, but it had not been -tiny enough to elude the attentions of the air force. On the outskirts -we saw the shattered remains of what had been an important factory for -the manufacture of airplane parts. Happily, the bombers had concentrated -their efforts on the factory. The little village had suffered practically -no damage at all. - -We located our castle without difficulty. It was Schloss Matzen, one -of the finest castles of the Tyrol—the property of a British officer, -Vice-Admiral Baillie-Grohman. This gentleman had requested a report on -the castle from the American authorities. We found everything in perfect -order. The admiral’s cousin—a Hungarian baron named Von Schmedes who -spoke excellent English—was in residence. He showed us over the place. -The castle was an example of intelligent restoration. According to the -inscription on a plaque over the entrance, the aunt of the present owner -had devoted her life to this task. - -Although an “Off Limits” sign was prominently displayed on the premises, -the baron was fearful of intruders. As the castle stood some distance -from the main highway, I thought he was being unduly apprehensive. He -said that an official letter of warning to unwelcome visitors would be -an added protection. To please him I wrote out a statement to the effect -that the castle was an historic monument, the property of a British -subject, etc., and signed it in the name of the Commanding General of the -Third U. S. Army. - -On our way out we were shown two rooms on the ground floor which were -filled with polychromed wood sculpture from the museum at Innsbruck. The -baron said that additional objects from the Innsbruck museum were stored -in a near-by castle, Schloss Lichtwert. - -It was but a few minutes’ drive from Schloss Matzen, so I decided to have -a look at it. Schloss Lichtwert, though not nearly so picturesque either -in character or as to site, was the more interesting of the two. It stood -baldly in the middle of a field and was actually a big country house -rather than a castle. - -We were hospitably received by a courtly old gentleman, Baron von Iname, -to whom I explained the reason for our visit. One of his daughters -offered to do the honors, saying that her father was extremely deaf. -We followed her to a handsome drawing room on the second floor, where -several other members of the family were gathered in conversation around -a large table set with coffee things. In one of the wall panels was a -concealed door, which the daughter of the house opened by pressing a -hidden spring. Leading the way, she took us into a room about twenty feet -square filled with violins, violas and ’cellos. They hung in rows from -the ceiling, like hams in a smokehouse. Fräulein von Iname said that the -collection of musical instruments at Innsbruck was a very fine one. We -were standing in a Stradivarius forest. - -When we passed back into the drawing room, the father whispered a few -words to his daughter. She turned to us smiling and said, “Father asked -if I had pointed out to you the thickness of the walls in this part -of the castle. He is very proud of the fact that they date from the -fourteenth century and that our family has always lived here. He also -asks me to invite you to take coffee with us.” - -Knowing that coffee was valued as molten gold, I declined the invitation -on the grounds that we had a long trip ahead of us. Thanking her for her -courtesy, we left. It was after eleven when we got back to Munich. We had -driven a little more than three hundred miles. - -Bad weather and bad luck attended us all the way to Hohenfurth the next -day. Less than an hour out on the Autobahn, we came upon a gruesome -accident—an overturned jeep and the limp figures of two GIs at one side -of the road, the mangled body of a German soldier in the center of the -pavement. An ambulance had already arrived and a doctor was ministering -to the injured American soldiers. The German was obviously beyond medical -help. As soon as the road was cleared, we continued—but at a very sober -pace. - -On the other side of Salzburg we had carburetor trouble which held us up -for nearly two hours. It was after five thirty when we reached Linz. We -stopped there for supper and I had a few words with the colonel who had -looked after us so well a few days before. He seemed surprised to see me -again, and rather agitated. - -“You can get through this time,” he said, “but don’t try to come back -this way.” - -“What do you mean, sir?” I asked, puzzled by his curt admonition. - -Apparently annoyed by my query, he said brusquely, “Don’t ask any -questions. Just do as I say—don’t come back this way.” - -At supper I saw Lieutenant Anderson again and I broached the subject to -him. “Does the colonel mean that the Russians are expected to move up to -the other side of the Danube?” I asked. - -“Take a good look at the bridge when you cross over tonight,” he said. - -It was my turn to be nettled now. “Look here, I don’t mean to be -intruding on any precious military secret, but I am expecting a second -convoy to join me at Hohenfurth in two days; if the other trucks aren’t -going to be able to get through I ought to let the people at Third Army -Headquarters know.” - -“Well, frankly I don’t know just what the score is, but the colonel -probably has definite information,” he said. “What I meant about the -bridge is that it’s jammed with people and carts, all coming over to the -west side of the Danube. It’s been like that for the past two days and it -can mean only one thing—that the Russians aren’t far behind.” - -This wasn’t too reassuring, but I decided to take a fatalistic attitude -toward it. If I had to find some other route back from Hohenfurth, I’d -worry about it when the time came. I did, however, try to get through to -Third Army Headquarters on the phone. Posey’s office didn’t answer, so I -asked Anderson to put in a call for me in the morning. - -It was slow going over the bridge, but we finally forced our way through -the welter of carts and wagons. Once we were in open country, the traffic -thinned out and we moved along at a faster pace. The Czech and American -officers at the frontier recognized us and waved us through without -formality. We arrived in Hohenfurth a little before nine. I knew the -ropes this time, so it was a simple matter to get the men billeted in the -monastery. After that I went on to my own former billet. When I reached -the house, I found a group of officers in the recreation room. They were -holding an informal meeting. Colonel Sheehan was presiding and motioned -to me to join the group. He had just returned from the headquarters at -Budweis with important news. His own orders had come through, so he would -be pulling out for home in a few days. But of greater concern to me was -the news that the Czechs would definitely take over at the end of the -week. We would still have some troops in the area, but their duties would -be greatly curtailed. I would have to finish the job at the monastery as -fast as possible and head back to Munich. - -We resumed our work at the monastery with surprisingly few delays. It was -almost as if there had been no interruption of our earlier operations. -This time I had double the number of PWs, so I did not have to call on -the drivers to help with the loading. During my absence, Dr. Mutter had -put a stonemason to work on the pieces which had been set into the wall, -and these now lay like parts of a puzzle in a neat pattern on the floor -of the reception hall, ready to be packed. He had also procured lumber -and nails, so my two extra packers were able to get to work on the cases -which had to be built. By evening, seven of the trucks were loaded, -leaving only one more to do the next day. - -That night I consulted one of the officers, who had a wide knowledge -of the roads in that area, about an alternate route to Munich. He -showed me, on the map, a winding back road which would take me through -Passau—instead of Linz and Salzburg—to Munich. It was, he said, a very -“scenic route” but longer than the way I had come. He felt sure, though, -that I could get my trucks through, that there were no bad detours, etc. -It was comforting to know that this route existed as a possibility—just -in case. But I still had hopes of being able to go back by way of Linz, -in spite of the colonel’s warning. - -The next day was the Fourth of July—not that I expected either my French -or German associates to take special notice of the fact. Still I was glad -that I had only one truck to load on the holiday. I took advantage of -the later breakfast hour, knowing that my faithful German packers would -be on the job at seven o’clock as usual. When I arrived at the monastery -at nine-thirty, I found that the last truck was already half loaded. -There was enough room to add the two cases containing the Della Robbia -plaque and the Renaissance fireplace taken out of the wall; and, if we -were careful, we might find a place for the fifteenth century Florentine -relief which the stonemason had also painstakingly removed. Once that -was done, there was nothing to do but wait for the arrival of Lieutenant -Moore and the additional trucks. - -I called the workmen together. In halting German, I explained the -significance of the Fourth of July and announced that there would be no -more work that day. It was providentially near the lunch hour. I could -send the PWs back to their camp as soon as they had eaten. The German -packers, intent on returning to Munich as soon as possible, chose to get -on with the cases they were building. Dr. Mutter and I retired to his -study to take stock of the receipts we had thus far made out. As for the -French drivers, they had disappeared to their quarters. - -After lunching at the officers’ mess, I decided to celebrate the Glorious -Fourth in my own quiet way. Major Whittemore had lent me a car, so I set -out on an expedition of my own devising. Ever since the night of our trip -to Krummau, I had wanted to explore the castle of Rosenberg, and this -seemed the logical time to do it. Rosenberg was only eight kilometers -away. - -It was a sleepy summer afternoon. Not a leaf was stirring as I followed -the winding Moldau into the pretty village with its storybook castle. The -road to the castle was rough and tortuous, reminding me of a back road -in the Tennessee mountain country. Just as I was beginning to wonder if -the little sedan were equal to the climb, the road turned sharply into a -level areaway before the castle courtyard. - -I parked the car and went in search of the caretaker. When I found no -one, I ascended a flight of stone steps which led from the courtyard to -the second floor. The room at the head of the stairs was empty, but I -heard voices in the one adjoining. Two cleaning women were scrubbing the -floor, chattering to each other as they worked. They were startled to see -me, but one of them had the presence of mind to scurry off and return a -few minutes later with the archetype of all castle caretakers. He had -been custodian for the past fifty-six years. Lately there hadn’t been -many visitors. - -He took me first to the picture gallery—a long high-ceilinged room with -tall windows looking out over the river. There were a dozen full-length -canvases around the rough plaster walls, past Dukes of Rosenberg and -their sour-faced Duchesses. The _clou_ of the collection was a tubercular -lady in seventeenth century costume. The caretaker solemnly informed -me that she was the ill-fated duchess who paced the ramparts of the -castle every night just before twelve. She had lived, he told me, in -the fourteenth century. When I mentioned as tactfully as possible that -her gown indicated she had been a mere three hundred years ahead of the -styles, he gave me a dirty look as much as to say, “a disbeliever.” I -did my best to erase this unfortunate impression and proceeded to the -next series of apartments. They included a weapon room, a sumptuous -state bedchamber reserved for royal visitors, several richly furnished -reception rooms, and a long gallery called the Crusaders’ Hall—a -copy, the caretaker said, of a room in the Palace at Versailles. Here -hung full-length portraits of such historic personages as Godefroy -de Bouillon, Robert Guiscard and Frederick Barbarossa—all done by an -indifferent German painter of the last century. Notwithstanding its -ostentatious atmosphere, the gallery had a dignity quite in keeping with -the musty elegance of the castle. - -I thanked the old man, gave him a couple of cigarettes and returned to -the car. It was time for me to be getting back to the monastery. - -I gauged my arrival nicely. As I pulled up to the entrance, the guard at -the archway came over to the car to tell me that eight trucks had just -driven through. When I reached the courtyard the last of them was backing -up against the chapel wall. - -A tall, rangy lieutenant, wearing the familiar helmet liner prescribed -by Third Army regulations, walked up to the car as I was getting out and -said, “Good afternoon, sir. Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” - -So this was Lamont Moore. Just as Lincoln had predicted, I liked him -at once. There was a quiet self-possession about him, coupled with a -quizzical, humorous expression, which was pleasantly reassuring. I have -never forgotten the impression of Olympian calm I received at that first -meeting. In succeeding months, there were many times when Lamont got -thoroughly riled, but his composure never deserted him. His even temper -and his sense of humor could always be depended upon to leaven the more -impetuous actions of his companions. - -Without wasting breath on inconsequential conversation, he suggested that -we “case the joint.” After introducing him to Dr. Mutter, who was still -hovering around like a distracted schoolmaster, we made a tour of the -premises. By the time we had finished I had the comforting, if somewhat -unflattering, feeling that he had a clearer understanding of the work -there than I, notwithstanding the time I had spent at the monastery. - -On our way down to the village afterward, I asked Lamont if he had had -any difficulty coming up through Linz. He said no, but that he also had -been warned not to return that way. - -As soon as he had found a billet, we settled down to talk over the -loading of his trucks. “The colonel says that we’ll have to finish the -job in a hurry. The Czechs are taking over at the end of the week,” I -said. “And if the Russians move up to the Danube, we won’t be able to go -back by way of Linz. We’ll have to return by way of Passau.” - -“I understand that there isn’t any bridge over the Danube at Passau,” -Lamont said quietly. At that I got excited, but in the same quiet voice -Lamont said, “Don’t worry. We’ve got more important things to think -about—something to drink, for example.” - -We went over to the officers’ club, arriving just in time to be offered -a sample of the Fourth of July punch which two of the officers had -been mixing that afternoon. From the look of things, they had perfect -confidence in their recipe, which called for red wine, armagnac and -champagne. After the first sip I didn’t have to be told there would be -fireworks in Hohenfurth that evening. - -Lamont and I began to discuss mutual friends and acquaintances in the -museum world, a habit deeply ingrained in members of our profession. We -agreed that a mutual “hate” often brought people together more quickly -than a mutual admiration. Then inconsistently—it was probably the -punch—we started talking about Lincoln, whom we both liked very much. - -“It was Lincoln who told me what a fine fellow you are, Lamont,” I said. - -“That’s interesting,” he said with a noiseless laugh. “He said the same -thing about you.” - -Comparing notes, we found that Lincoln had given us identical vignettes -of each other. - -“Tell me something about the work you’ve been doing in MFA&A. This is my -first real job, so I’m still a neophyte,” I said. - -Lamont rolled his eyes wearily and said, “Oh, I’ve been evacuating works -of art for the past four months, and I wonder sometimes if it’s ever -going to end. Siegen was my big show. It was the foul and dripping copper -mine in Westphalia where the priceless treasures from the Rhineland -museums were stored. The shaft was two thousand feet deep and some of the -mine chambers were more than half a mile from the shaft. Walker Hancock -of First Army and George Stout had inspected it originally and advised -immediate evacuation. But no place was available. First Army was pushing -eastward, so all Walker could do was to reassure himself from time to -time that the contents were adequately guarded. - -“Shortly before VE-Day, I received a cryptic telegram at Ninth Army -Headquarters stating that, as of midnight that particular night, Siegen -was my headache. Then followed weeks of activity in which Walker, Steve -and I were involved.” - -“Who is Steve?” I asked. - -“Steve Kovalyak of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania,” said Lamont. “I think -he’s with George at Alt Aussee now. I hope you’ll meet him. He’s a great -character. - -“A bunker at Bonn was approved as a new repository for the Siegen -treasures. I surveyed the roads to Bonn and found them impossible for -truck transport. George was called to Alt Aussee. Walker went off to see -about setting up a collecting point at Marburg. - -“Then I was called back to Ninth Army Headquarters. The evacuation of -Siegen was momentarily at a standstill. - -“Later I returned and, with Walker’s and Steve’s assistance, completed -the evacuation. We moved everything to Marburg, except the famous -Romanesque doors from the church of Santa Maria im Kapitol. Walker took -them to the cathedral at Cologne, along with the Aachen crown jewels. - -“Siegen was the second major evacuation—perhaps you could say it was the -first carried out by a _team_ of MFA&A officers.” - -“What was the first?” I asked. - -“The Merkers mine, where the Nazi gold and the Berlin Museum things were -stored. That was the most spectacular of the early evacuations—that and -Bernterode.” - -“What about Bernterode?” I asked. I had read Hancock’s official report -of the operation and had seen some snapshots taken in the mine, so I was -curious to have a firsthand account. - -“Walter Hancock was the officer in charge of the evacuation,” said -Lamont. “Like Siegen, it was a deep-shaft mine, so the contents had to -be brought up by an elevator. It was a hell of a job to get the elevator -back in working order. The dramatic thing about Bernterode was the -discovery of a small chapel, or shrine, constructed in one of the mine -chambers and then completely walled up. - -“In this concealed shrine, the Nazis had placed the bronze sarcophagi of -Frederick the Great, Frederick William—the Soldier King—and those of Von -Hindenburg and his wife. On the coffins had been laid wreaths, ribbons -and various insignia of the Party. Around and about them were some two -hundred regimental banners, many of them dating from the early Prussian -wars. - -“When Walker was ready to take the coffins out of the mine, he found -they were so large and heavy that they’d have to come up one at a time. -He was standing at the top of the shaft as the coffin of Frederick the -Great rose slowly from the depths. As it neared the level, a radio in the -distance blared forth the ‘Star-Spangled Banner.’ And just as the coffin -came into view, the radio band struck up ‘God Save the King.’ The date,” -Lamont added significantly, “was May the eighth.” - -If I thought I was going to get much sleep that night, I reckoned without -the patriotic officers of the Yankee Division, who were hell-bent on -making it a really Glorious Fourth. It had been my mistake in the first -place to move into quarters directly over the recreation room. It wasn’t -much of a bedroom anyway—just an alcove with an eighteenth century settee -for a bed. I was resting precariously on this spindly collector’s item -when the door was flung open and Major Thacher shouted that I was wanted -below. I told him to go away. To my surprise he did—but only to return a -few minutes later with reinforcements. I must come down at once—colonel’s -orders, and if I wouldn’t come quietly, they’d carry me down. Before I -could get off my settee, it was pitched forward and I sprawled on the -floor. What fun it was for everybody—except me! I put on a dressing -gown and was marched down the stairs. I had been called in, as a naval -officer, to settle an argument: Who had won the Battle of Jutland? The -Battle of Jutland, of all things! At that moment I wasn’t at all sure in -what war it had been fought, let alone who had won it. But assuming an -assurance I was far from feeling I declared that it had been a draw. My -luck was with me that night after all, for that had been the colonel’s -contention. So I was allowed to return to my makeshift bed. - -Lamont took some of the wind out of my sails by assuring me the next -morning that the British had defeated the German fleet at Jutland in 1916. - -But we were having our own battle of Hohenfurth that morning, so I was -too preoccupied to give Jutland more than a passing thought. Just before -noon, as we finished our fourth truck, John Nicholas Brown and Mason -Hammond arrived. Mason, as was his custom when traveling about Germany, -was bundled up in a great sheepskin coat—the kind used by the Wehrmacht -on the Russian front—and looked like something out of _Nanook of the -North_. John, less arctically attired, hailed us gaily from the back seat -of the command car. - -Lamont and I suspended operations to show them around. We were pleased -by their comments on our work—how admirably it was being handled and so -on—but we struck a snag when we showed them Canova’s marble Muse. Lamont -and I had just about decided to leave her where she was. Our two visitors -thought that would be a pity, a downright shame. We pointed out that to -transport the statue would be a hazardous business, even if we succeeded -in getting it onto a truck in the first place. We had no equipment with -which to hoist anything so heavy. On our inspection tour they kept coming -back to the subject of the Canova, and Lamont gave me an irritated look -for having called their attention to it at all. - -At lunch, which we had with the colonel, they fixed us. When the subject -of the statue was brought up, the colonel instantly agreed to provide us -with a winch and also two extra trucks. We needed the trucks all right, -but we weren’t particularly happy about the winch. - -As soon as we got back to the monastery, we broke the news to Dr. Mutter. -The Muse was about to take a trip. He held up his hands in dismay and -said it would take us half a day to get the statue loaded. When we told -the German packers what we had in mind, they made a few clucking noises, -and then began the necessary preparations. The first thing they did was -to get hold of two logs, each about six feet in length and five inches in -diameter. With the help of a dozen PWs, they got them placed beneath the -base of the statue. From that point on, it was a matter of slowly rolling -the statue as the logs rolled. It was arduous work. A distance of well -over four hundred yards was involved, and the last half of it was along a -sloping ramp where it was particularly difficult to keep the heavy marble -under control. - -Once the truck was reached, it was necessary to set up a stout runway -from the ground to the bed of the truck. This done, the next move was to -place heavy pads around the base of the statue, so that the cable of the -winch would not scratch the surface of the marble. It was a tense moment. -Would the winch be strong enough to drag its heavy burden up the runway? -It began to grind, and slowly the Muse slid up the boards, paused for -a quivering instant and then glided majestically along the bed of the -truck. There were cheers from the PWs who had gathered around the truck -to watch. We all sighed with relief, and then congratulated the little -packers who had engineered the whole operation. Dr. Mutter kept shaking -his head in disbelief. He told us that when the statue had been brought -to the monastery in the first place, it had taken three hours to unload -it. The present operation had taken forty-five minutes. - -After this triumph, the loading of the remaining trucks seemed an -anticlimax, but we kept hard at it for the next six hours. By seven -o’clock, all ten of them were finished. All told, we would be a convoy of -eighteen trucks. - -We were on the point of starting down to the village for supper, when -Dr. Mutter, even more agitated than he had been before, rushed up and -implored us to grant him a great favor. Would we, out of the kindness -of our hearts—oh, he knew he had no right to ask such a favor—would we -take him and his wife and little girl along with us to Linz the next -day? Linz was his home, he had a house there. He had brought his family -to Hohenfurth only because the Nazis wouldn’t allow him to give up his -duties as custodian of the collections at the monastery. Now the Czechs -were going to be in complete control. He and his family were Austrians -and there was no telling what would happen to them. - -How news does get around, I thought to myself. We hadn’t said a word -about the Czechs taking over, but when I expressed the proper surprise -and asked him where he had heard _that_ rumor, he wagged his head as much -as to say, “Oh, I know what I am talking about, all right!” - -My heart wasn’t exactly bleeding for Dr. Mutter, but at the thought of -his little girl, who was about the age of my own, I couldn’t say no. I -told him to be ready to leave at seven the next morning. I didn’t tell -him how uncertain it was that we would ever get to Linz at all. - -It was pouring when I crawled out of my bed at six A.M. I seemed to -specialize in bad weather, particularly when starting out with a convoy! -At the monastery everything was in order. At the last minute I decided to -tell Dr. Mutter there was a possibility—even a probability—that we would -not be able to cross over at Linz, and I told him why. He was terrified -when I mentioned the prospect of being stopped by the Russians. I assured -him that we would drop him and his family off at one of the villages on -the other side of the Austrian border, if we found there was going to be -trouble. It was cold comfort but the best I had to offer. - -I climbed into the lead truck, Lamont into the tenth, and Leclancher, as -usual, took over the last truck. Leclancher, with his customary ability -to pull a rabbit out of a hat at a critical juncture, had found among his -drivers one who spoke some Russian, so we had put him at the controls of -the first truck. It might make a good impression. - -Once again we had a jeep escort to the border, and there we picked up -three others to conduct us as far as Linz. The cocky little sergeant in -the jeep that was to lead came over to my truck, squinted up at me and -said, “You look nervous this morning, Lieutenant.” - -Well, I thought, if it’s that apparent, what’s the use of denying it? -“I am,” I said. “This is a big convoy and it’s filled with millions of -dollars’ worth of stuff. I’d hate to have anything happen to it.” - -He whistled at that. Then, rubbing his hands briskly, he retorted, “And -nothing is going to happen to it.” - -He took off and we swung in behind him. The first hour was a long one. -There was more traffic than ever before—a steady stream of carts all -moving toward Linz. At last we shifted into low gear, and I knew that we -were on the steep grade leading down to Urfahr. If there were going to be -trouble, we’d know it in a minute. At that moment, the sergeant in the -lead jeep turned around and waved. I thought, There’s trouble ahead. But -he was only signaling that the road was clear. - -We rolled over the rough cobblestones onto the bridge. I saw the gleaming -helmet liners of the new escort awaiting us as we drew up to the center -of the span. I motioned to one of our new guardians that we would stop at -the first convenient place on the other side. - -We were such a long convoy that I thought we’d be halfway through Linz -before our escort directed us to pull over to the curb. There we unloaded -the Mutter family and their luggage. The doctor and his wife were -tearfully grateful and the little girl smiled her thanks. - -I was feeling relaxed and happy and wanted to share my relief with -someone, so I suggested to Lamont that we pay our respects to the colonel -who had warned us not to come through Linz. It was a letdown to find only -a warrant officer in the colonel’s anteroom. But he remembered us and was -surprised to see us again. He said we had been lucky; the latest news -was that the Russians would move up to the opposite side of the Danube -by noon. We left appropriate messages for the colonel and his adjutant, -returned to our trucks and headed west toward Lambach. - -As on the previous trip, the escort turned back at that point. A new -one—this time an impressive array of six armed jeeps—shepherded us from -there. We stopped for lunch with a Corps of Engineers outfit of the 11th -Armored Division on the outskirts of Schwannenstadt. The C.O., Major -Allen, and his executive officer, Captain Myers, welcomed us as warmly as -if we had been commanding generals instead of a motley crew of eighteen -French drivers, plus twelve “noncoms” from the escorting jeeps—a total of -thirty-two, including Lamont and me. We doled out K rations to our four -packers, for we couldn’t take civilians into an Army mess. - -After lunch I telephoned ahead to Salzburg to ask for an escort from -there to Munich, requesting that it meet us on the edge of town, east -of the river. The weather had cleared, and drying patches of water on -the road reflected a blue sky. By the time we had sighted Salzburg it -was actually hot. As we rolled into the outskirts we were enveloped in -clouds of dust from the steady procession of military vehicles. We waited -in vain for our new escort. After an hour we decided to proceed without -one. I didn’t like the idea very much, but it was getting on toward five -o’clock, and we wanted to reach Munich in time for supper. We fell far -short of our goal, being forced to stop once because of a flat tire, and -a second time because of carburetor trouble. These two delays cost us -close to two hours. At seven o’clock we halted by the placid waters of -Chiemsee and ate cold C rations in an idyllic setting. It was after nine -when we lumbered into the parking area behind the Gargantuan depot at -the Königsplatz. Lamont and I had twin objectives—hot baths and bed. It -didn’t take us long to achieve both! - -We had had every intention of making an early start the next morning, -not so much because of any blind faith in Benjamin Franklin’s precepts, -but simply because they stopped serving breakfast in the Third Army -mess shortly before eight o’clock. In fact, the first thing one saw on -entering the mess hall was a large placard which stated peremptorily, -“The mess will be cleared by 0800. By order of the Commanding General.” -And such was Third Army discipline—we had a different name for it—that -the mess hall was completely devoid of life on the stroke of eight. - -It was a little after seven when I woke up. Lamont was still dead to the -world, so I shaved and dressed before waking him. There was a malevolent -gleam in his eyes when he finally opened them. He asked frigidly, “Are -you always so infernally cheerful at this hour of the morning?” I told -him not to confuse cheerfulness with common courtesy, and mentioned the -peculiar breakfast habits of the Third Army. - -We arrived at the mess hall with a few minutes to spare. The sergeant at -the entrance asked to see our mess cards. We had none but I explained -that we were attached to the headquarters. - -“Temporary duty?” he asked. - -“Yes, just temporary duty,” I said with a hint of thankfulness. - -“Then you can’t eat here. Take the bus to the Transient Officers’ Mess -downtown.” - -I asked about the bus schedule. “Last bus left at 0745,” he said. It was -then 0750. - -“Well, how do you like ‘chicken’ for breakfast?” I asked Lamont as we -walked out to the empty street. - -There was nothing to do but walk along until we could hail a passing -vehicle. We had gone a good half mile before we got a lift. Knowing that -the downtown mess closed at eight, I thought we’d better try the mess -hall at the Military Government Detachment where the officers usually -lingered till about eight-thirty. Among the laggards we found Ham -Coulter and Craig. After airing our views on the subject of Third Army -hospitality, we settled down to a good breakfast and a full account of -our trip back from Hohenfurth. We told Craig that a couple of our French -drivers were to meet us at the Collecting Point at nine. They were to -bring some of the trucks around for unloading before noon. It was a -Saturday and in Bavaria everything stopped at noon. Once in a great while -Craig could persuade members of his civilian crew to work on Saturday -afternoons, but it was a custom they didn’t hold with, so he avoided -it whenever possible. There were those who frowned on this kind of -“coddling,” as they called it, but they just didn’t know their Bavarians. -Craig did, and I think he got more work out of his people than if he had -tried to change their habits. - -We spent part of the morning with Herr Döbler, the chief packer, at -the Collecting Point, helping him decipher our trucking lists, hastily -prepared at Hohenfurth in longhand. Meanwhile the trucks, one after -another, drew up to the unloading platform and disgorged their precious -contents. The descent of the marble Muse caused a flurry of excitement. -Our description of loading the statue had lost nothing in the telling -and we were anxious to see how she had stood the trip. The roads had -been excruciatingly rough in places, especially at Linz and on the dread -detour near Rosenheim. At each chuckhole I had offered up a little -prayer. But my worries had been groundless—she emerged from the truck in -all her gleaming, snow-white perfection. - -Just before noon, Captain Posey summoned Lamont and me to his office. He -cut short our account of the Hohenfurth operation with the news that we -were to leave that afternoon for the great mine at Alt Aussee. At last we -were to join George—both of us. George was going to have his team after -all. - -A command car had already been ordered. The driver was to pick us up at -one-thirty. Posey got out a map and showed us the road we were to take -beyond Salzburg. As his finger ran along the red line of the route marked -with the names St. Gilgen, St. Wolfgang, Bad Ischl and Bad Aussee, our -excitement grew. Untold treasures were waiting to be unearthed at the end -of it. - -He said that the trip would take about six hours. We could perhaps stop -off at Bad Aussee for supper. Two naval officers—Lieutenants Plaut and -Rousseau, both of them OSS—had set up a special interrogation center -there, an establishment known simply as “House 71,” and were making an -intensive investigation of German art-looting activities. They lived very -well, Posey said with a grin. We could do a lot worse than to sample -their hospitality. I knew Jim Plaut and Ted Rousseau—in fact had seen -them at Versailles not so many weeks ago—so I thought we could prevail on -them to take us in. - -The mention of food reminded Lamont that we ought to pick up a generous -supply of rations—the kind called “ten-in-ones”—somewhere along the -road. The captain gave us a written order for that, and also provided -each of us with a letter stating that we were authorized to “enter -art repositories in the area occupied by the Third U. S. Army.” Our -earlier permits had referred to specific localities. These were blanket -permits—marks of signal favor, we gathered from the ceremonious manner in -which they were presented to us. - -There were various odds and ends to be attended to before we could get -off, among them the business of our PX rations. That was Lamont’s idea. -He said that we might not be able to get them later. He was right; they -were the last ones we were able to lay our hands on for three weeks. - -[Illustration: German altarpiece from the Louvre Museum, by the Master of -the Holy Kinship, was acquired by Göring in exchange for paintings from -his own collection.] - -[Illustration: This panel, _Mary Magdalene_, by van Scorel, was given to -Hitler by Göring. Shortly before the war’s end the Führer returned it to -Göring for safekeeping.] - -[Illustration: Wing of an Italian Renaissance altarpiece by del Garbo, -representing Saint John the Evangelist and Saint Justin.] - -[Illustration: Life-size statue of polychromed wood, _The Magdalene_, by -Erhardt, was formerly owned by the Louvre.] - - - - -(6) - -_LOOT UNDERGROUND: THE SALT MINE AT ALT AUSSEE_ - - -It was nearly two o’clock by the time we were ready to start. I was now -so familiar with the road between Munich and Salzburg that I felt like -a commuter. Just outside Salzburg, Lamont began looking for signs that -would lead us to a Quartermaster depot. He finally caught sight of one -and, after following a devious route which took us several miles off the -main road, we found the depot. We were issued two compact and very heavy -wooden boxes bound with metal strips. We dumped them on the floor of the -command car and drove on into town. - -Across the river, we picked up a secondary road which led out of the -city in a southeasterly direction. For some miles it wound through hills -so densely wooded that we could see but little of the country. Then, -emerging from the tunnel of evergreens, we skirted Fuschl See, the first -of the lovely Alpine lakes in that region. Somewhere along its shores, we -had been told, Ribbentrop had had a castle. It was being used now as a -recreation center for American soldiers. - -Our road led into more rugged country. We continued to climb and with -each curve of the road the scenery became more spectacular. After an -hour’s drive we reached St. Gilgen, its neat white houses and picturesque -church spire silhouetted against the blue waters of St. Wolfgang See. -Then on past the village of Strobl and finally into the crooked streets -of Bad Ischl, where the old Emperor Franz Josef had spent so many -summers. From Bad Ischl our road ribboned through Laufen and Goisern to -St. Agatha. - -Beyond St. Agatha lay the Pötschen Pass. The road leading up to it was a -series of hairpin turns and dangerous grades. As we ground slowly up the -last steep stretch to the summit, I wondered what route George was using -for his convoys from the mine. Surely not this one. Large trucks couldn’t -climb that interminable grade. I found out later that this was the only -road to Alt Aussee. - -On the other side of the pass, the road descended gradually into a -rolling valley and, in another half hour, we clattered into the narrow -main street of Bad Aussee. From there it was only a few miles to Alt -Aussee. Midway between the two villages we hoped to find the house of our -OSS friends. - -We came upon it unexpectedly, around a sharp bend in the road. It was a -tall, gabled villa, built in the gingerbread style of fifty years ago. -Having pictured a romantic chalet tucked away in the mountains, I was -disappointed by this rather commonplace suburban structure, standing -behind a stout iron fence with padlocked gates, within a stone’s throw of -the main highway. - -Jim and Ted received us hospitably and took us to an upper veranda with -wicker chairs and a table immaculately set for dinner. We were joined -by a wiry young lieutenant colonel, named Harold S. Davitt, who bore a -pronounced resemblance to the Duke of Windsor. He was the commanding -officer of a battalion of the 11th Armored Division stationed at Alt -Aussee, the little village just below the mine. Colonel Davitt’s men -constituted the security guard at the mine. He knew and admired our -friend George Stout. It was strange and pleasant to be again in an -atmosphere of well-ordered domesticity. To us it seemed rather a fine -point when one of our hosts rebuked the waitress for serving the wine in -the wrong kind of glasses. - -During dinner we noticed a man pacing about the garden below. He was -Walter Andreas Hofer, who had been Göring’s agent and adviser in art -matters. A shrewd and enterprising Berlin dealer before the war, Hofer -had succeeded in ingratiating himself with the Reichsmarschall. He, -more than any other single individual, had been responsible for shaping -Göring’s taste and had played the stellar role in building up his -priceless collection of Old Masters. - -Some of his methods had been ingenious. He was credited with having -devised the system of “birthday gifts”—a scheme whereby important -objects were added to the collection at no cost to the Reichsmarschall. -Each year, before Göring’s birthday on January twelfth, Hofer wrote -letters to wealthy industrialists and businessmen suggesting that the -Reichsmarschall would be gratified to receive a token of their continued -regard for him. Then he would designate a specific work of art—and the -price. More often than not, the piece in question had already been -acquired. The prospective donor had only to foot the bill. Now and then -the victim of this shakedown protested the price, but he usually came -through. - -In Hofer, the Reichsmarschall had had a henchman as rapacious and greedy -as himself. And Hofer had possessed what his master lacked—a wide -knowledge of European collections and the international art market. -Göring had been a gold mine and Hofer had made the most of it. - -Hofer had been arrested shortly after the close of hostilities. He -had been a “guest” at House 71 for some weeks now, and was being -grilled daily by our “cloak and dagger boys.” They were probing into -his activities of the past few years and had already extracted an -amazing lot of information for incorporation into an exhaustive report -on the Göring collection and “how it grew.” Hofer was just one of a -long procession of witnesses who were being questioned by Plaut and -Rousseau in the course of their tireless investigation of the artistic -depredations of the top Nazis. These OSS officers knew their business. -With infinite patience, they were cross-examining their witnesses -and gradually extracting information which was to lend an authentic -fascination to their reports. - -Hofer’s wife, they told us, had ably assisted her husband. Her talents -as an expert restorer had been useful. She had been charged with the -technical care of the Göring collection—no small job when one stopped -to consider that it numbered over a thousand pictures. Indeed, there -had been more than enough work to keep one person busy all the time. We -learned that Frau Hofer was living temporarily at Berchtesgaden where, -until recently, she had been allowed to attend to emergency repairs on -some of the Göring pictures there. - -We turned back to the subject of Hofer, who had not yet finished his -daily constitutional and could be seen still pacing back and forth below -us. He was, they said, a voluble witness and had an extraordinary memory. -He could recall minute details of complicated transactions which had -taken place several years before. On one occasion Hofer had recommended -an exchange of half a dozen paintings of secondary importance for two -of the very first quality. As I recall, the deal involved a group of -seventeenth century Dutch pictures on the one hand, and two Bouchers on -the others. Hofer had been able to reel off the names of all of them and -even give the price of each. It was just such feats of memory, they said -with a laugh, that made his vague and indefinite answers to certain -other questions seem more than merely inconsistent. - -Listening to our hosts, we had forgotten the time. It was getting late -and George would be wondering what had happened to us. There had been a -heavy downpour while we were at dinner. The weather had cleared now, but -the evergreens were dripping as we pulled out of the drive. - -The road to Alt Aussee ran along beside the swift and milky waters of an -Alpine river. It was a beautiful drive in the soft evening light. The -little village with its winding streets and brightly painted chalets was -an odd setting for GIs and jeeps, to say nothing of our lumbering command -car. - -We found our way to the Command Post, which occupied a small hotel in -the center of the village. There we turned sharply to the right, into a -road so steep that it made the precipitous grades over which we had come -earlier that afternoon seem level by comparison. We drove about a mile on -this road and I was beginning to wonder if we wouldn’t soon be above the -timber line—perhaps even in the region of “eternal snow” to which Roger -had once so poetically referred—when we came to a bleak stone building -perched precariously on a narrow strip of level ground. Behind it, a -thousand feet below, stretched an unbroken sea of deep pine forests. -This was the control post, and the guard, a burly GI armed with a rifle, -signaled us to stop. We asked for Lieutenant Stout. He motioned up the -road, where, in the gathering dusk, we could distinguish the outlines of -a low building facing an irregular terrace. It was a distance of about -two hundred yards. We drove on up to the entrance where we found George -waiting for us. - -He took us into the building which he said contained the administrative -offices of the salt mine—the Steinbergwerke, now a government -monopoly—and his own living quarters. We entered a kind of vestibule -with white plaster walls and a cement floor. A narrow track, the rails -of which were not more than eighteen inches apart, led from the entrance -to a pair of heavy doors in the far wall. “That,” said George, “is the -entrance to the mine.” - -He led the way to a room on the second floor. Its most conspicuous -feature was a large porcelain stove. The woodwork was knotty pine. Aside -from the two single beds, the only furniture was a built-in settle with -a writing table which filled one corner. The table had a red and white -checked cover and over it, suspended from the ceiling, was an adjustable -lamp with a red and white checked shade. Opening off this room was -another bedroom, also pine-paneled, which was occupied by the captain -of the guard and one other officer. George apologized for the fact that -the only entrance to the other room was through ours. Apparently, in the -old days, the two rooms had formed a suite—ours having been the sitting -room—reserved for important visitors to the mine. For the first few days -there was so much coming and going that we had all the privacy of Grand -Central Station, but we soon got used to the traffic. George and Steve -Kovalyak shared a room just down the hall. Lamont had spoken of Steve -when we had been at Hohenfurth, and I was curious to meet this newcomer -to the MFA&A ranks. George said that Steve would be back before long. He -had gone out with Shrady. That was Lieutenant Frederick Shrady, the third -member of the trio of Monuments Officers at the mine. - -While Lamont and I were getting our things unpacked, George sat and -talked with us about the work at the mine and what he expected us to -do. As he talked he soaked his hand in his helmet liner filled with hot -water. He had skinned one of his knuckles and an infection had set in. -The doctors wanted to bring the thing to a head before lancing it the -next day. I had noticed earlier that one of his hands looked red and -swollen. But George hadn’t said anything about it. As he was not one to -relish solicitous inquiries, I refrained from making any comment. - -George outlined the local situation briefly. The principal bottle-neck -in the operation lay in the selection of the stuff which was to be -brought out of the various mine chambers. There were, he said, something -like ten thousand pictures stored in them, to say nothing of sculpture, -furniture, tapestries, rugs and books. At the moment he was concentrating -on the pictures and he wanted to get the best of them out first. The less -important ones—particularly the works of the nineteenth century German -painters whom Hitler admired so much—could wait for later removal. - -He and Steve and Shrady had their hands full above ground. That left -only Sieber, the German restorer, who had been at the mine ever since -it had been converted into an art repository, to choose the paintings -down below. In addition Sieber had to supervise the other subterranean -operations, which included carrying the paintings from the storage -racks, dividing them into groups according to size, and padding the -corners so that the canvases wouldn’t rub together on the way up to the -mine entrance. Where we could be of real help would be down in the mine -chambers, picking out the cream of the pictures and getting them up -topside. (George’s vocabulary was peppered with nautical expressions.) - -In the midst of his deliberate recital, we heard a door slam. The chorus -of “Giannina Mia” sung in a piercingly melodic baritone echoed from the -stairs. “Steve’s home,” said George. - -A second later there was a knock on the door and the owner of the voice -materialized. Steve looked a bit startled when he caught sight of two -strange faces, but he grinned good-naturedly as George introduced us. - -“I thought you were going out on the town with Shrady tonight,” said -George. - -“No,” said Steve, “I left him down in the village and came back to talk -to Kress.” - -Kress was an expert photographer who had been with the Kassel Museum -before the war. He had been captured when our troops took over at the -mine just as the war ended. Since Steve’s arrival, he had been his -personal PW. Steve was an enthusiastic amateur and had acquired all kinds -of photographic equipment. Kress, we gathered, was showing him how to use -it. Their “conversations” were something of a mystery, because Steve knew -no German, Kress no English. - -“I use my High German, laddies,” Steve would say with a crafty grin and a -lift of the eyebrows, as he teetered on the balls of his feet. - -We came to the conclusion that “High German” was so called because it -transcended all known rules of grammar and pronunciation. But, for -the two of them, it worked. Steve—stocky, gruff and belligerent—and -Kress—timid, beady-eyed and patient—would spend hours together. They -were a comical pair. Steve was always in command and very much the -captor. Kress was long-suffering and had a kind of doglike devotion to -his master, whose alternating jocular and tyrannical moods he seemed to -accept with equanimity and understanding. But all this we learned later. - -That first evening, while George went on with his description of -the work, Steve sat quietly appraising Lamont and me with his keen, -gray-green eyes. He had worked with Lamont at Bernterode, so I was his -main target. Now and then he would look over at George and throw in a -remark. Between the two there existed an extraordinary bond. As far as -Steve was concerned, George was perfect, and Steve had no use for anyone -who thought otherwise. If, at the end of a hard day, he occasionally -beefed about George and his merciless perfection—well, that was Steve’s -prerogative. For his part, George had a fatherly affection for Steve and -a quiet admiration for his energy and resourcefulness and the way he -handled the men under him. - -Presently Steve announced that it was late and went off to bed. I -wondered if he had sized me up. There was a flicker of amusement in -Lamont’s eyes and I guessed that he was wondering the same thing. When -George got up to go, he said, “You’ll find hot water down in the kitchen -in the morning. Breakfast will be at seven-thirty.” - -Steve roused us early with a knock on the door and said he’d show us -the way to the kitchen. We rolled out, painfully conscious of the cold -mountain air. Below, in the warm kitchen, the sun was pouring in through -the open door. There were still traces of snow on the mountaintops. The -highest peak, Steve said, was Loser. Its snowy coronet glistened in the -bright morning light. - -When my eyes became accustomed to the glare, I noticed that there were -several other people in the kitchen. One of them, a wrinkled little -fellow wearing _Lederhosen_ and white socks, was standing by the stove. -Steve saluted them cheerfully with a wave of his towel. They acknowledged -his greeting with good-natured nods and gruff monosyllables. These -curious mountain people, he said, belonged to families that had worked in -the mine for five hundred years. They were working for us now, as members -of his evacuation crew. - -We washed at a row of basins along one wall. Above them hung a sign -lettered with the homely motto: - - “_Nach der Arbeit_ - _Vor dem Essen_ - _Hände waschen_ - _Nicht vergessen._” - -It rang a poignant bell in my memory. That same admonition to wash before -eating had hung in the little pension at near-by Gründlsee where I had -spent a summer fifteen years ago. - -Our mess hall was in the guardhouse down the road, the square stone -building where the sentry had challenged us the night before. We lined -up with our plates and, when they had been heaped with scrambled eggs, -helped ourselves to toast, jam and coffee and sat down at a long wooden -table in the adjoining room. George was finishing his breakfast as the -three of us came in. With him was Lieutenant Shrady, who had recently -been commissioned a Monuments officer at Bad Homburg. Subsequently he had -been sent down to Alt Aussee by Captain Posey. He was a lean, athletic, -good-looking fellow. Although he helped occasionally with the loading, -his primary duties at the mine were of an administrative nature—handling -the workmen’s payrolls through the local Military Government Detachment, -obtaining their food rations, making inspections in the area, filing -reports and so on. After he and George had left, Steve told us that -Shrady was a portrait painter. Right now he was working on a portrait of -his civilian interpreter-secretary who, according to Steve, was something -rather special in the way of Viennese beauty. This was a new slant on -the work at the mine and I was curious to know more about the glamorous -Maria, whom Steve described as being “beaucoup beautiful.” But George -was waiting to take us down into the mine. As we walked up the road, -Steve explained to us that the miners worked in two shifts—one crew -from four in the morning until midday, another from noon until eight in -the evening. The purpose of the early morning shift was to maintain an -uninterrupted flow of “stuff” from the mine, so that the daytime loading -of the trucks would not bog down for lack of cargo. - -At the building in which the mine entrance was located we found George -with a group of the miners. It was just eight o’clock and the day’s work -was starting. We were introduced to two men dressed in white uniforms -which gave them an odd, hybrid appearance—a cross between a street -cleaner and a musical-comedy hussar. This outfit consisted of a white -duck jacket and trousers. The jacket had a wide, capelike collar reaching -to the shoulders. Two rows of ornamental black buttons converging at the -waistline adorned the front of the jacket, and a similar row ran up the -sleeves from cuff to elbow. In place of a belt, the jacket was held in -place by a tape drawstring. A black garrison cap completed the costume. - -The two men were Karl Sieber, the restorer, and Max Eder, an engineer -from Vienna. It was Eder’s job to list the contents of each truck. -Perched on a soapbox, he sat all day at the loading entrance, record -book and paper before him on a makeshift desk. He wrote down the number -of each object as it was carried through the door to the truck outside. -The truck list was made in duplicate: the original was sent to Munich -with the convoy; the copy was kept at the mine to be incorporated in the -permanent records which Lieutenant Shrady was compiling in his office on -the floor above. - -In the early days of their occupancy, the Nazis had recorded the loot, -piece by piece, as it entered the mine. The records were voluminous and -filled many ledgers. But, during the closing months of the war, such -quantities of loot had poured in that the system had broken down. Instead -of a single accession number, an object was sometimes given a number -which merely indicated with what shipment it had arrived. Occasionally -there would be several numbers on a single piece. Frequently a piece -would have no number at all. In spite of this confusion, Eder managed -somehow to produce orderly lists. If the information they contained was -not always definitive, it was invariably accurate. - -George was anxious to get started. “It’s cold down in the mine,” he said. -“You’d better put on the warmest things you brought with you.” - -“How cold is it?” I asked. - -“Forty degrees, Fahrenheit,” he said. “The temperature doesn’t vary -appreciably during the year. I believe it rises to forty-seven in the -winter. And the humidity is equally constant, about sixty-five per cent. -That’s why this particular salt mine was chosen as a repository, as you -probably know.” - -While we went up to get our jackets and mufflers, George ordered Sieber -to hitch up the train. When we returned we noticed that the miners, who -resembled a troop of Walt Disney dwarfs, were wearing heavy sweaters and -thick woolen jackets for protection against the subterranean cold. - -The train’s locomotion was provided by a small gasoline engine with -narrow running boards on either side which afforded foothold for the -operator. Attached to it were half a dozen miniature flat-cars or -“dollies.” The miners called them “Hünde,” that is, dogs. They were about -five feet long, and on them were placed heavy wooden boxes approximately -two feet wide. The sides were roughly two feet high. - -Following George’s example, we piled a couple of blankets on the bottom -of one of the boxes and squeezed ourselves in. Each box, with judicious -crowding, would accommodate two people facing each other. - -At a signal from Sieber, who was sardined into a boxcar with George, -one of the gnomes primed the engine. After a couple of false starts, -it began to chug and the train rumbled into the dim cavern ahead. For -the first few yards, the irregular walls were whitewashed, but we soon -entered a narrow tunnel cut through the natural rock. It varied in height -and width. In some places there would be overhead clearance of seven or -eight feet, and a foot or more on either side. In others the passageway -was just wide enough for the train, and the jagged rocks above seemed -menacingly close. There were electric lights in part of the tunnel, but -these were strung at irregular intervals. They shed a dim glow on the -moist walls. - -George shouted that we would stop first at the Kaiser Josef mine. The -track branched and a few minutes later we stopped beside a heavy iron -door set in the wall of the passageway. This part of the tunnel was not -illuminated, so carbide lamps were produced. By their flickering light, -George found the keyhole and unlocked the door. - -We followed him into the unlighted mine chamber. Flashlights supplemented -the wavering flames of the miners’ lamps. Ahead of us we could make out -row after row of huge packing cases. Beyond them was a broad wooden -platform. The rays of our flashlights revealed a bulky object resting on -the center of the platform. We came closer. We could see that it was a -statue, a marble statue. And then we knew—it was Michelangelo’s Madonna -from Bruges, one of the world’s great masterpieces. The light of our -lamps played over the soft folds of the Madonna’s robe, the delicate -modeling of the face. Her grave eyes looked down, seemed only half aware -of the sturdy Child nestling close against her, one hand firmly held in -hers. It is one of the earliest works of the great sculptor and one of -his loveliest. The incongruous setting of the bare boards served only to -enhance its gentle beauty. - -The statue was carved by Michelangelo in 1501, when he was only -twenty-six. It was bought from the sculptor by the Mouscron brothers -of Bruges, who presented it to the Church of Notre Dame early in the -sixteenth century. There it had remained until September 1944, when the -Germans, using the excuse that it must be “saved” from the American -barbarians, carried it off. - -In the early days of the war, the statue had been removed from its -traditional place in the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament to a specially -built shelter in another part of the church. The shelter was not sealed, -so visitors could see the statue on request. Then one afternoon in -September 1944, the Bishop of Bruges, prompted by the suggestion of a -German officer that the statue was not adequately protected, ordered the -shelter bricked up. That night, before his orders could be carried out, -German officers arrived at the church and demanded that the dean hand -over the statue. With an armed crew standing by, they removed it from the -shelter, dumped it onto a mattress on the floor of a Red Cross lorry and -drove away. At the same time, they perpetrated another act of vandalism. -They took with them eleven paintings belonging to the church. Among them -were works by Gerard David, Van Dyck and Caravaggio. The statue and the -pictures were brought to the Alt Aussee mine. It was a miracle that the -two lorries with their precious cargo got through safely, for the roads -were being constantly strafed by Allied planes. - -Now we were about to prepare the Madonna for the trip back. This time she -would have more than a mattress for protection. - -In the same mine chamber with the Michelangelo was another plundered -masterpiece of sculpture—an ancient Greek sarcophagus from Salonika. It -had been excavated only a few years ago and was believed to date from the -sixth century B.C. Already the Greek government was clamoring for its -return. - -On our way back to the train, George said that the other cases—the ones -we had seen when we first went into the Kaiser Josef mine—contained the -dismantled panels of the Millionen Zimmer and the Chinesisches Kabinett -from Schönbrunn. The Alt Aussee mine, he said, had been originally -selected by the Viennese as a depot for Austrian works of art, which -accounted for the panels being there. They had been brought to the mine -in 1942. Then, a year later, the Nazis took it over as a repository for -the collections of the proposed Führer Museum at Linz. - -We boarded the train again and rumbled along a dark tunnel to the Mineral -Kabinett, one of the smaller mine chambers. Again there was an iron -door to be unlocked. We walked through a vestibule into a low-ceilinged -room about twenty feet square. The walls were light partitions of -unfinished lumber. Ranged about them were the panels of the great Ghent -altarpiece—the _Adoration of the Mystic Lamb_—their jewel-like beauty -undimmed after five hundred years. The colors were as resplendent as the -day they were painted by Hubert and Jan van Eyck in 1432. - -This famous altarpiece, the greatest single treasure of Belgium, had also -been seized by the Germans. One of the earliest examples of oil painting, -it consisted originally of twelve panels, eight of which were painted on -both sides. It was planned as a giant triptych of four central panels, -with four panels at either side. The matching side panels were designed -to fold together like shutters over a window. Therefore they were painted -on both sides. - -I knew something of the history of the altarpiece. It belonged originally -to the Cathedral of St. Bavon in Ghent. Early in the nineteenth century, -the wings had been purchased by Edward Solly, an Englishman living in -Germany. In 1816, he had sold them to the King of Prussia and they were -placed in the Berlin Museum. There they had remained until restored to -Belgium by the terms of the Versailles Treaty. From 1918 on, the entire -triptych was again in the Cathedral of St. Bavon. In 1933, the attention -of the world was drawn to the altarpiece when the panel in the lower -left-hand corner was stolen. This was one of the panels painted on both -sides. The obverse represented the _Knights of Christ_; the reverse, _St. -John the Baptist_. - -According to the story, the thief sent the cathedral authorities an -anonymous letter demanding a large sum of money and guarantee of his -immunity for the return of the panels. As proof that the panels were in -his possession, he is said to have returned the reverse panel with his -extortion letter. The authorities agreed to these terms but sought to lay -a trap for the culprit. Their attempt was unsuccessful and nothing was -heard of the panel until a year or so later. - -On his deathbed, the thief—one of the beadles of the cathedral—confessed -his guilt. As he lay dying, he managed to gasp, “You will find the panel -...” but he got no further. The panel has never been found. - -In May 1940, the Belgians entrusted the altarpiece to France for -safekeeping. Packed in ten cases, it was stored in the Château of Pau -together with many important works of art from the Louvre. The Director -of the French National Museums, mindful of his grave responsibilities, -obtained explicit guarantees from the Germans that these treasures would -be left inviolate. By the terms of this agreement, confirmed by the -Vichy Ministry of Fine Arts, the Ghent altar was not to be moved without -the joint consent of the Director of the French National Museums, the -Mayor of Ghent and the German organization for the protection of French -monuments. - -Notwithstanding this contract, the Director of the French National -Museums learned quite by accident in August 1942 that the altarpiece had -just been taken to Paris. Dr. Ernst Büchner, who was director of the -Bavarian State Museums, in company with three other German officers had -gone to Pau the day before with a truck and ordered the Director of the -Museum there to hand over the retable. A telegram from M. Bonnard, Vichy -Minister of Fine Arts, arriving simultaneously, reinforced Dr. Büchner’s -demands. Nothing was known of its destination or whereabouts, beyond the -fact that it had been taken to Paris. - -There the matter rested until the summer of 1944. With the arrival of -Allied armies on French soil, reports of missing masterpieces were -received by our MFA&A officers. The Ghent altarpiece was among them. -But there were no clues as to where it had gone. Months passed and by -the time our troops had approached Germany, our Monuments officers, all -similarly briefed with photographs and other pertinent data concerning -stolen works of art, began to hear rumors about the _Lamb_. It might be -in the Rhine fortress of Ehrenbreitstein; perhaps it had been taken to -the Berghof at Berchtesgaden or possibly to Karinhall, Göring’s palatial -estate near Berlin. And then again it might have been flown out of the -country altogether—to one of the neutral countries, Spain or Switzerland. - -Captain Posey and Private Lincoln Kirstein picked up additional rumors -from museum directors in Luxembourg. They had heard that the altarpiece -was in a salt mine, but they had also been told that it was in the -vaults of the Berlin Reichsbank. It was impossible to reconcile these -conflicting pieces of information. Finally, near Trier, Posey and -Kirstein tracked down a young German scholar who had been in France -during the occupation. Lincoln told me later that it was hard to believe -that this unassuming fellow had been high in the confidence of Göring and -other members of the Nazi inner circle. From him they learned that the -altarpiece had been taken to Alt Aussee. - -Then followed the rapid advance across Germany. To Posey and Kirstein it -was a period of agonizing suspense. They couldn’t be sure that Third Army -would move into the area in which the mine lay. Just as their hopes began -to fade, occupancy of the cherished area did fall to Third Army. Tactical -troops were alerted to the importance of the isolated mountain region. -It was of no significance as a military objective and would doubtless -otherwise have been left unoccupied for the moment. They pressed forward -through Bad Ischl and the wild confusion of capitulating German troops to -the wilder confusion of surrendering SS units in the little village of -Alt Aussee itself. From there it was but a mile to the mine. - -When they reached the mine, they found it heavily guarded by men of -the 80th Infantry Division, but the mine had been dynamited. It wasn’t -possible to go into the mine chambers. Armed with acetylene lamps, Posey -and Lincoln entered the main tunnel. They groped their way along the damp -passageway for a distance of a quarter of a mile or more before they -reached the debris of the first block. After assessing the damage they -returned to consult the Austrian mineworkers. The miners said it would -take from ten days to two weeks to clear the passageway. Captain Posey -thought that the Army Engineers could do it in less than a week, perhaps -in two or three days. Both were wrong. They entered the first mine -chamber the next day. - -And now, here before us, stood the fabulous panels which they had found -on that May morning a few weeks before. While we examined them, Sieber -pieced out the one gap in the story of the altarpiece: the Nazis had -taken it from Paris to the Castle of Neuschwanstein where a restorer from -Munich worked on the blisters which had developed on some of the panels. -The altarpiece remained at the castle for two years. It was brought to -the mine in the summer of 1944. Pieces of waxed paper were still affixed -to the surface of the panels, on the places where the blisters had been -laid. The big panel representing St. John had split lengthwise with the -grain of wood. This had happened at the mine. Sieber had repaired it, -and George said he had done a good job. As we were leaving the Mineral -Kabinett, Sieber asked me if Andrew Mellon really had offered ten million -dollars for the altarpiece. People had said so in Berlin. I hated to tell -him that the story was without foundation, so far as I knew. - -When we came out of the mine at noon we found that Steve and Shrady had -finished loading two trucks. They said they had enough pictures left -to fill two more. The afternoon crew would be coming on at four. In -the meantime it was up to Lamont and me to select at least two hundred -paintings, so that the loading could go on without interruption. - -After lunch we returned to the mine with Sieber. This time the trip on -the train was much longer. Our objective was a part of the mine called -the Springerwerke. Owing to the peculiar honeycomb structure of the mine -network, it had been necessary to establish guard posts at intervals -along the tunnels. One of these was at the entrance to the Springerwerke. -Two GIs were on duty. It was a dismal assignment as well as a cold one. -They were bundled up in fleece-lined coats which had been made for German -troops on the Russian front. George and Steve had obtained about two -hundred of these coats and were using them for packing unframed pictures. -Each time a convoy of empty trucks returned from Munich, they counted the -coats carefully to make sure that none had disappeared. - -The Springerwerke contained more than two thousand paintings. They were -arranged in two tiers around three sides and down the center of a room -fifty feet long and thirty feet wide. In one section we found thirty -or forty Italian paintings of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries -from the well known Lanz Collection of Amsterdam. Next to them we came -upon the group of canvases, which the Germans in their greedy haste had -filched from Bruges when they had made off with the Michelangelo Madonna. -Aside from these two lots, the pictures had been stored according to -size rather than by provenance. It was a bewildering assortment. Quality -was to be our guide in making this initial selection. And as a kind -of corollary, we were to set aside for shipment all pictures bearing -the infamous “E.R.R.” stencil—the initials of the Rosenberg looting -organization. We had Sieber and four of the gnomes to help. Sieber stood -by with list and flashlight. Two of the gnomes hauled out the pictures -for us to examine. The other two put protective pads of paper filled with -excelsior across the corners of the ones chosen. - -By the end of the afternoon we had picked out between a hundred and -fifty and two hundred paintings. The crew which had come on at four had -already gone up with one trainload. We took stock of the lot waiting -to go. We hadn’t done so badly: our selection included works of Hals, -Breughel, Titian, Rembrandt, Tintoretto, Rubens, Van Dyck, Lancret, -Nattier, Reynolds, and a raft of smaller examples of the seventeenth -century Dutch school. Not a dud among them, we agreed smugly. - -Before we knocked off for supper, Sieber showed us an adjoining room -divided into small compartments. Each one contained a miscellaneous -assortment of art objects—pictures, porcelain, bric-a-brac of various -kinds. Each compartment bore a label with the name of a different family, -fifteen or twenty in all. They were the pilfered possessions of Viennese -Jewish families. Our feelings were of both pathos and disgust. After -working with the fruits of looting on a grand scale, we found these -trifles sordid evidences of greedy persecution. - -Lamont and I spent the next two days in the Springerwerke. We worked -nights as well. It was a molelike existence. On the third morning we -transferred our base of operations to the Kammergrafen, the largest of -the mine caverns and the most remote. It was three-quarters of a mile -from the mine entrance. Whereas the other mine chambers were on one -level, the great galleries of the Kammergrafen were on several. Beyond -those in which floors had been laid, there were vast unlighted caves of -echoing blackness. - -The galleries were so high that those on the first level could -accommodate three tiers of pictures between floor and ceiling, while -those on the second had four tiers. - -The records listed _six thousand pictures_. In addition there were -quantities of sculpture, hundreds of examples of the very finest -eighteenth century French cabinetwork, tapestries and rugs, and the books -and manuscripts of the Biblioteca Herziana in Rome—one of the greatest -historical libraries in the world. Kammergrafen was quality and quantity -combined, for here had been stored the collections for Linz. - -Among the pictures, for example, were canvases from the Rothschild, -Gutmann and Mannheimer collections, the celebrated tempera panels of the -fourteenth century Hohenfurth altarpiece, Rembrandts and other great -Dutch masters from the stock of Goudstikker, who had been the Duveen of -Amsterdam, a collection of French pictures known as the “Sammlung Berta,” -and hundreds of nineteenth century German paintings, these last the -objects of Hitler’s special veneration. - -The sculpture ranged from ancient to modern, with notable emphasis on -examples of the Gothic period. There were Egyptian tomb figures, Roman -portrait busts, Renaissance and Baroque bronzes, exquisite French marbles -of the eighteenth century and delicate Tanagra figurines. A bewildering -hodgepodge of the plastic arts. - -There were tapestries from Cracow, furniture from the Castle at Posen, -rows of inlaid tables and cabinets from the Vienna Rothschilds, shelves -and cases filled with the finest porcelains, prints and drawings of the -sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the decorations from -the Reichskanzlei in Berlin, and Hitler’s own purchases from the annual -exhibitions of German art in Munich. Such was the Kammergrafen treasure. -And the best of it, as I have said before, was to have adorned the -galleries of the unbuilt Führer Museum at Linz, the city by the Danube -which Hitler aspired to raise to the dignity of Vienna. - -The rarest treasure of that collection was the celebrated Vermeer -_Portrait of the Artist in His Studio_. This superb work of the -seventeenth Dutch master, by whom there are only some forty unquestioned -examples in the world, had been for years in the collection of Count -Czernin at Vienna. The collection was semipublic; I had visited it before -the war. Known simply as the “Czernin Vermeer,” the picture had long been -coveted by the great collectors. It had remained for Hitler to succeed -where others had failed: he acquired this masterpiece in 1940 for an -alleged price of one million, four hundred thousand Reichsmarks—part -of his earnings from the sale of _Mein Kampf_. He boasted at the time -that Mr. Mellon had offered six million dollars for it. Whether the -sale was made under duress is still a matter of controversy. Members of -the Czernin family today contend that it was. The picture has now been -returned to Vienna where the matter will be ultimately decided. - -Rivaling the Vermeer in international significance were the fifteen -cases of paintings and sculpture from Monte Cassino. The paintings -included Titian’s _Danaë_, Raphael’s _Madonna of the Divine Love_, Peter -Breughel’s _Blind Leading the Blind_, a _Crucifixion_ by Van Dyck, an -_Annunciation_ by Filippino Lippi, a _Sacra Conversazione_ by Palma -Vecchio, a _Landscape_ by Claude Lorraine, and Sebastiano del Piombo’s -_Portrait of Pope Clement VII_. Among the sculpture were antique bronzes -of the greatest rarity and importance from Herculaneum and Pompeii. All -had belonged to the Naples Museum. In 1943 the Italians had placed them, -together with one hundred and seventy-two other cases of objects from -the Naples Museum, in the Abbey of Monte Cassino for safekeeping. The -following January, arrangements were made for all of the cases to be -returned to the Vatican. When they arrived, fifteen were missing. Members -of the Hermann Göring Division had carried them off as a birthday gift -for the Reichsmarschall. Göring was incensed, when he learned of the -arrival of these treasures, and refused to accept them. There is reason -to believe that such was his reaction, for he had striven to maintain -a semblance of legality in his art transactions. Even this rapacious -collector could not have interpreted the behavior of his loyal officers -as “correct,” so far as the Monte Cassino affair was concerned. After the -Reichsmarschall’s refusal of the cases, they were brought to Alt Aussee -for storage, pending their later return to Italy. - -The Springerwerke had been child’s play compared with the task -confronting us in the Kammergrafen. We began arbitrarily with the big -pictures. Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese, Van Dyck, Rubens, Rembrandt—all -were represented in profusion. Many of them were from private collections -in Holland, Belgium and France, and were unknown to us save through -reproduction. It was a great lesson in connoisseurship, particularly when -we had exhausted the “stars” and come to the lesser masters. The Dutch -school of the seventeenth century was abundantly represented. There were -scores, hundreds, of still lifes and flower paintings. My predilection -for them amused Lamont and Sieber. I had always admired these incredibly -deft creations of the seventeenth century Dutch artists, and here was an -unparalleled opportunity to study them. - -There was one peculiar thing about our selections: if a picture looked -good to us down in the mine, it invariably looked better when we examined -it later in the light of day at the mine entrance. This happened time -and again. I remember one instance in particular. The painting was a -large Rembrandt, a study of two dead peacocks. Down in the mine we had -looked at it without much enthusiasm, though we admired it, and had even -hesitated to include it in that first selection, which was to number only -the best of the best. The next morning, as it was being loaded onto the -truck, we were struck by its distinction. - -And I remember the next time I saw that picture: it was at the -Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. It was included in the small group of -outstanding Dutch masterpieces returned to Holland by special plane as a -gesture of token restitution in the name of General Eisenhower! - -Lamont and I liked Sieber, the German restorer. Lamont referred to him as -the “tragic Gilles in white.” Not that there was anything particularly -tragic about him, any more than there was about the plight in which most -Nazis found themselves. He made no bones about having joined the Party -in the early thirties—ironically enough at the suggestion of one of his -clients, a Jewish art dealer, who had thought it would be a good thing -for Sieber’s business. Sieber had been a restorer of pictures in Berlin -and had done a little dealing on the side. It was the half-mournful -expression he perpetually wore, together with his white costume, that -accounted for Lamont’s appellation. George had described him as a good, -run-of-the-mill restorer, perhaps a little better than average. He -had sized him up as a man ninety-eight per cent preoccupied with his -profession and possibly two per cent concerned with politics. And George, -as I think I have observed before, was a good judge of men. Sieber was -a quiet, willing worker. He was neither fawning on the one hand, nor -arrogant on the other. When you asked him a question, you always got a -considered answer. - -One evening we drew Sieber out on the subject of the attempted -destruction of the mine. We had heard several versions of this fantastic -plot and, according to one, Sieber had been instrumental in foiling -the conspirators. The story was as follows: On the tenth, thirteenth -and thirtieth of April 1945, Glinz, the Gauinspektor of Ober-Donau, -had come to the mine with eight great cases marked in black letters -“_Marmor—Nicht stürzen_,” that is, “Marble—Don’t drop.” He was acting on -explicit instructions from Eigruber, Gauleiter of the region, to place -them at strategic positions in the mine tunnels. Each case contained a -hundred-pound bomb. Had these bombs been detonated, the entire contents -of the mine would have been destroyed. The resulting cave-ins would have -blocked every means of access. It would have taken months to repair the -apparatus which carried off the water seeping constantly into the mine -chambers. By that time the treasures they contained would have been -completely ruined. It is generally agreed that Eigruber had obtained -Hitler’s tacit consent to this artistic Götterdämmerung, if not his -actual approval of it. - -I learned later that Captain Posey found a letter from Martin Bormann, -Hitler’s deputy, stating in the first paragraph that the contents of -the mine must, at all costs, be kept from falling into the hands of the -enemy. And then the second paragraph stated that the contents of the mine -must not be harmed. - -Members of the Austrian resistance movement got wind of this diabolical -plan and took Sieber into their confidence. His intimate knowledge of -the mine passageways enabled him to set off small charges of dynamite -here and there along the tunnels without endangering the contents of the -chambers beyond. The resulting damage was slight and served a twofold -purpose: it gave the impression that the mine had been permanently -walled up; and, if that ruse were discovered, immediate access to the -art works themselves was denied the plotters. Eigruber did discover -that his attempt had been thwarted and in his rage gave orders for the -counterconspirators to be rounded up and shot. But by that time it was -the seventh of May, so the tragedy was mercifully averted. - -Sieber told the story in a straightforward, factual way. I don’t think -it mattered to him who got control of the mine, but it was simply -unthinkable that any harm should come to the precious things it housed. -It was very much to his credit that he never capitalized on the part he -played in this affair. The only other reference he made to it was when he -later showed us the places where he had set off the charges of dynamite. - -During all the time we were at the mine, Sieber made only one request -of us. It came at the very end of our stay and was reasonable enough: -he asked if we could expedite his return to Germany. There seemed to be -little prospect of regular employment for him in Austria, but that was of -less concern to him than the welfare of his wife and young daughter who -lived with him in a house near the mine. Some months later, one of our -officers tried to get him a job in Wiesbaden, but he was not acceptable -to the Military Government authorities there because of his political -affiliations. The last I heard of him, he and his family were still at -Alt Aussee, waiting for permission to go back to Germany. I hope they -finally got it. - -Our concentrated efforts underground produced the desired results. -Pictures were coming out of the mine at such a prodigious rate that -George called a halt. Enough of a backlog had been accumulated to make -further selection down in the mine unnecessary for a couple of days. -Lamont and I had better help with the actual loading. - -Loading a truck was a specialized operation, and George had perfected the -technique. Lamont, Steve and Shrady were his pupils. That left me the -only neophyte. So far I had had experience only with the loading of cases -and heavier objects such as furniture and sculpture. - -Packing pictures, especially unframed ones—and there were a great many of -the latter at Alt Aussee—was an altogether different problem. The first -step was to place a length of waterproof paper over the side bars of the -truck and spread it smoothly on the floor to the center of the truck bed. -For this we had a large supply of stout, green, clothlike paper which -had been used by the Wehrmacht as protection against gas attacks. Then -a strip of felt was laid over the paper. The third step was to place -“sausages” in two rows, end to end, on the floor of the truck. The space -between the rows would depend on the size of the pictures to be loaded, -for they were intended to cushion the shock as the trucks rumbled along -over bumpy roads. The “sausages” had been George’s invention. Packing -materials of all kinds were at a premium, and certain types just didn’t -exist. To make up for the lack of the usual packer’s pads, George had -improvised this substitute. In one of the mine chambers he had found a -large supply of ordinary curtain material of machine-made ecru lace. This -had been cut up into yard lengths, eighteen inches wide. When rolled -around a central core of coarser cloth, or sometimes excelsior, and tied -with string, they were a very satisfactory “ersatz” product. We used to -refer to them augustly as the pads made from Hitler’s window curtains. -Their manufacture was periodically one of the major industries at the -mine. George had trained a crew of the gnomes and they loved to turn them -out. It was easy work. Seated at long benches they resembled a kind of -Alpine “husking bee.” - -Once the paper, felt and “sausages” were in place, the pictures could -be brought to the truck. One after another they were placed in a stack -leading from the sideboards of the truck to the center. Pads and small -blankets were inserted between them to prevent rubbing. To ensure safe -packing, all the pictures in a given row had to be carefully selected as -to size, ranging from large to medium in one, and from medium to small -in another. That was the most tedious part of the entire operation. -As soon as a row had been “built,” it required only a few minutes to -bring first the felt and then the green paper over the top of the row, -tuck both down along the sides, and then lash the whole stack firmly -to the side of the truck. By this method it was possible to load as -many as a hundred and fifty medium-sized canvases on a single truck, -for three rows of twenty-five each could be built up on either side of -our big two-and-a-half-ton trucks. A truck loaded in this way could -often accommodate several pieces of sculpture as well. Carefully padded -and swathed in blankets, these could be placed down the center. The -final step was to adjust the tarpaulin over the bows and to close the -tailboard. A truck of the size we used could normally be loaded in two -hours. - -We were at the mercy of the weather, as far as loading was concerned. On -rainy days we could work on only one truck at a time, because there was -but one doorway with a protective stoop under which a single truck could -park. Taking advantage of the sunny mornings, we would divide up into two -teams—George and Steve on one truck, Lamont and I on another. As soon -as a truck was filled and the tarpaulin securely fastened down, it was -driven to one side of the narrow terrace in front of the building. The -average convoy consisted of six trucks. - -We had a crew of eighteen Negro drivers. Barboza, the C.O., was a very -starchy lieutenant, Jamaica born. He and his men were billeted down in -the little town of Bad Aussee. They were magnificent drivers but a bit -reckless. Their occasional disregard for their vehicles was a worry to -George. It would have been so with any drivers, I guess. A breakdown on -the steep mountain roads could be a serious matter. It meant the complete -disruption of the convoy schedule, involving reloading en route. To -provide for this contingency, we made a practice of loading the trucks -to three-quarters of their capacity. The contents of a single truck could -thus be absorbed by the others. - -When a convoy was ready to start, either George or I would lead off in a -jeep and escort the six trucks down the precipitous road to Alt Aussee. -Two half-tracks from the 11th Armored Division, as front and rear guards, -would be waiting to accompany the convoy to Munich. - -At breakfast one morning George said, “This looks like a good day to load -the gold-seal products.” He meant the Michelangelo Madonna and the Ghent -altarpiece. This was an important event, for they were unquestionably the -two most precious things still at the mine. Every possible precaution -would have to be taken to make this operation a success. It must go off -without a hitch. If anything happened to either of these masterpieces, -the repercussions would be catastrophic. They would overshadow all the -accomplishments of our MFA&A officers. - -For the past several days, George and Steve had been working on the -Madonna. She was now heavily padded and trussed up like a ham, ready to -be brought out of the mine. We all went down to the Kaiser Josef chamber -where we had first seen her. George made a final inspection of the ropes -and pulleys which had been set up to hoist her onto the waiting train. -Then, with a satisfied smile, he said, “I think we could bounce her from -Alp to Alp, all the way to Munich, without doing her any harm.” - -Once the statue was gently loaded on the little flat car, the train -pulled slowly out of the mine chamber and switched back onto the track of -the main tunnel. From there it chugged slowly—George walking alongside—to -the mine entrance where the truck stood waiting. This truck and the one -which was to carry the altarpiece had been put in perfect condition. -And George had put the fear of God into the two drivers, both of whom he -had personally chosen from our crew. A dozen of the gnomes were waiting -to lift the marble onto the truck. We slid it cautiously to the fore -part where boards had been laid parallel and nailed to the floor. These -would prevent shifting. On either side of the statue, small packing cases -about two feet square were arranged in even rows and lashed firmly to the -sides of the truck. These cases had been stored in a chamber of the mine -called the Kapelle. They contained the coin collection intended for the -Linz Museum and were accordingly marked “Münz Kabinett” or Coin Room. -Blankets were wedged in between the cases and the statue. The large case -containing the Greek sarcophagus from Salonika was set in place behind -the statue and similarly secured to the floor and at the sides. That -done, the truck was ready to go. - -As George was putting the finishing touches on the packing, he said, -“Tom, will you go down and get the ‘Lamb’?” To be entrusted with the -removal of the great altarpiece was an exciting assignment. I wanted -to share it with someone who would also get a kick out of telling his -grandchildren that he had actually brought the famous panels out of their -underground hiding place. I called Lamont, and the two of us, followed by -eight of the gnomes, hitched four of the “dogs” to the little engine and -proceeded to the Mineral Kabinett. One of the “dogs,” especially designed -to carry pictures of unusual height, had a lower bed than the others. We -would use this one for the big central panel of the altarpiece. Otherwise -it would not clear a portion of the mine tunnel where the jagged rocks -hung low over the track. - -The panels were now in their cases, and it was a relatively simple -matter to carry them from the storage room to the train. We had to make -two trips down and back in order to get all ten cases up to the mine -entrance. They were much lighter than the statue, but the loading was a -more exacting undertaking. Lashing them upright in parallel rows, in the -truck, and stowing cases on either side for ballast, took time. We didn’t -finish until well after six. It had taken most of the day to load the -“gold-seal products.” - -[Illustration: _Mary Magdalene_ by Cranach. Göring was especially fond of -Cranach’s work and owned many paintings by him.] - -[Illustration: _The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine_ by David was one -of the finest in the Göring Collection.] - -[Illustration: _Diana_, an exquisite Boucher acquired by Göring from the -Rothschild Collection, has been returned to France.] - -[Illustration: _Atalanta and Meleager_ by Rubens, found in the Göring -Collection, was from the Goudstikker Collection of Amsterdam.] - -That night we held a conference in George’s room. He was to go to Munich -the next morning with the convoy to supervise the unloading of the -Madonna and the “Lamb” at the depot. He expected to come back directly, -but might have to go on up to Frankfurt. He mapped out the work he -wanted us to do while he was away. In addition to the job at the mine, -there was a special one down at Bad Ischl. A series of famous panels by -Albrecht Altdorfer, one of the greatest German painters of the fifteenth -century, was stored on the second floor of a highly combustible old inn. -These panels were among his finest works and belonged to the monastery -of St. Florian outside Linz. Fifty or sixty pieces of sculpture—mostly -polychromed wood figures, fifteenth century Gothic—also the property of -the monastery, were stored there too. George thought we’d better figure -on two trucks. We were to pick up the stuff, bring it back to the mine -and then send it to Munich with the next convoy. - -We made notations of what he had told us, and then Steve produced -drinks—something of an occasion, for liquor was hard to come by at the -mine. Somehow he had got hold of a bottle of cognac and insisted on -making “Alpine Specials.” This was a drink consisting of a jigger of -cognac and an equal amount of a pink syrupy liquid resembling grenadine. -Steve prized the syrup. Eder, the chemical engineer at the mine, had -concocted it especially for him. The mixture made a drink of dubious -merit. We drank to the success of George’s trip to Munich. - -The convoy got off early the next morning. Lamont and I went down with -George as far as the village. Two half-tracks were waiting to escort the -trucks to Munich. They were equipped with radios for intercommunication, -in case of delays along the way. Between Alt Aussee and Salzburg, the -road led through isolated country. Conditions were as yet far from -settled. Small bands of SS troops still lurked in the mountains. The -half-tracks weren’t just going along for the ride. - -When we returned to the mine, we found Steve and Shrady in conversation. -They were planning an excursion and asked us to join them. We expressed -pious disapproval of letting up on the job the minute George’s back was -turned. Steve’s answer was, “That’s a crock. I haven’t taken a day off in -two weeks. You can do as you like, me lads; I’m off to see the wizard.” -The two of them climbed into the sporty Mercedes-Benz convertible which -Shrady had recently acquired, and drove off down the mountain. - -“I have an idea,” said Lamont. “They can have their fun today. We’ll have -ours tomorrow, while they pick up the Altdorfer panels at Bad Ischl.” - -Lamont turned to the loading of trucks, while I went down to the -Kammergrafen with Sieber. In the course of the morning I selected -approximately two hundred pictures. We concentrated on those of small -size, which were stored on the top racks, and the work went rapidly. -Among the paintings we chose was one which had a typewritten label on -the back. I read the words “Von dem Führer noch nicht entschieden”—not -yet decided upon by the Führer. I asked Sieber what this signified. -He explained that every picture intended for the Linz Museum—and this -was one of them—had to be personally approved by Hitler before it -could be officially included in the prospective collection. I could -easily understand that the Führer would have wanted to examine the more -important acquisitions, but that each canvas had to receive his personal -approval struck me as preposterous. Hitler had entrusted the formation -of his collections first to Dr. Hans Posse, a noted scholar, and, after -his death, to Dr. Hermann Voss, director of the Dresden Gallery. This -meticulous procedure, involving the submission of all pictures to the -Führer in Munich, must have been trying to those two luminaries of the -German art world. - -When I came up from the mine for lunch I found that Lamont had completed -the loading of two trucks. As the stock of pictures in the packing -room at the mine entrance was almost exhausted, he said that he would -join Sieber and me in making further selections. We returned to the -Kammergrafen and continued with the smaller pictures. - -On one of the top shelves we found a cardboard carton bearing the name of -Dr. Helmut von Hümmel, who had been connected with the formation of the -Linz collections. The label indicated that the contents had been destined -for the museum. On the carton appeared the word “_Sittenbilder_.” -Lamont and I knew the word “_Bilder_” meant pictures, but the other two -syllables conveyed nothing. Sieber knew very little English but tried to -explain. He thought perhaps the word meant “customs,” or something like -that. I thought that I understood him. He probably meant that they were -little scenes from everyday life. - -We opened the carton. On top were three small watercolors, with beautiful -gray-blue mounts and carved, gilt frames. If they were not by François -Boucher, they were by a close pupil. The workmanship was exquisite and -they were highly pornographic. So these were “_Sittenbilder_.” In our -limited German we tried to tell Sieber that they might be called “scenes -from life,” but hardly everyday life. - -The rest of the things in the carton were of the same order, some of them -contemporary, all of them licentious. None approached the first three -watercolors in sheer virtuosity of technique. We wondered just which -department of the Linz Museum would have harbored them. - -Later we showed them to Steve. When he looked at the three watercolors he -asked, “Who did those?” - -“They look very much like Boucher,” I said without thinking. - -“Boucher?” asked Steve incredulously. “Not the fellow who painted that -‘Holy Family’ I saw this afternoon?” - -Lamont said quickly, “Tom means a pupil of Boucher, not Boucher himself.” - -“Well, that’s more like it,” said Steve. “I didn’t see how an artist who -painted anything so beautiful as that big picture could paint smutty -things like these.” - -The Holy Family to which he referred was a sensitive and tender -representation. Steve’s point was well taken. The fact that he had not -seen much eighteenth century French painting didn’t alter the validity of -his argument. - -On our way up from the Kammergrafen that afternoon we stopped at the -Kapelle. This was one of the mine chambers which I had visited only long -enough to take out some of the cases used in packing the Bruges Madonna. -In addition to the Münz Kabinett collections, the Kapelle contained the -magnificent collection of Spanish armor—casques, breastplates, full -suits of armor, and a great number of firearms—which had been gathered -together at Schloss Konopischt by the late Archduke Franz Ferdinand. -Most of it was of sixteenth century workmanship, exquisitely inlaid with -gold and silver. Formerly Austrian, it had been the property of the -Czech government since the last World War. Nonetheless, the Germans had -carried it off, using some flimsy nationalistic argument to justify their -action. While the atmosphere of the mine was excellent for paintings, it -was not satisfactory for metal objects. Consequently, every piece in the -Konopischt collection had been heavily coated with grease to keep it from -oxidizing. - -Their storage room, the Kapelle, was—as the name indicates—a chapel, -dedicated to the memory of Dollfuss, the Austrian Chancellor. It had an -electrically illuminated altar, hewn from a block of translucent salt -crystal, which was one of the sights of the mine. - -That night when Steve and Shrady returned from their outing we all had -hot chocolate and cheese and crackers in the comfortable kitchen on the -ground floor of the main building. They had had a wonderful day. Maria, -Shrady’s interpreter-secretary, had been with them. They had gone first -to St. Wolfgang. There a sentry had tried to prevent them from driving -up the road leading to the little church. Leopold, the Belgian king, was -living near there with his wife, and motorists were not allowed on that -road. But they had got around the sentry and gone into the church to see -the wonderful carved altarpiece by Michael Pacher. Steve had brought us -some colored photographs of it. Afterward they had had a swim in the lake -and a picnic lunch. And in the afternoon—this had been the high spot of -the day—they had gone over to Bad Ischl and called on Franz Léhar. The -old fellow had been delighted to see them, had played the _Merry Widow_ -waltz for them and given them autographed photographs. It sounded like -fun. Our day at the mine had been very prosaic in comparison. Mention of -Bad Ischl reminded Lamont of his scheme for the next day. He proposed to -Steve and Shrady that they should call for the Altdorfer panels. They -fell in with the suggestion at once, and before we could explain that we -thought we’d take the day off, Steve was telling us about some of the -things we should see in the neighborhood. - -We slept late and when we got up the sky was gray and threatening. It -was no day for an outing. In fact it was so cold that we decided we’d be -warmer down in the mine. There was still one series of chambers which -we had not explored. This was the Mondsberg, and it took us almost -three-quarters of an hour to reach it. The pictures were arranged on -racks as in the Kammergrafen and the Springerwerke, only in the Mondsberg -there were a great many contemporary paintings. It didn’t take us long to -run through them. They were all obviously German-owned and, judging from -the labels, the great majority of the canvases had been included in the -annual exhibitions at the Haus der Deutschen Kunst in Munich. - -Ranged along one side of the main chamber was a row of old pictures. -These were of high quality, and we went through them carefully. I came to -a canvas which looked vaguely familiar. It was the portrait of a young -woman dressed in a gown of cherry brocade. I guessed it to be sixteenth -century Venetian, perhaps by Paris Bordone. I said to Lamont, “I’m sure -I’ve seen that picture somewhere, but I can’t place it.” - -“Let’s see if there’s any mark on the back that might give you a lead,” -said Lamont. - -He found a label and started reading aloud, “California Palace of the -Legion of Honor, San Francisco....” - -I thought he was joking. But not at all. There was the printed label -of my museum. And there too _in my own handwriting_ appeared the words -“Portrait of a Young Woman, by Paris Bordone”! No wonder the portrait -had looked familiar. I had borrowed it from a New York art dealer for a -special loan exhibition of Venetian painting in the summer of 1938. I -learned from the mine records that the dealer had subsequently sold the -picture to a Jewish private collector in Paris. The Nazis had confiscated -it with the rest of his collection. It was a weird business finding it -seven years later in an Austrian salt mine. - -After supper that evening Shrady asked us to go down to Alt Aussee with -him. Some Viennese friends of his were having an evening of music. -The weather had cleared and the snow on the mountains was pink in the -afterglow as we drove down the winding road from the mine. The house, a -small chalet, stood on the outskirts of the village. Our host, his wife -and their two daughters, had taken refuge there just before the Russians -reached Vienna. - -He introduced us to Dr. Victor Luithlen, one of the curators of the -Vienna Museum, who had driven over from Laufen. Many of the finest things -from the museum were stored in the salt mine there. Dr. Luithlen was the -custodian. - -Both he and Shrady played the piano well. Luithlen played some Brahms -and Shrady followed with the music he had composed for a ballet based -on Poe’s “Raven.” Shrady said that it had been produced by the Russian -Ballet in New York. It was a very flamboyant piece and Shrady performed -it with terrific virtuosity. - -Afterward coffee and strudel were served. The atmosphere of the household -was casual and friendly. I was reminded of what an Austrian friend of -mine had once told me: “In other countries, conditions are often serious, -but not desperate; in Austria they are often desperate but never serious.” - -Thinking that George Stout might have returned from Munich, Lamont and -I went back up to the mine that night before the others. George had -just come in. He brought exciting but disturbing news. We were to -continue the work at Alt Aussee for another ten days. Then we were to -transfer our base of operations to Berchtesgaden. Our job there would -be the evacuation of the Göring collection! On our way through Salzburg -we were to pick up the pictures and tapestries from the Vienna Museum. -These were the paintings by Velásquez, Titian and Breughel which had -been highjacked by the Nazis two months ago and later retrieved by our -officers. The disturbing part of what George had to tell was that he was -going to leave us to carry on alone at the mine. He would try to join us -at Berchtesgaden. But there was a possibility that he might not be able -to make it. - -Months ago George had put in a request for transfer to the Pacific. -He felt that things were shaping up on the European scene and that -others could carry on the work. There would be a big job protecting and -salvaging works of art in Japan. He didn’t think that a program had -been planned. He had offered his services. He had already told us that -he had asked for this assignment, but we had never considered it as a -possibility of the present or even of the immediate future. Now it looked -as though it might materialize at once. In any case he was going up to -Frankfurt the day after tomorrow to find out. - -“As senior officer, Tom,” George said, “you will take over as headman -of the team. I’ll take you down to see Colonel Davitt before I go. He -is responsible for the security guard here at the mine and has been -extremely co-operative. You should go to him if you have any complaints -about the arrangements after I am gone.” - -Back in our rooms that night Lamont said, “I have a hunch that this is -the last we’ll see of George. It’s not like him to talk the way he did -tonight if he hasn’t a pretty good idea that he won’t be coming back.” - -Together we mapped out a tentative division of the work ahead. Steve, -who had come into the room in time to hear George’s news, joined our -discussion. It was after midnight when the first meeting of the “three -powers” broke up. - -While George was in Munich he had been informed of the imminent -withdrawal of Third Army from the part of Austria in which we were -working. No one could, or would, tell him the exact date, but it appeared -likely that it would take place within two weeks. It was difficult for -me to understand why the arrival of another American army—General Mark -Clark’s Fifth from Italy—should cause the cessation of our operations. -But of course the Army had its own way of doing things. We were attached -to Third Army and if they were getting out, we would have to get out with -them. All along we had known that this might happen before we could empty -the mine. It was quite probable that Fifth Army would want to resume the -work, but it would take time. Such a delay would impede the processes -of restitution, and we had therefore been giving first attention to the -finest things. - -Having taken stock of the paintings, sculpture and furniture on which we -were going to concentrate in the time we had left, we spent George’s last -day working as usual. The loading went well and we finished four more -trucks. Another convoy would be ready to take off in the morning. - -George had his own jeep and driver and could make better time than -the convoy, so after early breakfast we went down to Colonel Davitt’s -office. George explained the change in his own plans and said that I -would be taking over at the mine. Then he thanked the colonel for his -co-operation. It was a long speech for George. - -When he had finished, Colonel Davitt said, “In all the time you’ve been -here, you haven’t made a single unreasonable demand. If Lieutenant Howe -can come anywhere near that record, we’ll get along all right.” - -Compliments embarrassed George, so he said good-by as quickly as possible -and climbed into his jeep. He wished me luck and drove off. I waited -for Lamont to come down with the convoy and give me a lift back up the -mountain. - - - - -(7) - -_THE ROTHSCHILD JEWELS; THE GÖRING COLLECTION_ - - -We had our share of troubles during those last ten days at Alt Aussee. -They began that first day of my investiture as head of the team. Lamont -and I were sorting pictures in the room at the mine entrance. It was -early in the afternoon and we were about to start loading our third -truck. I had just said to Lamont that I thought the morning’s convoy had -probably passed Salzburg, when a jeep pulled up to the door. The driver -called out to us that one of our trucks had broken down at Goisern. That -was an hour’s drive from the mine. Why hadn’t we been notified earlier? I -asked. He didn’t know. Perhaps there hadn’t been anybody around to bring -back word. Maybe the driver had thought he could repair the truck. - -We got hold of Steve and the three of us started for Goisern in the -messenger’s jeep. We’d have to transfer the load, so an empty truck -followed us. We were thankful that the breakdown hadn’t happened while -the convoy was going over the Pötschen Pass. It would have been a tough -job to shift the pictures from one truck to another on that steep and -dangerous part of the road. It was bad enough as it was, because it -looked as though we’d have rain. One of the trucks had a lot of very -large pictures. We hoped that it wasn’t the one that had broken down. - -It was a little after three when we reached Goisern. The truck had been -parked by the headquarters of a small detachment of troops on the edge -of town. There were several houses near by but plenty of room for us to -maneuver the empty truck alongside. The Negro driver of the stranded -truck said that it had “thrown a rod” and would have to be taken to -Ordnance for repairs. That meant that the vehicle would be laid up for -two or three weeks. We’d have to see about a replacement. The main thing -was to get on with the unloading before it began to rain. And it _was_ -the truck with the big pictures. - -With the two trucks lined up alongside, and only a few inches apart, we -could hoist the pictures over the sideboards. In this way each row of -paintings was kept in the same order. Lamont and Steve boarded the empty -truck, while one of the gnomes from the mine and I started unlashing the -first stack of loaded pictures. Before long a crowd of women and children -had collected to watch this unusual operation. There were excited “oh’s” -and “ah’s” as we began to transfer one masterpiece after another—two -large Van Dycks, a Veronese, a pair of colossal decorative canvases -by Hubert Robert, a Rubens, and so on. The spectators were quiet and -well behaved, whispering among themselves. They didn’t pester us with -questions. We rather enjoyed having an audience. We finished the job in -an hour and a half. - -It wasn’t too soon, for as we were securing the tarpaulin at the rear of -the newly loaded truck, it began to pour. We parked the truck, arranged -for an overnight guard, then climbed into our jeep and started back to -the mine. In a few minutes the rain turned to hail. The stones were so -large that we were afraid they’d break the windshield of the jeep. We -pulled over to the side of the road and waited for the storm to let up. -While we waited, the gnome told us that sometimes the hailstones were -large enough to kill sheep grazing in the high meadows. Only the summer -before he had lost two of his own lambs during one of the heavy summer -storms. He swore that the stones were the size of tennis balls. - -We were thoroughly soaked and half frozen when we got back to the mine. -But we had won our race with the weather, and the truck would proceed to -Munich with the next convoy. - -During the next three days we were beset by a series of minor -difficulties. Two of the trucks broke down on the way up to the mine to -be loaded. It took half a day to get replacements, so the convoy was -delayed. One night the guard on duty at the mine entrance developed an -unwarranted interest in art and poked around among the pictures which -Lamont and I had carefully stacked according to size for loading the next -morning. No harm was done, but it caused a delay. He was under strict -orders to let no one into the temporary storage room and was not to go -in there himself. It was partly our fault; we shouldn’t have trusted -him with the key. The captain of the guard was notified and appropriate -disciplinary action taken. The gnomes developed a tendency to prolong -their regular rest periods beyond a point Steve considered reasonable, -and we had to come to an understanding about that. On the whole, however, -the work went fairly well. - -Even the great chambers of the Kammergrafen were beginning to thin out. -They were far from empty, but we had cleared them of a substantial part -of the external loot, that is, the loot which had come from countries -outside Germany. There were still quantities of things taken from -Austrian collections, but they had not been our primary concern. The time -had come to make a final check, to make sure that we had not overlooked -anything important in the category of external loot. - -Together with Sieber, we started this last inspection. We checked off the -pictures first. Our work there had been pretty thorough. After that the -sculpture. This also seemed to be well weeded out. And the furniture too. - -Sieber was ahead of us with his flashlight. The light fell on two cartons -standing in a dark corner behind a group of Renaissance bronzes. I -asked what was in them. Sieber shrugged his shoulders. They had never -been opened. He had forgotten that they were there. We dragged them out -and looked for an identifying label. Sieber recalled that one of the -former custodians at the mine had said the things inside were “_sehr -wertvoll_”—very valuable, but he knew nothing more. - -We carried the boxes to a table where there was better light. They were -the same size, square, and about two feet high. They were not heavy. We -pried open the lid of one of them with great care. It might be Roman -glass, and that stuff breaks almost when you look at it. But it wasn’t -Roman glass. Inside was a row of small cardboard boxes. I lifted the lid -and removed a layer of cotton. On the cotton beneath lay a magnificent -golden pendant studded with rubies, emeralds and pearls. The central -motif, a mermaid exquisitely modeled and wrought in iridescent enamel, -proclaimed the piece the work of an Italian goldsmith of the Renaissance. -The surrounding framework of intricate scrolls, shells and columns blazed -with jewels. - -There were forty boxes filled with jewels—necklaces, pendants and -brooches—all of equal splendor. The collection was worth a fortune. Each -piece bore a minute tag on which appeared an identifying letter and a -number. These were Rothschild jewels. And we had stumbled on them quite -by accident. - -Lamont and I agreed that they should be taken to Munich without delay. -There they could be stored in a vault. Furthermore we decided to deliver -them ourselves. It wouldn’t do to risk such precious objects with the -regular convoy. We admonished Sieber to say nothing about our find. In -the meantime we would keep the two boxes under lock and key in our room. - -That night we told Steve we had a special surprise for him. After barring -the door against unexpected visitors, we emptied the boxes onto one -of the beds. We told him not to look until we were ready. We arranged -each piece with the greatest care, straightening out the links of the -necklaces, adjusting the great baroque pearls of the pendants, balancing -one piece with another, until the whole glittering collection was spread -out on the white counterpane. Then we signaled to Steve to turn around. - -“God Almighty, where did you find those?” he asked. - -While we were telling him how we had happened onto the two cartons that -afternoon, he kept shaking his head, and when we had finished, said -solemnly, “They’re beyond my apprehension.” The expression stuck and from -that time on we invoked it whenever we were confronted with an unexpected -problem. - -Early the following morning we stowed the jewels in the back seat of our -command car and set out for Munich. Halfway to Salzburg we encountered -Captain Posey, headed in the opposite direction. He was surprised to -see us, and still more surprised when we told him what we had in the -car. He was on his way to the mine. There were some things he wanted to -tell us about our next job—at Berchtesgaden—but if we would come to his -office the next day that would be time enough. He wasn’t going to stay -at the mine more than a couple of hours. He should be back in Munich -before midnight. He said there was one thing we could do when we reached -Salzburg—call on the Property Control Officer and arrange for clearance -on the removal of the Vienna Museum pictures to the Munich depot. This -was an important part of the plan which George had outlined, so we said -that we’d see what we could do. - -We had some difficulty finding the right office. There were two Military -Government Detachments in Salzburg—one for the city, and the other -for the region. They were on opposite sides of the river. We caught -Lieutenant Colonel Homer K. Heller, the Property Control Officer, as -he was leaving for lunch. I explained that it was our intention to -call for the paintings and tapestries on our way to Berchtesgaden the -following week. He said he could not authorize the removal; that we would -have to see Colonel W. B. Featherstone at the headquarters across the -river. If the colonel gave his O.K., it would be all right with him. He -didn’t think that the colonel would take kindly to the idea. This was a -surprise. Who would have the temerity to question the authority of Third -Army? Lamont was amused. He told me I could have the pleasure of tackling -Colonel Featherstone alone. - -It was after two o’clock before the colonel was free. Nothing doing on -the Vienna pictures. That would require an O.K. from Verona. Why Verona, -I asked? “General Clark’s headquarters,” was the answer. Didn’t I know -that the Fifth Army was taking over the area very shortly? Then the -colonel, in accents tinged with sarcasm, expressed his satisfaction at -finally meeting one of the Monuments officers of the Third Army. He had -heard such a lot about them and the wide territory they had covered. He -had been told that a group of them was working at the Alt Aussee mine, -but I was the first one he had laid eyes on. - -I gathered that he was mildly nettled by Third Army in general and by -me in particular. As a matter of fact, the colonel’s attitude about -the Vienna pictures was logical: why move them out of Austria? If, as -he supposed, they were to be returned to Vienna eventually, why take -them all the way to Munich? I had no answer to that and took refuge in -the old “I only work here” excuse. He found it rather droll that the -Navy should be mixed up in this high-class van and storage business. I -had too, once, but the novelty had worn off. I rejoined Lamont and the -jewels. I wondered what Captain Posey would have to say to all this. - -We reached Munich too late that afternoon to see Craig at the depot, so -we took the jewels with us to his quarters. I had not seen him since my -departure for Alt Aussee some weeks before. In the interim, there had -been a tightening up on billeting facilities. As a result he and Ham -Coulter were now sharing a single apartment. I was the only one adversely -affected by this arrangement. Craig no longer had a spare couch for -chance guests. - -When Lamont and I walked in, we found them talking with a newly arrived -naval lieutenant. He was Lane Faison, who had been around Harvard in -my day. In recent years he had been teaching at Williams and was at -present in OSS. After we had been there a little while, Lamont asked very -casually, “Would you boys care to see the Rothschild jewels?” - -Ham wanted to know what the hell he was talking about. “Well, we have two -boxes filled with them here in the hall,” Lamont said. - -For the second time we displayed the treasures. Craig’s enthusiasm was -tempered with concern for their safety. He was relieved when we said we -had come purposely to put them in one of the steel vaults at the depot. -We went with him to the Königsplatz forthwith and stowed them safely for -the night. - -Lamont and I continued on our way to Third Army Headquarters. Lincoln was -working late. When we walked in he looked up from his typewriter and said -“Hello” in a flat voice. Lincoln was in one of his uncommunicative moods. -We left him alone and busied ourselves with letters from home which -we found on Posey’s desk. Lincoln went on with his typing. Presently -he stopped and said, “George’s orders came through. He’s gone to the -Pacific.” - -“It ought to be interesting work,” said Lamont. - -“Oh, you knew about his orders?” asked Lincoln. - -“No,” said Lamont. - -That broke the mood. We had a lively session for the next hour. Lincoln -was always a reservoir of information, a lot of it in the realm of rumor, -but all of it fascinating. That evening he was unusually full of news. He -had a perfect audience in Lamont and me because we had been completely -out of touch with things while at the mine. - -After exhausting his stock of fact and fiction, he produced his latest -box of food from home. There were brandied peaches, tins of lobster and -caviar, several kinds of cheese, dried fruits and crackers. It was a -combination you’d never risk at home, if you were in your right mind. - -“You do very well for yourself,” I said when he had the refreshments -spread out on his desk. - -“My wife knows the enlisted men’s motto: ‘Nothing is too good for our -boys, and nothing is what they get.’” - -We finished the box and Lincoln showed us an article he had written on -Nazi sculpture. We were reading it when Captain Posey came in. He asked -if we had stopped in Salzburg to see Colonel Heller. I told him what had -happened there. If he was annoyed, he gave no sign of it. He rummaged -in his desk and brought out a list of instructions for us in connection -with the operation at Berchtesgaden. He suggested that we stop there on -the way back to Alt Aussee; it wouldn’t be very much out of our way. He -gave us the names of the officers we should see about billeting, and -so on. It would be well to have all these things settled in advance. -Then he gave us some special orders for Lieutenant Shrady, who was to be -transferred to Heidelberg, now that the evacuation of the mine was ending. - -Captain Posey said that I was to take over the Mercedes-Benz. It had been -obtained originally for the evacuation team. We were to take it with -us to Berchtesgaden. I could make good use of the car, transportation -facilities being what they were, but I didn’t relish the prospect of -taking it from Shrady. He had spent money of his own fixing it up and -looked on it as his personal property. I told Captain Posey how I felt. -He said he had a letter for me which would take care of the matter. It -was a letter directing me to deliver Lieutenant Shrady’s orders and to -appropriate the car. - -When we saw Faison at the depot the next morning, he asked if he might -drive back with us. He was joining Plaut and Rousseau at House 71 to -work with them on the investigation of Nazi art looting. I said we’d be -glad to have him. The three of us started off after early lunch. We were -looking forward to the Berchtesgaden detour. None of us had been there -during the Nazi regime and I, for one, was curious to see what changes -had taken place in the picturesque resort town since I had last seen it -fifteen years before. - -We took the Salzburg Autobahn past Chiemsee almost to Traunstein, and -then turned off to the southwest. This was the finest secondary road I -ever traveled. It led into the mountains and the scenery was worthy of -Switzerland. Thanks to perfectly banked turns, we made the ninety-mile -run in two hours. - -The little town was as peaceful and quiet as I remembered it. In fact it -was so quiet that Lamont and I had difficulty locating an Army outfit to -give us directions. We learned that the 44th AAA Brigade had just moved -in and that the last remnants of the famous 101st Airborne Division were -pulling out. There was no love lost between the two, as we found out -later. Consequently, when I asked an officer of the AAA Brigade where I -would find Major Anderson of the 101st Airborne, he informed me curtly -that that outfit was no longer at Berchtesgaden. Then I asked if he -knew where the Göring collection was. He didn’t seem to know what I was -talking about, so I rephrased my question, inquiring about the captured -pictures which had been on exhibition a short time ago. Yes, he knew -vaguely that there had been some kind of a show. He thought it had been -over in Unterstein, not in Berchtesgaden. Well, where was Unterstein? -He said it was about four kilometers to the south, on the road to the -Königssee. - -His directions weren’t too explicit, but eventually we found the little -back road which landed us in Unterstein ten minutes later. In a clearing -on the left side of the road stood the building we were looking for. -It was a low rambling structure of whitewashed stucco in the familiar -Bavarian farmhouse style. It had been a rest house for the Luftwaffe. -The center section, three stories high, had a gabled roof with widely -overhanging eaves. On either side were long wings two stories high, -similarly roofed. The casement windows were shuttered throughout. - -We found Major Harry Anderson on the entrance steps. He was a husky -fellow with red hair and a shy, boyish manner. He was not altogether -surprised to see us because George had stopped by on his last trip to -Munich and told him we’d be arriving before long. How soon could we start -to work on the collection? In four or five days’ time, we thought. Could -he make some preliminary arrangements for us? We would need billets for -three officers, that is, the two of us—and Lieutenant Kovalyak. No, there -would be four, we had forgotten to include the Negro lieutenant in -charge of the truck drivers. Then there would be twenty drivers. Could -we say definitely what day we’d arrive? Lamont and I made some rapid -calculations. It was a Tuesday. How about Friday evening? That was fine. -The sooner the better as far as the major was concerned. He was slated to -pull out the minute the job was done, so we couldn’t start too soon to -suit him. - -He asked if we’d care to take a preliminary look around but we declined. -It was getting late and we still had a hard three-hour drive ahead of us. -As we turned to go, Jim Plaut and Ted Rousseau came out of the building. -They had been expecting Faison but were surprised to find him with us. -Wouldn’t we all have dinner with them that night at House 71? They had -come over from Bad Aussee that afternoon, bringing Hofer with them. They -had been quizzing him about certain pictures in the collection and he had -wanted to refresh his memory by having a look at them. They pointed to -a stocky German dressed in gray tweeds who stood a little distance away -talking with a tall, angular woman. We recognized him as the man we had -seen pacing the garden at House 71 weeks before—the evening Lamont and I -first reported to George at the mine. That was his wife, they said. Would -we mind taking Hofer back with us? If we could manage that, they’d take -Faison with them. There were some urgent matters they’d like to talk over -with him in connection with their work. We agreed and Ted brought Hofer -to the car. - -As we left he called out, “Wiederschauen, liebe Mutti,” and kept waving -and throwing kisses to his tall wife. I was struck by the stoical -expression on her face. She watched us go but made no effort to return -his salutations. I wondered if she gave a damn. - -Hofer was a loquacious passenger. All the way to Bad Aussee he kept up a -line of incessant chatter, half in English, half in German, on all sorts -of subjects. He gesticulated constantly with both hands, notwithstanding -the fact that one of them was heavily bandaged. He explained that he had -scalded it. The bandage had been smeared with evil-smelling ointment -which had soaked through. As he gestured the air was filled with a -disagreeable odor of medication. Did we know Salzburg? Ah, such a lovely -city, so musical! Did we know Stokowski? He knew him well. “Then you’ll -probably be interested to know that he has just married one of the -Vanderbilt heiresses, a girl of nineteen,” I said. But I must be joking. -Was it really so? - -I was getting bored with this chatterbox when he suddenly began to talk -about Göring and his pictures. We asked him the obvious question: What -did Göring really like when it came to paintings? Well, he was fond of -Cranach. Yes, we knew that. And Rubens; he had greatly admired Rubens. -And many of the Dutch masters of the seventeenth century. But according -to Hofer it was he who had directed the Reichsmarschall’s taste. Then, -to my surprise, he mentioned Vermeer. Did we know about the Vermeer -which Göring had bought? After that he went into a lengthy account of -the purchase, leading up to it with an involved story of the secrecy -surrounding the transaction, which had many confusing details. When we -pulled up before House 71, Hofer was still going strong. Lamont and I -were worn out. - -Shrady departed the following morning in compliance with the orders I had -brought him. He left the Mercedes-Benz behind. If I could have foreseen -the trouble that car was going to cause us, nothing could have tempted me -to add it to our equipment. Even then Lamont eyed it with suspicion, but -we were both talked out of our misgivings by Steve, who rubbed his hands -with satisfaction at the prospect of the éclat it would lend our future -operations. - -With Shrady’s going, we fell heir to his duties. During our last three -days at the mine they complicated our lives considerably. There were -records to be put in order, reports to be finished, pay accounts to be -adjusted, ration books to be extended for the skeleton crew which would -remain at the mine. In addition, I had to see Colonel Davitt about -the reduction and reorganization of the guard, and make provision for -different billeting and messing facilities. - -In the midst of these preparations, Ted Rousseau telephoned from House -71. Were we planning to take Kress, the photographer, with us to -Berchtesgaden? We certainly were. Steve would sooner have parted with -his right eye. Well, they wanted to interrogate him before we left. How -long would they need him? A few days. I suggested they start right away. -We’d be needing him too. Steve was wild when he heard about it. I agreed -that it was a nuisance but that we’d have to oblige. The OSS boys came -for Kress that afternoon. Steve watched them, balefully, as they drove -off down the mountain. Then he resumed the work he had been doing on his -big Steyr truck. This was a cumbersome vehicle which he and Kress had -been putting in order. It had belonged originally to the _Einsatzstab -Rosenberg_ and was part of Kress’ photographic unit. He and Steve were -refitting it to serve our purposes in a similar capacity. It was a fine -idea, but so far they hadn’t been able to get it in running order. Steve -had had it painted. When he had nothing better to do, he tinkered with -the dead motor. Next to Kress, the truck was his most prized possession. - -I returned to Shrady’s old office where I found Lamont in conversation -with Dr. Hermann Michel. Michel was a shadowy figure who had been working -at the mine with Sieber and Eder throughout our stay. When Posey and -Lincoln Kirstein had arrived at Alt Aussee in May, he had identified -himself as one of the ringleaders of the Austrian resistance movement and -vociferously claimed the credit of saving the mine. Since then he had -been working in the mine office. Captain Posey had given him permission -to make a routine check of the books and archives stored there. He was -such a talkative fellow that we kept out of his way as much as possible. -And we didn’t like his habit of praising himself at the expense of -others. He was forever running to Plaut and Rousseau at House 71 with -written and oral reports, warning them to beware of this or that man in -the mine organization. - -Lamont looked decidedly harassed when I walked in. Michel was protesting -our demands for a complete set of the records. We were to leave them -in Colonel Davitt’s care when we closed the mine. Michel had taken the -opportunity to say a few unpleasant things about Sieber. We finally made -it clear to him that there would be no nonsense about the records, and -also that what we did about Sieber was our business. We finally packed -him off still protesting and shaking his head. - -The afternoon before our departure Lamont and I had to go over to St. -Agatha. The little village lay in the valley on the other side of the -Pötschen Pass. We were to verify the report that a small but important -group of paintings was stored in an old inn there. A fine Hubert Robert -_Landscape_, given to Hitler by Mussolini, was said to be among them. - -We went first to the Bürgermeister who had the key. He drove with us to -the inn. It was an attractive Gasthaus, built in the early eighteenth -century. The walls were frescoed and a wrought-iron sign hung over the -doorway. When we arrived the proprietress was washing clothes in the -arched passageway through the center of the building. - -She took us to a large corner room on the second floor. There were some -fifty pictures, all of them enormous and unframed. The Bürgermeister -helped us shift the unwieldy canvases about, so that we could -properly examine them. They were, for the most part, of indifferent -quality—sentimental landscapes by obscure German painters of the -nineteenth century. - -But we did find five that were fine: the mammoth landscape with classical -ruins by Hubert Robert, the eighteenth century French master—this was -the one Mussolini had given the Führer; an excellent panel by Pannini—it -too a landscape; a Van Dyck portrait; a large figure composition by Jan -Siberechts, the seventeenth century Flemish painter; and a painting by -Ribera, the seventeenth century Spanish artist. We set them aside and -said we’d return for them in a few days. - -We had hoped to leave for Berchtesgaden by midmorning the next day, but -we didn’t get off until three in the afternoon. At the last minute I -received word from Colonel Davitt’s office that the Mercedes-Benz was to -be left at the mine. I said that since we had no escort vehicle, it was -an indispensable part of our convoy. That being the case, the colonel’s -adjutant said we could take the car, but on condition that we return it -within twenty-four hours. I said I’d see what I could do about that. - -Steve fumed while I talked. When I hung up the receiver he said, “Don’t -be a damn fool. Once the car’s out of his area, the colonel hasn’t got a -thing to say about it. Let’s get going.” - -Sieber and Eder, together with a dozen of the gnomes, were waiting in -front of the mine building when we came down the stairs. Lamont was -already in the car. I gave final instructions to the captain of the -guard, said good-bys all around, and got in the car myself. Everybody -smiled and waved as we drove off. - -The evacuation had been a success. Ninety truckloads of paintings, -sculpture and furniture had been removed from the mine during the past -five weeks. Although it was by no means empty, the most important -treasures had been taken out. Third Army was withdrawing from the area. -From now on the mine would be the responsibility of General Clark’s -forces. - -We were a lengthy cavalcade. Lamont and I took the lead. Steve followed -in the Steyr truck, in running order at last. Behind him trailed five -trucks. We were to pick up eight more at Alt Aussee. It wasn’t going -to be easy to keep such a long convoy in line. If we could only stay -together until we got over the pass, the rest of the trip wouldn’t be too -difficult. - -We made it over the pass without mishap. From time to time Lamont looked -back to make sure the trucks were still following. He couldn’t count -them all, they were so strung out and the road was so winding. But we -had instructed the Negro lieutenant to give orders to his men to signal -the truck ahead in case of trouble, so we felt reasonably sure that -everything was in order. When we reached Fuschl See we stopped along the -lake shore to take count. One after another eight trucks pulled up. Five -were missing. Fifteen minutes passed and still no sign of the laggards. -Steve said not to worry, to give them another quarter of an hour. - -The blue waters of the lake were inviting. Schiller might have composed -the opening lines of _Wilhelm Tell_ on this very spot. “Es lächelt der -See, er ladet zum Bade.” Steve and Lamont decided to have a swim. I -dipped my hand in the water; it was icy. While they swam I kept an eye -out for the missing vehicles. Presently two officers drove by in a jeep. -I hailed them and ask if they had seen our trucks. They had—about ten -miles back two trucks had gone off the road. They thought there had -been two or three others at the scene of the accident. Lamont and Steve -dressed quickly. Steve said he’d go on with the eight trucks and meet us -in Salzburg. Then Lamont and I started back toward Bad Ischl. - -We hadn’t gone more than five miles when we came upon three of our -vehicles. We signaled them to pull over to the side of the road. At first -we couldn’t make out what the drivers were saying—all three talked at -once. We finally got the story. A driver had taken a curve too fast and -had lost control of his truck. The one behind had been following too -closely and had also crashed over the side. The first driver had got -pinned under his truck and they had had to amputate a finger before he -could be extricated. The lieutenant in charge had stayed behind to take -care of things. He had told them to try to catch up with the rest of -the convoy. By the time they had given us all the details, we realized -that they had been drinking. And we guessed that alcohol had also -had something to do with the truck going off the road. We would have -something to say to the lieutenant when he reached Berchtesgaden. He was -new on the job, having replaced Lieutenant Barboza only two days ago. We -were thankful that our precious packing materials had been put in two of -the trucks up ahead. - -Steve was waiting for us in the Mozart Platz when we reached Salzburg an -hour and a half later with our three trucks in tow. He told the drivers -where they could get chow. The three of us went across the river to the -Gablerbräu, the small hotel for transients, for our own supper. The -Berchtesgaden operation hadn’t begun auspiciously. - -Our troubles weren’t over. When we pulled into Berchtesgaden at eight -o’clock, we couldn’t find Major Anderson, so we had to fend for -ourselves. We managed to put the drivers up for the one night in a -barracks by the railway station before going on to Unterstein ourselves. -The lieutenant in charge of the drivers hadn’t turned up when we were -ready to go, so I left word that he was to report to me first thing the -next morning. While we three felt unhappy over the lack of billeting -arrangements for us, we were too tired to think much about it that night. -Bed was all that mattered. The officer on duty at the Unterstein rest -house said there was an empty room over the entrance hall which we could -use until we got permanent quarters. There were three bunks, so we moved -in. - -By contrast, everything started off beautifully the following morning. -Major Anderson appeared as we were finishing breakfast. - -His apologies were profuse and he did everything he could to make -amends. We declined his offer to obtain rooms for us at the elegant -Berchtesgadener Hof in town. We wanted to be on the spot. There was -plenty of room in the rest house where we would be working; and we could -mess with the half-dozen officers billeted in the adjacent barracks. The -major introduced us to Edward Peck, the sergeant, who had been working on -an inventory of the collection. - -Together we made a tour of the premises. The paintings alone filled forty -rooms. Four rooms and a wide corridor at the end of the ground-floor -hall were jammed with sculpture. Still another room was piled high with -tapestries. Rugs filled two rooms adjoining the one with the tapestries. -Two more rooms were given over to empty frames, hundreds of them. There -was the “Gold Room” where the objects of great intrinsic value were -kept under lock and key. And there were three more rooms crammed with -barrels, boxes and trunks full of porcelain. One very large room was a -sea of books and magazines, eleven thousand altogether. A small chapel on -the premises was overflowing with fine Italian Renaissance furniture. - -The preliminary survey was discouraging. Although the objects were -infinitely more accessible than those at the mine had been, this -advantage was largely offset by the fact that they were all loose and -would have to be packed individually. Even the porcelain in barrels would -have to be repacked. - -Our first request was for a work party of twelve men—GIs, not PWs. -We suggested to the young C.O., Major Paul Miller, that he call for -volunteers. If possible, we wanted men who might prefer this kind of job -to guard duty or other routine work. They could start in on the books -while we mapped out our plan of attack on the rest of the things. Steve -went off with Major Miller to select the crew, and Lamont and I settled -down to discuss other problems with Major Anderson and Sergeant Peck. - -It was the sergeant’s idea that the collection could be packed up one -room at a time. He had compiled his inventory with that thought in mind. -Unfortunately we couldn’t carry out the evacuation in that order. We -explained why his system wouldn’t work: paintings, for example, had to -be arranged according to size. Otherwise we couldn’t build loads that -would travel safely. Even if we could have packed the pictures as he -suggested—one room at a time—it would have meant the loss of valuable -truck space. We assured him that, in the long run, our plan was the -practical one. It did, however, involve considerable preliminary work. -The first job would be to assemble all of the pictures—and there were a -thousand of them—in a series of rooms on one floor of the building. As -the sergeant had not quite finished his lists, we agreed to devote our -energies to the books for the rest of the day. By morning he would have -his inventory completed. Then the pictures could be shifted. - -Lamont and I wanted to know more about the collection. How did it get to -Berchtesgaden in the first place? Major Anderson was the man who could -answer our questions. - -As the war ended, the French reached the town ahead of the Americans. -They had it to themselves for about three days and had raised hell -generally. Göring’s special train bearing the collection had reached -Berchtesgaden just ahead of the French. The collection, having been -removed from the Reichsmarschall’s place, Karinhall, outside Berlin, -was to have been stored in an enormous bunker by his hunting lodge up -the road. But there hadn’t been time. The men in charge of the train -got only a part of the things unloaded. Some of them were put in the -bunker, others in a villa near by. Most of the collection was left in the -nine cars of the train. The men had been more interested in unloading a -stock of champagne and whisky which had been brought along in two of the -compartments. - -When the French entered the town, the train was standing on a siding not -far from the bunker. They may have made off with a few of the things, but -there were no apparent depredations. They peppered it along one side with -machine-gun fire. However, the damage had been relatively slight. - -Then the French had cleared out and the train was, so to speak, dumped in -Major Anderson’s lap, since he was the Military Government Officer with -the 101st Airborne Division. Under his supervision, the collection had -been transferred from the train, from the bunker and from the villa, to -the rest house. Later he had been instrumental in having it set up as an -exhibition. The exhibition had been a great success—perhaps too great a -success. He meant that it had attracted so much attention that some of -the higher-ups began to worry about the security of the things. Finally -he had received orders that the show was to close and of course he had -complied at once. - -He said that General Arnold had come to see the exhibition the day after -that. We asked if he had let him in. Well, what did we think? But he had -turned down a three-star general who had come along after hearing that -General Arnold had been admitted. The general, he said, was hopping mad. - -The major’s most interesting experience in connection with the -collection was his visit with Frau Göring. He heard that some of the -best pictures were in her possession, so he took a run down to Zell am -See where she was staying in a Schloss belonging to a South American. -He found the castle; he found Emmy; and he found the pictures. There -were indeed some of the best pictures—fifteen priceless gems of the -fifteenth century Flemish school, from the celebrated Renders collection -of Brussels. Göring had bought the entire collection of about thirty -paintings. We knew that M. Renders was already pressing for the return -of his treasures, claiming that he had been forced to sell them to the -Reichsmarschall. But that was another story. - -Frau Göring wept bitterly when the major took the pictures, protesting -that they were her personal property and not that of her husband. On the -same visit he had recovered another painting in the collection. Frau -Göring’s nurse handed over a canvas measuring about thirty inches square. -She said Göring had given it to her the last time she saw him. As he -placed the package in her hands he had said, “Guard this carefully. It is -of great value. If you should ever be in need, you can sell it, and you -will not want for anything the rest of your life.” The package contained -Göring’s Vermeer. - -Major Anderson stayed for lunch. As we walked back from the mess, a -command car pulled up in front of the rest house. Bancel La Farge and a -man in civilian clothes climbed out. I hadn’t seen Bancel for two months. -He was a major now. The civilian with him was an old friend of mine, John -Walker, Chief Curator of the National Gallery at Washington and a special -adviser to the Roberts Commission. John had flown over to make a brief -inspection tour of MFA&A activities. Bancel was serving as his guide. -They were on their way to Salzburg and Alt Aussee. - -Major Anderson proposed a trip to the Eagle’s Nest, Hitler’s mountain -hide-out, suggesting that the visitors could look at the Göring pictures -that evening. Lamont and I said we had work to do, but we were easily -talked out of that. - -You could see the Eagle’s Nest from the rest house. It was perched on top -of the highest peak of the great mountain range which rose sharply from -the pine forests across the valley. We crossed to the western side and -began a steep ascent. About a thousand feet above the floor of the valley -we came to Obersalzberg, once a select community of houses belonging -to the most exalted members of the Nazi hierarchy. In addition to the -Berghof, Hitler’s massive chalet, it included a luxurious hotel—the -Platter Hof—SS barracks, and week-end “cottages” for Göring and Martin -Bormann. The British bombed Obersalzberg in April 1945. The place was now -in ruins. The Berghof was still standing but gutted by fire and stripped -of all removable ornamentation by souvenir hunters. - -We continued up the winding road carved from the solid rock, through -three tunnels, at length emerging onto a terraced turnaround, around, -five thousand feet above Berchtesgaden. The major told us that the road -had been built by slave labor. Three thousand men had worked on it for -almost three years. - -[Illustration: _Portrait of a Young Girl_ by Chardin (_left_) and _Young -Girl with Chinese Figure_ by Fragonard (_right_) were acquired by Göring -from the confiscated Rothschild Collection of Paris. The paintings have -been returned to France.] - -[Illustration: _Christ and the Adulteress_, the fraudulent Vermeer, for -which Göring exchanged 137 paintings of unquestioned authenticity.] - -[Illustration: _Portrait of the Artist’s Sister_ by Rembrandt. One of the -five Rembrandts in the Göring Collection.] - -The Eagle’s Nest was still four hundred feet above. From the turnaround -there were two means of access: an elevator and a footpath. The elevator -shaft, hewn out of the mountain itself, was another feat of engineering -skill. A broad archway of carved stone marked the entrance. Beside the -elevator stood a sign which read, “For Field Grade Officers Only”—that -is, majors and above. - -“A sentiment worthy of the builder,” Lamont observed as we took to the -footpath. - -On our steep climb we wondered what Steve would say to such -discrimination. We hadn’t long to wait. He made a trip to the Eagle’s -Nest a few days later. When stopped by the guard, he looked at him -defiantly and asked, “What do you take me for, a Nazi?” Steve rode up in -the elevator. - -The Eagle’s Nest was devoid of architectural distinction. Built of cut -stone, it resembled a small fort, two stories high. From the huge, -octagonal room on the second floor—a room forty feet across, with windows -on five sides—one could look eastward into Austria, southward to Italy. A -mile below lay the green valleys and blue lakes of Bavaria. They used to -say that every time Hitler opened a window a cloud blew in. The severity -of the furnishings matched the bleakness of the exterior. An enormous -conference table occupied the center of the room. Before the stone -fireplace stood a mammoth sofa and two chairs. A smaller room adjoined -the main octagon at a lower level. The heavy carpet was frayed along one -side. The caretaker, pointing to the damage, said that in his frequent -frenzies Hitler used to gnaw the carpet, a habit which had earned him -the nickname of “_Der Teppich-Beisser_,” the rug-biter. Considering the -labor expended on this mountain eyrie, the place had been little used. -The same caretaker told us that Hitler had never stayed there overnight. -Daytime conferences had been held there occasionally, but that was all. - -It was late when we got back to the rest house, so our guests postponed -their inspection of the Göring collection until the following morning. -That evening Lamont and I made a second and more thorough survey of the -rooms in which the paintings were stacked. We began with a room which -contained works of the Dutch, Flemish, German and French schools. The -inventory listed five Rembrandt portraits. One was the _Artist’s Sister_; -another was his son _Titus_; the third was his wife, _Saskia_; the fourth -was the portrait of a _Bearded Old Man_; and the fifth was the likeness -of a _Man with a Turban_. - -We examined the backs of the pictures for markings which might give us -clues to previous ownership. Two of the portraits—those of Saskia and of -the artist’s sister—had belonged to Katz, one of the best known Dutch -dealers. I had been surprised to learn in Paris that Katz, a Jew, had -done business with the Nazis. But I was also told that only through -acceding to their demands for pictures had he been able to obtain permits -for his relatives to leave Holland. According to the information I -received, he had succeeded thereby in smuggling twenty-seven members of -his family into Switzerland. A revealing commentary on the extent and -quality of his paintings. - -The portrait of Titus had been in the Van Pannwitz collection. Mme. -Catalina van Pannwitz, South American born, but a resident of the -Netherlands, I believe, had sold a large part of her collection to -Göring. Whether it had been a bona fide or a forced sale was said to be a -moot question. - -Another important Dutch private collection, that of Ten Cate at Almelo, -had “contributed” the _Man with a Turban_. And the _Bearded Old Man_ had -been bought from the Swiss dealer, Wendland, who had agents in Paris. He -had allegedly discovered the painting in Marseilles. - -These five pictures posed an interesting problem in restitution. To whom -should they be returned? Who were the rightful owners—as of the summer of -1945? - -At the time we were beginning our work on the Göring collection, definite -plans for the restitution of works of art were being formulated by the -American Military Government. They were an important part of the general -restitution program then being planned by the Reparations, Deliveries -and Restitution Division of the U. S. Group Control Council. Pending the -implementation of the program, the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives -Section of U. S. Forces, European Theater, was the technical custodian of -all art works eventually to be restituted. - -Bancel La Farge, who became Chief of the Section when SHAEF dissolved, -had outlined the plans to us on our way back from the Eagle’s Nest -that afternoon. There were two main categories of works of art slated -for prompt restitution to the overrun countries from which they had -been taken. The first included all art objects _easily identifiable as -loot_—the great Jewish collections and the property of other “enemies -of the state” which had been seized by the Nazis. The second embraced -all art works _not_ readily identifiable as loot, but for which some -compensation was known or believed to have been paid by the Nazis. - -The actual restitution was to be made on a wholesale scale. Works -of art were to be returned _en bloc_ to the claimant nations, _not_ -to individual claimants of those nations. To expedite this “mass -evacuation” country by country, properly qualified art representatives -would be invited to the American Occupied Zone, specifically to the -Central Collecting Point at Munich, where they could present their -claims. Once their claims were substantiated—either by documents in their -possession or by records at the Collecting Point—the representatives -would be responsible for the actual removal. - -We asked Bancel how the various representatives were to be selected. -He explained that several of the overrun countries had set up special -Fine Arts Commissions. The one in France was called the _Commission de -Récupération Artistique_. The one in Holland had an unpronounceable -name, so it was known simply as “C.G.R.”—the initials stood for the name -translated into French, _Commission de Récupération Générale_. And the -one in Belgium had such a long name that he couldn’t remember it offhand. -Czechoslovakia, Poland and Greece would probably establish similar -committees before long. Each commission would choose a representative -and submit his name to the MFA&A Section for approval. Once the names -were approved and the necessary military clearances obtained, the -representatives could enter the American Zone, proceed to Munich and -start to work. - -Bancel said that each representative would have to sign a receipt in -the name of his country before he could remove any works of art from -the Collecting Point. The receipt would release our government from all -further responsibility for the objects concerned—as of the time they left -the Collecting Point. Furthermore, it would contain a clause binding the -receiving nation to rectify any mistakes in restitution. For example, if -the Dutch representative inadvertently included a painting which later -turned out to be the property of a Belgian, then, by the provisions of -the receipt, Holland would be obligated to return that painting to -Belgium. The chief merit of this system of fine arts restitution lay -in the fact that it relieved American personnel of the heavy burden of -settling individual claims. From the point of view of our government, -this was an extremely important consideration because of the limited -number of men available for so formidable an undertaking. And from the -point of view of the receiving nations, the system had the advantage of -accelerating the recovery of their looted treasures. - -In the room where Lamont and I had seen the Rembrandts, we found a pair -of panels by Boucher, the great French master of the eighteenth century. -Each represented an ardent youth making amorous advances to a coy and -but half-protesting maiden in a rustic setting. They were appropriately -entitled _Seduction_ and were said to have been painted for the boudoir -of Madame de Pompadour. According to the inventory, the panels had been -bought from Wendland, the dealer of Paris and Lucerne. - -These slightly prurient canvases flanked one of the most beautiful -fifteenth century Flemish paintings I had ever seen, _The Mystic Marriage -of St. Catherine_ by Gerard David. The Madonna with the Child on her lap -was portrayed against a landscape background, St. Catherine kneeling at -her right, dressed in russet velvet. Round about were grouped five other -female saints, each richly gowned in a different color. It was not a -large composition, measuring only about twenty-five inches square, but -it possessed the dignity and monumentality of a great altarpiece. The -authenticity of its sentiment put to shame the facile virtuosity of the -two Bouchers which stood on either side. - -The second room we visited that evening contained an equally -miscellaneous assortment of pictures. Here the canvases were even more -varied in size. A _Dutch Interior_ by Pieter de Hooch, a _View of the -Piazza San Marco_ by Canaletto, and two Courbet landscapes were lined -up along one wall. The de Hooch, an exceptionally fine example of the -work of this seventeenth century master, was listed in the inventory as -having belonged to Baron Édouard de Rothschild of Paris. The Courbets -were something of a rarity, as Göring had few French paintings of the -nineteenth century. One of the landscapes, a winter scene, was an -important work, signed and dated 1869. The inventory did not indicate -from whom it had been acquired. In one corner stood a full-length -portrait of the Duke of Richmond by Van Dyck. Our list stated that it -had come from the Katz collection. Beside it was a brilliant landscape -by Rubens. There were perhaps ten other pictures in the room, among them -several nondescript panels which appeared to be by an artist of the -fifteenth century Florentine school, a portrait by the sixteenth century -German master, Bernhard Strigel, a “fête champêtre” by Lancret, and two -or three seascapes of the seventeenth century Dutch school. - -Lamont and I had been looking at this assemblage for some little time -before we noticed an unframed canvas standing on the washbasin by the -window. The upper edge of the picture leaned against the wall mirror at -an angle which made it difficult to get a good look at the composition -from where we stood. Closer inspection revealed the subject to be _Christ -and the Woman Taken in Adultery_. I studied it for a few minutes and was -still puzzled. Turning to Lamont I asked, “What do you make of this? I -can’t even place it as to school, let alone guess the artist.” - -“Unless I am very much mistaken,” he said slowly, “that is the famous -Göring ‘Vermeer.’” - -“You’re crazy,” I said. “Why, I could paint something which would look -more like a Vermeer than that.” - -We consulted the inventory. Lamont was right. A few lines below the -listing of the Rubens landscape—a picture I had just been admiring in -another part of the room—appeared the entry “Vermeer, Jan ... ‘The -Adulteress’ ... Canvas, 90 cm. × 96 cm.” The subject coincided with that -of the picture on the washbasin. The measurements were identical. - -I tried to visualize the picture properly framed, properly lighted and -hanging in a richly furnished room. But still I couldn’t conceive how -such trappings could blind one to the flat greens and blues, the lack -of subtlety in the modeling of the flesh tones, the absence of that -convincing rendering of the “total visual effect” which Vermeer had so -completely mastered. - -“Who attributed this painting to Vermeer?” I asked. - -“I don’t know,” said Lamont, “but it is related stylistically to the -‘Vermeer,’ in the Boymans Museum at Rotterdam, the _Christ at Emmaus_.” - -So this was the painting Hofer was talking about; this was the painting -Göring had given the nurse. One of the notorious Van Meegeren fakes. - -Lamont’s reference to the Boymans’ “Vermeer” called to mind the great -furor in the art world nearly a decade ago when that picture had turned -up in the art market. - -Dr. Bredius, the famous connoisseur of Dutch painting, discovered the -picture in Paris in 1936. He was convinced that it was a hitherto unknown -work by Vermeer, the rarest of all Dutch masters. The subject matter was -of special interest to Dr. Bredius, for the _only_ other Vermeer which -dealt with a religious theme was the one in the National Gallery at -Edinburgh. - -The past history of the picture was as reassuring as that of many another -accepted “old master.” Dr. Bredius learned that it had belonged to a -Dutch family. One of the daughters had married a Frenchman in the middle -eighties. The picture had been a wedding present and she had taken it -with her to Paris. But their house had been too small for such a large -painting—it was four feet high and nearly square—so the canvas had been -relegated to the attic. According to the story, they hadn’t known that it -was particularly valuable or they might have sold it. In any case, the -picture remained in the attic until the couple died. It had come to light -again when the house was being dismantled. - -Through Dr. Bredius, the Boymans Museum had become interested in the -picture. Other experts were called in. A few questioned it, but the -majority accepted it as a Vermeer. In 1937, the directors of the Boymans -Museum purchased the _Christ at Emmaus_ for the staggering price of three -hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars. - -Unknown to the outside world, several more Vermeers were “discovered” -during the war years. All were of religious subjects. One was bought -at a fantastic price by Van Beuningen, the great private collector -of Rotterdam; another by the Nazi-controlled Dutch Government for an -exorbitant sum; and a third by Hermann Göring. Though the Reichsmarschall -did not pay cash for his Vermeer, the price was high; he traded one -hundred and thirty-seven pictures from his collection. According to -Hofer, his adviser and agent, the paintings he gave in exchange were all -of high quality. - -The final chapter in the story of these newly found Vermeers is one of -the most interesting in the annals of the art world. At the close of the -war, Dr. van Gelder, the director of the Mauritshuis—the museum at The -Hague—and other Dutch art authorities began an official investigation. It -was curious that so many lost Vermeers had come to light in such a short -space of time. It was recalled that in 1942 an artist named Van Meegeren -had delivered a million guilders to a Dutch bank for credit to his -account. The money was in thousand-guilder notes, which the Germans had -ordered withdrawn from circulation at that time. The artist was not known -to be a man of means and his mediocre talents as a painter could not have -enabled him to amass such a fortune. - -Van Meegeren was questioned and finally admitted that he had painted -the _Christ at Emmaus_ and the other lately discovered “Vermeers.” Even -after he had made a full confession, there were certain Dutch critics -who doubted the truth of his statements. This nettled Van Meegeren, and -he promptly offered to demonstrate his prowess. His choice of a subject -might have been symbolic: Jesus Confounding the Doctors. It took him -two months to finish the picture. The work was done in the presence of -several witnesses. He painted entirely from memory, using no models. - -In the course of the demonstration, he explained the ingenious methods -he had used to defraud the experts. In the first place his compositions -were original but painted _in the style_ of Vermeer. In the second, he -used old canvas and only the pigments known to the Dutch masters of the -seventeenth century. It had not been difficult to pick up at auctions -old paintings of little value. It was not always necessary to remove the -existing pictures. He frequently adapted portions of them to his own -compositions, or, conversely, rearranged his to take advantage of part of -an old picture. He was scrupulously careful to avoid modern zinc white -and used only lead white which had been employed by the artists of the -seventeenth century. He took equal precautions with his other colors, -using ground lapis lazuli and cochineal for his blues and reds. He had -obtained these, at great expense, from abroad. - -At the time I was evacuating the Göring pictures, the Dutch government -was completing its investigation of Van Meegeren’s activities. -Subsequently, the Ministry of Education, Arts and Sciences publicly -announced its findings, confirming the fact that Henrik van Meegeren was -the author of the celebrated picture in the Boymans Museum and also of -“other forgeries done so marvelously that the best art experts pronounced -them genuine.” - -Bancel La Farge and John Walker returned the following morning. Although -it was Sunday, our crew of GIs had reported for work at seven-thirty and, -under Steve’s supervision, continued to pack books. Some eight thousand -volumes remained to be placed in cases before they could be loaded onto -the trucks. While this work was in progress Lamont and I made a tour -of the pictures with our guests. We looked again at the rooms we had -visited the night before, singling out the paintings we thought would be -of greatest interest to them, such as the best of the Dutch and Flemish -masters, the Cranachs, the eighteenth century French pictures and the -finest sculptures. We concluded the tour at noon. Our visitors had to get -started on their way to the mine at Alt Aussee. - -After lunch Lamont joined the crew at work on the books, while I -went in search of Sergeant Peck. We had explained to him that all of -the paintings would have to be numbered before we could prepare them -for loading. The sergeant had agreed, but I was not certain that he -altogether understood why we were so insistent on this point. I found -Peck in his room at the end of the south wing of the rest house. As -usual, he was working on the inventory. He was a serious, scholarly -fellow. Before entering the Army, he had been an art teacher at an -Ohio college, so his present assignment was very much to his liking. -He had done a remarkably fine job on the inventory. It was a detailed -seventy-page document giving the title of each picture, the name of the -artist, the dimensions of the canvas and, where known, the name of the -collection from which it had been acquired. - -I told him that we hoped to get started on the pictures the next morning. -We would arrange them in rooms on the second floor of the center section -of the building. Those rooms were the ones most accessible to the door -leading to our loading platform. We would want him to be responsible for -checking off each picture as it was carried onto the truck. Since there -were more than a thousand paintings in the inventory, there was only one -practical way this checking could be done: by going through all the rooms -and numbering each picture, setting down the corresponding number on the -correct entry in the inventory. - -I asked if he could spare the time to help me with the numbering that -afternoon. He agreed; so, armed with the inventory and some chalk, we -began with the rooms on the second floor. By midafternoon we had finished -marking two hundred pictures. Lamont could start with these the next -forenoon. They would keep him busy until we had numbered an additional -batch. - -At three Steve and I drove over to Brigade Headquarters to make -arrangements for escort vehicles. We expected to have our first convoy -ready to leave for Munich the following afternoon. It was only a -ninety-mile run, Autobahn all the way, so two jeeps would suffice. - -The 44th AAA Brigade was established in General Keitel’s old -headquarters, about two miles northwest of Berchtesgaden. With its -smooth gravel driveways and well-tended lawns, the place had the air -of a luxurious country club. The administrative offices were located -in an L-shaped building, a modern adaptation of the familiar Bavarian -provincial style. The surrounding buildings—barracks and small houses—had -been designed in the same style. - -We were received by Captain Putman, the Chief of Staff’s adjutant, a -brisk young man, who promised to provide us with the necessary escort -vehicles. - -“Cocky fellow, wasn’t he?” said Steve as we left the office. - -“Yes, but I have a feeling we’ll get our jeeps on schedule,” I said. - -My hunch was right. Only once during the entire Berchtesgaden operation -did the escort vehicles fail to report for duty at the appointed hour. -That one time was when Captain Putman had a day off. - -By noon the next day our first convoy of four trucks was ready for the -road. Two of the trucks were filled with books, twenty-seven cases of -them. The other two contained twenty-five cases, but not cases of books: -four were filled with glassware (308 pieces); seven contained porcelain -(1135 pieces); eight contained gold and silver plate (415 pieces); and -the remaining six were packed with rugs. These were from Karinhall, near -Berlin, the largest of Göring’s seven households. - -As soon as we had dispatched the convoy, Lamont and four members of the -work party resumed the sorting and stacking of the numbered paintings. -Sergeant Peck and I, with two helpers to shift the larger canvases, -proceeded with the numbering. Steve took off for Alt Aussee to pick up -Kress, the photographer, and his paraphernalia. - -That night Lamont decided we should improve our quarters. This involved -moving from the room we occupied at the front of the building to a much -larger one at the back. The new room had several advantages which the old -one lacked. It had been the reading room of the rest house in the days of -the Luftwaffe occupancy and was attractively paneled in natural oak with -built-in bookshelves. It was thirty feet long and fifteen wide, nearly -twice the size of our former room, and opened onto a broad porch. There -were French doors and two large windows which afforded a spectacular view -of the mountain range to the east. The Eagle’s Nest crowned the highest -of the peaks. At one end of the room was an alcove, with a built-in desk -and couch. With a little fixing up, it could be turned into a comfortable -sitting room. - -Before we could transfer our belongings to this spacious apartment, we -had to clear out a few of the Reichsmarschall’s—half a dozen pieces of -sculpture and three large altarpieces. The outstanding piece of sculpture -was a life-size statue of the Magdalene which Göring had acquired from -the Louvre. Similarly, the most important of the three altarpieces -was a big triptych which also had come from the Louvre. Göring did -not remove these objects by force. He obtained them by exchange after -prolonged negotiations with the officials of the museum. According to -the information given me, both parties were well pleased with the trade. -As I recall, the Louvre received six objects from the Reichsmarschall’s -collection in return for the triptych and the statue. I was told that -one of the six pieces was a painting by Coypel, the eighteenth century -French artist, which had belonged to one of the Paris Rothschilds. It was -because they were of German workmanship that Göring particularly coveted -the pieces which he obtained from the Louvre. It is presumed that this -did not prejudice the Louvre in their favor. - -The statue, portraying the Magdalene clothed only in her long blonde -tresses, was known as “la belle allemande,” the beautiful German. It -was an exceptionally fine example, in polychromed wood, of the work of -Gregor Erhardt, a Swabian sculptor of the first quarter of the sixteenth -century. I fancied that Göring detected a resemblance between the statue -and his wife. Lamont and I carried the statue down to the first floor of -the rest house and placed it at the foot of the stairs. - -It was one of the last objects we packed for shipment and, during our -stay at Berchtesgaden, I had the uncomfortable feeling that I had caught -Frau Göring on her way to the bath. I was not the only one with that -idea. One evening I found the GI guard draping a raincoat about the -Magdalene’s shoulders. I had given strict orders that the guards were to -touch nothing in the collection, so I stopped to have a word with him on -the subject. He said with a sheepish look, “I didn’t mean to break the -rules, sir, but I thought Emmy looked cold.” - -The altarpiece which Göring acquired from the Louvre was a sumptuous -affair consisting of three panels painted with nearly life-size figures -against a gold background. It was by the Master of the Holy Kinship, an -artist of the Cologne School of the fifteenth century. The large center -panel represented the _Presentation in the Temple_; the right-hand panel, -the _Adoration of the Magi_; the left-hand panel, _Christ Appearing to -Mary_. During its recent peregrinations the central panel had cracked -from top to bottom. But fortunately the cleavage, which ran through the -center of the middle panel, fell in an area devoid of figures. An adroit -restorer could easily repair the damage. We shifted the altarpiece to an -adjoining room. - -The two remaining altarpieces were works of the fifteenth century French -school. One represented the _Crucifixion_; the other, the _Passion of -Christ_. The _Crucifixion_ had belonged to the Paris dealer Seligmann, -whose collection had been confiscated by the Nazis. The inventory did -not show the name of the former owner of the other panel. A highly -imaginative composition with nocturnal illumination, it was attributed to -the rare French master, Jean Bellegambe. As we carried the altarpieces -into the room in which we had placed the one from the Louvre, I remarked -to Lamont that for a godless fellow Göring seemed to have had a nice -taste for religious subjects. The pieces of sculpture, which we added to -the collection in the lower hallway, were also of devotional character: -two Gothic statues of St. George and the Dragon, one of St. Barbara, and -two of the Madonna and Child. - -We brought three large wardrobes from our old room, placed two of them -at right angles to the walls to form a partition, and set the third in a -corner of the new room. The beds came next. In another hour we had the -furniture arranged to our satisfaction. By the time we had added a silver -lamp, borrowed temporarily from the Göring collection, and tacked up a -few of our photographs, the place looked as though we had been living -there for weeks. - -Without Steve the loading went more slowly, but we managed to finish -three trucks by two o’clock the next day. The driver of one of the -escort jeeps had brought us a message from Munich that it would simplify -the work at the Central Collecting Point if we dispatched the trucks -in groups of three or four instead of waiting until we had six loaded. -At the Alt Aussee mine we hadn’t been able to work on such a schedule -because we lacked sufficient escort vehicles. We didn’t have that problem -at Berchtesgaden because the shorter distance made possible a one day -turnaround. The jeeps could easily make the round trip in half a day. -Accordingly, we sent off our second convoy that afternoon. The trucks -contained the rest of the books—forty-three cases in all—sixty-five -paintings and fifteen of the larger pieces of sculpture. - -In anticipation of Kress’ arrival, we spent the next morning assembling -all the paintings that appeared to have suffered recent damage of any -kind. His first job would be to make a photographic record which we -would include in our final report on the evacuation of the collection. -We found thirty-four pictures in this category. Only two had sustained -serious injury. These were the side panels of a large triptych by the -sixteenth century Italian artist, Raffaellino del Garbo. They had been -badly splintered by machine-gun fire while the collection was still -aboard the special train which had brought it to Berchtesgaden. Three -other panels bore the marks of stray bullets, but the harm done was -relatively slight. In general, the damage consisted of minor nicks -and scratches and water spots. Considering the hazards to which the -collection had been exposed, the pictures had come through remarkably -well. I was reminded of what George Stout had said, “There’s a lot of -nonsense talked about the fragility of the ‘old masters.’ By and large, -they are a hardy lot. Otherwise they wouldn’t have lasted this long.” - -We had worked our crew all day Sunday, so we told them to knock off -as soon as we had finished selecting and segregating the damaged -pictures. With the afternoon to ourselves, we turned our attention to -the miscellaneous assortment of objects in the “Gold Room.” This was -the name given the small room on the ground floor in which Sergeant -Peck had stored the things of great intrinsic value. There were -seventy-five pieces in all: gold chalices studded with precious stones; -silver tankards; reliquaries of gold and enamel work; boxes of jade and -malachite; candelabra, clocks and lamps of marble and gold; precious -plaques of carved ivory; and sets of gold table ornaments. They presented -a specialized packing job which Lamont and I could handle better alone -than with inexperienced helpers. - -Our first problem was to find some small packing cases. We searched -the rest house without success. Then Lamont remembered seeing a pile -of individual wooden file cabinets in the little chapel where most of -the furniture was stored. These were admirably suited to our purpose. -They were rectangular boxes about six feet long and two feet high. Each -was divided into three compartments. There were thirty of them—more -than enough for the job. We had a supply of flannel cloths which we had -borrowed from a packing firm in Munich. After wrapping each piece, we -placed it in one of the compartments of the file cabinet. We stuffed the -compartments with excelsior so that the objects could not move about. - -A few of the items were equipped with special leather cases. Among these -were two swords: one, with a beautifully etched blade of Toledo steel, -had been presented to Göring by the Spanish air force; the other, with -a jewel-studded gold handle, had been a gift from Mussolini. There was -also a gold baton encrusted with precious stones, a present from the -Reichsmarschall’s own air force. - -Of all these objects, perhaps twenty were of modern workmanship. In -contrast to the older things, they were ornate without being beautiful. -Ugliest of the lot was a standing lamp. The stalk, eight inches in -diameter, was a shaft of beaten gold. The shade, with a filigree design, -was also of gold, as were the pull cords. Rivaling it in costly vulgarity -was a set of gold table ornaments. The large centerpiece consisted of -an elliptical framework. At each end and in the center of the two sides -stood Egyptian maidens, fashioned of gold, four feet high. The German -slang word for such stuff is “kitsch.” I think the closest English -equivalent is “corny.” - -Toward the end of the afternoon we were waited on by a delegation of -three officers from the 101st Airborne Division. They had come to inquire -if we would consider turning over to them the gold sword which Mussolini -had given to Göring. They wanted it as a trophy for a club of 101st -Airborne officers which they were organizing. They planned to set up a -clubroom when they got back home and have annual reunions. The sword, -they said, would be such an appropriate souvenir. I told them that I had -been directed to ship everything to Munich and did not have authority to -make any other disposition of objects in the collection. But, since the -sword could not be regarded as a “cultural object”—a fact which I called -to their attention—I suggested that they take the matter up with Third -Army Headquarters in Munich. I refrained from informing them that, for -all of me, they could have their pick of the modern objects in the “Gold -Room.” - -We made an interesting discovery that afternoon. Rummaging in a closet -off the “Gold Room” we found a stack of photograph albums. At the bottom -of the heap lay an enormous portfolio. It contained architect’s drawings -for the proposed expansion of Karinhall. The estate, greatly enlarged, -was to have become a public museum. We had heard that Göring intended -to present his art collection to the Reich on his sixtieth birthday. -Here was concrete proof of those intentions. Each drawing bore the date -“January 1945.” - -Steve returned in triumph at noon the next day. With him in the command -car was Kress, looking more timid than ever. Steve said that Kress had -had a bad time after we left Alt Aussee; the boys at House 71 had clapped -him in jail and left him there for two days before interrogating him. -Steve had been “burned up” about it and had given them a piece of his -mind. He said contemptuously that he had known all along they didn’t have -anything on Kress. But he was content to let bygones be bygones. Steve -had his man Friday back again. - -He pointed happily to the six-by-six which had pulled up behind the -command car. All of Kress’ photographic equipment was packed up inside -it. There was a tremendous lot of stuff: three large cameras, a metal -table for drying prints, reflectors, a sink, pipes of various sizes, -boxes of film and paper, and a couple of large cabinets. Steve planned to -get everything installed at once. Kress was to sleep in one of the rooms -of the rest house. An adjoining room was to be set up as a darkroom. - -We showed Steve our new quarters and suggested that Kress take over our -old room. The one next door would make a good darkroom. I asked Steve how -he was going to get all the stuff installed. He’d have to have a plumber. -That didn’t bother Steve. He asked me to tell the mess sergeant that -Kress was to have his meals with the civilian help in the kitchen. He’d -take care of everything else. Steve was as good as his word. He found a -plumber and by the end of the day Kress was ready to start work. - -Notwithstanding these interruptions, Lamont and I managed to load and -dispatch a convoy of three trucks. This third convoy contained two -hundred paintings, thirty tapestries, fifteen more pieces of large -sculpture and a dozen pieces of Italian Renaissance furniture. - -At odd moments during our first days at Berchtesgaden, we had worried -about the sculpture. In the first three convoys we had disposed of only -thirty of the two hundred and fifty pieces. Most of those remaining were -just under life size. We had no materials with which to build crates. -And even if we had had the lumber, the labor of building them would have -greatly delayed the evacuation. That evening we found the solution of -the problem. The three of us were standing on the open porch outside our -room after supper. Two of the trucks were parked by the loading platform -directly below. Why not make a checkerboard pattern of ropes, strung -waist high across the truck bed? The floor of the truck could be padded -with excelsior. We could set a statue in each of the squares. The ropes -would hold each piece in place. If we stuffed quantities of excelsior -between the statues, they wouldn’t rub. Perhaps it was a crazy idea. On -the other hand, it might work. - -The following morning Steve and two of the men prepared the truck while -Lamont and I selected the statues for the trial load. We chose thirty of -the largest pieces. We figured on seven or eight rows, with four statues -in each row. Kress set up his camera on the porch and photographed the -progress of the operation. One by one the long row of madonnas, saints -and angels was set in place. We hadn’t been far off in our calculations. -There were twenty-nine in all. The truck looked like a tumbrel of the -French Revolution filled with victims for the guillotine. It was a new -technique in the packing of sculpture. Steve said we’d have to send -George Stout a photograph. “And we’ll have to send for more excelsior, -too,” Lamont said. He was quite right. We had used up the last shred. - -That afternoon Steve combed the countryside for a fresh supply of -excelsior, returning just before supper with three new bales. In the -meantime, Lamont went over, with Kress, the paintings to be photographed. -Sergeant Peck and I completed numbering the last of the pictures. - -The next day we loaded three more trucks. With Steve on hand to crack the -whip over the men, the loading went fast, so fast in fact that Sergeant -Peck had a hard time checking off the paintings as they were hoisted onto -the trucks. We packed four hundred pictures, the cases containing the -gold and silver objects which Lamont and I had finished the day before, -and another dozen pieces of furniture. The convoy—our fourth—got off in -the early afternoon. We placed a special guard on the truck with the -sculpture to make sure that the driver didn’t smoke on the way. - -We finished one more truck and stopped for a cigarette. It was a hot day -and we didn’t feel like doing any more work. Steve had gone up to the -darkroom to see Kress. Lamont said, “Let’s go up to Munich.” - -“That suits me, but what excuse have we got?” I asked. - -“If we must have an excuse, I can think of at least four,” he said -thoughtfully. “We’re out of cigarettes and candy. We ought to be on hand -when they unpack the sculpture at the Collecting Point. We’ve worked for -a week without taking a day off. And perhaps there’ll be some mail for us -at Posey’s office.” - -“What about the little brown bear? Do you think he’ll mind our taking -off?” I asked. This was Lamont’s name for Steve, but it was never used -when he was within earshot. - -“Steve’s had his trip for this week,” said Lamont, meaning Steve’s trip -to Alt Aussee. - -Sergeant Peck, who had overheard part of our conversation, asked if he -might join us. We told him to be ready in ten minutes and went off to -notify Steve of our plans and to pack up our musette bags. Steve was -so busy helping Kress with his developing that he scarcely paid any -attention to us. After leaving him a final injunction to have at least -three trucks loaded before we got back the next evening, we called for -the command car. The driver, a restless redhead named Freedberg, who -hated the monotonous routine at Berchtesgaden, was delighted with the -idea of going to Munich. Sergeant Peck appeared and we set off. - -We chose the shorter road through the mountains and overtook the convoy -on the Autobahn, halfway to Munich. The front escort jeep was holding -the speed down to thirty-five miles an hour, in accordance with my -instructions. The driver waved envyingly as we passed them doing fifty. -Twenty miles from Munich, Freedberg turned west off the Autobahn and took -the back road from Bad Tölz, a short cut which brought us directly to -Third Army Headquarters. - -We arrived at Captain Posey’s office just as Lincoln Kirstein was leaving -for chow. He told us that the captain had gone to Pilsen the middle of -the week but was due back that evening. “There’s quite a lot of mail for -both of you,” Lincoln said. He handed us each a thick batch of letters. -It was the first mail I had received from home in six weeks. There were -forty-two letters! - -“I told you there’d be mail for us,” said Lamont with a satisfied smile. - -We had supper with Craig Smyth and Ham Coulter at the Detachment that -evening. Craig said that the convoy had not arrived before he left the -Collecting Point, but two of his German workmen were to be on duty the -next morning, even though it was Sunday. We arranged to meet him at his -office and supervise the unloading. Lincoln had said that Posey would not -be back before ten, so we spent the evening with Craig and Ham at their -apartment. - -Just before we returned to Third Army Headquarters, Ham gave us a small -paper-bound volume. It was entitled _The Ludwigs of Bavaria_. The author -was Henry Channon. - -“This is one of the most fascinating books I’ve ever read,” Ham said. -“You might take it along with you.” - -I thanked him, and stuck it in my musette bag. Before our operations -in Bavaria ended two months later, that little book had come to mean -a great deal to the members of the evacuation team. We called it our -“Bavarian bible.” So alluring were Channon’s descriptions of the -“Seven Wonders of Bavaria” that whenever we had a free day—or even -a few hours to ourselves—we made excursions to these architectural -fantasies: the swirling, baroque churches of Wies, Weltenburg, -Ottobeuren and Vierzehnheiligen; the Amalienburg and the palace of -Herrenchiemsee. The Residenz at Würzburg, which we had seen, was one -of the seven. Unofficially we added an eighth to the list: Schloss -Linderhof, Ludwig II’s opulent little palace near Oberammergau—ornate and -vulgar, yet fascinating in its lonely mountain setting. But these were -extracurricular activities, falling outside the orbit of our official -work. - -We found Captain Posey at his office when we got there a few minutes -before ten that evening. He asked us for a complete account of our -operations at Berchtesgaden. We reported that we had sent a total of -fourteen truckloads up to Munich the first week; that we had cleaned -out half the pictures, but that we had just begun on the sculpture. We -estimated that it would take us another ten days to finish; we would -probably fill seventeen or eighteen more trucks. - -We asked him what plans he would have for us when we completed the job. -He said he might send us to the Castle of Neuschwanstein. The place -was full of things looted from Paris. In fact, it was one of the major -repositories of the _Einsatzstab Rosenberg_. The French were clamoring to -have it evacuated. Then there was another big repository in a Carthusian -monastery at Buxheim. That too contained loot from Paris. Perhaps we -could take a run down to both places and size up the jobs after we had -finished with the Göring things. The captain was tired after his long -trip, so we didn’t go into details about either of the two prospective -assignments. He offered us a billet for the night and the three of us -turned in shortly after eleven. It was none too soon for me: I still had -forty-two unopened letters from home in the pocket of my jacket. - -When we arrived at the Collecting Point the next morning, the two German -workmen who had been with me at Hohenfurth were starting to unpack the -truck with the sculpture. Lamont and I examined each statue as it was -lifted from its nest of excelsior. All twenty-nine had come through -without a scratch. Our experiment was a success. We would be able to -use the same technique with the rest of the sculpture. I instructed the -workmen to leave all of the excelsior in the truck, as we had none to -spare. - -I persuaded Craig to drive back to Berchtesgaden with us for the -night. He looked tired and I thought the change would do him good. His -responsibilities at the Collecting Point—the “Bau,” as we called it (our -abbreviation for Verwaltungsbau)—were heavy; and he never took a day off. - -On the return trip he told us his latest troubles. Only three days ago a -small bomb had exploded in the basement of the “Bau.” It had blown one -of the young German workmen to bits. Craig gave all the grisly details, -which included discovering one of the poor fellow’s arms in a heap of -debris fifty feet from the scene of the explosion. The tragedy had had -one beneficial result. For weeks Craig had been harping on the subject of -additional guards for the Collecting Point. His words had fallen on deaf -ears—until the bomb episode. He said that a general and three colonels -arrived at the building within half an hour. Since then everyone had -been so “security-conscious” that he had had no further difficulty in -obtaining the desired number of guards. The Bomb Disposal Unit inspected -the premises and some pointed comments were made about the thoroughness -of the original survey. - -In our absence Steve had loaded three trucks. As a reward for his -labors, I suggested that he take Craig up to the Eagle’s Nest the -following morning. While they were gone, Lamont and I finished three -more loads. We had the convoy of six lined up by noon. Craig returned -to Munich in one of the escort jeeps. This fifth convoy contained -one hundred and sixty-seven paintings, one hundred and six pieces -of sculpture, twenty-five tapestries, sixty-eight cases filled with -bibelots, and fifty-three pieces of furniture. It was our largest convoy -out of Berchtesgaden thus far. - -It was also the first one to break down. Late in the afternoon, the rear -escort jeep arrived at the rest house with word that two of the trucks -had broken down fifteen miles out of Berchtesgaden. Steve and I drove -to Berchtesgaden to arrange to have them towed in for reloading. I also -wanted to do a little investigating. There could be little excuse for -breakdowns on the Munich road if the trucks had been in good mechanical -condition when they started out. - -On the way into town, Steve said, “Tom, I think I know what caused the -trouble. I didn’t think of it till just now. But the other day on the -road back from Alt Aussee, two six-by-sixes passed me at a hell of a -clip. I thought I recognized the drivers as two of ours.” - -I questioned the lieutenant in charge of the drivers. He professed -ignorance of any unauthorized junkets back to Alt Aussee. - -“I am going to have a word with Tiny,” said Steve as we left the -lieutenant’s room. Tiny was the head mechanic and the only one of the -entire crew who was always on the job. Steve wanted to talk to him alone, -so I waited in the car. - -A few minutes later he came back with a satisfied grin on his face. “I -got the whole story,” he said. “The drivers have been racing back and -forth to Alt Aussee all the time we’ve been here. They were crazy about -it up at the mine. Tiny says they hate it here at Berchtesgaden.” - -“Well, we’ll fix that,” I said. I went back to see the lieutenant. “How -many drivers have you got and how many trucks?” I asked. - -“Sixteen drivers and thirteen trucks,” he said. - -“Send eight of the drivers and five of the trucks up to Munich first -thing in the morning and have them report to the trucking company. We can -finish the job here without them.” - -Steve always sang when he was in a particularly happy frame of mind. That -evening, on the way back to the rest house, he was in exceptionally good -voice. - -Five days later we completed the evacuation of the Göring collection. -The last two convoys, of four and seven trucks respectively, contained -the larger pictures, one hundred and seventy-seven of them; sixty -pieces of sculpture, twenty miscellaneous cases, sixty-seven pieces -of furniture and two hundred empty picture frames. We had heavy rain -that last week and the mud was ankle-deep around the loading platform. -Although it was early August, the nights were cold and the rest house, -emptied of its treasures, was a cheerless place. We were glad to see -the last of the trucks pull out of the drive. It had been a strenuous -operation—thirty-one truckloads in thirteen days. In the early afternoon -we would collect our personal belongings and return to Munich. - - - - -(8) - -_LOOTERS’ CASTLE: SCHLOSS NEUSCHWANSTEIN_ - - -A telephone call from Brigade Headquarters changed our plans. It was -Major Luther Miller of G-2. He had just made an inspection of a house -belonging to one of Göring’s henchmen and there was a lot of “art stuff” -in it. He had reported the find to Third Army Headquarters and Captain -Posey had told him to get in touch with me. Could I go up to the house -with him that afternoon? - -Major Miller picked me up after lunch. He was a handsome fellow, tall -and sparely built. He had an easy, pleasant manner. As we drove along -he gave me further details about the house to which we were going. It -had been occupied until the day before by Fritz Görnnert and his wife. -Görnnert had been the social secretary and close confidant of Göring. The -Görnnerts had been living on the second and third floors. They shared the -house with a man named Angerer, who had the first floor. Both Görnnert -and Angerer had been apprehended and were now in jail. Major Miller had -found a suspiciously large number of tapestries and other art objects on -the premises. He thought they might be loot. - -The house was an unpretentious villa hidden among pine trees high up -in the hills above the town. The place was under guard. On the ground -floor we examined the contents of a small store-room. There were several -cases bearing Angerer’s name and three or four large crates containing -Italian furniture. A similar store-room on the second floor contained a -dozen tapestries, a pile of Oriental rugs, a large collection of church -vestments and nearly a hundred rare textiles mounted on cardboard. I -noticed that the tapestries, vestments and textiles were individually -tagged and that the markings were in French. - -Concealed beneath the tapestries were ten cases, each one about two feet -square and a foot high. Major Miller hadn’t seen these before. On each -one was stenciled in Gothic letters: “Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring.” -They contained a magnificent collection of Oriental weapons. - -In a room which Görnnert had apparently used for a study we found six -handsome leather portfolios filled with Old Master drawings. The drawings -were by Dutch and French artists of the seventeenth and eighteenth -centuries. - -There was a possibility that all of these things, with the exception of -the weapon collection, which Göring had probably entrusted to Görnnert, -were the legitimate property of the tenants. It was equally possible -that they had been illegally acquired. In the circumstances, Major -Miller wished me to take charge of them. I said that I could take them -to the Central Collecting Point at Munich where they would be held in -safekeeping until ownership had been determined. - -The house had been thoroughly ransacked. Drawers had been pulled out and -their contents disarranged. Closet doors stood open and the clothing -on the hangers had been gone over. The beds were rumpled, for even the -mattresses had been searched. Despite the topsy-turvy look of things, -there was no evidence of wanton destruction. The search had been thorough -and methodical. I asked the major what his men had been looking for, but -his answer was noncommittal. He did say, though, that the discovery of -documents hidden in a false partition in the living room had prompted the -search. - -The following morning Steve, Lamont and I went to the Görnnert house in -the command car. It would have been difficult to take a large truck up -the narrow winding road. In any case, I thought we could probably load -all of the stuff in the command car. Major Miller had sent one of his -officers ahead with the key. The house had been searched again. This time -it looked as though a cyclone had struck it. Pillows had been ripped -open; drawers had been emptied on the floor; clothes were scattered all -over the bedrooms. I was relieved to find that the things which we had -come to take away had not been tampered with. I asked the lieutenant with -the key what had been going on in the house, and he muttered something -about “those CIC boys.” I seemed to have touched on a sore subject, -so I didn’t pursue the matter. Lamont, who knew the ways of the Army -far better than I, said that probably there had been a “jurisdictional -dispute” over who had the right to search the place and that perhaps two -different outfits had taken a crack at it. I was glad that Major Miller’s -emissary was there to bear witness to _our_ behavior. - -We bundled up the rugs, tapestries and textiles and got out as quickly -as possible. They completely filled the command car. Lamont and Steve -sat in front with the driver. I wedged myself in between the top of the -pile and the canvas top of the car. There was no room for the ten cases -of weapons, so I sent a message to Major Miller to have one of his men -deliver them to us later in the day. - -When we got back to the rest house, Kress had dismantled his darkroom -and after lunch we loaded the photographic equipment onto the one truck -we had held over for that purpose. There was ample space for the things -from the Görnnert house. Before packing them we had to make a complete -list of the items. There were two hundred and thirteen church vestments, -eighty-one mounted textiles, twenty rugs and eleven tapestries. It was -suppertime when we finished. As the ten cases of weapons hadn’t arrived, -we decided to wait till morning and load everything at once. - -That evening Major Anderson of the 101st Airborne came over with the -official receipt which I was to sign. It was an elaborate document -comprising Sergeant Peck’s seventy-page inventory and a covering letter -from the C.O. of the 101st Airborne Division to the Commanding General of -the Third Army stating that I had received from Major Anderson the entire -Göring collection for delivery to the Central Collecting Point at Munich. -Having discharged his responsibility, the major was free to go home to -the U.S.A. That called for a celebration and he had brought a bottle -of cognac. It was sixty years old. He said that it came from Hitler’s -private stock at the Berghof. Even Steve, who had harbored a slight -grudge toward Anderson since the night of our arrival in Berchtesgaden, -relented and the four of us toasted the successful evacuation of the -Göring treasures. - -The major had another surprise for us: he had engaged a room at the -Berchtesgadener Hof. He insisted that the three of us move over from the -rest house. The next day was Sunday. What would be the point of going up -to Munich? We had been working hard for two weeks. Why not take life easy -for a day or two? - -The Berchtesgadener Hof was a luxurious resort hotel. Its appointments -were modern and lavish. In the days of the Nazi regime, it had been -patronized by all visiting dignitaries, save the chosen few who had been -invited to stay at the Berghof or the small hotel at Obersalzberg. It -was now being used by the Army as a “leave hotel.” We had an enormous -double room with twin beds and a couch. We had our own private terrace. -The room faced south with a wonderful view of the mountains. We even had -a telephone which worked. I hadn’t seen such magnificence since the Royal -Monceau in Paris. There was a room for our driver on the top floor. The -final de luxe touch was the schedule of meal hours; breakfast wasn’t even -served until eight-thirty. It was hard to believe that we were in Germany. - -We were awakened early by a call from Major Miller. He had another job -for me—two, in fact. They had been interrogating Görnnert and he had told -them that several pieces of valuable sculpture had been buried in the -grounds of his house. The major had located the spot and the things were -to be excavated before noon. Also he wanted me to go with him to inspect -a cache of pictures reported hidden in a forester’s house not far from -Berchtesgaden. I said I’d be ready in an hour. - -The phone rang again. This time it was Captain Posey. Had we remembered -to pick up the pictures at St. Agatha? The ones Mussolini had given to -Hitler? No, we hadn’t. We were to be sure to attend to that before we -returned to Munich. Steve was cursing these early callers and Lamont was -shaking his head sadly. Our life of ease was getting off to a hell of a -poor start. - -When Major Miller and I reached the Görnnert place, the Sergeant of the -Guard and one of his men were standing beside a hole in the ground some -twenty yards behind the house. The hole was about six feet square and -four feet deep. Four bundles wrapped in discolored newspaper lay on the -ground at the edge of the excavation. The first bundle I opened contained -a wood statue of the Madonna and Child, about eighteen inches high. It -had been an attractive example of the fifteenth century French school, -but moisture had seriously damaged the original polychromy and the wood -beneath was soft and pulpy. The next two bundles contained pieces of -similar workmanship, but they were not polychromed. One was a Madonna and -Child; the other a figure of St. Barbara. Although they were damp, the -wood had not disintegrated. The fourth package contained the prize of the -lot, an ivory figure of the Madonna and Child. It was a fine piece from -the hand of a French sculptor of the late fourteenth century. The ivory -was discolored but otherwise in good condition. I wrapped the statues in -fresh paper and put them in the car. - -Our next objective was the little village of Hintersee, a few kilometers -west of Berchtesgaden. The forester’s house, a large chalet with -overhanging eaves, stood at the edge of a meadow several hundred yards -from the road. I explained the purpose of our visit to the young woman -in peasant dress who answered our knock. She took us to a room on the -second floor which was filled with unframed canvases stacked in neat -rows along the walls. They were the work of contemporary German painters -and, according to the young woman, had been the property of the local -Nazi organization. From my point of view, the trip had been a waste of -time. There wasn’t a looted picture in the lot. While I looked at the -paintings, Major Miller thumbed through a pile of books on a big table -in one corner of the room. Among them he found a volume called _Die -Polnische Grausamkeit_—_The Polish Atrocity_. A characteristic sample -of German propaganda, it was a compilation of “horror photographs” -illustrating the alleged inhuman treatment of Germans by the Poles. It -added a gruesome touch to our visit. - -[Illustration: Removal of treasures from the castle of Neuschwanstein was -completed by Captain Adams and Captain de Brye.] - -[Illustration: Neuschwanstein—Ludwig II’s fantastic castle in which the -Nazis stored looted art treasures from France.] - -[Illustration: Neuschwanstein. Packing looted furniture for return to -France. The carpentry shop was set up in the castle kitchen. (Note the -large range in the foreground.)] - -[Illustration: Neuschwanstein. Typical storage room in the castle. In -adjoining room Lieutenants Howe, Moore and Kovalyak packed 2,000 pieces -of gold and silver looted from M. David-Weill.] - -When I got back to the hotel at noon I found messages from Steve and -Lamont. Steve had gone over to Unterstein to see about the repairs on -his Steyr truck, the one he and Kress had spent so much time on—fitting -it up as a mobile photographic unit. There was also some work to be done -on the Mercedes-Benz, which had been standing idle, concealed behind a -clump of bushes by the rest house, during our evacuation of the Göring -collection. Steve had been right about the car; Colonel Davitt at Alt -Aussee had not pressed his claim to it. - -Lamont had taken off for St. Agatha in a truck borrowed from Brigade -Headquarters to pick up the Hitler-Mussolini pictures. - -There was also a message brought down by courier from Captain Posey’s -office. It contained a list of three places in the vicinity of -Berchtesgaden which should be inspected on the chance that they contained -items from the Göring collection. One of them was the forester’s hut -at Hintersee which I had just seen. The other two were castles in -the neighborhood: Schloss Stauffeneck-Tiereck and Schloss Marzoll. I -asked Major Anderson at lunch what he knew about them. He had nothing -to contribute on the subject and said I’d probably draw a blank on -all three. After removing the Göring things from the train, he had -taken the precaution of publishing a notice to all residents of the -area instructing them to declare all art works in their possession. -He had done this as a means of recovering objects which might have -been sequestered by Göring’s agents and objects which might have been -surreptitiously removed from the train while it stood on the siding. -The results had been disappointing. Only about thirty pictures had been -turned in and none of them was in any way connected with Göring. - -The major’s prediction was correct. Lamont, Steve and I visited the two -castles the next day. In addition to their own furnishings, Schloss -Stauffeneck-Tiereck and Schloss Marzoll contained only books from the -University of Munich. These fruitless researches took all day. It was -after five when we left Berchtesgaden. - -It was raining when we reached Munich three hours later. Kress had no -place to stay and it took us an hour to locate a civilian agency which -provided billets for transients. The only thing they had to offer was a -room for one night in a ruined nunnery on the Mathilde-Strasse. It was a -gloomy place. There was no light and the windows were without glass. One -of the Sisters, candle in hand, led us along a dark corridor to a small -single room at the back. We followed with our flashlights. We gave Kress -a box of K rations and told him we’d come back for him in the morning. -Steve was of two minds about the place: on the one hand it wasn’t good -enough for Kress; on the other he was impressed by the compassion of -the Sisters in offering refuge to strangers. He wanted me to point out -to Kress the anomaly of his being given sanctuary by the Church. I -convinced him that my German wasn’t fluent enough. We thanked the Sister -and went off to find ourselves a billet. We decided on the Excelsior, -the hotel for transient officers. We were several miles from Third Army -Headquarters, whereas the hotel was only a few blocks away. - -I didn’t like driving the Mercedes-Benz around Munich, even though I had -got away with it so far. The Third Army regulation forbidding officers -to drive was strictly enforced. Perhaps my uniform baffled the MPs. -It consisted of a Navy cap with blue cover, a British battle jacket -with Navy shoulder boards, khaki trousers and black riding boots. It -was my personal opinion that the MPs mistook the shoulder bars for the -insignia of a Polish officer. The Poles, and the other liaison officers -as well, were allowed to drive their own cars. Steve used to pooh-pooh -my apprehensions about the MPs. “They’re a bunch of dumbheads,” he would -say. “I ought to know. I used to be one.” All the same, he didn’t do much -daytime driving around town. - -Captain Posey had our next job lined up for us. We were to evacuate -the records of the _Einsatzstab Rosenberg_—the German art-looting -organization—from Neuschwanstein Castle. The job would include the -removal of part of the stolen art treasures also. The captain told us -that the castle contained a great quantity of uncrated objects, mostly -gold and silver. They presented a serious security problem and it wasn’t -safe to leave them there indefinitely. Even though the French were -anxious to get everything back from Neuschwanstein, for the present they -would have to be content with the gold and the silver objects and as many -of the smaller cases as we could handle. It would be more practicable -to ship the larger things—furniture, sculpture and pictures—direct to -France by rail. This possibility was being investigated. It would save -moving the things twice—first from Neuschwanstein to Munich, and then -from Munich to Paris. But the records were badly needed at the Collecting -Point in connection with the identification of the plunder stored there. -So we were to concentrate on them and on the objects of great intrinsic -value. - -It was going to take three or four days to line up the trucks necessary -for this operation. There was a critical shortage of transportation -at the moment because all available vehicles were being used to haul -firewood. This was popularly known as “Patton’s pet project.” For some -weeks it had first priority after foodstuffs. - -We welcomed the delay, for it gave us time to make a trip to Frankfurt. -All three of us had urgent business to attend to there. Lamont’s and -Steve’s records had to be straightened out. Both of them had been -working in the field for so long that the headquarters to which they -were technically assigned had lost track of them. And I wanted to find -out what had happened to the personal belongings I had left in Frankfurt -months ago. When I left I had expected to be gone ten days. - -In the back of our minds, too, lurked the hope of becoming “incorporated” -as a Special Evacuation Team. That’s what we were in fact, but we wanted -to be recognized as such in name. The three of us worked well together -and did not want to be separated. The decision would rest with Major La -Farge and Lieutenant Kuhn. - -We wheedled a command car out of the sergeant at the motor pool and took -off late in the afternoon. Lamont, Steve and I rode in the Mercedes-Benz, -the command car following. I had little confidence in our rakish -convertible. The car had been behaving well enough mechanically, but the -tires were paper-thin. They were an odd size and we had not been able to -get any replacements. It was reassuring to know that the sturdy command -car was trailing along behind. - -We arrived at Ulm in time for supper. Long before we reached the city, -we could see the soaring single spire of the cathedral silhouetted -against the sky. There was literally nothing left of the old city. All -the medieval houses which, with the cathedral, had made it one of the -most picturesque cities in Germany, lay in ruins. But the cathedral was -undamaged. - -We stopped for gas just outside Ulm. To our surprise, the Army attendant -filled our tanks. This was Seventh Army territory. In Third Army area the -maximum was five gallons. I mentioned this to the attendant. He said, -“There’s no gas shortage here. General Patton must be building up one -hell of a big stockpile.” - -We spent the night in Stuttgart. As the main transient hotel was full, we -were assigned rooms at a small inn on the outskirts of the battered city. -It took us an hour to find the place, so it was past midnight when we -turned in. - -The next morning we detoured a few kilometers in order to visit the -castle at Ludwigsburg. The little town was laid out in the French manner, -and its atmosphere was that of a miniature Versailles. The caretaker told -us that the kings of Württemberg had lived at the castle until 1918. Our -visit to it was the one pleasant experience of the day, which happened -to be my birthday. We had our first flat tire in the castle courtyard, a -second one an hour later, and a third between Mannheim and Darmstadt. It -was Sunday and we had a devilish time finding places where we could get -the inner tubes repaired. It was ten P.M. when we pulled into Frankfurt. -The trip from Stuttgart had taken eleven hours instead of the usual four. -We had spent seven hours on tire repairs. - -My old room with the pink brocaded furniture was vacant, so I moved in -for the night. In my absence it had been successively occupied by three -lieutenant colonels. All of my belongings had been boxed and stored away -in the closet. Lamont and Steve put up at the house next door. - -We called on Bancel La Farge and Charlie Kuhn at USFET Headquarters -the next morning. We were lucky to find them together. Their office at -that time was a kind of house divided against itself. Thanks to the -organizational whim of a colonel, Bancel and Charlie had to spend part of -the day in the office at the big Farben building—where we found them—and -part at their office in Höchst. Höchst was about six miles away. The -remnant of the U. S. Group Control Council, which had not yet moved up -to Berlin, was located there—in another vast complex of I. G. Farben -buildings. It was an exhausting arrangement. - -Bancel and Charlie looked tired—and worried too. They seemed glad to -see us, but they were preoccupied and upset about something. Presently -Charlie showed us a document which had just reached his desk a few days -earlier. It was unsigned and undated. - -It bore the letterhead “Headquarters U. S. Group Control Council.” The -subject was “Art Objects in the U. S. Zone.”[2] In the first paragraph -reference was made to the great number and value of the art objects -stored in emergency repositories throughout the U. S. Zone. Farther on, -the art objects were divided into three classes, according to ownership. - -Those in “Class C” were defined as “works of art, placed in the U. S. -Zone by Germany for safekeeping, which are the bona fide property of the -German nation.” - -Concerning the disposition of the works of art thus described, the letter -had this to say: “It is not believed that the U. S. would desire the -works of art in Class C to be made available for reparations and to be -divided among a number of nations. Even if this is to be done, these -works of art might well be returned to the U. S. to be inventoried, and -cared for by our leading museums.” - -The next, and last, sentence contained this extraordinary proposal: “They -could be held in trusteeship for return, many years from now, to the -German people if and when the German nation had earned the right to their -return.” - -Clipped to the document was a notation, dated July 29, 1945, bearing -the signature of the Chief of Staff of General Lucius D. Clay, Deputy -Military Governor. It read, in part, “General Clay states that this paper -has been approved by the President for implementation after the close of -the current Big 3 Conference.” - -We were dumfounded. No wonder Bancel and Charlie were worried. It had -never occurred to any of us that German national art treasures would -be removed to the United States. After speculating on the possible -consequences attendant on an implementation of the document, we dropped -the subject. Momentarily there was nothing to do but wait—and hope that -the whole matter would be dropped. - -By comparison, our personal problems seemed insignificant. But Charlie -and Bancel heard us out. They approved our idea of remaining together as -a team working out of USFET. I was already permanently assigned to USFET -and there were two vacancies on their T.O. (Table of Organization) to -which Lamont and Steve could be appointed. The necessary “paper work” -took up most of the day and involved a trip to ECAD headquarters at Bad -Homburg. At five o’clock we had our new orders. - -Steve suggested that we drive up to Marburg to see Captain Hancock, the -Monuments officer in charge of the two great art repositories which had -been established there. They were the prototype of the Central Collecting -Point at Munich. However, they differed in an important respect from the -one at Munich: they contained practically no loot. Virtually everything -in them belonged to German museums and had been recovered by our -Monuments officers from the mines in which the Germans had placed them -for safekeeping during the war. - -Marburg, some fifty miles north of Frankfurt, lay in the -Regierungsbezirk, or government district, of Kassel, which was in turn -a subdivision of the Province of Hesse. It was a two-hour drive, but we -stopped en route for supper with a Quartermaster outfit at Giessen, so it -was nearly eight o’clock when we arrived. - -We found Walker Hancock in his office in the Staatsarchiv building. He -was a man in the middle forties, and of medium height. His face broke -into a smile and his fine dark eyes lighted up with an expression of -genuine pleasure at the sight of Lamont and Steve. This was the first -time they had seen one another since the close of the war when they -had been working together in Weimar. I had never met Walker Hancock, -but I had heard more about him than about any other American Monuments -officer. I knew that he had had a distinguished career as a sculptor -before the war and that he had been the first of our Monuments officers -to reach France. He had been attached to the First Army until the end of -hostilities. Lamont was devoted to Walker, and Steve’s regard for him -bordered on worship. While the three of them reminisced, I found myself -responding to his warmth and sincerity. - -He wouldn’t hear of our returning to Frankfurt that night. He wanted -to show us the things in his two depots and we wouldn’t be able to see -more than a fraction of them before morning. The few that we did see -whetted our appetite for more. In the galleries on the second floor -we saw some of the finest pictures from the museums of the Rhineland: -there were three wonderful Van Goghs. One was the portrait of Armand -Rollin, the young man with a mustache and slouch hat. It belonged to the -Volkwang Museum at Essen. Color reproductions of this portrait had, in -recent years, rivaled those of Whistler’s _Mother_ in popularity. Walker -said that it had been covered with mold when he found it in the Siegen -mine with the rest of the Essen pictures. His assistant, Sheldon Keck, -formerly the restorer of the Brooklyn Museum, had successfully removed -the mold before it had done any serious damage. - -The second Van Gogh was the famous large still life entitled _White -Roses_. The third was a brilliant late landscape. There were other -magnificent nineteenth century canvases: the bewitching portrait -of M. and Mme. Sisley by Renoir, a full-length Manet, and a great -Daumier. Walker climaxed the display with the celebrated Rembrandt -_Self-Portrait_ from the Wallraf-Richartz Museum of Cologne. This was the -last and most famous of the portraits the artist painted of himself. - -We spent the night at the Gasthaus Sonne, a seventeenth century inn -facing the old market place. The proprietor reluctantly assigned us two -rooms on the second floor. They were normally reserved for the top brass. -Judging from the austerity of the furnishings and the simplicity of the -plumbing, I thought it unlikely that we would be routed from our beds by -any late-arriving generals. - -Walker met us for breakfast the next morning with word that the war -with Japan had ended. Announcements in German had already been posted -in several of the shop windows. Though thrilling to us, the news seemed -to make very little impression on the citizens of the sleepy university -town. The people in the streets were as unsmiling as ever. If anything, -some of them looked a little grimmer than usual. - -We drove to the Staatsarchiv building with Walker. He took us to a room -containing a fabulous collection of medieval art objects. There were -crosses and croziers, coffers and chalices, wrought in precious metals -and studded with jewels—masterpieces of the tenth, eleventh and twelfth -centuries. The most arresting individual piece was the golden Madonna, -an archaic seated figure two feet high, dating from the tenth century. -These marvelous relics of the Middle Ages belonged to the Cathedral of -Metz. It was one of the greatest collections of its kind in the entire -world. Its intrinsic value was enormous; its historic value incalculable. -Walker said that arrangements were being made for its early return to the -cathedral. The French were planning an elaborate ceremony in honor of the -event. - -It was a five-minute drive to the other depot under Captain Hancock’s -direction. This was the Jubiläumsbau, or Jubilee Building, a handsome -structure of pre-Nazi, modern design. It was the headquarters of the -archaeological institute headed by Professor Richard Hamann, the -internationally famous medieval scholar. It also housed the archives of -“Photo Marburg,” the stupendous library of art photographs founded and -directed by the professor. Walker was putting the resources of Photo -Marburg to good use, compiling a complete photographic record of the -objects in his care. - -Among the treasures stored in the Jubiläumsbau were some of the choicest -masterpieces from the Berlin state museums. Perhaps the most famous were -the twin canvases by Watteau entitled _Gersaint’s Signboard_. Regarded -by many as the supreme work of the greatest painter of the French Rococo -period, the two pictures had been the prized possessions of Frederick the -Great. Painted to hang side by side forming a continuous composition, -they represented the shop of M. Gersaint, dealer in works of art. It is -said that the paintings were finished in eight days. They were painted -in the year 1732 when the artist was at the height of his career. I was -told that, during the early years of the war, Göring made overtures to -the Louvre for one of its finest Watteaus. According to the story, the -negotiations ended abruptly when the museum signified its willingness to -part with the painting in exchange for _Gersaint’s Signboard_. - -The brilliant French school of the eighteenth century was further -represented at the Jubiläumsbau by a superb Boucher—the subject, _Mercury -and Venus_—and two exquisite Chardins: _The Cook_, one of his most -enchanting scenes of everyday life, and the _Portrait of a Lady Sealing a -Letter_, an unusually large composition for this unpretentious painter -whose canvases are today worth a king’s ransom. - -There were masterpieces of the German school; the great series of -Cranachs which had belonged to the Hohenzollerns filled one entire room. -Excellent examples of Rubens and Van Dyck represented the Flemish school; -Ruysdael and Van Goyen, the Dutch. The high quality of every picture -attested to the taste and connoisseurship of German collectors. - -Walker said that he hoped to arrange a public exhibition of the pictures. -Marburg had been neglected by our bombers. Only one or two bombs had -fallen in the city and the resulting damage had been slight. Concussion -had blasted the windows of the Staatsarchiv, but the Jubiläumsbau was -untouched. Perhaps he would put on a series of small exhibitions, say -fifty pictures at a time. The members of his local German committee -were enthusiastic about the project. It would be an important first -step in the rehabilitation of German cultural institutions which -was an avowed part of the American Fine Arts program. Thanks to the -hesitancy of an officer at higher headquarters who was exasperatingly -“security-conscious,” Walker did not realize his ambition until three -months later, on the eve of his departure for the United States. - -We celebrated VJ-Day on our return to Frankfurt that evening. The big -Casino, behind USFET headquarters, was the scene of the principal -festivities. Drinks were on the house until the bar closed at ten. It -was a warm summer night and the broad terrace over the main entrance was -crowded. An Army band blared noisily inside. Civilian attendants skulked -in the background, avidly collecting cigarette butts from the ash trays -and the terrace floor. They reaped a rich harvest that night. - -The Mercedes-Benz presented a problem. Its status was a dubious one. -Since it was still registered with an MG Detachment in Austria, I -felt uncomfortable about driving it around Germany. At Charlie Kuhn’s -suggestion we filed a request with the Naval headquarters in Frankfurt -for assignment of the vehicle to our Special Evacuation Team. The request -was couched in impressive legal language which Charlie thought would do -the trick. Armed with a copy of this request, I felt confident that we -would not be molested by inquisitive MPs on our trip back to Munich. - -We didn’t get started until late afternoon, having wasted two hours -dickering with the Transportation Officer at the Frankfurt MG Detachment -for a spare tire. We returned by way of Würzburg and Nürnberg. It was -dark when we reached Nürnberg, but the light of the full moon was -sufficient to reveal the ruined walls and towers of the old, inner city. -As we struck south of the city to the Autobahn, we could see the outlines -of the vast unfinished stadium, designed to seat one hundred and forty -thousand people. We had to proceed cautiously since many of the bridges -had been destroyed and detours were frequent. As a result it was midnight -when we reached Munich. The transient hotel was full, so we had to be -content with makeshift quarters at the Central Collecting Point. - -In our absence the transportation situation had eased up a little. -Captain Posey told us the next morning that six trucks would be available -in the early afternoon. We decided to keep the command car for the trip -to Neuschwanstein and leave the Mercedes-Benz in Munich to be painted. In -anticipation of registration papers from the Navy, we thought it would be -appropriate to have the car painted battleship gray and stenciled with -white letters reading “U. S. Navy.” One of the mechanics in the garage -at the Central Collecting Point agreed to do this for us in exchange for -a bottle of rum and half a bottle of Scotch. Officers at Third Army -Headquarters had bar privileges plus a liquor ration, but the enlisted -men didn’t fare so well. - -Our base of operations for the evacuation of the Castle of Neuschwanstein -was the picturesque little town of Füssen, some eighty miles south of -Munich, in the heart of the “Swan country.” This region of southern -Bavaria, celebrated for its association with the name of Richard Wagner, -is one of the most beautiful in all Germany. The mountains rise sharply -from the floor of the level green valley. The turreted castle, perched -on top of one of the lower peaks, at an elevation of a thousand feet, -is visible for miles. Built in the eighteen-seventies by Ludwig II, the -“Mad King” of Bavaria, it was the most fantastic creation of that exotic -monarch whose passion for building nearly bankrupted his kingdom. When we -saw the castle rising majestically from its pine-covered mountaintop, we -were struck by the incongruity of our six-truck convoy lumbering through -the romantic countryside. - -We presented our credentials to a swarthy major who was the commanding -officer of the small MG Detachment at Füssen. He arranged for our billets -at the Alte Post, the hotel where officers of the Detachment were -quartered, and, after we had deposited our gear in a room on the fourth -floor, conducted us to the Schloss. - -The steep road to the lower courtyard of the castle wound for more than -a mile up the side of the mountain. At the castle entrance, the major -identified us to the guard and our six trucks filed into the courtyard. -In the upper courtyard, reached by a broad flight of stone steps, we -found the caretaker who had the keys to the main section of the castle. -He did not, however, have access to the wing in which the records of the -_Einsatzstab Rosenberg_ were stored. The only door to that part of the -building had been locked and sealed by Lieutenant James Rorimer, the -Monuments officer of the Seventh Army, when the castle had first fallen -into American hands. We had brought the key with us from Third Army -Headquarters. - -Before examining those rooms, we made a tour of the four main floors of -the castle. The hallways and vaulted kitchens on the first floor were -filled to overflowing with enormous packing cases and uncrated furniture, -all taken from French collections. Three smaller storage rooms resembling -the stock rooms of Tiffany’s and a porcelain factory combined, were -jammed with gold and silver and rare china. Most of the loot had been -concentrated on the first floor, but the unfinished rooms of the second -had been fitted with racks for the storage of paintings. In addition to -the looted pictures, there were several galleries of stacked paintings -from the museums of Munich. The living apartments on the third floor, -divested of their furnishings, were filled with stolen furniture, Louis -Quinze chairs, table and sofas and ornate Italian cabinets lined the -walls of rooms and corridors. They contrasted strangely with scenes from -the Wagner operas which King Ludwig had chosen as the theme for the mural -decorations. Only the gold-walled Throne Room and, on the floor above, -the lofty Fest-Saal, were devoid of loot. - -We proceeded to the wing of the castle which contained the records. -Having broken the seals and unlocked the door, we entered a hallway about -thirty feet long. The doors opening onto this hallway were also locked -and sealed. Behind them lay the offices of the _Einsatzstab Rosenberg_. -They were crowded with bookshelves and filing cabinets. In one room stood -a huge show-case filled with fragile Roman glass. The rooms of the second -floor were full of French furniture and dozens of small packing cases. -These cases were made of carefully finished quarter-sawed oak. We had -seen similar ones in the Göring collection. They had been the traveling -cases for precious objects belonging to the Rothschilds. These too -contained Rothschild treasures—exquisite bibelots of jade, agate, onyx -and jasper, and innumerable pieces of Oriental and European porcelain. - -At one end of the hallway were two rooms which had been used as a -photographic laboratory. We had brought Kress with us. Steve went off to -make arrangements to install his equipment, while Lamont and I calculated -the number of men we would need for the evacuation work the next morning. -We asked the major for twenty—two shifts of ten. - -The Neuschwanstein operation lasted eight days. We worked nights as well, -because there were thousands of small objects—many of them fragile and -extremely valuable—which we could not trust to the inexpert hands of -our work party. There was no electricity in the small storage rooms, so -we had to work by candlelight. It took us one evening to pack the Roman -glass and the four succeeding evenings, working till midnight, to pack -the two thousand pieces of gold and silver in the David-Weill collection. -The Nazi looters had thoughtfully saved the well-made cases in which -they had carted off this magnificent collection from M. David-Weill’s -house in Paris. There were candelabra, dishes, knives, forks, spoons, -snuffboxes—the rarest examples of the art of the French goldsmiths of -the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This unique collection had -created a sensation when it was exhibited in Paris a few years before -the war. The fact that the incomparable assemblage would probably one -day be left to the Louvre by the eminent connoisseur, who had spent a -lifetime collecting it, had not deterred the Nazi robbers. He was a Jew. -That justified its confiscation. Aside from the pleasure it gave me to -handle the beautiful objects, I relished the idea of helping to recover -the property of a fellow Californian: M. David-Weill had been born in -San Francisco. The Nazis had been methodical as usual. Every piece was -to have been systematically recatalogued while the collection was at -Neuschwanstein. On some of the shelves we found slips of paper stating -that this or that object had not yet been photographed—“_noch nicht -fotografiert_.” - -The tedious manual labor involved in packing small objects and the great -distance which the packed cases had to be carried when ready for loading -were the chief difficulties at Neuschwanstein. Not only did the cases -have to be carried several hundred feet from the storage rooms to the -door of the castle; but from the door to the trucks was a long trek, down -two flights of steps and across a wide courtyard. In this respect the -operation resembled the evacuation of the monastery at Hohenfurth. - -Three months after our partial evacuation of the castle, a team composed -of Captain Edward Adams, Lieutenant (jg) Charles Parkhurst, USNR, and -Captain Hubert de Brye, a French officer, completed the removal of the -loot. This gigantic undertaking required eight weeks. If I remember the -figures correctly, more than twelve thousand objects were boxed and -carted away. The cases were built in a carpenter shop set up in the -castle kitchens. One hundred and fifty truckloads were delivered to the -railroad siding at Füssen and thence transported to Paris. It was an -extraordinary achievement, carried out despite heavy snowfall. The only -operation which rivaled it was the evacuation of the salt mine at Alt -Aussee. - -The last morning of our stay at Füssen, Lamont and I had a special -mission to perform. A German art dealer named Gustav Rochlitz was living -at Gipsmühle, a five-minute drive from Hohenschwangau, the small village -below the castle. For a number of years Rochlitz had had a gallery in -Paris. His dealings with the Nazis, in particular his trafficking in -confiscated pictures, had been the subject of special investigation -by Lieutenants Plaut and Rousseau, our OSS friends. They were the two -American naval officers who were preparing an exhaustive report on the -activities of the infamous _Einsatzstab Rosenberg_. They had interrogated -Rochlitz and placed him under house arrest. In his possession were -twenty-two modern French paintings, including works by Dérain, Matisse -and Picasso, formerly belonging to well known Jewish collections. He had -obtained them from Göring and other leading Nazis in exchange for old -master paintings. We were to relieve Herr Rochlitz of these canvases. - -At the farmhouse in which Rochlitz and his wife were living, the maid -of all work who answered our knock said that no one was at home. Herr -Rochlitz would not be back before noon. Lamont and I returned to our jeep -and started back across the fields to the highway. We had driven about -a hundred yards when we saw a heavy-set sullen-faced man of about fifty -walking toward us. - -“I’ll bet that’s Rochlitz,” I said to Lamont. Stopping the car, I called -out to him, “Herr Rochlitz?” - -After a moment’s hesitation, he nodded. - -“Hop in, we want to have a talk with you,” I said. - -We returned to the farmhouse and followed our truculent host up the -stairs to a sitting room on the second floor. There we were joined by his -wife, a timid young woman who, like her husband, spoke fluent English. - -I said that we had come for the pictures. Rochlitz made no protest. He -brusquely directed his wife to bring them in. As she left the room, I -thought it odd that he hadn’t gone along to help her. But she returned -almost immediately with the paintings in her arms. All twenty-two were -rolled around a long mailing tube. Together they spread the canvases -about the room, on the table, on the chairs and on the floor. They were, -without exception, works of excellent quality. One large early Picasso, -the portrait of a woman and child, was alone worth a small fortune. - -I was wondering what Rochlitz had given in exchange for the lot, when he -began to explain how the pictures had come into his possession. He must -have taken us for credulous fools, because the story he told made him out -a victim of tragic circumstance. He said that Göring had made an offer on -several of his pictures. Rochlitz had accepted but insisted on being paid -in cash. Göring had agreed to the terms and the pictures were delivered. -Then, instead of paying in cash, Göring had forced him to accept these -modern paintings. He had protested, but to no avail. Of course these -pictures were all right in their way, he said deprecatingly, but he was -not a dealer in modern art. Naturally he did not know that they had been -confiscated. It was all a dreadful mistake, but what could he do? I said -that I realized how badly he must have felt and that I knew he would be -relieved to learn that the pictures were now going back to their rightful -owners. - -The pictures were carefully rerolled and we got up to leave. At the door, -Rochlitz told us that he had lost his entire stock. He had stored all of -his paintings at Baden-Baden, in the French Zone. Did we think he would -be able to recover them? We assured him that justice would be done and, -leaving him to interpret that remark as he saw fit, drove off with the -twenty-two pictures. - - - - -(9) - -_HIDDEN TREASURES AT NÜRNBERG_ - - -On our return to Munich that evening, Craig told us that preparations -were being made for the immediate restitution of several important -masterpieces recovered in the American Zone. General Eisenhower had -approved a proposal to return at once to each of the countries overrun -by the Germans at least one outstanding work of art. This was to be done -in his name, as a gesture of “token restitution” symbolizing American -policy with regard to ultimate restitution of all stolen art treasures to -the rightful owner nations. It was felt that the gracious gesture on the -part of the Commanding General of United States Forces in Europe would -serve to reaffirm our intentions to right the wrongs of Nazi oppression. -In view of the vast amount of art which had thus far been recovered, -it would be months before it could all be restored to the plundered -countries. Meanwhile these “token restitutions” would be an earnest of -American good will. They would be sent back from Germany at the expense -of the United States Government. Thereafter, representatives of the -various countries would be invited to come to our Collecting Points to -select, assemble and, in transportation of their own providing, remove -those objects which the Germans had stolen. - -Belgium was to receive the first token restitution. The great van Eyck -altarpiece—_The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb_—was the obvious choice -among the stolen Belgian treasures. - -The famous panels had been reposing in the Central Collecting Point at -Munich since we had removed them from the salt mine at Alt Aussee. A -special plane had been chartered to fly them to Brussels. The Belgian -Government had signified approval of air transportation. Direct rail -communication between Munich and Brussels had not been resumed, and the -highways were not in the best of condition. By truck, it would be a rough -two-day trip; by air, a matter of three hours. - -Bancel La Farge had already flown from Frankfurt to Brussels, where -plans had been made for an appropriate ceremony on the arrival of the -altarpiece. The American Ambassador was to present the panels to the -Prince Regent on behalf of General Eisenhower. It was to be an historic -occasion. - -I went out to the airport to confirm the arrangements for the C-54. It -was only a fifteen-minute drive from the Königsplatz to the field. I was -also to check on the condition of the streets: they were in good shape -all the way. - -The plane was to take off at noon. Lamont, Steve and I supervised the -loading of the ten precious cases. We led off in a jeep. The truck -followed with the panels. Four of the civilian packers went along to load -the cases onto the plane. Captain Posey was to escort the altarpiece to -Brussels. - -When we got to the airport we learned that the plane had not arrived. -There would be a two-hour delay. At the end of two hours, we were -informed that there was bad weather south of Brussels. All flights -had been canceled for the day. We drove back to the Collecting Point -at the Königsplatz and had just finished unloading the panels when a -message came from the field. The weather had cleared. The plane would -be taking off in half an hour. I caught Captain Posey as he was leaving -the building for his office at Third Army Headquarters. The cases were -reloaded and we were on our way to the field in fifteen minutes. - -The truck was driven onto the field where the big C-54 stood waiting. In -another quarter of an hour the panels were aboard and lashed securely -to metal supports in the forepart of the passenger compartment. Captain -Posey, the only passenger, waved jauntily as the doors swung shut. -Enviously we watched the giant plane roll down the field, lift waveringly -from the airstrip and swing off to the northwest. The altarpiece was on -the last lap of an extraordinary journey. We wished George Stout could -have been in on this. - -The plane reached Brussels without mishap. The return of the great -national treasure was celebrated throughout the country. Encouraged by -the success of this first “token restitution,” Major La Farge directed -that a similar gesture be made to France. At the Collecting Point Craig -selected seventy-one masterpieces looted from French private collections. -The group included Fragonard, Chardin, Lancret, Rubens, Van Dyck, Hals, -and a large number of seventeenth century Dutch masters. Only examples of -the highest quality were chosen. - -Ham Coulter, the naval officer who worked with Craig at the “Bau,” -was the emissary appointed to accompany the paintings to Paris. It -was decided to return them by truck, inasmuch as it would have been -impracticable to attempt shipping uncrated pictures by air. The convoy -consisted of two trucks—one for the pictures, the other for extra -gasoline. It was a hard two-day trip from Munich to Paris. Ham got -through safely, but reported on his return that the roads had been -extremely rough a good part of the way. He had delivered the pictures in -Paris to the Musée du Jeu de Paume, the little museum which the Germans -had used during the Occupation as the clearinghouse for their methodical -plundering of the Jewish collections. His expedition had been marred by -only one minor incident. When the paintings were being unloaded at the -museum, one of the women attendants watching the operation noticed that -some of the canvases were unframed. She had asked, “And where are the -frames?” This was too much for Coulter. In perfect French, the courteous -lieutenant told her precisely what she could do about the frames. - -Shortly after the return of the Ghent altarpiece, Captain Posey was -demobilized. His duties as MFA&A Officer at Third Army Headquarters in -Munich were assumed by Captain Edwin Rae. I had not seen Rae since the -early summer when he and Lieutenant Edith Standen had been assigned to -assist me in inventorying the collections of the Berlin museums in the -vaults of the Reichsbank at Frankfurt. Edwin was a meticulous fellow, -gentle but determined. Although by no means lacking in a sense of humor, -he resented joking references to a fancied resemblance to Houdon’s well -known portrait of Voltaire, and I didn’t blame him. - -He took on his new responsibilities with quiet assurance and in a -short time won the complete confidence of his superiors at Third Army -Headquarters. Throughout his long tenure of office, he maintained an -unruffled calm in the face of obstacles which would have exhausted a -less patient man. He was responsible for all matters pertaining to the -Fine Arts in the Eastern Military District of the American Zone—that is, -Bavaria—an area more than twice the size of the two provinces Greater -Hesse and Württemberg-Baden comprising the Western Military District of -our Zone. - -During the early days of Captain Rae’s regime, Charlie Kuhn paid a -brief visit to Munich. He had just completed the transfer of the Berlin -Museum collections from Frankfurt to the Landesmuseum at Wiesbaden. -The university buildings in Frankfurt—which I had requisitioned for a -Collecting Point—had proved unsuitable. The repairs, he said, would have -taken months. On the other hand, the Wiesbaden Museum, though damaged, -was ideal for the purpose. Of course there hadn’t been a glass left in -any of the windows, and the roof had had to be repaired. But thanks -to the energy and ingenuity of Walter Farmer, the building had been -rehabilitated in two months. Captain Farmer was the director of the new -Collecting Point. When I asked where Farmer had got the glass, Charlie -was evasive. All he would say was that Captain Farmer was “wise in the -ways of the Army.” - -Charlie was headed for Vienna to confer with Lieutenant Colonel Ernest -Dewald, Chief of the MFA&A Section at USFA Headquarters (United States -Forces, Austria). Colonel Dewald wanted to complete the evacuation of -the mine at Alt Aussee, which was now under his jurisdiction. For this -project he hoped to obtain the services of the officers who had worked -there when the mine had been Third Army’s responsibility. Captain Rae was -reluctant to lend the Special Evacuation Team, because there was still -so much work to be done in Bavaria. But he agreed, provided that Charlie -could sell the idea to the Chief of Staff at Third Army. This Charlie -succeeded in doing, and departed for Vienna a day later. Steve was crazy -to see Vienna—I think his parents had been born there—so Charlie took him -along. - -After they had left, Captain Rae requested Lamont and me to make an -inspection trip to northern Bavaria. Our first stop was Bamberg. There we -examined the _Neue Residenz_, which Rae contemplated establishing as an -auxiliary Collecting Point to house the contents of various repositories -in Upper Franconia. Reports reaching his office indicated that storage -conditions in that area were unsatisfactory. Either the repositories -were not weatherproof, or they were not being adequately guarded. - -It was also rumored that UNRRA was planning to fill the _Neue Residenz_ -with DPs—Displaced Persons. Captain Rae was determined to put a stop to -that, because the building, a fine example of late seventeenth century -architecture, was on the SHAEF List of Protected Monuments. This fact -should have guaranteed its immunity from such a hazard. Even during -combat, the SHAEF list had been a great protection to monuments of -historic and artistic importance. Now that no “doctrine of military -necessity” could be invoked to justify improper use of the building, Rae -did not propose to countenance its occupancy by DPs. - -The _Neue Residenz_ contained dozens of empty, brocaded rooms—but no -plumbing. We decided that it would do for a Collecting Point and agreed -with Rae that the DPs should be housed elsewhere if possible. The officer -from the local MG Detachment, who was showing us around, confirmed -the report that UNRRA intended to move in. He didn’t think they would -relinquish the building without a protest. The influx of refugees from -the Russian Zone had doubled the town’s normal population of sixty -thousand. - -It was a disappointment to find that the superb sculpture in the -cathedral across the square was still bricked up. The shelters had -proved a needless precaution, for Bamberg had not been bombed. Only the -bridge over the Regnitz had been blown up, and the Germans had done that -themselves. - -From Bamberg we drove north to Coburg, where we had a twofold mission. -First we were to obtain specific information about ten cases which -contained a collection of art objects belonging to a prince of Hesse. -The cases were said to be stored in Feste Coburg, the walled castle -above the town. If they were the property of Philip of Hesse, then they -would probably be taken into custody by the American authorities. We had -been told that he was in prison. His art dealings during the past few -years were being reviewed by the OSS officers charged with the special -investigation of Nazi art-looting activities. Philip was the son of the -Landgräfin of Hesse. It was in the flower-filled Waffenraum of her castle -near Frankfurt that I had seen the family tombs months before. - -If, on the other hand, the cases belonged to a different prince of -Hesse—one whose political record was clean—and storage conditions were -satisfactory, we would simply leave them where they were for the time -being. - -Our second objective was Schloss Tambach, a few kilometers from Coburg. -Paintings stolen by Frank, the Nazi Governor of Poland, from the palace -at Warsaw were stored there. Schloss Tambach also contained pictures -from the Stettin Museum. Stettin was now in the Russian Zone of Occupied -Germany. - -On our arrival in Coburg, Lamont and I drove to the headquarters of the -local MG Detachment, which were located in the Palais Edinburgh. This -unpretentious building was once the residence of Queen Victoria’s son, -the Duke of Edinburgh. There we arranged with Lieutenant Milton A. Pelz, -the Monuments officer of the Coburg Detachment, to inspect the storage -rooms at the castle. - -Pelz was a big fellow who spoke German fluently. He welcomed us -hospitably and took us up to the castle where we met Dr. Grundmann, who -had the keys to the storage rooms. This silent, sour-faced German was -curator of the Prince’s collections. He said that his employer was Prince -Ludwig of Hesse, a cousin of Philip. The cases contained paintings and -_objets d’art_ which had been in the possession of the family for years. -Grundmann had personally removed them from Ludwig’s estate in Silesia the -day before the Russians occupied the area. - -Ludwig’s most important treasure was the world-famous painting by Holbein -known as the _Madonna of Bürgermeister Meyer_. Painted in 1526, it had -hung for years in the palace at Darmstadt. The Dresden Gallery owned a -seventeenth century replica. Early in the war, Prince Ludwig had sent the -original to his Silesian castle for safekeeping. Grundmann had brought it -back to Bavaria along with the ten cases now at Coburg. From Coburg he -had taken the Holbein to Schloss Banz, a castle not far from Bamberg. - -He said that the Prince was living at Wolfsgarten, a small country place -near Darmstadt. Ludwig was eager to regain possession of the painting. -Did we think that could be arranged? We told him he would have to obtain -an authorization from Captain Rae at Munich. - -Schloss Tambach was a ten-minute drive from Coburg. This great country -house, built around three sides of a courtyard, belonged to the Countess -of Ortenburg. She occupied the center section. A detachment of troops was -billeted in one wing. The other was filled with the Stettin and Warsaw -pictures. There were over two hundred from the Stettin Museum. Nineteenth -century German paintings predominated, but I noticed two fine Hals -portraits and a Van Gogh landscape among them. - -The civilian custodian, answerable to the MG authorities at Coburg, was -Dr. Wilhelm Eggebrecht. He had been curator of the Stettin Museum until -thrown out by the Nazis because his wife was one-quarter Jewish. He was a -mousy little fellow with a bald head and gold-rimmed spectacles. He asked -apprehensively if we intended to send the paintings back to Russian-held -Stettin. We said that we had come only to check on the physical security -of the present storage place. So far as we knew, the paintings would -remain where they were for the present. This inconclusive piece of -information seemed to reassure him. - -The paintings looted from Warsaw were the _pièces de résistance_ of -the treasures at Schloss Tambach—especially the nine great canvases by -Bellotto, the eighteenth century Venetian master. Governor Frank had -ruthlessly removed the pictures from their stretchers and rolled them up -for shipment. As a result of this rough handling, the paint had flaked -off in places, but the damage was not serious. When we examined the -pictures, they were spread out on the floor. They filled two rooms, forty -feet square. Later they were taken to the Munich Collecting Point and -mounted on new stretchers, in preparation for their return to Warsaw. - -When we got back to Munich, Steve had returned from Vienna. He had news -for us. Charlie Kuhn had already left for Frankfurt. Colonel Dewald was -coming to Munich in a few days to talk to Colonel Roy Dalferes, Rae’s -Chief of Staff at Third Army, about reopening the Alt Aussee mine. Either -Charlie or Bancel would come down from USFET Headquarters when Dewald -arrived. A new man had joined the MFA&A Section at USFA—Andrew Ritchie, -director of the Buffalo Museum. He had come over as a civilian. Steve -thought that Ritchie would be the USFA representative at Munich. There -was a lot of stuff at the Collecting Point which would eventually go back -to Austria. It would have to be checked with the records there. That -would be Ritchie’s job. Steve told us also that Lincoln Kirstein had gone -home. His mother was seriously ill and Lincoln had left on emergency -orders. - -The three of us went to Captain Rae’s office. Lamont and I had to make -a report on our trip to Coburg. Rae had a new assignment for us. He -had just received orders from USFET Headquarters to prepare the Cracow -altarpiece for shipment. It was to be sent back to Poland as a token -restitution. This was the colossal carved altarpiece by Veit Stoss -which the Nazis had stolen from the Church of St. Mary at Cracow. Veit -Stoss had been commissioned by the King of Poland in 1477 to carve the -great work. It had taken him ten years. After the invasion of Poland in -1939, the Nazis had carted it off, lock, stock and barrel, to Nürnberg. -They contended that, since Veit Stoss had been a native of Nürnberg, it -belonged in the city of his birth. - -The missing altarpiece was the first of her looted treasures for which -Poland had registered a claim with the American authorities at the close -of the war. After months of diligent investigation, it was found by -American officers in an underground bunker across the street from the -Albrecht Dürer house in Nürnberg. In addition to the dismantled figures -of the central panel—painted and gilded figures of hollow wood ten -feet high—the twelve ornate side panels, together with the statues and -pinnacles surmounting the framework, had been crowded into the bunker. - -The same bunker contained another priceless looted treasure—the -coronation regalia of the Holy Roman Empire. Among these venerable -objects were the jeweled crown of the Emperor Conrad—commonly called -the “Crown of Charlemagne”—dating from the eleventh century, a shield, -two swords and the orb. Since 1804 they had been preserved in the -Schatzkammer, the Imperial Treasure Room, at Vienna. In 1938, the Nazis -removed them to Nürnberg, basing their claim to possession on a fifteenth -century decree of the Emperor Sigismund that they were to be kept in that -city. - -On the eve of the German collapse, two high officials of the city had -spirited away these five pieces. The credit for recovering the treasures -goes to an American officer of German birth, Lieutenant Walter Horn, -professor of art at the University of California. The two officials at -first disclaimed any knowledge of their whereabouts. After hours of -relentless grilling by Lieutenant Horn, the men finally admitted their -guilt. They were promptly tried, heavily fined and sent to prison. Three -months later, at the request of the Austrian Government, the imperial -treasures were flown back to Vienna. This historic shipment contained -other relics which the Nazis had taken from the Schatzkammer—relics of -the greatest religious significance. They included an alleged fragment of -the True Cross, a section of the tablecloth said to have been used at the -Last Supper, a lance venerated as the one which had touched the wounds of -Christ, and links from the chains traditionally believed to have bound -St. Peter, St. Paul and St. John. - -On Captain Rae’s instructions, Steve and I went to Nürnberg to pack the -Stoss altarpiece. (At that time the coronation regalia was still in the -bunker, where, on the afternoon of our arrival, we had an opportunity to -examine it.) We found that the heavy framework which supported the altar -panels was not stored in the bunker. Because of its size—the upright -pieces were thirty feet high—it had been taken to Schloss Wiesenthau, an -old castle outside Forchheim, thirty miles away. - -Leaving Steve to start packing the smaller figures and pinnacles, I got -hold of a semitrailer, the only vehicle long enough to accommodate a load -of such length. It was an hour’s drive to the castle. With a crew of -twenty PWs, I finished loading the framework in two hours and returned to -Nürnberg in time for supper. - -That evening Steve and I figured out the number of trucks we would need -for the altarpiece. Lamont had remained in Munich to make tentative -arrangements, pending word from us. He was going to ask for ten trucks -and we came to the conclusion that this would be about the right -number—in addition, of course, to the semitrailer for the supporting -framework. We got out our maps and studied our probable route to Cracow. -One road would take us through Dresden and Breslau; another by way of -Pilsen and Prague. Perhaps we could go one way and return the other. In -either case we would have to pass through Russian-occupied territory. -It would probably take some time to obtain the necessary clearances. We -figured on taking enough gas for the round trip, since we doubted if -there would be any to spare in Poland. Altogether it promised to be a -complicated expedition, but already we had visions of a triumphal entry -into Cracow. - -Our ambitious plans collapsed the following morning. While Steve and I -were at breakfast, I was called to the telephone. The corporal in Captain -Rae’s office was on the wire. I was to return to Munich at once. Major La -Farge was arriving from Frankfurt and wanted to see me that night. Plans -for the trip to Cracow were indefinitely postponed. Internal conditions -in Poland were too unsettled to risk returning the altarpiece. - -Our plans had miscarried before, but this was our first major -disappointment. We had begun to look on the Polish venture as the fitting -climax of our work as a Special Evacuation Team. On the way back to -Munich, Steve said he had a feeling that the team was going to be split -up. - -Steve’s misgivings were prophetic. At Craig’s apartment after dinner, -Bancel La Farge outlined the plans he had for us. Colonel Dalferes -had acceded to Colonel Dewald’s request. Lamont, Steve and a third -officer—new to MFA&A work—were to resume the evacuation of the salt mine -at Alt Aussee. If the snows held off, it would be possible to carry on -operations there for another month or six weeks. - -I was to return to USFET Headquarters at Frankfurt as Deputy Chief of the -MFA&A Section, replacing Charlie Kuhn who had just received his orders -to go home. I knew that Charlie would soon be eligible for release from -active duty, but had no idea that his departure was so imminent. - -We didn’t have much to say to one another on the way to our quarters -that night. Steve had already made up his mind that he wasn’t going to -like the new man. Lamont said that he thought it was going to be an -awful anticlimax to reopen the mine. And for me, the prospect of routine -administrative work at USFET was uninviting. After three months of -strenuous and exciting field work, it wouldn’t be easy to settle down in -an office. All three of us felt that the great days were over. - -During our last week together in Munich we had little time to feel sorry -for ourselves. Everyone was preoccupied with the restitution program. -We had our full share of the work. Another important shipment was to be -made to Belgium. It was to include the Michelangelo Madonna, the eleven -paintings stolen from the church in Bruges when the statue was taken, and -the four panels by Dirk Bouts from the famous altarpiece in the church -of St. Pierre at Louvain. These panels, which formed the wings of the -altarpiece, had been removed by the Germans in August 1942. Before the -first World War one wing had been in the Berlin Gallery, the other in the -Alte Pinakothek at Munich. As in the case of the Ghent altarpiece, they -had been restored—unjustly, according to the Germans—to Belgium by the -Versailles Treaty. - -This shipment to Belgium represented the first practical application of -the “come and get it” theory of restitution, evolved by Major La Farge. -Belgium had already received the Ghent altarpiece as token restitution. -Now it was up to the Belgians to carry on at their own expense. The -special representatives who came down from Brussels to supervise this -initial shipment were Dr. Paul Coremans, a great technical expert, and -Lieutenant Pierre Longuy of the Ministry of Fine Arts. They had their own -truck but had been unable to bring suitable packing materials. We had an -ample supply of pads and blankets which we had stored at the Collecting -Point after our evacuation of the Göring collection. We placed them -at the disposal of the Belgians. But it was Saturday and no civilian -packers were available. Dr. Coremans gratefully accepted the offer of our -services. Steve, Lamont and I loaded the truck. It was the last operation -of the Special Evacuation Team. - -The Belgians had no sooner departed than the French and Dutch -representatives arrived. Captain Hubert de Brye for France looked more -like a sportsman than a scholar; but he was a man of wide cultivation and -had a sense of humor which endeared him to his associates in Munich. He -and Ham Coulter were kindred spirits and became great friends. - -Ham, who had been responsible for the rehabilitation of both the -Collecting Point and the Führerbau, now had two assistants—Captain George -Lacy and Dietrich Sattler, the latter a German architect. Through this -division of the work, Ham found time for new duties: he took the foreign -representatives in tow, arranged for their billets, their mess cards, -their PX rations and so on. It was an irritating but not a thankless job, -for the recipients of his attentions were devoted to their “wet nurse.” - -[Illustration: The Albrecht Dürer house at Nürnberg—before and after the -German collapse. In an underground bunker across the street were stored -the crown jewels of the Holy Roman Empire and the famous Veit Stoss -altarpiece.] - -[Illustration: The Veit Stoss altarpiece from the Church of Our Lady in -Cracow, which was carried off by the Nazis at the beginning of the war, -has been returned to Poland. _Left_, open; _right_, closed.] - -The Dutch representative was Lieutenant Colonel Alphonse Vorenkamp. He -was a little man with gray hair, shrewd gray eyes and steel-rimmed -spectacles. An eminent authority on Dutch painting, he had been for -several years a member of the faculty at Smith College. He enjoyed the -unusual distinction of having served in both the American and Dutch -Armies during the present war. - -I had met him in San Francisco in 1944, shortly after his discharge -from the service. He had been a buck private; and I gathered from the -story of his experiences that our Army had released him in self-defense. -He told me that he often had difficulty in understanding the drill -sergeant. Once, without thinking he had stepped out of formation and -asked politely, “Sergeant, would you mind repeating that last order!” -Vorenkamp said that he had paid dearly for his indiscretion, so dearly in -fact that he had seriously considered changing his name from Alphonse to -Latrinus. Alphonse, he said, was a ridiculous name for a Dutchman anyway. -He preferred to be called Phonse. - -Released from the Army, he had gone back to his teaching. Then, only -a few months ago, the Dutch Government had requested his services in -connection with the restitution of looted art. They had offered him a -lieutenant-colonelcy and he had accepted. - -The Dutch, as well as the British and French, had made a practice -of conferring upon qualified civilians ranks consistent with the -responsibilities of given jobs. Our government’s failure to do -likewise—so far as the art program was concerned—resulted in a disparity -in rank which frequently placed American MFA&A personnel at a great -disadvantage. - -Of all the foreign representatives, none served his country more -zealously than Phonse Vorenkamp. Throughout the fall and winter months, -his convoys shuttled back and forth between Munich and Amsterdam. When I -last heard from him—in the late spring—he had restored to Holland more -than nine hundred paintings, upward of two thousand pieces of sculpture, -porcelain and glass, along with truckloads of tapestries, rugs and -furniture. - -I left Munich on a rainy morning at the end of September. Lamont and -Steve were planning to depart for Alt Aussee at the same time. The -three of us had agreed to meet in front of the Collecting Point at -eight-thirty. I was a few minutes late and when I got there the guard at -the entrance said they had already gone. I hadn’t felt so forlorn since -the day Craig and I had parted in Bad Homburg months before. As I started -down the steps to the command car, Phonse Vorenkamp called from the -doorway. He had come to work a little earlier than usual, just to see me -off. He was full of waspish good humor, joked about the magnificence of -my new job in Frankfurt, and promised to look me up when he came through -with his first convoy. The driver stepped on the starter and, as we -rounded the corner into the Brienner-Strasse, Phonse waved us on our way. - - - - -(10) - -_MISSION TO AMSTERDAM; THE WIESBADEN MANIFESTO_ - - -I reported to Major La Farge upon arrival. Since my visit to Frankfurt -with Lamont and Steve six weeks before, there had been several changes -in the MFA&A Section. With the removal to Berlin of the Monuments -officers attached to the U. S. Group Control Council, our office at USFET -Headquarters in Frankfurt had been transferred to Höchst. The move was -logical enough because we were part of the Restitution Control Branch -of the Economics Division, which was located there. For all practical -purposes, however, we would have been better off in Frankfurt, since our -work involved daily contacts with other divisions—all located at the main -headquarters. - -The Höchst office was a barnlike room, some thirty feet square, on -the second floor of the Exposition Building. It required considerable -ingenuity to find the room, for it was tucked in behind a row of -laboratories occupied by white-coated German civilians, former employees -of I. G. Farben, who were now working for the American Military -Government. At one end of the room were desks for the Chief and Deputy -Chief. The rest of the furniture consisted of four long work tables and -two small file cabinets. The staff was equally meager—Major La Farge, -Lieutenant Edith Standen, Corporal James Reeds and a German civilian -stenographer. - -The first few days were a period of intensive indoctrination. The morning -I arrived, Bancel defined the relationship between our office and the one -at Berlin; and between us and the two districts of the American Zone—the -Eastern District, which was under Third Army, and the Western District, -under Seventh Army. He described the Berlin office as the final authority -in determining policy. In theory, if not always in fact, a given policy -was adopted only after an exchange of views between the Frankfurt-Höchst -office and the one in Berlin. The activation of policy was our function. -USFET—that is, our office—was an operational headquarters. Berlin was not. - -And how did we activate policy? By means of directives. Directives to -whom? To Third Army at Munich and Seventh Army at Heidelberg. That -sounded simple enough, until Bancel explained that a directive was not -exactly an imperial decree. Just as it was our prerogative to activate -policies approved by Berlin, so it was the prerogative of the Armies to -implement our directives as they deemed expedient. He reminded me that -the two Armies were independent and autonomous within their respective -areas. In other words, we could tell them _what_ to do, but not _how_ -to do it. Bancel was an old hand at writing directives, knowing how to -give each phrase just the right emphasis. At first the longer ones seemed -stilted and occasionally ambiguous. But I was not accustomed to military -jargon. Later I came to realize that Army communications always sounded -stilted; and what I had mistaken for ambiguity was often deliberate -circumlocution, calculated to soften the force of an unpalatable order. - -Bancel said there were more important things to worry about than the -composition of directives. One was the problem of token restitutions. He -was sorry to postpone the one to Poland, but that couldn’t be helped. -Now that France and Belgium had received theirs, Holland was next on the -list. The ceremony in Brussels had made a great hit. He thought a similar -affair might be arranged at The Hague. Vorenkamp was selecting a group of -pictures at the Collecting Point. We would provide a plane to fly them -to Amsterdam. Captain Rae was to notify our office as soon as Vorenkamp -was ready to leave—probably within the next two days. In the meantime -Bancel was having orders cut for me to go to Holland. I was to see the -American ambassador, explain the idea of these token restitutions, and -sound him out on the subject of planning a ceremony similar to the one -our ambassador had arranged in Brussels. Colonel Anthony Biddle, Chief of -the Allied Contacts Section at USFET Headquarters, had promised Bancel -to write a letter of introduction for me to take to The Hague. Bancel -suggested that I make tentative arrangements with the motor pool for a -car and driver. - -It was almost noon and Bancel had an appointment in Frankfurt at -twelve-thirty. He just had time to catch the bus. After he left, Reeds -and the stenographer went out to lunch, so Edith Standen and I had the -office to ourselves. We had a lot to talk over, as I had not seen her -since June when we worked together on the inventory of the Berlin Museum -collections at the Reichsbank. - -In the meantime, she had been stationed at Höchst. When the Group CC -outfit—to which she was officially attached—moved to Berlin, she had -preferred to remain with the USFET office. On the Organizational Chart -of the MFA&A Section, Edith was listed as the “Officer in Charge of -Technical Files.” Actually she was in charge of a great many other things -as well. When the Chief and Deputy Chief were away from headquarters at -the same time—and they often were—Edith took over the affairs of the -Section. She must have been born with these remarkable administrative -gifts, for she could have had little opportunity to develop them as the -cloistered curator of the Widener Collection where, as she said herself, -she was “accustomed to the silent padding of butlers and the spontaneous -appearance of orchids and gardenias among the Rembrandts and the -Raphaels.” - -I asked her if there had been any new developments regarding the proposed -removal of German-owned art to the United States. Yes, there had been. -But nothing conclusive. There was a cable from General Clay to the War -Department early in September.[3] The cable spoke of “holding German -objects of art in trust for eventual return to the German people.” But -it didn’t contain the clause “if and when the German nation had earned -the right to their return” which had appeared in the original document. -Besides the cable, there had been a communication from Berlin asking for -an estimate of the cubic footage in art repositories of the American -Zone. It was a question impossible to answer accurately. But Bancel and -Charlie had figured out a reply, citing the approximate size of one of -the repositories and leaving it up to Berlin to multiply the figures -by the total number in the entire zone. Now that John Nicholas Brown -and Charlie Kuhn were back in the United States, they might be able to -discourage the projected removal. I had only one piece of information to -contribute on the subject: a letter from George Stout saying that he had -been asked by the Roberts Commission to give an opinion, based on purely -technical grounds, of the risk involved in sending paintings to America. -He did so, stating that to remove them would _cube_ the risk of leaving -them in Germany. - -When Corporal Reeds returned to the office, Edith and I went across the -street to the Officers’ Mess. While we were at lunch, she told me that -Jim Reeds had been a discovery of George’s. He had been with George and -Bancel at their office in Wiesbaden. Jim was a tall, serious fellow with -sandy hair and a turned-up nose. Edith said that he had been a medical -student before the war and that he came from Missouri. There was so much -paper work to do in the office that he never got caught up. The German -typist was slow and inaccurate. Jim had to do over nearly half the -letters he gave her to copy. But his patience was inexhaustible and he -never complained. - -Bancel didn’t get back from Frankfurt until late in the afternoon. The -return of the Veit Stoss altarpiece had come up again and he had had a -long talk about it with the Polish liaison officer at USFET, who was a -nephew of the Archbishop of Cracow. After that he had had a session with -Colonel A. J. de la Bretesche, the French liaison officer. And, for good -measure, he had to take up the problem of clearance for the two Czech -representatives who would be arriving in a few days. He said wearily -that practically all of his days were like that, now that restitution -was going full speed ahead. I told him that I had had an uneventful -but profitable afternoon, going through the correspondence which had -accumulated on his desk. There had been several telephone calls, among -them one from Colonel Walter Kluss. Bancel said he would answer that one -in person, as he wanted to introduce me to the colonel, who was chief of -the Restitution Control Branch. Restitution involved settling the claims -of the occupied countries for everything the Germans had taken from -them. These claims covered every conceivable kind of property—factory -equipment, vehicles, barges, machinery, racehorses, livestock, household -furniture, etc. - -The colonel’s office was at the end of the corridor. On our way down the -hall, Bancel said that the Army could do with a few more officers like -Colonel Kluss. This observation didn’t give me a very clear picture of -the colonel, but when I met him I knew what Bancel meant. There was an -unassuming friendliness and simplicity about him that I didn’t usually -associate with full colonels. His interest in the activities of the MFA&A -Section was genuine and personal. He was particularly fond of Bancel and -Edith and, during our visit with him that afternoon, spoke admiringly of -the work which they and Charlie Kuhn had done. While other sections of -the Restitution Control Branch were still generalizing about restitution, -the MFA&A Section had tackled the problem realistically. It wasn’t a -question of mapping out a program which might work. The program _did_ -work. The wisdom and foresight of Bancel’s planning appealed to the -practical side of Colonel Kluss’ nature and, throughout the months of our -association with him, he was never too busy to help us when we went to -him with our troubles. - -Bancel and I took the seven o’clock bus over to Frankfurt that evening. -We had dinner at the Officers’ Mess in the Casino behind USFET -Headquarters. We were joined there by Lieutenant William Lovegrove, -the officer whom Bancel had selected as our representative at Paris in -connection with the restitution of looted art works to the French. With -the arrival of the French representative in Munich, regular shipments -would soon be departing for France. Their destination in Paris was to -be the Musée du Jeu de Paume, which was now the headquarters of the -_Commission de Récupération Artistique_, the commission composed of -officials from the French museums charged with the task of sorting and -distributing the plundered treasures. Among the officials selected to -assist in this work was Captain Rose Valland, the courageous Frenchwoman -who, as I mentioned earlier, had spied on the Nazi thieves in that same -museum during the Occupation. - -We had roughly estimated that it would require from three to six months -to send back the main bulk of the French loot from Germany. Mass -evacuation, as I have mentioned before, had the advantage of accelerating -restitution. It had the disadvantage of rendering difficult our procedure -of evaluating and photographing objects before they were returned. It -was our intention that Lieutenant Lovegrove should obtain the desired -photographs and appraisals. American military establishments in France -were being drastically reduced, but we planned to attach him to the USFET -Mission to France. We had been told that the Mission would be withdrawn -in the early spring. If Lovegrove’s work weren’t finished by that time, -Bancel thought it might be possible to attach him to our Paris Embassy -when the Mission folded. - -When Bancel introduced me to Lovegrove that evening at the Casino, I -thought he would be very much at home in an embassy. He was of medium -height, bald, had a pink and white complexion and wore a small mustache. -He was self-possessed without being blasé. Lovegrove was a sculptor and -had lived in Paris for many years before the war. Bancel said that he -spoke a more perfect French than most Frenchmen. - -Subsequent developments proved the wisdom of Bancel’s choice. Lovegrove -was exceedingly popular with his French associates at the Musée du Jeu de -Paume. His extraordinary tact and his capacity for hard work were equally -remarkable. - -I particularly remember our last meeting. It was in February, when I -was stopping briefly in Paris on my way home from Germany. By that time -hundreds of carloads of stolen art had been received at the Jeu de -Paume. There were one or two final matters which I wished to take up with -M. Henraux and M. Dreyfus, members of the _Commission de Récupération -Artistique_. When Lovegrove and I arrived at the museum, we found -these two charming, elderly gentlemen in their office. With them was -M. David-Weill. He was examining a fine gold snuffbox. The office was -littered with gold and silver objects. They were part of the fabulous -collection which Lamont, Steve and I had packed by candlelight in the -Castle of Neuschwanstein six months before. - -During the second week of October, I left for Amsterdam. It was a -three-hundred-mile drive from Frankfurt. Cassidy, the driver of the jeep, -was a New Jersey farm boy who, unlike most drivers, preferred long trips -to short local runs. The foothills of the Taunus Mountains were bright -with fall coloring along the back road to Limburg. From there we turned -west to the Rhine. Then, skirting the east bank of the river, we crossed -over into the British Zone at Cologne. From Cologne—where we lunched at -a British mess—our road led through Duisburg, Wesel and the skeleton of -Emerich. - -We crossed the Dutch frontier at five and continued through battered -Arnhem to Utrecht. Utrecht was full of exuberant Canadians. I stopped -at the headquarters of the local Town Major to inquire about a mess for -transient officers. A friendly lieutenant, a blonde Dutch girl on his -arm, was on his way to supper and suggested that I join them. He said -that Cassidy could eat at a Red Cross Club. - -The dining room in the officers’ hotel was noisy and crowded. Most of the -officers, the lieutenant explained, were going home in a few days. It was -good to be in a city which, superficially at least, showed no scars of -battle. - -We reached Amsterdam about nine-thirty. At night the canals were -confusing. Cassidy and I looked in vain for the Town Major. Finally we -found a Canadian “leave hotel.” The enlisted man on duty at the desk -dispensed with the formality of the billet permit I should have obtained -from the Town Major, and assigned us rooms on the same floor. Cassidy -decided that the Canadians were a democratic outfit. - -Bancel had instructed me to inform the Dutch Restitution Commission, -known as the “C.G.R.,” that Lieutenant Colonel Vorenkamp was scheduled -to reach Amsterdam at noon on the day following my arrival, so the next -morning I went to the headquarters of the commission to deliver Major -La Farge’s message. The commission occupied the stately old Goudstikker -house on the Heerengracht. Before the war, Goudstikker had been a great -Dutch art dealer. In the galleries of this house had been held many -fine exhibitions of Dutch painting. During the German Occupation of the -Netherlands, an unscrupulous Nazi named Miedl had “acquired” the entire -Goudstikker stock from the dealer’s widow. We had found many of the -Goudstikker pictures at Alt Aussee and in the Göring collection. - -Bancel had told me to ask for Captain Robert de Vries. I was informed -that the captain was in London. In his stead Nicolaes Vroom, his -scholarly young deputy, received me. He had had no word of Colonel -Vorenkamp’s impending arrival. Vroom transmitted the message immediately -to Jonkheer Roel, director of the Rijksmuseum. Twenty minutes later, -this distinguished gentleman appeared in Vroom’s office. With him were -Lieutenant Colonel H. Polis and Captain ter Meer, both of whom were -attached to the C.G.R. They were delighted to know about the plane which -I told them was due at Schiphol Airport. Telephonic connections with -Munich had not yet been re-established. They had to depend on the USFET -Mission at The Hague for transmission of all messages from the American -Zone. It often took days for a telegram to get through. - -There was barely time enough to telephone for a truck to meet the plane. -Also Mr. van Haagen, Permanent Secretary of Education and Science, -must be notified at once. I was told that he would accompany us to the -airport. In another hour we were all on our way to Schiphol. - -We waited two hours at the field and still no sign of the plane from -Munich. The weather was fine at the airport, but there were reports of -heavy fog to the south. At two o’clock we returned to Amsterdam and -lunched at the Dutch officers’ mess. My hosts apologized for the food. -They said that they no longer received British Army rations. The menu -was prepared from civilian supplies. It was a Spartan diet—cheese, bread -and jam, and weak coffee. But they shared it so hospitably that only a -graceless guest would have complained of the lack of variety. Captain ter -Meer said that it was more palatable than the tulip bulbs he had lived on -the winter before. - -After lunch, Cassidy and I drove to the USFET Mission at The Hague. -Colonel Ira W. Black, Chief of the Mission, arranged for me to see the -American ambassador. The temporary offices of our embassy were located in -a tall brick building on the edge of the city. - -I presented Colonel Biddle’s letter to Mr. Stanley Hornbeck, the -ambassador, who looked more like a successful businessman than a -diplomat. He frowned as he read, and when he had finished, said gruffly, -“Commander, Tony Biddle is a charming fellow and I am very fond of him. -I’d like to be obliging, but we’ve had too damn many celebrations and -ceremonies in this country already. We need more hard work instead of -more holidays. It’s very nice about the pictures coming back, but steel -mills and machinery would be a lot more welcome.” - -I hadn’t expected this reaction and, having had little experience with -ambassadors—irascible or otherwise—I hardly knew what to say. After an -embarrassing pause, I ventured the remark that a very simple ceremony -would be enough. - -After his first outburst, the ambassador relented to the extent of saying -he’d think it over. As I left his office, he called after me, “My bark’s -worse than my bite.” - -On my way back to Amsterdam, I concluded unhappily that as a diplomatic -errand boy I was a washout. I’d better go back to loading trucks. - -When I reached the hotel I found a message that the plane with Vorenkamp -and the pictures had arrived. I met Phonse the following morning at -the Goudstikker house. He introduced me to Lieutenant Hans Jaffé, a -Dutch Monuments officer, who bore a striking resemblance to Robert -Louis Stevenson. Several weeks later Jaffé was chosen as the Dutch -representative for the Western District of the American Zone. His work -at Seventh Army Headquarters in Heidelberg was comparable to that of -Vorenkamp’s in Munich. He was intelligent and industrious. During the -next few months he was as successful in his investigations of looted -Dutch art works as Phonse was in Bavaria. Jaffé didn’t reap so rich a -harvest, but that was only because there was less loot in his territory. - -He and Phonse took me to the Rijksmuseum where the twenty-six paintings -from Munich were being unpacked. They were a hand-picked group consisting -mainly of seventeenth century Dutch masters, which included four -Rembrandts. One of the Rembrandts was the _Still Life with Dead Peacocks_ -which Lamont and I had taken out of the mine at Alt Aussee. There was -a twenty-seventh picture: it was the fraudulent Vermeer of the Göring -collection. Phonse had brought it back to be used as evidence against its -author, the notorious Van Meegeren. - -The Rijksmuseum was holding a magnificent exhibition, appropriately -entitled “The Return of the Old Masters.” Among the one hundred and forty -masterpieces, which had been stored in underground shelters for the -past five years, were six Vermeers, nine paintings by Frans Hals, and -seventeen Rembrandts, including the famous _Night Watch_. - -That evening Phonse took Cassidy and me to the country place occupied -by the officers of the C.G.R. It was called “Oud Bussum” and was near -Naarden, about fifteen miles from Amsterdam. The luxurious house had been -the property of a well known Dutch collaborator. Many high-ranking Nazis -had been entertained there. As a mark of special favor I was given the -suite which had been used by Göring. - -At dinner I sat between Colonel W. C. Posthumus-Meyjes, Chief of the -Restitution Commission, and Phonse Vorenkamp. The colonel, to the -regret of his associates, was soon to relinquish his duties in order to -accept an important diplomatic post in Canada. Toward the end of the -meal, Phonse asked me how I had made out with the ambassador. I gave a -noncommittal reply. He looked at me shrewdly through his steel-rimmed -spectacles and said, “We would not expect your ambassador to arrange a -ceremony. That is for us to do. It is for us to express our gratitude to -General Eisenhower.” - -(Phonse was as good as his word. A few weeks later, officials of the -Netherlands Government arranged a luncheon in one of the rooms of the -Rijksmuseum. It was the first affair of its kind in the history of -the museum. Only the simplest food was served, but the table was set -with rare old silver, porcelain and glass. Colonel Kluss and Bancel -represented USFET Headquarters. I was told that no one enjoyed himself -more than the American ambassador.) - -The next morning Phonse suggested that I return with him in the plane. He -had it entirely to himself except for the empty packing cases which he -was taking back to Munich. He said that the slight detour to Frankfurt -could be easily arranged. So I sent Cassidy back in the jeep and at noon -Phonse and I—sole occupants of the C-47 which had been chartered in the -name of General Eisenhower—took off from Schiphol Airport. An hour and -twenty minutes later we landed at Frankfurt. - -Before the end of October, a token restitution was made to -Czechoslovakia. The objects chosen were the famous fourteenth century -Hohenfurth altarpiece and the collections of the Army Museum at Prague. -Both had been stolen by the Nazis. The altarpiece, evacuated from the Alt -Aussee mine, was now at the Central Collecting Point in Munich. The Army -Museum collections were stored at Schloss Banz, near Bamberg. Lieutenant -Colonel František Vrečko and Captain Egon Suk, as representatives of -the Czech Government, were invited to USFET Headquarters. We arranged -for them to proceed from there to Schloss Banz, where they were met by -Lieutenant Walter Horn. I have mentioned Horn before as the Monuments -officer whose remarkable sleuthing resulted in recovery of the five -pieces of the coronation regalia at Nürnberg. While the Czech officers -were en route, we directed Captain Rae at Third Army to arrange for the -delivery of the Hohenfurth panels to Schloss Banz. Captain Rae, in turn, -designated Lieutenant Commander Coulter to transport them from Munich. -(Both Ham Coulter and I had received our additional half-stripe earlier -in the month.) This joint operation was carried out successfully and, -in succeeding months, restitution to Czechoslovakia became a matter of -routine shipments at regular intervals. - -Also before the end of October, we became involved again in the -complicated problem of the Veit Stoss altarpiece. Major Charles -Estreicher was selected as the Polish representative. The major spent -several days at our office in Höchst studying our files for additional -data on Polish loot in the American Zone before continuing to Munich and -Nürnberg. Because of the condition of the roads, the actual return of the -altarpiece as a token restitution to Poland was delayed until the early -spring. - -While we were in the midst of these negotiations Bancel conferred with -Colonel Hayden Smith at USFET headquarters in Frankfurt on the subject -of the proposed removal of German-owned works of art to the United -States. Colonel Smith was Chief of Staff to Major General C. L. Adcock, -Deputy Director of the office of military government, U. S. Zone. Bancel -impressed upon the colonel the practical difficulties involved and -stressed the _technical_, not the moral objections to shipping valuable -works of art to America. As a result of this conference the colonel asked -Bancel to prepare a memorandum on the subject for submission to his chief. - -The finished memorandum which Edith and I helped Bancel prepare followed -the general pattern of a staff study—a statement of the “problem” with -specific suggestions relating to its solution. It contained an eloquent -plea for the importation of additional MFA&A personnel to assume -responsibility for the project and called attention to acute shortages -in packing materials and transportation facilities. It also pointed out -that the advisability of moving fragile objects across the ocean would be -balanced against the advantages of leaving them in the Central Collecting -Points, all three of which had been made weatherproof months before and -were now provided with sufficient coal to prevent deterioration of the -objects during the winter months. - -Nothing came of our recommendations. Within two weeks, Colonel Harry -McBride, administrator of the National Gallery in Washington, arrived -in Berlin to expedite the first shipment. He flew down to Frankfurt two -days later to discuss ways and means with Major La Farge. We learned -from him that General Clay’s recommendation for immediate removal had -been approved by the highest national authority. The General was now -in Washington. The futility of protest was obvious. Bancel told the -colonel that our Monuments officers were strongly opposed to the project. -He said that some of them might request transfer rather than comply -with the order. The colonel replied that such requests would, in all -probability, be refused. The only other alternative—open defiance of the -order—could have but one consequence, a court-martial. And, assuming -that our officers elected to face court-martial, what would be gained? -Nothing, according to the colonel; the order would still be carried out. -If trained MFA&A personnel were not available, then the work would have -to be done by such officers and men as might be obtainable, experienced -or not. Bancel realized that his primary duty was the “protection and -salvage” of art works. If he deliberately left them at the mercy of -whatever troops might be available to do the packing, then he would be -guilty of dereliction of duty. This interpretation afforded him some -consolation. - -As Bancel had predicted, our Monuments officers lost no time in -registering their disapproval. They expressed their sentiments as -follows: - - U. S. FORCES, EUROPEAN THEATER[4] GERMANY - - 7 November 1945 - - 1. We, the undersigned Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives - Specialist Officers of the Armed Forces of the United States, - wish to make known our convictions regarding the transportation - to the United States of works of art, the property of German - institutions or nationals, for purposes of protective custody. - - 2. a. We are unanimously agreed that the transportation of - those works of art, undertaken by the United States Army, upon - direction from the highest national authority, establishes a - precedent which is neither morally tenable nor trustworthy. - - b. Since the beginning of United States participation in the - war, it has been the declared policy of the Allied Forces, so - far as military necessity would permit, to protect and preserve - from deterioration consequent upon the processes of war, all - monuments, documents, or other objects of historic, artistic, - cultural, or archaeological value. The war is at an end and no - doctrine of “military necessity” can now be invoked for the - further protection of the objects to be moved, for the reason - that depots and personnel, both fully competent for their - protection, have been inaugurated and are functioning. - - c. The Allied nations are at present preparing to prosecute - individuals for the crime of sequestering, under pretext of - “protective custody,” the cultural treasures of German-occupied - countries. A major part of the indictment follows upon the - reasoning that even though these individuals were acting under - military orders, the dictates of a higher ethical law made it - incumbent upon them to refuse to take part in, or countenance, - the fulfillment of these orders. We, the undersigned, feel it - our duty to point out that, though as members of the armed - forces, we will carry out the orders we receive, we are thus - put before any candid eyes as no less culpable than those whose - prosecution we affect to sanction. - - 3. We wish to state that from our own knowledge, no historical - grievance will rankle so long, or be the cause of so much - justified bitterness, as the removal, for any reason, of a - part of the heritage of any nation, even if that heritage be - interpreted as a prize of war. And though this removal may be - done with every intention of altruism, we are none the less - convinced that it is our duty, individually and collectively, - to protest against it, and that though our obligations are to - the nation to which we owe allegiance, there are yet further - obligations to common justice, decency, and the establishment - of the power of right, not might, among civilized nations. - -This document was drafted and signed by a small group of Monuments -officers at the Central Collecting Point in Wiesbaden. Before being -submitted to Major La Farge for whatever action he deemed appropriate, -it was signed by twenty-four of the thirty-two Monuments officers in the -American Zone. The remaining eight chose either to submit individual -letters expressing similar views, or orally to express like sentiments. -The document came to be known as the “Wiesbaden Manifesto.” Army -regulations forbade the publication of such a statement; hence its -submission to Major La Farge as Chief of the MFA&A Section. - -Further protests against the policy which prompted the Wiesbaden -Manifesto appeared in the United States a few months later. The action -of our Government was sharply criticized and vigorously defended in the -press. Letters to and from the State Department and a petition submitted -to the President concerning the issue appear in the Appendix to this book. - -Preparations for the shipment—appropriately nicknamed “Westward Ho”—took -precedence over all other activities of the MFA&A office during the -next three weeks. Its size was determined soon after Colonel McBride’s -arrival. General Clay cabled from Washington requesting this information -and the shipping date. After hastily consulting us, our Berlin office -replied that two hundred paintings could be made ready for removal within -ten days. - -The next problem was to decide how the selection was to be made. Should -the pictures be chosen from the three Central Collecting Points—Munich, -Wiesbaden and Marburg? Time was short. It would be preferable to take -them from one depot. Wiesbaden was decided upon. Quality had been -stressed. The best of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum pictures were at -Wiesbaden. - -The decision to confine the selection to the one Central Collecting -Point had the additional advantage of avoiding the disruption of MFA&A -work at the other two depots, Munich and Marburg. Craig Smyth had long -been apprehensive about “Westward Ho,” feeling that any incursion on the -Bavarian State Collections would be disastrous to his organization at the -Munich Collecting Point. He said that his entire staff of non-Nazi museum -specialists would walk out. This would seriously impede the restitution -program in the Eastern Military District. - -So far as Marburg was concerned, I had been in the office the day Bancel -told Walker Hancock of the decision to take German-owned works of art to -America. Walker looked at Bancel as though he hadn’t understood him. Then -he said simply, “In that case I can’t go back to Marburg. Everything that -we were able to accomplish was possible because I had the confidence of -certain people. I can’t go back and tell them that I have betrayed them.” - -And he hadn’t gone back to Marburg. Instead he went to Heidelberg for -two days without telling anyone where he was going. When he finally -returned, it was only to close up his work at Marburg, in the course of -which he undertook to explain as best he could to Professor Hamann, the -distinguished old German scholar with whom he had been associated, the -decision concerning the removal of the pictures. “I quoted the official -statement,” Walker said, “about the paintings being held in trust for the -German people and added that there was no reason to doubt it. Very slowly -he said, ‘If they take our old art, we must try to create a fine new -art.’ Then, after a long pause, he added,’I never thought they would take -them.’” - -Once it had been decided to limit selection of the paintings to the -Wiesbaden Collecting Point, there arose the question of appointing an -officer properly qualified to handle the job. It called for speed, -discrimination and an expert knowledge of packing. There was a ten-day -deadline to be met. Two hundred pictures had to be chosen. And the -packing would have to be done with meticulous care. We considered -the possibilities. Captain Walter Farmer couldn’t be spared from his -duties as director of the Collecting Point. Lieutenant Samuel Ratensky, -Monuments officer for Greater Hesse, was an architect, not a museum man. -Captain Joseph Kelleher was one of our ablest officers; but he was just -out of the hospital where he had been laid up for three months with a -broken hip. The doctor had released him on condition that he be given -easy assignments for the next few weeks. - -At this critical juncture, Lamont Moore telephoned from Munich. He and -Steve had just completed the evacuation of the mine at Alt Aussee. Lamont -said that they were coming up to Frankfurt. Steve had enough points to -go home—enough and to spare. Lamont thought he’d take some leave. Bancel -signaled from the opposite desk. I told Lamont to forget about the leave; -that we had a job for him. Bancel sighed with relief. Lamont’s was a -different kind of sigh. - -Lamont’s arrival was providential. Aside from his obvious qualifications -for the Wiesbaden assignment, he and Colonel McBride were old friends -from the National Gallery where, as I have mentioned before, Lamont had -been director of the educational program. The colonel was content to -leave everything in his hands. Lamont and I spent an evening together -studying a list of the pictures stored at Wiesbaden. He typed out a -tentative selection. The next day he and the colonel went over to the -Collecting Point for a preliminary inspection. - -Steve was momentarily tempted by the prospect of having a part in -the undertaking. But when I told him there was a chance of his being -included in a draft of officers scheduled for immediate redeployment, -he decided that he’d had his share of packing. Maybe he’d come back in -the spring, if there was work still to be done. His parting gift was the -Mercedes-Benz, a temporary legacy, as it turned out: two weeks later -the car was stolen from the motor pool where I had left it for minor -repairs. Steve didn’t like the idea of having to wait at a processing -center before proceeding to his port of embarkation. He cheered up when -he learned that he was headed for one near Marburg. He went off in high -spirits at the prospect of seeing his old friend Walker Hancock again. - -Under Lamont’s skillful supervision, preparations for the shipment -proceeded according to schedule. Lamont chose Captain Kelleher as his -assistant. Together they located the cases from Captain Farmer’s records. -Only a few of the Kaiser Friedrich pictures had been taken out of the -cases in which they had been originally packed for removal from Berlin to -the Merkers mine. The larger cases contained as many as a dozen pictures. -It was slow work opening the cases and withdrawing a particular canvas -for repacking. Seldom were any two of the specified two hundred paintings -in a single case. When they were all finally assembled, each one was -photographed. In the midst of the proceedings, the supply of film and -paper ran out. The nearest replacements were at Mannheim. A day was lost -in obtaining the necessary authorization to requisition fresh supplies. -It took the better part of another day to make the trip to Mannheim and -back. Thanks to Lamont’s careful calculations, maximum use was made -of the original cases in repacking the two hundred paintings after a -photographic record had been made of their condition. - -While these operations were in progress, detailed plans for the actual -shipment of the paintings had to be worked out. Colonel McBride and -Bancel took up the matter of shipping space with General Ross, Chief of -Transportation. Sailing schedules were consulted. An Army transport, the -_James Parker_, was selected. As an alternative, temporary consideration -was given to the idea of trucking the pictures to Bremen and sending -them by a Naval vessel from there. But the Bremen sailing schedules were -unsatisfactory. A special metal car was requisitioned to transport the -cases from Frankfurt, by way of Paris, to Le Havre. A twenty-four-hour -guard detail was appointed to accompany the car from Frankfurt to the -ship. Trucks and escort vehicles were procured for the twenty-five-mile -trip from Wiesbaden to the Frankfurt rail yards. - -It was decided that Lamont should be responsible for delivering the -pictures to the National Gallery in Washington where they were to be -placed in storage. Bancel drafted the orders. He worked on them a full -day. It took two more days to have them cut. They were unique in one -respect: Lamont, a second lieutenant, was appointed officer-in-charge. -His designated assistant was a commander in the Navy. This was Commander -Keith Merrill, an old friend of Colonel McBride’s, who happened to be -in Frankfurt. He offered his services to the colonel and subsequently -crossed on the _James Parker_ with Lamont and the pictures. - -Lamont and Joe Kelleher finished the packing one day ahead of schedule. -The forty-five cases, lined with waterproof paper, were delivered to the -Frankfurt rail yards and loaded onto the car. From there the car was -switched to the station and attached to the night train for Paris. - -Bancel and I returned to the office to take up where we had left off. -As usual, Edith Standen had taken care of everything while we had been -preoccupied with the “Westward Ho” shipment. There had been no major -crises. Judging from the weekly field reports, restitution to the Dutch -and the French was proceeding without interruption. Edith produced a -stack of miscellaneous notations: The Belgian representative had arrived -in Munich. The Stockholm Museum had offered a supply of lumber to be used -in repairing war-damaged German buildings of cultural importance. There -had been two inquiries concerning a modification of Law 52 (the Military -Government regulation which forbade trafficking in works of art). A -report from Würzburg indicated that emergency repairs to the roof of the -Residenz were nearing completion. Lieutenant Rorimer had called from -Heidelberg about the books at Offenbach. - -Of all the problems which confronted the MFA&A Section, none was more -baffling than that of the books at Offenbach. There were more than two -million of them. They had been assembled from Jewish libraries throughout -Europe by the _Institut zur Erforschung der Judenfrage_—Institute for -the Investigation of the Jewish Question—at Frankfurt. At the close of -the war, a small part of the collection was found in a large private -house in Frankfurt. The rest was discovered in a repository to the north -of the city, at Hungen. The house in Frankfurt had been bombed, leaving -undamaged only the books stored in the cellar. One hundred and twenty -thousand volumes were removed from the damp cellar to the Rothschild -Library, which, though damaged, was still intact. Examination of this -portion of the collection revealed that it contained more than sixty -libraries looted from occupied countries. Subsequently, the rest of -the collection was transferred from Hungen to an enormous warehouse at -Offenbach, across the river from Frankfurt. The ultimate disposition -of this library—probably the greatest of its kind in the world—was the -subject of heated discussions, both written and oral. Several leading -Jewish scholars had expressed the hope that it could be kept together -and eventually established in some center of international study. Our -immediate responsibility was the care of the books in their two present -locations. That alone was exceedingly difficult. It would take months, -perhaps years, to make an inventory. - -Judge Samuel Rifkind, General Clay’s Adviser on Jewish Affairs, had -requested that twenty-five thousand volumes be made available for -distribution among the DP camps. I referred the request to the two -archivists who had recently joined our staff, Paul Vanderbilt and Edgar -Breitenbach. While I sympathized with the tragic plight of the Jewish -DPs, there were the unidentified legal owners of the books to be taken -into account. One of our archivists felt that we should accede to the -judge’s request; the other disagreed. The matter was referred to Berlin -for a decision. After several weeks, we received word from Berlin that no -books were to be released. The judge persisted. Ten days later, Berlin -reconsidered. The books could be released—that is, twenty-five thousand -of them—on condition that no rare or irreplaceable volumes were included -in the selection. Also, the volumes chosen were to be listed on a custody -receipt. Up to the time of my departure from Frankfurt, no books had been -released. - -During the latter part of November, we concentrated on future personnel -requirements for the MFA&A program in the American Zone. Current -directives indicated that drastic reductions in Military Government -installations throughout the Zone could be expected in the course of the -next six or eight months. Already we had begun to feel the impact of the -Army’s accelerated redeployment program. Bancel and I took stock of our -present resources. We had lost four officers and three enlisted men since -the first of the month. To offset them, we had gained two civilians; but -they were archivists, urgently needed in a specialized field of our work. -We couldn’t count on them as replacements. - -We drew up a chart showing the principal MFA&A offices and depots in each -of the three _Länder_. In Bavaria, for example, there were at Munich -the _Land_ office and the Central Collecting Point; a newly-established -Archival Collecting Point at Oberammergau and the auxiliary collecting -point at Bamberg; and two secondary offices, one in Upper Bavaria, -another in Lower Bavaria. In Greater Hesse, there were the _Land_ office -and the Central Collecting Point at Wiesbaden; the offices at Frankfurt -and Kassel; and the Collecting Points at Offenbach and Marburg. In -Württemberg-Baden, the smallest of the three _Länder_, the _Land_ office -was at Stuttgart. There was a secondary one at Karlsruhe. The principal -repositories, requiring MFA&A supervision, were the great mines at -Heilbronn and Kochendorf. - -We hoped that certain of these establishments could be closed out in a -few months; others would continue to operate for an indefinite period. We -regarded the _Land_ offices as permanent; likewise the Collecting Points, -with the exception of Marburg. And Marburg would have to be maintained -until it had been thoroughly sifted for loot, or until we received -authorization to effect interzonal transfers. Most of the Rhineland -museums were in the British Zone, but the collections were at Marburg. -The British had requested their return. Until our Berlin office approved -the request, we could do nothing. - -It was impossible to make an accurate forecast of our personnel -needs. Nevertheless we entered on the chart tentative reductions -with accompanying dates. The chart would serve as a basic guide in -the allocation of civilian positions when the conversion program got -seriously under way. A number of our officers had already signified their -intentions of converting to civilian status, if the promised program ever -materialized. - -Early in December, Bancel went home on thirty-days’ leave. Allowing two -weeks for transportation each way, he would be gone about two months. -In his absence, I was Acting Chief of the Section. Under the Navy’s new -point system, I had been eligible for release on the first of November, -but had requested an extension of active duty in anticipation of Bancel’s -departure. I was not looking forward with enthusiasm to the period of his -absence, because of the personnel problems which lay ahead. - -My apprehensions were justified. Our chart, based on a realistic concept -of the work yet to be done, was rejected by the Personnel Section. I was -told that each _Land_ would draw up its own T.O. (Table of Organization). -Perhaps there could be some co-ordination at a later date. Even the T.O. -of our own office at USFET was thrown back at us with the discouraging -comment that the proposed civil service ratings would have to be -downgraded. During the next eight weeks there must have been a dozen -personnel conferences between the top brass of USFET and the Military -Governors of the three _Länder_, and between them and the moguls of the -Group Control Council. Not once, to my knowledge, was the MFA&A Section -consulted. For a while I exhorted applicants for civilian MFA&A jobs to -be patient; but as the weeks went by and the job allocations failed to -materialize, applications were withdrawn. _Stars and Stripes_ contributed -to my discomfort with glittering forecasts of Military Government jobs -paying from seven to ten thousand dollars a year. There were positions -which paid such salaries, but _Stars and Stripes_ might have stressed -the fact that there were many more which paid less. I remember one mousy -little sergeant who applied for a job with us. In civilian life he had -received a salary of twelve hundred dollars a year. On his application -blank he stipulated, as the minimum he would accept, the sum of six -thousand dollars. - -Fortunately there were diversions from these endless personnel problems. -Edith and I fell into the habit of going over to Wiesbaden on Saturday -afternoons. It was a relief to escape from the impersonal life at our -headquarters to the friendly country atmosphere of the _Land_ and City -Detachments. We were particularly fond of our Monuments officers there. - -They were a dissimilar trio—Captain Farmer, Lieutenant Ratensky and -Captain Kelleher. Walter Farmer presided over the Collecting Point. -Walter seldom relaxed. He was an intense fellow, jumpy in his movements, -and unconsciously brusque in conversation. He was an excellent host, -loved showing us about the Collecting Point—particularly his “Treasure -Room” with its wonderful medieval objects—and, at the end of a tour, -invariably produced a bottle of Tokay in his office. - -Sam Ratensky, MFA&A officer for the _Land_, was short, slender and had -red hair. In civilian life he had been associated with Frank Lloyd Wright -and was deeply interested in city-planning. Sam usually looked harassed, -but his patience and understanding were inexhaustible. He was accurate in -his appraisals of people and had a quiet sense of humor. - -Joe Kelleher, Sam’s deputy, was a “black Irishman.” The war had -temporarily interrupted his brilliant career in the Fine Arts department -at Princeton. At twenty-eight, Joe had the poise, balance and tolerance -of a man twice that age. With wit and charm added to these soberer -qualities, he was a dangerously persuasive character. On one occasion, -during Bancel’s absence, he all but succeeded in hypnotizing our office -into assigning a disproportionate number of our best officers to the -MFA&A activities of Greater Hesse. When Sam Ratensky went home in -February, Joe succeeded him as MFA&A officer for the _Land_. He held -this post until his own release several months later. His intelligent -supervision of the work was a significant contribution to the success of -the American fine arts program in Germany. - -Another Monuments officer whose visits to Wiesbaden rivaled Edith’s and -mine in frequency was Captain Everett Parker Lesley, Jr. He disliked his -given name and preferred to be called “Bill.” Lesley had been in Europe -since the invasion. He was known as the “stormy petrel” of MFA&A. And -with good reason. He was brilliant and unpredictable. A master of oral -and written invective, he was terrible in his denunciation of stupidity -and incompetence. During the fall months, Bill was attached to the -Fifteenth Army with headquarters at Bad Nauheim. This was the “paper” -army, so called because its function was the compilation of a history of -the war. Bill was writing a report of MFA&A activities during combat. He -was a virtuoso of the limerick. I was proud of my own repertoire, but -Bill knew all of mine and fifty more of his own composing. He usually -telephoned me at the office when he had turned out a particularly good -one. - -Upon the completion of his report for Fifteenth Army, Lesley was -appointed MFA&A Officer at Frankfurt. As a part of his duties, he assumed -responsibility for the two million books at Offenbach and the Rothschild -Library. Within a week he had submitted a report on the two depots and -drafted practical plans for their effective reorganization. - -While Walter Farmer was on leave in England before Christmas, Joe -Kelleher took charge of the Wiesbaden Collecting Point. The Dutch and -French restitution representatives had gone home for the holidays. Joe -had the spare time to examine some of the unopened cases. He asked Edith -and me to come over one evening. He said that he might have a surprise -for us. I said we’d come and asked if I might bring Colonel Kluss, -Chief of the Restitution Control Branch. The colonel had never seen the -Collecting Point. - -We drove over in the colonel’s car. After early dinner with Joe at the -City Detachment, we went down to the Collecting Point. Joe unlocked the -“Treasure Room” and switched on the lights. The colonel whistled when he -looked around the room. - -“Those are the Polish church treasures which the Nazis swiped,” said Joe, -pointing casually to the gold and silver objects stacked on shelves and -tables. “There’s something a lot more exciting in that box.” - -He walked over to a packing case about five feet square which stood in -the center of the room. The lid had been unscrewed but was still in -place. It was marked in black letters: “Kiste 28, Aegypt. Abteilung—Bunte -Königin—Tel-el-Amarna—NICHT KIPPEN!”—Case 28, Egyptian Department—Painted -Queen—Tel-el-Amarna—DON’T TILT! Joe grinned with satisfaction as I read -the markings. The Painted Queen—Queen Nefertete. This celebrated head, -the most beautiful piece of Egyptian sculpture in the world, had been one -of the great treasures of the Berlin Museum. It was a momentous occasion. -There was every reason to believe that the German museum authorities -had packed the head with proper care. Even so, the case had been moved -around a good deal in the meantime, first from the Merkers mine to -the vaults of the Reichsbank in Frankfurt, and then from Frankfurt to -Wiesbaden. There was not much point in speculating about that now. We’d -know the worst in a few minutes. - -Joe and I laid the lid aside. The box was filled with a white packing -material. At first I thought it was cotton, but it wasn’t. It was glass -wool. In the very center of the box lay the head, swathed in silk paper. -Gingerly we lifted her from the case and placed her on a table. We -unwound the silk paper. Nefertete was unharmed, and as bewitching as -ever. She was well named: “The beautiful one is here.” - -While we studied her from every angle, Joe recounted the story of the -Nefertete, her discovery and subsequent abduction to Berlin. She was the -wife of Akhnaton, enlightened Pharaoh of the fourteenth century B.C. -This portrait of her was excavated in the winter of 1912 by Dr. Ludwig -Borchardt, famous German Egyptologist, on the site of Tel-el-Amarna, -Akhnaton’s capital. In compliance with the regulations of the Egyptian -Government, Borchardt submitted a list of his finds at Tel-el-Amarna to -M. Maspero of the Cairo Museum. According to the story, Maspero merely -glanced at the list, to make certain that a fifty-fifty division had -been made, and did not actually examine the items. The head was taken to -Berlin and placed in storage until after the first World War. When it was -placed on exhibition in 1920, the Egyptian Government protested loudly -that Dr. Borchardt had deceived the authorities of the Cairo Museum and -demanded the immediate return of the head. (The Egyptian Government was -again pressing its claim in March 1946.) - -After replacing Nefertete in her case, Joe showed the colonel the -collection of rare medieval treasures, including those of the Guelph -Family—patens, chalices and reliquaries of exquisite workmanship dating -from the eleventh and twelfth centuries. With a fine sense of showmanship -he saved the most spectacular piece till the last: the famous Crown of -St. Stephen, the first Christian king of Hungary, crowned by the Pope -in the year 1000. It was adorned with enamel plaques, bordered with -pearls and studded with great uncut gems. Joe said there was a difference -of opinion among scholars as to the exact date and provenance of the -enamels. The crown was surmounted by a bent gold cross. According to -Joe, the cross had been bent for four hundred years and would never be -straightened. During the sixteenth century, the safety of the crown was -endangered. It was entrusted to the care of a Hungarian noblewoman, -who concealed it in a compartment under the seat of her carriage. The -space was small and when the lid was closed and weighted down by the -occupant of the carriage, the cross got bent. The Hungarian coronation -regalia included three other pieces: a sword, an orb, and a scepter. The -scepter was extremely beautiful. The stalk was of rich gold filigree and -terminated in a spherical ornament of carved rock crystal. The regalia -was kept in a specially constructed iron trunk with three locks, the keys -to which were entrusted to three different nobles. At the close of the -present war, American troops apprehended a Hungarian officer with the -trunk. Perhaps he was trying to safeguard the regalia as his predecessor -in the sixteenth century had done. In any case, the American authorities -thought they’d better relieve him of that grave responsibility. - -[Illustration: The Hungarian Crown Jewels. _Left_, the scepter. _Center_, -the celebrated Crown of St. Stephen. _Right_, the sword. These priceless -treasures fell into the hands of the American authorities in Germany at -the war’s close.] - -[Illustration: View of the Treasure Room at the Central Collecting Point, -Wiesbaden, showing treasures stolen from Polish churches.] - -[Illustration: The celebrated Egyptian sculpture, Queen Nefertete, -formerly in the Berlin Museum, discovered in the Merkers salt mine.] - -A few days after our visit to Wiesbaden with Colonel Kluss, I received a -letter from home enclosing a clipping from the December 7 edition of the -New York _Times_. The clipping read as follows: - - $80,000,000 PAINTINGS ARRIVE FROM EUROPE ON ARMY TRANSPORT - - A valuable store of art, said to consist entirely of paintings - worth upward of $80,000,000, arrived here last night from - Europe in the holds of the Army transport _James Parker_. - - Where the paintings came from and where they are going was a - mystery, and no Army officer on the pier at Forty-fourth Street - and North River, where the _Parker_ docked with 2,483 service - passengers, would discuss the shipment, or even admit it was on - board. It was learned elsewhere that a special detail of Army - officers was on the ship during the night to take charge of the - consignment, which will be unloaded today. - - Unusual precautions were taken to keep the arrival of the - paintings secret. The canvases were included in more than forty - crates and were left untouched during the night under lock and - key. - - Presumably the shipment was gathered at sites in Europe where - priceless stores of paintings and art objects stolen by the - Nazis from the countries they overran were discovered when - Allied forces broke through into Germany and the dominated - countries. - - The White House announced in Washington two months ago that - shipments of art would be brought here for safekeeping, to - be kept in “trust” for the rightful owners, and the National - Gallery of Art, through its chairman, Chief Justice Harlan - Fiske Stone, was asked to provide storage and protection for - the works while they are in this country. The gallery is - equipped with controlled ventilation and expert personnel for - the storage and handling of such works. - - The White House announcement gave no listing of the paintings, - but it is known that among the vast stores seized, including - caches in Italy as well as Germany, and Hermann Goering’s - famous $200,000,000 art collection, [were] included many of the - world’s art treasures and works of the masters. - -By coincidence, I received that same day a copy of the New York _Times -Overseas Weekly_ edition of December 9, which carried substantially the -same story, except for the fact that it stated unequivocally that the -paintings shipped to America were Nazi loot. - -Edith and I were gravely disturbed by the inaccuracy of the statements in -these articles. Our concern was increased by the fact that the articles -had appeared in so reliable a publication as the _Times_. What could -have happened to the official press release on the subject issued on the -twenty-fourth of November when the _James Parker_ was ready to sail?[5] -And why all the mystery? I reread the December 7 clipping. To me there -was the implication that we were shipping loot in wholesale lots to the -United States. That would be alarming news to the countries whose stolen -art works we were already returning as rapidly as possible. - -The _Times_ story most emphatically called for a correction. But if -a statement from our office were sent through channels, it probably -wouldn’t reach New York before Easter. Edith looked up from her work. -There was a glint in her eye. She asked, “Will you do me a favor? I’d -like to write the letter of correction.” - -I told her to go ahead. Ten minutes later she showed me the rough draft. -It covered all the points. I reworked a phrase here and there but made -no important changes and, as soon as it was typed and cleared, I signed -and mailed it. As published in the New York _Times_ two weeks later, on -January 2, 1946, the letter read as follows: - - TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEW YORK TIMES - - On Dec. 7 _The Times_ printed a report to the effect that - $80,000,000 worth of paintings, presumably from the stores of - art objects stolen by the Nazis, had arrived from Europe in the - Army transport James Parker. Your Overseas Weekly edition of - Dec. 9 repeated this information but stated categorically that - the paintings were Nazi loot. - - It is true that the James Parker brought to America some 200 - paintings of inestimable value, but none of them is loot or - of dubious ownership. They are the property of the Kaiser - Friedrich Museum in Berlin. A press release from the Office - of Military Government for Germany (U.S.), dated Nov. 24, - states that these “priceless German-owned paintings, which - might suffer irreparable damage if left in Germany through - the winter, have been selected for temporary storage in the - United States. These paintings have been gathered from various - wartime repositories in the United States Zone of Germany and - are being shipped to Washington to insure their safety and to - hold them in trust for the people of Germany. The United States - Government has promised their return to the German people.” - - It cannot be stated too emphatically that the policy of the - American Military Government is to return all looted works - of art to their owner nations with the greatest possible - speed. Since the restitution in August of the famous van Eyck - altarpiece, “The Mystic Lamb,” to Belgium, a steady stream of - paintings, sculpture, fine furniture and other art objects - has poured from the highly organized collecting points of the - United States Zone to the liberated countries. Few, if any, - looted works of art of any importance are of unknown origin; - and though, among the vast masses of material taken from the - Jews and other “enemies of the state” for what was always - described as “safekeeping” there will undoubtedly be many - pieces whose ownership will be difficult to determine, it - appears unlikely that these will be found to be of great value. - - The shipment of German-owned paintings to the United States is - thus a project entirely separate from the main objectives of - the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section of the Office - of Military Government—namely, the restitution of loot and - the re-establishment of the German museums and other cultural - organizations. To confuse this shipment, which was directed by - the highest national authority, with what is now the routine - work of preservation, identification and restitution performed - by trained specialist personnel is to mislead our Allies - and to underrate the accomplishments of a small group of - disinterested and hard-working Americans. - - Thomas C. Howe Jr. - - Lieut. Comdr., USNR, Deputy Chief; Director - on Leave, California Palace of the - Legion of Honor, San Francisco. - - European Theatre, Dec. 18, 1945. - -The main objectives of the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section of -American Military Government in Germany were defined in my letter to the -New York _Times_ as “the restitution of loot and the re-establishment -of the German museums and other cultural institutions.” Honorable and -constructive objectives. And, as expressed in that letter, unequivocal -and reassuring both to the liberated countries of Europe and to the -Germans. Yet how difficult of attainment! How difficult even to keep -those objectives clearly in mind when confronted simultaneously—as our -officers often were—with a dozen problems of equal urgency! - -At close range it was impossible to look objectively at the overall -record of our accomplishments. But homeward bound in February I had that -opportunity. The pieces of the puzzle began to fit together and the -picture took shape. It was possible to determine to what extent we have -realized our objectives. - -So far as restitution is concerned, the record has been a success. During -the summer months our energies were devoted to obvious preliminary -preparations. They included the establishment of Central Collecting -Points at Munich, Marburg and Wiesbaden. Immediately thereafter, the -contents of art repositories in the American Zone were removed to those -central depots. The Central Collecting Points, organized and directed by -Monuments officers with museum experience, were staffed with trained -personnel from German museums. The one at Munich was primarily reserved -for looted art, since the majority of the cultural booty was found in -Bavaria. The Collecting Points at Wiesbaden and Marburg, on the other -hand, housed German-owned collections brought from repositories in which -storage conditions were unsatisfactory. - -The process of actual restitution was inaugurated by token restitutions -in the name of General Eisenhower to Belgium, Holland, France and -Czechoslovakia. Circumstances beyond our control postponed similar -gestures of good will to Poland and Greece. Representatives of the -liberated countries were invited to the American Zone to identify and -remove the loot from the collecting points. According to late reports, -the restitution of loot was continuing without interruption. - -Shortly after my return, there were disquieting rumors of drastic -reductions in American personnel connected with cultural restitution in -Germany. I earnestly hope that these rumors are without foundation. Such -reductions would be disastrous to the completion of a program which has -reflected so creditably on our government. - -The re-establishment of German museums and other cultural -institutions—our second main objective—has been, to a large extent, -sacrificed in the interests of restitution. This brings up again the -urgent need for the immediate replenishment of our dwindling Fine Arts -personnel in Germany. Our moral responsibility for the continuation of -this phase of the MFA&A program is a grave one. It was understandably -neglected during the first six months of our occupation in Germany. -And it would be unfair to argue that the British have far outdistanced -us in this field. That they have done so is undeniably true. However, -the British found but little loot in their zone. Consequently, they -have been able to make rapid strides in the reconstitution of German -collections and cultural institutions, while we have been preoccupied -with restitution. - -Notwithstanding that preoccupation, our Monuments officers were -instrumental in arranging a series of impressive exhibitions of -German-owned masterpieces. The first of these was held at Marburg in -November 1945. A second and more ambitious show, which included many of -the finest treasures of the Bavarian State Galleries, opened at Munich -in January 1946. A third, comprising paintings and sculptures from the -museums of Berlin and Frankfurt, was presented at Wiesbaden in February. - -All these exhibitions were accompanied by catalogues with German and -English texts. Those of Munich and Wiesbaden were lavishly illustrated. -The Munich catalogue contained several plates showing the rooms in which -the exhibition was held—lofty, spacious galleries recalling the marble -halls of our own National Gallery at Washington. - -At the time of my departure from Germany, little was known of French -and Russian procedures with regard to cultural rehabilitation in their -respective zones of occupation. Their Military Governments have made -provisions for personnel capable of carrying on work similar to ours and -that of the British. - -The caliber of the men drawn into the project from all branches of -our Armed Forces has been cited as an important factor in the success -of the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives program. I would like to -cite another factor which I consider equally important: There was no -arbitrary drafting of personnel; participation was voluntary. The -resulting spontaneity and its value to the spirit of the work cannot be -exaggerated. - - - - -APPENDIX - - - - -APPENDIX - - -The following is the complete list of the paintings transferred from -Germany and now stored at the National Gallery, according to its News -Release of December 14, 1945: - -Albrecht Altdorfer: _Rest on the Flight into Egypt_ - -Albrecht Altdorfer: _Landscape with Satyr Family_ - -Albrecht Altdorfer: _Nativity_ - -Albrecht Altdorfer: _Christ’s Farewell to His Apostles_ - -Christoph Amberger: _Cosmographer Sebastian Münster_ - -Jacopo Amigioni: _Lady as Diana_ - -Fra Angelico: _Last Judgment_ - -Austrian Master (ca. 1400): _Christ, Madonna, St. John_ - -Austrian Master (ca. 1410): _Crucifixion_ - -Hans Baldung Grien: _Altar of Halle_ - -Hans Baldung Grien: _Graf von Löwenstein_ - -Hans Baldung Grien: _Pietà_ - -Hans Baldung Grien: _Pyramus and Thisbe_ - -Giovanni Bellini: _The Resurrection_ - -Bohemian (ca. 1350): _Glatyer Madonna_ - -Hieronymus Bosch: _St. John on Patmos_ - -Botticelli: _Giuliano de Medici_, and frame - -Botticelli: _Madonna of the Lilies_ - -Botticelli: _St. Sebastian_ - -Botticelli: _Simonetta Vespucci_ - -Botticelli: _Venus_ - -Dirk Bouts: _Madonna and Child_ - -Dirk Bouts: _Virgin in Adoration_ - -Peter Breughel: _Dutch Proverbs_ - -Peter Breughel: _Two Monkeys_ - -Angelo Bronzino: _Portrait of a Young Man_ - -Angelo Bronzino: _Portrait of a Young Man_ - -Angelo Bronzino: _Ugolino Martelli_ - -Hans Burgkmair: _Holy Family_ - -Giovanni Battista Caracciolo: _Cosmos and Damian_ - -Caravaggio: _Cupid as Victor_ - -Vittore Carpaccio: _Entombment of Christ_ - -Andrea del Castagno: _Assumption of the Virgin_ - -Chardin: _The Draughtsman_ - -Chardin: _Still Life_ - -Petrus Christus: _Portrait of a Girl_ - -Petrus Christus: _St. Barbara and a Carthusian Monk_ - -Joos van Cleve: _Young Man_ - -Cologne Master (ca. 1400): _Life of Christ_ - -Cologne Master (ca. 1350): _Madonna Enthroned, Crucifixion_ - -Correggio: _Leda and the Swan_ - -Francesco Cossa: _Allegory of Autumn_ - -Lucas Cranach, the Elder: _Frau Reuss_ - -Lucas Cranach, the Elder: _Lucretia_ - -Lucas Cranach, the Elder: _Rest on the Flight into Egypt_ - -Daumier: _Don Quixote_ - -Piero di Cosimo: _Mars, Venus and Cupid_ - -Lorenzo di Credi: _Young Girl_ - -Albrecht Dürer: _Madonna_ - -Albrecht Dürer: _Madonna with the Goldfinch_ - -Albrecht Dürer: _Young Woman_ - -Albrecht Dürer: _Hieronymus Holzschuher_ - -Albrecht Dürer: _Cover for Portrait of Hieronymus Holzschuher_ - -Adam Elsheimer: _The Drunkenness of Noah_ - -Adam Elsheimer: _Holy Family_ - -Adam Elsheimer: _Landscape with the Weeping Magdalene_ - -Adam Elsheimer: _St. Christopher_ - -Jean Fouquet: _Etienne Chevalier with St. Stephen_ - -French (ca. 1400): _Coronation of the Virgin_ - -French Master (ca. 1400): _Triptych_ - -Geertgen tot Sint Jans: _John the Baptist_ - -Geertgen tot Sint Jans: _Madonna_ - -Giorgione: _Portrait of a Young Man_ - -Giotto: _Death of the Virgin_ - -Jan Gossaert: _Baudouin de Bourbon_ - -Jan Gossaert: _Christ on the Mount of Olives_ - -Francesco Guardi: _The Balloon Ascension_ - -Francesco Guardi: _St. Mark’s Piazza in Venice_ - -Francesco Guardi: _Piazzetta in Venice_ - -Frans Hals: _Hille Bobbe_ - -Frans Hals: _Nurse and Child_ - -Frans Hals: _Portrait of a Young Man_ - -Frans Hals: _Portrait of a Young Woman_ - -Frans Hals: _Singing Boy_ - -Frans Hals: _Tyman Oosdorp_ - -Meindert Hobbema: _Landscape_ - -Hans Holbein: _George Giesze_ - -Hans Holbein: _Old Man_ - -Hans Holbein: _Portrait of a Man_ - -Pieter de Hooch: _The Mother_ - -Pieter de Hooch: _Party of Officers and Ladies_ - -Willem Kalf: _Still Life_ - -Willem Kalf: _Still Life_ - -Philips Konninck: _Dutch Landscape_ - -Georges de la Tour: _St. Sebastian_ - -Filippino Lippi: _Allegory of Music_ - -Fra Filippo Lippi: _Adoration of the Child_ - -Pietro Lorenzetti: _St. Humilitas Raises a Nun_ - -Pietro Lorenzetti: _Death of St. Humilitas_ - -Claude Lorrain: _Italian Coast Scene_ - -Lorenzo Lotto: _Christ’s Farewell to His Mother_ - -Bastiano Mainardi: _Portrait of a Man_ - -Manet: _In the Winter Garden_ - -Andrea Mantegna: _Cardinal Mezzarota_ - -Andrea Mantegna: _Presentation in the Temple_ - -Simon Mannion: _Altar of St. Omer_ (two panels) - -Simone Martini: _Burial of Christ_ - -Masaccio: _Birth Platter_ - -Masaccio: _Three Predelle_ - -Masaccio: _Four Saints_ - -Quentin Massys: _The Magdalene_ - -Master of the Darmstadt Passion: _Altar Wings_ - -Master of Flémalle: _Crucifixion_ - -Master of Flémalle: _Portrait of a Man_ - -Master of the Virgo inter Virgines: _Adoration of the Kings_ - -Hans Memling: _Madonna Enthroned with Angels_ - -Hans Memling: _Madonna Enthroned_ - -Hans Memling: _Madonna and Child_ - -Lippo Memmi: _Madonna and Child_ - -Antonello da Messina: _Portrait of a Man_ - -Jan Mostaert: _Portrait of a Man_ - -Aelbert Ouwater: _Raising of Lazarus_ - -Palma Vecchio: _Portrait of a Man_ - -Palma Vecchio: _Young Woman_ - -Giovanni Paolo Pannini: _Colosseum_. - -Giovanni di Paolo: _Christ on the Cross_ - -Giovanni di Paolo: _Legend of St. Clara_ - -Joachim Patinir: _Rest on the Flight into Egypt_ - -Sebastiano del Piombo: _Roman Matron_ - -Sebastiano del Piombo: _Knight of the Order of St. James_ - -Antonio Pollaiuolo: _David_ - -Nicolas Poussin: _St. Matthew_ - -Nicolas Poussin: _Amaltea_ - -Raphael: _Madonna Diotalevi_ - -Raphael: _Madonna Terranova_ - -Raphael: _Solly Madonna_ - -Rembrandt: _Landscape with Bridge_ - -Rembrandt: _John the Baptist_ - -Rembrandt: _Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife_ - -Rembrandt: _Vision of Daniel_ - -Rembrandt: _Moses Breaking the Tablets of the Law_ - -Rembrandt: _Susanna and the Elders_ - -Rembrandt: _Tobias and the Angel_ - -Rembrandt: _Minerva_ - -Rembrandt: _Rape of Proserpina_ - -Rembrandt: _Self Portrait_ - -Rembrandt: _Hendrickje Stoffels_ - -Rembrandt: _Man with Gold Helmet_ - -Rembrandt: _Old Man with Red Hat_ - -Rembrandt: _Rabbi_ - -Rembrandt: _Saskia_ - -Rubens: _Landscape (shipwreck of Aeneas)_ - -Rubens: _St. Cecilia_ - -Rubens: _Madonna Enthroned with Saints_ - -Rubens: _Andromeda_ - -Rubens: _Perseus and Andromeda_ - -Rubens: _Isabella Brandt_ - -Jacob van Ruysdael: _View of Haarlem_ - -Andrea Sacchi(?): _Allesandro del Boro_ - -Sassetta: _Legend of St. Francis_ - -Sassetta: _Mass of St. Francis_ - -Martin Schongauer: _Nativity_ - -Seghers: _Landscape_ - -Luca Signorelli: _Three Saints_ (altar wing) - -Luca Signorelli: _Three Saints_ (altar wing) - -Luca Signorelli: _Portrait of a Man_ - -Francesco Squarcione: _Madonna and Child_ - -Jan Steen: _Inn Garden_ - -Jan Steen: _The Christening_ - -Bernardo Strozzi: _Judith_ - -Gerard Terborch: _The Concert_ - -Gerard Terborch: _Paternal Advice_ - -Giovanni Battista Tiepolo: _Carrying of the Cross_ - -Giovanni Battista Tiepolo: _St. Agatha_ - -Giovanni Battista Tiepolo: _Rinaldo and Armida_ - -Tintoretto: _Doge Mocenigo_ - -Tintoretto: _Old Man_ - -Titian: _Venus with Organ Player_ - -Titian: _Self Portrait_ - -Titian: _Lavinia_ - -Titian: _Portrait of a Young Man_ - -Titian: _Child of the Strozzi Family_ - -Cosma Tura: _St. Christopher_ - -Cosma Tura: _St. Sebastian_ - -Adriaen van der Velde: _The Farm_ - -Roger Van der Weyden: _Altar with Scenes from the Life of Mary_ - -Roger Van der Weyden: _Johannes-alter Altar with Scenes from the Life of -John the Baptist_ - -Roger Van der Weyden: _Bladelin Altar_ - -Roger Van der Weyden: _Portrait of a Woman_ - -Roger Van der Weyden: _Charles the Bold_ - -Jan Van Eyck: _Crucifixion_ - -Jan Van Eyck: _Madonna in the Church_ - -Jan Van Eyck: _Giovanni Arnolfini_ - -Jan Van Eyck: _Man with a Pink_ - -Jan Van Eyck: _Knight of the Golden Fleece_ - -Lucas van Leyden: _Chess Players_ - -Lucas van Leyden: _Madonna and Child_ - -Velásquez: _Countess Olivares_ - -Domenico Veneziano: _Adoration of the Kings_ - -Domenico Veneziano: _Martyrdom of St. Lucy_ - -Domenico Veneziano: _Portrait of a Young Woman_ - -Vermeer: _Young Woman with a Pearl Necklace_ - -Vermeer: _Man and Woman Drinking Wine_ - -Andrea del Verrocchio: _Madonna and Child_ - -Andrea del Verrocchio: _Madonna and Child_ - -Watteau: _Fête Champêtre_ - -Watteau: _French Comedians_ - -Watteau: _Italian Comedians_ - -Westphalian Master (ca. 1250): _Triptych_ - -Konrad Witz: _Crucifixion_ - -Konrad Witz: _Allegory of Redemption_ - -On January 15, 1946, Mr. Rensselaer W. Lee, President of the College Art -Association of America, sent the following letter to the Secretary of -State: - - My dear Mr. Secretary: - - The members of the College Art Association of America, - a constituent member of the American Council of Learned - Societies, have been disturbed by the removal to this country - of works of art from Berlin museums. - - Information that we have received from abroad leads us to - believe that the integrity of United States policy has been - questioned as a result of this action. We have also been - informed that adequate facilities and American personnel now - exist in the American zone in Germany to assure the proper care - of art treasures in that area. - - We would therefore urge that the department of State clarify - this action, and would strongly recommend that assurances be - given that no further shipments are contemplated. - -Copies of this letter were sent to members of the American Commission -for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historic Monuments in War -Areas. - -The State Department replied on January 25: - - My Dear Mr. Lee: - - Your letter of January 15, urging the Department to clarify the - action taken in removing to the United States certain works of - art from German museums, has been received. In the absence of - the Secretary, I am replying to your letter and am glad to give - you additional information on this question. - - The decision to remove these works of art to this country - was made on the basis of a statement by General Clay that he - did not have adequate facilities and personnel to safeguard - German art treasures and that he could not undertake the - responsibility of their proper care. - - You indicated in your letter that you have been informed that - adequate facilities and personnel now exist in the American - zone for the protection of these art treasures. I must - inform you that our information, based upon three separate - investigations, is precisely to the contrary. The redeployment - program has, as you no doubt realize, reduced American - personnel in Germany and this reduction is applied to arts and - monuments and this personnel as well as to other branches. - - The coal situation in Germany is critical and has made it - impossible to provide heat for the museums. General Clay cannot - be expected to provide heat for the museums if that means - taking it away from American forces, from hospitals, or from - essential utility needs. - - We are furthermore advised that the security situation was not - such as to ensure adequate protection in Germany. In short, the - Department’s information is such that it cannot agree with your - premise. - - It was realized that the “integrity of United States policy” - might be questioned by some if these works of art were removed - to this country. After a careful review of the facts, it was - decided that the most important aspect was to safeguard these - priceless treasures by bringing them to this country where they - could be properly cared for. It was hoped that the President’s - pledge that they would be returned to Germany would satisfy - those who might be critical of this Government’s motives. - - Sincerely yours, - - For the Acting Secretary of State: - James W. Riddleberger - Chief, Division of - Central European Affairs[6] - -In April the author of this book received from Frederick Mortimer -Clapp, director of the Frick Collection, New York, the following letter -regarding the removal of German-owned works of art to this country. A -copy of the resolution which accompanied this letter and a list of those -who subsequently signed the resolution are also printed below. - - 1 East 70th Street - New York 21, New York - April 24, 1946 - - Dear - - Since we believe that it is impossible to defend on technical, - political or moral grounds the decision to ship to this country - two hundred internationally known and extremely valuable - pictures belonging indisputably, by prewar gift or purchase, - to German institutions, notably the Kaiser Friedrich Museum of - Berlin, we propose to memorialize the President in a resolution - to be signed by a group of like-minded people interested in or - associated with the arts. - - We also intend to point out that no reason can be found for - even temporarily alienating these works of art from the country - to which legally they belong. - - We represent no organized movement or institution. We merely - wish as American citizens to go on record by appealing to our - government to set right an ill considered action arising from - an error of judgment which, however disinterested in intention, - has already done much to weaken our national condemnation of - German sequestrations of the artistic heritage or possessions - of other nations under the subterfuge of “protective custody,” - or openly as loot. - - The moral foundations of our war effort and final victories - will be subtly undermined if we, who understand the - implications, pass over in silence an action taken by our - own officials that, in outward appearance at least cannot be - distinguished from those, detestable to all right thinking - people, which the Nazis’ policy of pillage inspired and - condoned. - - The Monuments Officers attached to our armed forces with - their specialized knowledge of the practical risks involved - unanimously condemned the decision. Those Americans whose - profession it is to study and preserve old paintings deplore - it. On ethical grounds it is disapproved by the opinion of - enlightened laymen. - - We therefore consider the protest we will make to be our plain - and simple duty, for it is our considered judgment that no - explanation or excuse acceptable to the public conscience can - be found for sending fragile old masters across the sea to this - country. The physical hazards, the momentous responsibilities - and the intellectual ambiguities inherent in such an act are - only too grossly evident. The historical repercussions that - will follow it can be imagined in the light of past situations - of a similar kind. It is well known that the Nazis inculcated - in the German mind a fanatical belief that we are destructive - barbarians. All future deterioration of these pictures will - now, rightly or wrongly, be laid at our door. - - We should be glad if you would care to join us and others, who - have already expressed to us their sense of the unjustified - impropriety of the action to which we refer in demanding the - immediate return to Germany of these panels and canvasses, - the cancellation of all plans to exhibit them in this country - and the countermanding at once of any contemplated further - shipments. - - The text of the proposed resolution is enclosed. As one of the - principal reasons for submitting it to our government is to - forestall further action of a similar kind with reference to - pictures or objects of art belonging to German museums, as well - as to rectify the existing situation, may I earnestly request - you to signify your approval, if you are so minded, by signing - the resolution and returning it to me before May 6. - - Sincerely yours, - - Signed: FREDERICK MORTIMER CLAPP. - -On May 9, 1946, Dr. Clapp and Mrs. Juliana Force, director of the Whitney -Museum, sent President Truman the following resolution, a copy of which -was enclosed with the above letter: - - RESOLUTION - - WHEREAS in all civilized countries one of the most significant - public reactions during the recent war was the horrified - indignation caused by the surreptitious or brazen looting - of works of art by German officials in countries they had - conquered; - - AND WHEREAS that indignation and abhorrence on the part of free - peoples was a powerful ingredient in the ardor and unanimity - of their support of the war effort of democratically governed - states in which the private opinions of citizens are the source - and controlling directive of official action; - - AND WHEREAS two hundred important and valuable pictures - belonging to the Kaiser Friedrich and other Berlin museums have - been removed from Germany and sent to this country on the still - unestablished ground of ensuring their safety; - - AND WHEREAS it is apparent that disinterested and intelligent - people believe that this action cannot be justified on - technical, political or moral grounds and that many, including - the Germans themselves, may find it hard to distinguish between - the resultant situation and the “protective custody” used by - the Nazis as a camouflage for the sequestration of the artistic - treasures of other countries; - - BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED that we, the undersigned, respectfully - request the President to order the immediate safe return to - Germany of the aforesaid paintings, the cancellation of any - plans that may have been made to exhibit them in this country - and the countermanding without delay of any further shipments - of the kind that may have been contemplated. - - This resolution was signed by: - - Abbott, Jere - Director - Smith College Museum of Art - Northampton, Mass. - - Abbott, John E. - Executive Vice-President - The Museum of Modern Art - New York, N.Y. - - Adams, Philip R. - Director - Cincinnati Museum - Cincinnati, Ohio - - Barber, Professor Leila - Vassar College - Poughkeepsie, N. Y. - - Baker, C. H. Collins - Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery - San Marino, Calif. - - Barr, Alfred H. - The Museum of Modern Art - New York, N. Y. - - Barzun, Jacques - History Department - Columbia University - New York, N. Y. - - Baur, John I. H. - Curator of Painting - Brooklyn Museum - Brooklyn, N. Y. - - Biebel, Franklin - Assistant to Director - Frick Collection - New York, N.Y. - - Breeskin, Mrs. Adelyn - Acting Director - Baltimore Museum of Art - Baltimore, Md. - - Burdell, Dr. Edwin S. - Director - The Cooper Union - New York, N. Y. - - Chase, Elizabeth - Editor “Bulletin” - Yale University Art Gallery - New Haven, Conn. - - Claflin, Professor Agnes Rindge - Vassar College - Poughkeepsie, N. Y. - - Clapp, Frederick Mortimer - Director - Frick Collection - New York, N. Y. - - Cole, Grover - Instructor in Ceramics - University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, Mich. - - Cook, Walter W. S. - Chairman - Institute of Fine Arts - New York University, N. Y. - - Courier, Miss Elodie - Dir. of Circulating Exhibitions - The Museum of Modern Art - New York, N. Y. - - Crosby, Dr. Sumner - Assistant Professor, History of Art - Yale University - New Haven, Conn. - - Cunningham, Charles C. - Director - Wadsworth Atheneum - Hartford, Conn. - - Dawson, John P. - Professor of Law - University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, Mich. - - Faisan, Professor Lane, Jr. - Williams College - Williamstown, Mass. - - Faunce, Wayne M. - Vice-Director - American Museum of Natural History - New York, N. Y. - - Fisher, H. H. - Hoover Library - Stanford University - Palo Alto, Calif. - - Force, Mrs. Juliana - Director - Whitney Museum of American Art - New York, N. Y. - - Goodrich, Lloyd - Research Curator - Whitney Museum of American Art - New York, N. Y. - - Gores, Walter J. - Professor and Chairman of Design - University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, Mich. - - Haight, Mary N. - Assistant Curator of Ancient Art - Yale University Art Gallery - New Haven, Conn. - - Hamilton, George Heard - Curator of Paintings - Yale University Art Gallery - New Haven, Conn. - - Hamlin, Talbot F. - Librarian, Avery Architectural Library - Columbia University - New York, N.Y. - - Hammett, Ralph W. - Professor of Architecture - University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, Mich. - - Hancock, Walter - Director of Sculpture - Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts - Philadelphia, Pa. - - Hayes, Bartlett H., Jr. - Director - Addison Gallery of American Art - Andover, Mass. - - Hebran, Jean - Professor of Architecture - University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, Mich. - - Helm, Miss Florence - Old Merchant’s House - New York, N. Y. - - Howe, Thomas Carr, Jr. - Director - California Palace of the Legion of Honor - San Francisco, Calif. - - Hudnut, Joseph - Dean - Graduate School of Architecture - Harvard University - Cambridge, Mass. - - Hume, Samuel J. - Director - Berkeley Art Association - Berkeley, Calif. - - Ivins, William M., Jr. - Counselor and Curator of Prints - The Metropolitan Museum of Art - New York, N.Y. - - Janson, H. W. - Assistant Professor - Department of Art and Archaeology - Washington University - St. Louis, Mo. - - Jewell, Henry A. - Department of Art and Archaeology - Princeton University - Princeton, N. J. - - Kaufmann, Edgar - Curator of Industrial Art - The Museum of Modern Art - New York, N.Y. - - Keck, Sheldon - Restorer - The Brooklyn Museum - Brooklyn, N. Y. - - Kirby, John C. - Assistant Administrator - Walters Gallery - Baltimore, Md. - - Kirstein, Lincoln - New York, N. Y. - - Kubler, Professor George - Yale University - New Haven, Conn. - - Lee, Rensselaer W. - Princeton, N. J. - - Marceau, Henri - Assistant Director - Philadelphia Museum of Art - Philadelphia, Pa. - - Mcllhenny, Henry - Curator of Decorative Arts - Philadelphia Museum of Art - Philadelphia, Pa. - - McMahon, A. Philip - Chairman - Fine Arts Department - Washington Square College - New York University - New York, N. Y. - - Meeks, Everett V. - Dean - Yale School of the Fine Arts - New Haven, Conn. - - Meiss, Millard - Professor - Columbia University - New York, N. Y. - - Miner, Miss Dorothy E. - Librarian - Walters Gallery - Baltimore, Md. - - More, Hermon - Curator - Whitney Museum of American Art - New York, N. Y. - - Morley, Dr. Grace McCann - Director - San Francisco Museum of Art - San Francisco, Calif. - - Morse, John D. - Editor - Magazine of Art - New York, N. Y. - - Myer, John Walden - Assistant Director - Museum of the City of New York - New York, N. Y. - - Myers, George Hewitt - President - Textile Museum of the District of Columbia - Washington, D. C. - - Nagel, Charles, Jr. - Director - The Brooklyn Museum - Brooklyn, N. Y. - - O’Connor, John, Jr. - Assistant Director - Carnegie Institute - Pittsburgh, Pa. - - Packard, Miss Elizabeth G. - Walters Gallery - Baltimore, Md. - - Parker, Thomas C. - Director - American Federation of Arts - Washington, D. C. - - Peat, Wilbur D. - Director - John Herron Art Institute - Indianapolis, Ind. - - Phillips, John Marshall - Assistant Director and Curator of the Garvan Collections - Yale University Art Gallery - New Haven, Conn. - - Poland, Reginald - Director - Fine Arts Society of San Diego - San Diego, Calif. - - Porter, Allen - Secretary - The Museum of Modern Art - New York, N. Y. - - Porter, Vernon - Director - Riverside Museum - New York, N. Y. - - Post, Chandler - Fogg Museum of Art - Harvard University - Cambridge, Mass. - - Rathbone, Perry T. - Director - City Art Museum of St. Louis - St. Louis, Mo. - - Reed, Henry Hope - New York, N. Y. - - Rich, Daniel Catton - Director - The Art Institute of Chicago - Chicago, Ill. - - Riefstahl, Mrs. Elizabeth - Librarian - Wilbour Egyptological Library - The Brooklyn Museum - Brooklyn, N. Y. - - Ritchie, Andrew C. - Director - Albright Art Gallery - Buffalo, N. Y. - - Robinson, Professor David M. - Department of Art and Archaeology - Johns Hopkins University - Baltimore, Md. - - Ross, Marvin Chauncey - Curator of Medieval Art - Walters Gallery - Baltimore, Md. - - Rowe, Margaret T. J. - Curator - Hobart Moore Memorial Collection - Yale University Art Gallery - New Haven, Conn. - - Saint-Gaudens, Homer - Director - Carnegie Institute - Pittsburgh, Pa. - - Scholle, Hardinge - Director - Museum of the City of New York - New York, N.Y. - - Setze, Josephine - Assistant Curator of American Art - Yale University Art Gallery - New Haven, Conn. - - Sexton, Eric - Camden, Me. - - Shelley, Donald A. - Curator of Paintings - New York Historical Society - New York, N. Y. - - Sizer, Theodore - Director - Yale University Art Gallery - New Haven, Conn. - - Slusser, Jean Paul - Professor of Painting and Drawing - University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, Mich. - - Smith, Professor E. Baldwin - Department of Art and Archaeology - Princeton University - Princeton, N. J. - - Soby, James Thrall - New York, N. Y. - - Spinden, Dr. Herbert J. - Curator - Indian Art and Primitive Cultures - The Brooklyn Museum - Brooklyn, N. Y. - - Sweeney, James Johnson - Director - Department of Painting and Sculpture - The Museum of Modern Art - New York, N. Y. - - Sweet, Frederick - Associate Curator, Painting and Sculpture - The Art Institute of Chicago - Chicago, Ill. - - Tee Van, John - Department of Tropical Research and Special Events - New York Zoological Park - Bronx, N. Y. - - Vail, R. W. G. - Director - New York Historical Society - New York, N. Y. - - Walker, Hudson D. - President - American Federation of Arts - New York, N.Y. - - Wall, Alexander J. - New York Historical Society - New York, N. Y. - - Washburn, Gordon - Director - Museum of Art - Rhode Island School of Design - Providence, R. I. - - Weissman, Miss Polaire - Museum of Costume Art - New York, N. Y. - - Wissler, Dr. Clark - American Museum of Natural History - New York, N. Y. - - Wind, Edgar - Smith College - Northampton, Mass. - - York, Lewis E. - Chairman - Department of Painting - Yale University Art Gallery - New Haven, Conn. - - Zigrosser, Carl - Curator of Prints and Drawings - Philadelphia Museum of Art - Philadelphia, Pa. - - Stoddard, Whitney S. - Assistant Professor of History and Art - Williams College - Williamstown, Mass. - -Dr. Clapp and Mrs. Force subsequently announced that they had received -eight additional signatures which arrived too late to be affixed -to the original copy of the resolution. They included: Frances A. -Comstock, Donald Drew Egbert, Henry A. Judd, Sherley W. Morgan, Richard -Stillwell—all of Princeton University; Robert Tyler Davis, Portland -Museum, Portland, Maine; Frederick Hartt, Acting Director, Smith College -Museum of Art; and George Rowley, Princeton Museum of Historic Art. - - STATEMENT BY THE AMERICAN COMMISSION FOR THE PROTECTION AND - SALVAGE OF ARTISTIC AND HISTORIC MONUMENTS IN WAR AREAS, - OWEN J. ROBERTS, CHAIRMAN. - - National Gallery of Art, Washington 25, D. C. - - WASHINGTON, May 14, 1946: The members of the Commission have - received copies of a resolution signed by Dr. Frederick M. - Clapp, Director of the Frick Collection; Mrs. Juliana Force, - Director of the Whitney Museum of American Art, and others - who criticize the action of the United States Government, - taken at the Direction of the President and the United States - Army Command in Germany, in bringing to this country certain - paintings from German museums for safekeeping until conditions - in Germany warrant their return. The Clapp resolution compares - the action taken by the United States Government to looting - operations carried on by the Nazis during the war. - - The Commission has also noted the statements issued by the - White House on September 26, 1945, and by the War Department - on December 6, 1945, that the works of art of bona fide - German ownership, which may be brought to this country for - safekeeping, will be kept in trust for the German people and - will be returned to Germany when conditions there warrant. - - The Commission has also noted the statement issued by the - late Chief Justice Stone, Chairman of the Board of Trustees - of the National Gallery of Art, on December 14, 1945, that - the Trustees of the National Gallery, at the request of the - Secretary of State, had agreed to arrange for the storage space - for such paintings as might be brought to this country by - the United States Army for safekeeping, and that he felt the - Army “deserved the highest praise for the care exercised in - salvaging these great works of art and in making provisions for - their safety until they can be returned to Germany.” - - The Commission accepts without reservation the promise of the - United States Government, as voiced by its highest officials, - that the works of art belonging to German museums and brought - to this country for safekeeping, will be returned to Germany - when conditions there warrant. - - The Commission is strongly of the opinion that the resolution - sponsored by Dr. Clapp, Mrs. Force, and others is without - justification and is to be deplored. - - Hon. Owen J. Roberts, Chairman - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - - David E. Finley, Vice Chairman - Director, National Gallery of Art - Washington, D.C. - - Huntington Cairns, Secretary - Secretary, National Gallery of Art - Washington, D.C. - - Dr. William Bell Dinsmoor - Columbia University, New York - - Hon. Herbert H. Lehman - New York - - Paul J. Sachs - Professor of Fine Arts, Harvard University - Cambridge, Massachusetts - - Francis Cardinal Spellman - Archbishop of New York - - Francis Henry Taylor - Director, Metropolitan Museum of Art - New York - -The following letters were released on June 10, 1946: - - THE WHITE HOUSE - - Washington - May 22, 1946 - - Dear Mrs. Force: - - This is in acknowledgment of the letter to the President, - signed by yourself and Dr. Frederick M. Clapp, Director, The - Frick Collection, with which you enclosed a resolution signed - by ninety-five of your colleagues in connection with the two - hundred valuable paintings removed from Germany to this country - for safekeeping. - - These paintings were removed to this country last year on the - basis of information to the effect that adequate facilities and - personnel to ensure their safekeeping did not exist in Germany. - Our military authorities did not feel that they could take the - responsibility of safeguarding them under such conditions and - it was therefore decided that they would have to be shipped to - this country until such time as they could safely be returned - to Germany. It was realized at the time that this action might - lead to criticism but it was taken, nevertheless, because it - was considered that the most important aspect was to safeguard - these priceless treasures. It was hoped that the President’s - pledge that they would be returned to Germany, contained in a - White House press release on September 26, 1945, would satisfy - those who might be critical of this Government’s motives. - - I know of no plans to make any further shipments of art objects - from Germany to the United States nor of any plans for the - exhibition of the two hundred paintings now in this country. - While a definite date for the return of these pictures has not - as yet been set, I can assure you that this Government will - honor its pledge to effect their return as soon as conditions - warrant. - - Very sincerely yours, - - (signed) William D. Hassett - Secretary to the President. - - DEPARTMENT OF STATE - - Washington - May 22, 1946 - - My dear Mrs. Force and Dr. Clapp: - - I have received your letter of May 9, 1946, and its enclosed - resolution, signed by 95 of your colleagues, urging the - President to order the immediate safe return to Germany of the - 200 paintings which were brought to this country last year. - - When these paintings were found by our forces in southern - Germany every effort was made to assure their preservation. It - soon became evident that adequate facilities and personnel to - ensure their safe keeping could not be guaranteed. Consequently - our military authorities, realizing the magnitude of their - responsibility in preserving these priceless treasures, - requested that they be relieved of this heavy responsibility - and that the paintings be shipped to this country where they - could be properly cared for. This Government reluctantly gave - its approval to this request, knowing that such action would - lead to criticism of its motives. The decision was taken - because there seemed no other way to ensure preservation of - these unique works of art. In order to dispel doubts as to the - reasons for this action the White House released a statement to - the press on September 26, 1945, which explained the situation - and included a pledge that the paintings would be returned to - their rightful owners. That pledge still holds good and while - a definite date for the return of the paintings to Germany has - not as yet been set, you may rest assured that this will be - done as soon as conditions warrant. - - The resolution also recommended that plans to exhibit - these paintings in this country be cancelled and that - further shipments of German works of art to this country - be countermanded. I have never heard of any plans to make - additional shipments of works of art from Germany to the United - States nor do I know of any plans to exhibit the paintings - which are now in this country. - - Sincerely yours, - - For the Secretary of State: - (signed) Dean Acheson - Under Secretary. - -Following are Dr. Clapp’s and Mrs. Force’s replies, also released on June -10: - - June 3, 1946 - - My dear Mr. President: - - Permit us to thank you for your kind attention to the - resolution, signed by us and ninety-five of our colleagues - prominent on the staffs of museums or experts in the history - and preservation of art, relative to the shipment to this - country of two hundred famous paintings formerly in the Kaiser - Friedrich and other museums of Berlin. - - In addressing the resolution in question to you we felt that - we were following the time-honored American custom of bringing - to our government’s attention a consensus of opinion on the - part of those who have special practical familiarity with - old pictures and personal, sometimes long, acquaintance with - European history and culture in its emotional and intellectual - aspects. - - Should you, in the course of events, undertake further - inquiries into the problem created by the shipment referred to - in our resolution, we shall be happy to be so informed. - - Respectfully yours, - - June 3, 1946 - - Dear Mr. Hassett: - - In reply to your letter of the twenty-second permit us to say - that should the President make further inquiries into the - subject covered by our resolution with reference to two hundred - pictures selected chiefly from the collections of the Kaiser - Friedrich Museum and brought to this country, we should be - pleased to be kept informed. - - We, and our ninety-five colleagues in museums and universities - who have had long experience with old paintings and are - interested in the history and preservation of works of art, - would also be glad to know when the pictures referred to are - returned to Germany since we are as yet uninformed whether the - conditions which are held not to warrant their return are of a - practical or a political nature. - - This question obviously cannot but be uppermost in our minds - in view of the fact that present conditions in Germany are - apparently such as to warrant leaving there thousands of - German-owned works of art of great moment which belong not only - to the Kaiser Friedrich Museum but to the museums of other - cities in the American zone, including the great collection - of the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, where under satisfactory - conditions and auspices an exhibition of early German art, - including masterpieces by Dürer, Grünewald and others, is now - being held. - - It is in fact one of our perplexities that we have never been - told why our officials discriminated against important pictures - and art objects (many times the number of those urgently - transported to this country for safekeeping) which were also - formerly in the Kaiser Friedrich and other museums, not - forgetting those which were in South German churches. Were they - just left to their fate? - - If it were convenient at any time to pass on to the President - our continued anxieties on these important points we should be - happy to have you do so. - - Sincerely yours, - - June 3, 1946 - - Dear Mr. Acheson: - - In reply to your letter of the twenty-second with reference to - our resolution supported by the signatures of ninety-five of - our colleagues prominent in museums or experts in the history - and preservation of old masters and other works of art, permit - us to say that, in the absence of Secretary Byrnes, we took the - liberty of sending you the resolution. - - We are aware of the statement released by the White House on - September 26, 1945 explaining the situation and promising to - return the pictures to Germany when conditions there should - warrant such action. We are, however, still uninformed why the - unanimous advice of the monuments officers, who had special - training and technical knowledge not only of the conditions - required for the preservation of old masters but of the certain - dangers to which journeys subject them, was disregarded. - - We have also never been told whether the conditions believed - to jeopardize the safety of these important pictures were of a - practical or of a political nature. Neither do we know why, out - of the great and extensive collections of the Kaiser Friedrich - only two hundred pictures were selected nor by whom the - selection was made. More serious still no official mention has - ever been made of the fact that there were in the possession - of the other museums of Berlin and other cities, including the - famous collection of the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, as well as - in the churches of the American Zone, art objects and pictures - many times more numerous than the paintings actually brought - to this country for safekeeping. One cannot but ask: Were - satisfactory conditions found for them or were they merely left - to their fate? - - These are questions that have given and still give rise to - rumors, unhappy conjectures and ambiguous interpretations which - we deplore. Unreasonably or otherwise the whole situation is - confused by implications that we feel will not be laid until - the pictures deposited in Washington have been sent back with - the least possible delay to their rightful owners on whom - devolves an unequivocable responsibility for their care and - preservation. - - Sincerely yours, - - - - - -FOOTNOTES - - -[1] E(insatzstab) R(eichsleiter) R(osenberg)—Reichsleiter meaning realm -leader. The Rosenberg Task Force was commonly referred to by these -initials. - -[2] See article “German Paintings in the National Gallery: A Protest,” -by Charles L. Kuhn, in _College Art Journal_, January 1946. This and -subsequent references printed by permission. - -[3] See article “German Paintings in the National Gallery: A Protest,” by -Charles L. Kuhn, in _College Art Journal_, January 1946. - -[4] As printed by Kuhn in _College Art Journal_, January 1946, p. 81; -also in _Magazine of Art_, February 1946, and New York _Times_, February -7, 1946. - -[5] See in this connection the statements released to the press by the -White House on September 26, 1945, and by the War Department on December -6, 1945. They are printed in _Magazine of Art_ for February, 1946. - -[6] These letters are printed on pages 83 and 84 of _College Art Journal_ -for January 1946; in _Magazine of Art_ for February 1946, and in the New -York _Times_ of February 7, 1946. - - - - -INDEX - - - - -INDEX - - - Aachen crown jewels, 119 - - Abbey of Monte Cassino, 152 - - Adams, Capt. Edward, 240 - - Adcock, Maj. Gen. C. L, 272 - - Administration Building, 64, 65 - - _Adoration of the Magi_, Master of the Holy Kinship, 206 - - _Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, The_, van Eyck, 144, 146, 243, 291. - _See also_ Ghent altarpiece - - _Adulteress, The_, _see_ “Vermeer” fake - - Akhnaton, 287 - - Allen, Maj., 125 - - Allied air attacks over Germany, 48 - - Allied Forces, 274 - - Allied Group Control Council for Germany, 15, 49 - - Almanach de Gotha, 27 - - Almelo, 195 - - “Alpine Specials,” 161 - - Alt Aussee, evacuation of pictures at, 130-170; - last ten days at, 171_ff._; - other trips to, 178, 258; - Goudstikker pictures, 267; - mentioned, 58, 107, 118, 177, 184, 186, 192, 202, 204, 210, 213, - 217, 225 - - Alt Aussee mine, evacuation of pictures, 65, 130-170, 240, 254, - 269, 271, 277; - team arrives, 128; - mentioned, 176, 207, 244, 251 - - Altdorfer, Albrecht, 161 - - Altdorfer panels, 162, 165 - - Alte Pinakothek, 255 - - Alte Post, 237 - - Amalienburg, 215 - - American Embassy, London, 20 - - American Embassy, Paris, 265 - - American Fine Arts program, 235 - - American Military Government (AMG), 195, 259, 292 - - American Occupied Zone, 196, 243, 246, 260, 262, 268, 272, 275, 282, - 291, 292, 293 - - Amsterdam, 149, 154, 257, 259, 261, 266, 267, 268, 269, 270 - - Anderson, Lt. George, 84, 85, 86, 102, 112, 190 - - Anderson, Maj. Harry, 180, 187, 188, 189, 190, 192, 222, 225 - - Angerer, ⸺, 219 - - _Annunciation_, Lippi, 152 - - Annunzio, Gabriele d’, 64 - - _Arabian Nights, The_, 20 - - Archival Collecting Point, Oberammergau, 282 - - Army Engineers, 38, 148 - - Army Museum at Prague, 271 - - Army redeployment program, 282 - - Arnhem, 266 - - Arnold, Gen. H. H., 191 - - _Artist’s Sister_, Rembrandt, 194 - - “Art Objects in the U. S. Zone,” 230 - - Aschaffenburg, Germany, 48 - - ATC, 18 - - Austria, 59, 62, 193, 236, 251 - - Austrian collections, 173 - - Austrian Government, 253 - - Autobahn, 31, 46, 71, 72, 76, 81, 83, 102, 109, 111, 203, 213, 214, - 236 - - Azores, 16 - - - Bad Aussee, 128, 131, 158, 181 - - Bad Brückenau, 40, 41, 42, 46 - - Baden-Baden, 242 - - Bad Homburg, 28, 29, 32, 54, 139, 231, 258 - - Bad Ischl, 128, 131, 147, 161, 162, 165, 187 - - Bad Nauheim, 285 - - Bad Reichenhall, 81 - - Bad Tölz, 214 - - Baillie-Grohman, Vice-Adm., 109 - - Bamberg, 247, 248, 250, 271, 282 - - Barbarossa, Frederick, 116 - - Barbizon, 49 - - Barboza, Lt., 158, 187 - - Barrett, Elizabeth, 19 - - Battle of Jutland, 120 - - Bauhaus, Dessau, 35 - - Bavaria, 24, 32, 33, 52, 55, 127, 193, 214, 237, 246, 247, 250, 269 - - “Bavarian Bible,” 214 - - Bavarian State Collections, 276 - - Bavarian State Galleries, 294 - - Bavarian State Museums, 146 - - _Bearded Old Man_, Rembrandt, 194 - - Belgium, 145, 153, 243, 255, 256, 261, 291, 293 - - Bellegambe, Jean, 207 - - Bellotto, ⸺, 251 - - Berchtesgaden, Frau Hofer at, 133; - transfer to, 168, 175, 176, 178, 179, 183, 185, 187; - operations at, 187-226; - mentioned, 81, 180 - - Berchtesgadener Hof, 188, 222 - - Berghof, Berchtesgaden, 146, 192, 222 - - Berlin, 146, 148, 154, 190, 229, 259, 260, 261, 262, 273, 278, 281, - 287, 291 - - Berlin Gallery, 255 - - Berlin Museum, 50, 119, 145, 261, 286 - - Berlin Patent Office, 50 - - Berlin Print Room, 50 - - Berlin Reichsbank, 147 - - Berlin state museums, 32, 234, 246, 294 - - Berlitz School, 74 - - Bernterode, 119, 137 - - Beuningen, Van, Rotterdam collector, 200 - - Biblioteca Herziana, 150 - - Biddle, Col. Anthony, 261, 268 - - Big 3 Conference, 1945, 230 - - Birdcage Walk, 21 - - Black, Col. Ira W., 268 - - _Blind Leading the Blind_, Breughel, 152 - - Blyth, Capt., 61 - - Bohemia, 100 - - Bois, the, 21 - - Bomb Disposal Unit, 216 - - Bonaparte, Pauline, 93 - - Bonn, 118 - - Bonnard, M., 146 - - Bonney, Miss ⸺, 21, 22 - - Borchardt, Dr. Ludwig, 287 - - Bordone, Paris, 166 - - Bormann, Martin, 155, 192 - - Boucher, François, 133, 163, 164 - - Boucher panels, 197 - - Bouillon, Godefroy de, 116 - - Bouts, Dirk, 255 - - Bovingdon, England, 19 - - Boymans Museum, Rotterdam, 199, 200, 202 - - Braun Haus, 64 - - Brecker, Maj., 96 - - Bredius, Dr., 199, 200 - - Breitenbach, Edgar, 281 - - Bremen, 279 - - Brenner Pass, 109 - - Breslau, 254 - - Brest, France, 17 - - Breughel, Pieter, 24, 150, 168 - - Brienner-Strasse, 63, 71, 258 - - Brigade Headquarters, 203, 219, 225 - - British Zone, 266, 282 - - Brixlegg, 109 - - Brooklyn Museum, 232 - - Brown, John Nicholas, 49, 106, 108, 121, 262 - - Browning, Robert, 19 - - Bruges, 149, 255 - - Bruges, Bishop of, 143 - - Brussels, 244, 256, 261 - - Brye, Capt. Hubert de, 240, 256 - - Buchman, Lt. Julius, 35, 37, 38, 40, 53 - - Büchner, Dr. Ernst, 146 - - Buckingham Palace, 21 - - Budapest Museum, 68, 73 - - Budweis, 113 - - Buffalo Museum, 251 - - Buxheim, 215 - - - Cairo Museum, 287 - - California Palace of the Legion of Honor, 15, 166 - - Calvados, 77 - - Cambridge, Mass., 50 - - Cambridge University, 18, 25 - - Canada, 270 - - Canadians, 266 - - Canova, 93 - - Caravaggio, 143 - - Carolinen Platz, 63 - - Carthusian Monastery, Buxheim, 215 - - Casino at Frankfurt, 235 - - Cassidy, ⸺, 266, 267, 268, 270, 271 - - Castle at Posen, 151 - - Castle of Neuschwanstein, _see_ Schloss Neuschwanstein - - Cathedral at Cologne, 119 - - Cathedral of Metz, 27, 233 - - Cathedral of St. Bavon, Ghent, 145 - - Central Collecting Point, Frankfurt, 247, 248 - - Central Collecting Point, Marburg, 276, 282, 292, 293 - - Central Collecting Point, Munich, 77, 127, 196, 207, 214, 216, 220, - 222, 227, 231, 236, 244, 245, 251, 256, 258, 261, 271, 276, - 282, 292, 293 - - Central Collecting Point, Wiesbaden, 275, 276, 277, 278, 282, 286, - 292, 293 - - “C.G.R.,” _see_ Dutch Restitution Commission - - Chamberlain, Neville, 65 - - Champs Élysées, 18 - - Channel Islands, 16 - - Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, 143 - - Chardin, Jean Baptiste Siméon, 245 - - Château of Pau, 145 - - “Chicken,” 57-58 - - Chiemsee, 81, 126, 179 - - Chiemsee Lake, Bavaria, 72 - - Chinesisches Kabinett from Schönbrunn, 144 - - _Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery_, Vermeer, 198 - - _Christ Appearing to Mary_, Master of the Holy Kinship, 206 - - _Christ at Emmaus_, Vermeer, 199, 200, 201 - - Church of Notre Dame, 143 - - Church of St. Mary, Cracow, 252 - - Church of St. Pierre, 255 - - Church of Santa Maria im Kapitol, 119 - - “CIC boys,” 221 - - City Detachment, Wiesbaden, 286 - - City Detachments, 284 - - Clark, Gen. Mark, 59, 169, 176, 186 - - “Class C” works of art, 230 - - Clay, Gen. Lucius D., 230, 262, 273, 275, 281 - - Coburg, 248, 249, 250, 251 - - Coburg Detachment, 249 - - Coin Room, _see_ Münz Kabinett - - _College Art Journal_, 230, 262, 274_n._ - - Cologne, 233, 266 - - Cologne school, 206 - - _Commission de Récupération Artistique_, 196, 264, 266 - - _Commission de Récupération Générale_, 196 - - Conrad, Emperor, 252 - - _Cook, The_, Chardin, 234 - - Copper mine, Westphalia, 118 - - Coremans, Dr. Paul, 256 - - Coulter, Hamilton, rehabilitation of Verwaltungsbau, 64; - described, 66-67; - Rothschild jewels, 177; - “Bavarian Bible,” 214; - accompanies token restitution to Paris, 245-246; - rehabilitation of Führerbau, 256; - transports panels from Munich, 271; - mentioned, 68, 106, 127 - - Courbet landscapes, 198 - - Coypel painting, 205 - - Cracow, 254 - - Cracow, Archbishop of, 263 - - Cracow, altarpiece, 252 - - Cracow, tapestries, 151 - - Cranach, Lucas, 182, 235 - - Cranachs, the, 202 - - C rations, 79, 126 - - Crosby, Sumner, 20 - - “Crown of Charlemagne,” 252 - - Crown of St. Stephen, 287 - - _Crucifixion_, Bellegambe, 206 - - _Crucifixion_, Van Dyck, 152 - - Crusaders’ Hall, 115 - - Csanky, Dr., 73, 74, 75, 76 - - Csanky, (son of Dr.), 74 - - Czech government, 164, 271 - - Czechoslovakia, 85, 87, 196, 271, 272, 293 - - Czechs, 89, 112, 113, 117, 123 - - Czernin, Count, 152 - - Czernin family, the, 152 - - “Czernin Vermeer,” 152 - - - Dachau, 54, 63 - - Dalferes, Col. Roy, 251, 254 - - _Danaë_, Titian, 152 - - Danube River, 86, 87, 112, 117, 125, 151 - - Darmstadt, 229, 250 - - Daumier, Honoré, 232 - - David, Gerard, 143 - - David-Weill, M., 239, 240, 266 - - David-Weill Collection, 239 - - Davitt, Lt. Col. Harold S., 131, 168, 169, 170, 183, 184, 185, 225 - - del Garbo, Raffaellino, 208 - - Della Robbia plaques, 90, 99, 114 - - del Robbia, Luca, 92 - - Dérain, André, 241 - - Dessau, 35 - - Dewald, Col., 251, 254 - - Displaced Persons, _see_ DPs - - Döbler, Herr, 127 - - Dollfuss, Chancellor of Austria, 165 - - “Double Roger,” _see_ Roget, Roger - - DP camps, 281 - - DPs (Displaced Persons), 63, 248, 281 - - Dresden, 254 - - Dresden Gallery, 163, 250 - - Dreyfus, M., 265 - - Duisburg, 266 - - Dunn, Capt., 49, 50, 51 - - Dürer, Albrecht, 252 - - Dutch Government, 200, 202, 257 - - _Dutch Interior_, Pieter de Hooch, 198 - - Dutch Restitution Commission (CGR), 196, 267, 270 - - - Eagle’s Nest, 192, 193, 195, 205, 217 - - Eastern Military District (of American Zone), 246, 260, 276 - - ECAD Headquarters, 28, 30, 231 - - Eder, Max, 140, 141, 184, 185 - - Edinburgh, Duke of, 249 - - Edward VII, 29 - - Eggebrecht, Dr. William, 250 - - Egyptian tomb figures, 151 - - Ehrenbreitstein, 146 - - Ehrentempel, 64 - - 80th Infantry Division, 147 - - Eigruber, Gauleiter, 155 - - _Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg_ (E.R.R.), 22, 23_n._, 24, 149, - 183, 215, 227, 237, 238, 241 - - Eisenhower, Gen. Dwight D., 49, 154, 243, 244, 270, 271, 293 - - 11th Armored Division, 61, 125, 131, 159 - - Elkins Park, 51 - - Ellenlittay, Madame, 75, 76 - - Embankment, the, 21 - - Emerich, 266 - - Erhardt, Gregor, 205 - - E.R.R., _see_ Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg - - Essen, 232 - - Essen pictures, 232 - - Estreicher, Maj. Charles, 272 - - Étoile, 18 - - European Civil Affairs Division, 28 - - Excelsior, the, 226 - - Exposition Building, 259 - - Eyck, Hubert van, 144 - - Eyck, Jan van, 144 - - - Faison, Lt. Lane, 177, 179, 181 - - Farben, I. G., 29, 38, 229, 259 - - Farmer, Capt. Walter, 247, 277, 278, 284, 286 - - Featherstone, Col. W. B., 176 - - Feldherren-Halle, 56 - - Ferdinand, Archduke Franz, 164 - - Feste Coburg, 248 - - Fest-Saal, 238 - - Fifteen Army (U. S.), 285 - - Fifth Army (U. S.), 169, 176 - - Fine Arts Commission, 196 - - First Army (U. S.), 118, 232 - - Fogg Museum, Harvard University, 31, 51 - - Forchheim, 253 - - 44th AAA Brigade, 179, 203 - - Fourth of July, 113, 114, 117 - - Fragonard, Jean Honoré, 240 - - France, 16, 145, 153, 232, 245, 256, 261, 264, 265, 293 - - Franconia, 46 - - Frank (Nazi Governor of Poland), 249, 251 - - Frankfurt, Howe assigned to, 35-53; - trips to, 168, 227, 229, 232, 235, 251, 264, 277; - Naval Headquarters, 236; - Reichsbank at, 246, 287; - Collecting Point, 247; - USFET Headquarters, 255, 259, 272; - _Land_ office in, 282; - mentioned, 28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 58, 67, 161, 244, 249, 254, 258, - 261, 263, 266, 271, 273, 279, 281, 285 - - Franklin, James, 35 - - Franz Josef, Emperor, 93, 131 - - Frauenkirche, 55, 63 - - Frederick the Great, 119, 234 - - Frederick William, 119 - - Freedberg, ⸺, 213, 214 - - French collections, 238, 245 - - French Committee for Fine Arts, 24 - - French Military Government, 294 - - French National Museums, 145 - - French Resistance Movement, 69 - - French Zone, 242 - - Führerbau, 65, 77, 256 - - Führer-museum, Linz, 93, 144, 151 - - Füssen, 237, 240 - - Fuschl See, Lake, 130, 186 - - - Gablerbräu, 187 - - Gasthaus Sonne, 233 - - Gelder, Dr. van, 200 - - Gelnhausen, Germany, 40 - - German Occupation of Netherlands, 267 - - Gersaint, M., 234 - - _Gersaint’s Signboard_, Watteau, 234 - - G-5, 58 - - Ghent altarpiece, 27, 144-146, 159, 161, 255, 256, 291. - _See also_ _Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, The_ - - Giessen, 231 - - Gipsmühle, 241 - - Glinz, ⸺, 154 - - Glyptothek (museum), 64 - - Göring, Frau Emmy, 191, 206 - - Göring, Hermann, supports Rosenberg, 22; - choice of treasures, 23; - and Hofer, 132; - search for Ghent altarpiece, 146-147; - Italian works of art, 152-153; - “Vermeer,” 182, 191, 192, 198-201, 270; - taste in pictures, 182, 207; - special train, 190; - Renders Collection, 191; - pictures from Karinhall, 204; - swords, 209, 210; - plans for museum, 210; - and Görnnert, 219, 220; - search at Berchtesgaden, 225; - negotiates with Louvre, 234; - and Rochlitz, 241, 242 - - Göring Collection, 132, 133, 168, 171, 180, 194, 195, 207, 218, 222, - 225, 239, 256, 267, 270, 289 - - Görnnert, Frau, 219 - - Görnnert, Fritz, 219, 220, 221, 222, 223 - - Gogh, Vincent van, 232, 250 - - Goisern, 131, 171 - - Golden Madonna, 233 - - “Gold Room,” 188, 208, 210 - - Golowine, Princess, 78 - - Goudstikker, ⸺, 151, 267 - - Goudstikker house, 267, 269 - - Goyen, Jan van, 235 - - Grandes Écuries, 21 - - Grand Parc Hotel, 30, 34 - - Grassau, 73, 76, 79 - - Greater Hesse, 246, 277, 282, 285 - - Greece, 196, 293 - - Greek government, 144 - - Greek sarcophagus from Salonika, 144, 160 - - Grosvenor Square, 19 - - Group CC, _see_ U. S. Group Control Council - - Group Control Council, _see_ U. S. Group Control Council - - Gründlsee, 139 - - Grundmann, Dr., 249, 250 - - G-2, 219 - - Guelph family, 288 - - Guiscard, Robert, 116 - - Gutmann Collection, 151 - - - Haagen, van, 268 - - Hague, The, 200, 261 - - Hals, Frans, 78, 150, 245, 250, 270 - - Hamann, Prof. Richard, 234, 276 - - Hamilton, Lt. Col. William, 59, 62 - - Hammond, Maj. Mason, 49, 50, 52, 106, 108, 121 - - Hanau, Germany, 29, 54 - - Hancock, Walter, 118, 119, 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 276, 277, 278 - - Harvard University, 25, 31, 49, 50 - - Haus der Deutschen Kunst, 55, 64, 92, 166 - - Havre, Le, 279 - - Hearst Collection (at Gimbel’s), 91 - - Heerengracht, 267 - - Heidelberg, 179, 260, 269, 276, 280 - - Heilbronn mine, 282 - - Heller, Lt. Col. Homer K., 176, 178 - - Henraux, ⸺, 266 - - Herculaneum, 152 - - Hermann Göring Division, 152 - - Herrenchiemsee, 215 - - Hess, Rudolf, 91 - - Hesse, Province of, 231 - - Hesse family, 40 - - Hesse-Nassau, 55 - - Hindenburg, Paul von, 119 - - Hintersee, 224, 225 - - Hitler, Adolf, choice of treasure, 23; - Götterdämmerung idea, 24; - Haus der Deutschen Kunst, 55; - taste, 61, 136, 151; - D’Annunzio’s villa, 63; - offices, 65; - Lanckoroncki Collection, 78; - love for Linz, 83; - Weinzinger, 84; - presents _Ungaria_ to Horthy, 86; - Hohenfurth monastery, 89, 91; - Canova statue, 93; - Czernin Vermeer, 152; - approves destruction of Alt Aussee mine, 155; - approves pictures for museums, 162, 163; - Robert _Landscape_, 184, 185; - Eagle’s Nest, 192, 193, 194; - cognac from Berghof stock, 222; - pictures at St. Agatha, 223, 225 - - Höchst, 229, 259, 260, 261, 272 - - Hoechst, Germany, 49 - - Hofer, Frau, 133 - - Hofer, Walter Andreas, 132, 133, 181, 182, 199, 200 - - Hohenfurth, arrangements for evacuation, 78, 79, 82, 84, 86; - Howe’s first trip to, 87-100; - second trip to, 104-129; - mentioned, 135, 216, 240 - - Hohenfurth altarpiece, 151, 271 - - Hohenfurth monastery, 62, 66, 87-100, 104-129, 240 - - Hohenschwangau, 241 - - Hohenzollerns, the, 235 - - Holbein, Hans, 250 - - Holland, 153, 154, 194, 258, 261, 293 - - Holy Roman Empire, 27, 252 - - Holzinger, Dr., 44 - - Holzinger, Frau, 44, 45 - - Horn, Lt. Walter, 253, 271 - - Hornbeck, Stanley, 268 - - Horthy, Adm., 86 - - House, 71, 128, 132, 179, 181, 182, 183, 184, 210 - - Houses of Parliament, 21 - - Howe, Francesca, 15 - - Hümmel, Dr. Helmut von, 163 - - Hungen, 280, 281 - - - Imperial Treasure Room, _see_ Schatzkammer - - Iname, Baron von, 110 - - Iname, Fräulein von, 110 - - Innsbruck, 109 - - Innsbruck Museum, 110 - - Institute for the Investigation of the Jewish Question, _see_ - Institut zur Erforschung der Judenfrage - - _Institut zur Erforschung der Judenfrage_, 280 - - Isar River, 57, 71 - - Italy, 109, 153, 193, 289 - - - Jaffé, Lt. Hans, 269 - - _James Parker_, the, 279, 289, 290, 291 - - Japan, 168, 233 - - _Jesus Confounding the Doctors_, Van Meegeren, 201 - - Jeu de Paume, 24 - - Jewish art collections, 22, 195, 241, 246 - - Jewish libraries, 280 - - Jubiläumsbau (Jubilee Building), 234, 235 - - Jubilee Building, _see_ Jubiläumsbau - - - Kaiser Friedrich Museum, 34, 49, 276, 278, 291 - - Kaiser Josef chamber, 159 - - Kaiser Josef mine, 142, 144 - - Kaiser Saal, 48 - - Kammergrafen, 150, 151, 153, 162, 163, 164, 166, 173 - - Kapelle, the, 160, 164, 165 - - Karinhall, 146, 190, 204, 210 - - Karlsruhe, 282 - - Karlstadt-on-the-Main, 46 - - Kassel, 231, 282 - - Kassel Museum, 137 - - Katz, Dutch dealer, 194 - - Katz Collection, 198 - - Keck, Sheldon, 232 - - Keegan, Col. Charles, 67 - - Keitel, Gen., 203 - - Kelleher, Capt. Joseph, 277, 278, 284, 285, 286, 287, 288 - - Kirstein, Lincoln, 58, 59, 61, 66, 68, 105, 108, 117, 147, 177, 178, - 184, 214, 251 - - _Kloster_, 89 - - Kluss, Col. Walter, 263, 264, 271, 286, 288 - - _Knights of Christ_, van Eyck, 145 - - Kochendorf, 282 - - Königsplatz, 63, 65, 68, 71, 80, 102, 177, 244 - - Königssee, 180 - - Konopischt Collection, 165 - - Kopernikus-Strasse, 66 - - Kovalyak, Lt. Steve, identified, 118; - introduced, 135, 136, 137-138; - Alt Aussee operations, 139-140, 148, 149, 156, 158, 159, 162, 164, - 165, 169, 171, 172, 173; - Rothschild jewels, 175; - Steyr truck, 183, 186, 224-225; - and Kress, 210-211, 226; - loading at Berchtesgaden, 212, 213, 216, 217, 218; - Görnnert house, 221; - trip to Frankfurt, 227-229; - to Marburg, 231-232; - Neuschwanstein operations, 239-242, 266; - Belgian restitution, 244; - Stoss altarpiece, 253; - Team split, 254-255, 256; - back to Alt Aussee, 258, 277; - redeployment, 278; - mentioned, 180, 182, 187, 189, 203, 204, 207, 222, 223, 251, 259 - - K rations, 70, 77, 79, 125, 226 - - Kress, ⸺, 137, 183, 204, 207, 210, 211, 212, 213, 221, 225, 226, 239 - - Krummau, 96, 100, 101, 114 - - Kufstein, 109 - - Kuhn, Lt. Charles, USNR, Webb’s deputy, 18, 24; - meeting with Howe, 25, 26; - at Frankfurt, 38; - mission to Bad Brückenau and Schloss Rossbach, 40-45; - and Merkers mine, 48-51; - sends Howe to Munich, 52-53, 58; - and removal of art works to the United States, 229, 230, 262; - helps form Special Evacuation Team, 231, 236; - transfer of Berlin collections to Wiesbaden, 246-247; - to Frankfurt, 251; - released from active duty, 255; - mentioned, 19, 27, 228, 264 - - Kurhaus, Frankfurt, 30 - - Kurhaus, Wiesbaden, 31 - - - La Bretesche, Col. A. J. de, 263 - - Lacy, Capt. George, 256 - - _Länder_, 55, 282, 283 - - La Farge, Maj. Bancel, advance office of MFA&A, 31; - Howe meets, 32-33; - at Berchtesgaden, 192; - restitutions, 195-196, 244, 245, 256, 261, 263, 267; - problem of removal of art works to the United States, 229, 230, - 262, 272-285; - Special Evacuation Team, 231; - new assignments, 254; - at Höchst, 259; - MFA&A policies, 260, 264; - and Lovegrove, 265; - mentioned, 37, 62, 202, 228, 251, 271 - - Lambach, 102, 125 - - Lanckoroncki Collection, 78 - - Lancret, Nicolas, 150, 198, 245 - - Landesmuseum, 246 - - _Land_ offices, 282 - - _Landscape_, Lorraine, 152 - - _Landscape_, Robert, 184 - - Lanz Collection, 149 - - Last Supper, 253 - - Laufen, 131, 167 - - Laufen salt mine, 24 - - Law, 52, 280 - - Leclancher, ⸺, 69, 70, 74, 76, 77, 80, 82, 83, 88, 94, 95, 98, 101, - 123 - - _Lederhosen_, 80, 138 - - Léhar, Franz, 165 - - Lenbach, 78 - - Leonfelden, 86, 87 - - Leopold, King of Belgium, 165 - - Lesley, Capt. Everett Parker, Jr., 285 - - Limburg, 266 - - Lindbergh, Charles, 14 - - Linz, 78, 82, 83, 87, 101, 102, 111, 113, 117, 123, 124, 125, 128, - 151, 161 - - Linz Collections, 163 - - Linz Museum, 160, 162, 164 - - List of Protected Monuments, 248 - - Loggia dei Lanzi, 56 - - London, England, 17, 19, 20, 267 - - London Naval Headquarters, 19 - - Longchamps, 21 - - Longuy, Lt. Pierre, 256 - - Loser, Mt., 138 - - Louvain, 255 - - Louvre, 145, 205, 206, 207, 234, 239 - - Lovegrove, Lt. William, 264, 265, 266 - - Lower Bavaria, 282 - - Lucienne, 36 - - “Lucky Rear,” 53, 56 - - Ludwig, Prince of Hesse, 249, 250 - - Ludwig bridge, 57 - - Ludwig I, 56 - - Ludwigsburg, 229 - - Ludwig II, 215, 237, 238 - - _Ludwigs of Bavaria, The_, Channon, 214 - - Ludwig-Strasse, 56 - - Luftwaffe, 22, 180, 204 - - Luithlen, Dr. Victor, 167 - - Luxembourg, 147 - - - McBride, Col. Harry, 273, 275, 278, 279 - - Macmillan Committee, 20 - - “Mad King” of Bavaria, _see_ Ludwig II - - _Madonna and Child_, Florentine sculpture, 92 - - _Madonna and Child_ (Madonna from Bruges), Michelangelo, 27, 142, - 143, 144, 149, 159, 161, 164, 207, 223, 224, 255 - - _Madonna of Bürgermeister Meyer_, Holbein, 250 - - _Madonna of the Divine Love_, Raphael, 152 - - Magdalene, statue, 205 - - Main River, 46 - - Mainzer Landstrasse, 29 - - Manet, Édouard, 232 - - Mannheim, 229, 279 - - Mannheimer Collection, 91, 92, 106, 151 - - _Man with a Turban_, Rembrandt, 194, 195 - - Marburg, 32, 118, 231, 235, 278, 283, 294 - - Margarethe, Landgräfin of Hesse, 40, 249 - - Maria, 139, 165 - - Maria-Elisa, Princess of Lucca, 93 - - Marienberg fortress, 46 - - Marseilles, 195 - - Maspero, M., 287 - - Master of the Holy Kinship, 206 - - Mathilde-Strasse, 226 - - Matisse, Henri, 241 - - Mauritshuis (museum), 200 - - Medical Office, 20 - - Mediterranean Sea, 42 - - Meegeren, Henrik Van, 201, 202 - - Meer, Capt. ter, 267, 268 - - _Mein Kampf_, Hitler, 152 - - Mellon, Andrew, 148, 152 - - _Mercury and Venus_, Boucher, 234 - - Merkers, Germany, 16 - - Merkers mine, 32, 49, 119, 278, 287 - - Merrill, Comm. Keith, 279 - - “Merry Widow Waltz,” 165 - - MFA&A, _see_ Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section of U. S. - Forces, European Theater - - Michel, Dr. Hermann, 183 - - Michelangelo, 143. - _See also_ _Madonna and Child_ - - Miedl, ⸺, 267 - - Military Government Detachments, 33, 35, 40, 66, 103, 127, 139, 176, - 236, 237, 248, 249 - - Miller, Maj. Luther, 219, 220, 221, 223, 224 - - Miller, Maj. Paul, 189 - - Millionen Zimmer, 144 - - Mineral Kabinett, 144, 148, 160 - - Ministry of Education, Arts and Sciences (Holland), 202 - - Ministry of Fine Arts (Belgium), 256 - - Moldau River, 100, 114 - - Monastery of St. Florian, 161 - - Mondsberg chamber, 166 - - Monte Cassino, 152, 153 - - Mont St. Martin, church of, 58 - - Mont St. Michel, 17 - - Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section of U. S. Forces, European - Theater, Howe assigned to, 15; - Webb heads at SHAEF, 18; - offices at Versailles, 21; - Kuhn in, 25; - and SHAEF, 28; - La Farge with, 31; - at Munich, 58-59; - work of, 118; - Walker inspects, 192; - official position, 195-196; - Ritchie joins, 251; - Howe as Deputy Chief, 255; - personnel problems, 257, 273, 283-284, 293, 294; - headquarters transferred, 259; - restitution, 264; - removal of art works to United States, 272, 275-292; - mentioned, 40, 135, 254 - - Monuments of Middle Ages, 61 - - Moore, Lt. Lamont, described, 105-106, 107; - Howe meets, 116, 117; - previous work, 118-120; - Canova Muse, 121; - to Linz, 123, 125; - to Munich, 126, 127; - to Alt Aussee, 128, 129, 130; - operations at Alt Aussee, 131-171, 173-177; - and Kirstein, 177-178; - to Berchtesgaden, 179, 180, 185, 186, 187; - and Hofer, 181-182; - and Dr. Michel, 183-184; - and Göring Collection, 189-213, 219; - trip to Munich, 213-214; - to St. Agatha, 224-225; - to Frankfurt, 227-229; - Special Team, 228, 231, 256; - and Walker Hancock, 232; - at Neuschwanstein, 239-240, 266; - Rochlitz, 241; - Belgian restitution, 244; - trip to Coburg, 247, 249, 251; - resumes evacuation at Alt Aussee, 254, 255, 258, 277; - assigned to Wiesbaden, 278, 279; - mentioned, 114, 216, 221, 223, 253, 259, 269 - - Mouscron brothers of Bruges, 143 - - Mozartplatz, 82, 187 - - Münz Kabinett, 160, 164 - - Munich, Smyth assigned to, 32, 33; - Howe to fly to, 52, 53; - field work begins, 54-79; - back to, 93, 96, 98, 99, 102; - Stout visits, 106; - exhibitions, 151; - convoy to, 159, 218, 236; - trips to, 161, 162, 213, 217, 272; - Haus de Deutschen Kunst in, 166; - Rothschild jewels, 174; - Central Collecting Point, 196, 220, 222, 231, 244, 251, 271, 282; - museums of, 238; - to Paris, 245; - Third Army Headquarters, 246, 260; - return to, 254; - last operations in, 255; - convoys from Amsterdam, 257; - French representative in, 264; - plane from, 268; - Vorenkamp’s work, 269; - Belgium representative in, 280; - _et passim_ - - Munich Pact of 1938, 65 - - _Muse_, Canova, 121 - - Musée du Jeu de Paume, 23, 245, 264, 265, 266 - - Mussolini, Benito, 55, 184, 185, 209, 210, 223, 225 - - Mutter, Dr., 89-99, 102, 113, 114, 116, 121-124 - - Mutter family, 124 - - Myers, Capt., 125 - - _Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine, The_, David, 197 - - - Naarden, 270 - - Naples Museum, 152 - - Napoleon, 93 - - National Gallery, Edinburgh, 199 - - National Gallery of Art, 16, 105, 192, 273, 278, 279, 289, 294 - - Nattier, ⸺, 150 - - Netherlands Government, 270 - - _Neue Residenz_, 247, 248 - - Neue Staatsgalerie, 64 - - Neumann, Johann Balthasar, 47 - - Neuschwanstein, _see_ Schloss Neuschwanstein - - Newark Museum, 105 - - New York _Times_, 274_n._, 288, 290, 292 - - New York _Times Overseas Weekly_, 289, 290 - - _Night Watch_, Rembrandt, 270 - - 1923 beer-hall “putsch,” 64 - - Ninth Army Headquarters, 118 - - North Sea, 42 - - Nürnberg, 236, 243-258, 272 - - Nunnery on the Mathilde-Strasse, 226 - - - Oberammergau, 215, 282 - - Ober-Donau, 154 - - Obersalzberg, 192, 223 - - Offenbach, 280, 281, 282, 285 - - Office of Military Government for Germany (U. S.), 291 - - Olympus and the Four Continents, 47 - - 101st Airborne Division, 180, 190, 209, 210, 222 - - Ooley, Capt. Wyman, 35, 36 - - Opera House, Frankfurt, 29, 35 - - Opera House, Wiesbaden, 31 - - Oppenheim, E. Phillips, 20 - - Orly field, 17, 19, 21, 28 - - Ortenburg, Countess of, 250 - - OSS, 20, 128, 241, 249 - - Ottobeuren, 215 - - Oud Bussum, 270 - - - Pacher, Michael, 165 - - _Painted Queen, The, see_ Queen Nefertete - - Palace at Darmstadt, 250 - - Palace of Versailles, 115 - - Palais Edinburgh, 249 - - Pannini, 185 - - Pannwitz, Mme. Catalina van, 194 - - Pannwitz, Van, Collection, 194 - - Paris, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 37, 148, 167, 194, 195, 199, 215, 223, - 227, 239, 241, 245, 264, 265, 279, 280 - - Paris Naval Headquarters, 19, 26 - - Parkhurst, Lt. (jg) Charles, 240 - - Passau, 113, 117 - - _Passion of Christ_, altarpiece, 206 - - Patton, Gen. George, 57, 228 - - Patuxent airport, 13 - - Pau Museum, 146 - - Peck, Sgt. Edward, 188, 189, 202, 204, 208, 212, 222 - - Pelz, Lt. Milton A., 249 - - Petites Écuries, 21 - - Philip of Hesse, 40, 249 - - “Photo Marburg,” 234 - - Picasso, Pablo, 241, 242 - - Pilsen, 254 - - Place de la Concorde, 18, 23 - - Place Vendôme, 17 - - Platter Hof, 192 - - Plaut, Lt. Jim, 20, 128, 131, 132, 133, 179, 181, 184, 241 - - Pötschen Pass, 131, 171, 184 - - Poland, 50, 196, 252, 254, 260, 272, 293 - - Poland, King of, 252 - - Polis, Lt. Col. H., 267 - - _Polnische Grausamkeit, Die_ (_The Polish Atrocity_), 224 - - Polyhymnia, statue by Canova, 93 - - Pompeii, 152 - - _Portrait of a Lady Sealing a Letter_, Chardin, 234 - - _Portrait of a Young Woman_, Bordone, 166 - - _Portrait of Pope Clement VII_, Sebastiano del Piombo, 152 - - _Portrait of the Artist in His Studio_, Vermeer, 151 - - _Portrait of the Artist’s Mother_, Whistler, 232 - - Posey, Capt. Robert, Third Army Monuments Officer, 58, 59; - described, 60, 67; - sends Howe to Grassau, 68; - Hohenfurth evacuation, 104, 105, 107, 108; - Howe to Alt Aussee, 128; - and Ghent altarpiece, 147, 148; - Bormann letter, 155; - Rothschild jewels, 175; - instructions to Howe, 178, 179; - and Michel, 184; - plans, 215; - St. Agatha pictures, 223; - sends team to Hohenfurth, 227; - Belgian restitution, 244, 245; - demobilized, 246; - mentioned, 62, 75, 78, 85, 103, 112, 139, 177, 213, 214, 219, 225, - 236 - - Posse, Dr. Hans, 163 - - Posthumus-Meyjes, Col. W. C., 270 - - Poulard, Mère, 17 - - Prague, 254 - - _Presentation in the Temple_, Master of the Holy Kinship, 206 - - Prien, 72, 73 - - Prince-Bishops of Würzburg, 46, 47 - - Prince Regent of Belgium, 244 - - Prinz Karl Palais, 55 - - Prinz Regenten-Strasse, 55, 57 - - Prinz-Regenten Theater, 66 - - Property Control, 63 - - Prussia, King of, 145 - - Punxsutawney, Pa., 118 - - Putnam, Capt., 204 - - PX rations, 129, 256 - - - Queen Nefertete, statue, 50, 286, 287 - - - Rackham, Arthur, 80 - - Rae, Capt. Edwin, 50, 51, 53, 246, 247, 248, 250, 251, 253, 254, - 261, 271 - - Raphael, 262 - - Ratensky, Lt. Samuel, 277, 284, 285 - - “Raven, The,” Poe, 167 - - Red Cross Club, 18, 31, 266 - - Reeds, Cpl. James, 259, 261, 263 - - Regional Military Government office, Munich, 33 - - Regnitz River, 248 - - Reichsbank, Frankfurt, 32, 48, 51, 52, 53, 108, 246, 261, 287 - - Reichskanzlei, Berlin, 151 - - Reichszeugmeisterei (Quartermaster Corps buildings), 57 - - Rembrandt, 44, 150, 151, 153, 262 - - Renders, M., 191 - - Renders Collection at Brussels, 191 - - René, 36 - - Reparations, Deliveries and Restitution Division of the U. S. Group - Control Council, 195. - _See also_ Group Control Council - - Residenz, at Würzburg, 47, 48, 280 - - Restitution Commission, 270 - - Restitution Control Branch of the Economics Division, 259, 263, 264 - - “Return of the Old Masters, The,” Exhibition, 270 - - Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 150 - - Rhineland museums, 32, 118 - - Rhine River, 266 - - Ribbentrop, von, 130 - - Ribera, 185 - - _Richmond, Duke of_, Van Dyck, 198 - - Rifkind, Judge Samuel, 281 - - Rijksmuseum, 154, 267, 269, 270 - - _Ring of the Nibelung_, Wagner, 66 - - Ritchie, Andrew, 251 - - Robert, Hubert, 172, 185 - - Roberts, Justice, 15 - - Roberts Commission, 15, 20, 25, 31, 192, 262 - - Rochlitz, Gustav, 241, 242 - - Roel, Jonkheer, 267 - - Roget, Roger, 71, 81, 82, 83, 95, 96, 98, 101, 134 - - Rollin, Armand, 232 - - Rorimer, Lt. James, 105, 238, 280 - - Rosenberg, Alfred, 22, 100, 101, 114, 149 - - Rosenberg, castle of, 114 - - Rosenberg, Dukes of, 100 - - Rosenberg Task Force, _see_ Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg - - Rosenheim, 102, 109, 128 - - Rosenheimer-Strasse, 57, 71 - - Ross, Gen., 279 - - Rothschild, Baron Édouard de, 198 - - Rothschild Collection, 91, 106, 151 - - Rothschild jewels, 174-175, 177 - - Rothschild Library, 281, 286 - - Rothschild treasures, 239 - - Rothschilds, of Paris, 205 - - Rothschilds, of Vienna, 151 - - Rousseau, Lt. Ted, 128, 131, 132, 133, 179, 181, 183, 184, 241 - - Royal Monceau (hotel), 18, 19, 21, 223 - - Rubens, Peter Paul, 78, 150, 153, 172, 182, 198, 199, 235, 245 - - Rudolf, of Mayerling, 93 - - Rue Berthier, 27, 30 - - Rue Castiglione, 17 - - Rue de Rivoli, 17 - - Rue Presbourg, 19 - - Russian Ballet, 167 - - Russian Military Government, 294 - - Russian Zone of Occupied Germany, 248, 249 - - Ruysdael, Jacob, 235 - - - Sachs, Prof., 50 - - _Sacra Conversazione_, Vecchio, 152 - - St. Agatha, 131, 184, 223, 225 - - St. Barbara, statues, 207, 224 - - St. George and the Dragon statues, 207 - - St. Gilgen, 128, 130 - - St. John, 148, 253 - - St. John Nepomuk, 100 - - _St. John the Baptist_, panel, 145 - - St. Paul, 253 - - St. Paul’s, London, 21 - - St. Peter, 253 - - St. Wolfgang, 128, 165 - - St. Wolfgang See, 130 - - Salonika, 144, 160 - - Salzburg, 24, 25, 59, 61, 68, 81, 83, 102, 111, 113, 125, 128, 130, - 162, 168, 171, 175, 176, 178, 182, 187, 192 - - “Sammlung Berta,” 151 - - San Francisco, Calif., 14, 15, 166, 240, 257 - - _Saskia_, Rembrandt, 194 - - Sattler, Dietrich, 256 - - Saxony, 55 - - Schatzkammer, 252, 253 - - Schiller, von, 186 - - Schiphol airport, 267, 268, 271 - - Schloss Banz, 250, 271 - - Schloss Friedrichshof, 40 - - Schloss Konopischt, 164, 165 - - Schloss Kronberg, 38 - - Schloss Lichtwert, 110 - - Schloss Linderhof, 215 - - Schloss Marzoll, 225 - - Schloss Matzen, 109, 110 - - Schloss Neuschwanstein, 148, 215, 219, 227, 236, 237-242, 266 - - Schloss Rossbach, 42, 44 - - Schloss Stauffeneck-Tiereck, 225 - - Schloss Tambach, 249, 250, 251 - - Schloss Wiesenthau, 253 - - Schmedes, von, 109 - - Schönborn family, the, 47 - - Schuvalov, Prince, 78 - - Schwannenstadt, 125 - - _Seduction_, Boucher, 197 - - _Self-Portrait_, Rembrandt, 233 - - Seligmann, Paris art dealer, 206 - - Seventh Army (U. S.), 105, 228, 238, 260, 269 - - “Seven Wonders of Bavaria,” 215 - - SHAEF, 15, 18, 21, 49, 59, 195, 248 - - SHAEF Headquarters, 28, 29, 38 - - Sheehan, Lt. Col. John R., 86, 87, 89, 93, 99, 102, 113 - - Shrady, Lt. Frederick, 135, 136, 139, 140, 148, 156, 162, 165, 167, - 179, 182, 183 - - Siberechts, Jan, 185 - - Sieber, Karl, German restorer, 136, 140; - and mine train, 141, 142; - Ghent altarpiece, 148; - evacuation of Alt Aussee, 149, 150; - described, 154; - Hitler’s plans for destruction of mine, 155-156; - in the Kammergrafen, 162-163, 173-174; - mentioned, 153, 183, 184, 185 - - Siegen, Westphalia, 32, 119 - - Siegen mine, 107, 118, 232 - - Sigismund, Emperor, 252 - - Silesia, 250 - - Sinn River, 42 - - Sisley portrait, Renoir, 232 - - “_Sittenbilder_,” 163 - - 65th Infantry Division, 82 - - Slade Professor of Art, 18 - - Smith, Col. Hayden, 272 - - Smith College, 257 - - Smyth, Lt. Craig, to France, 13, 14, 16, 18, 21; - at Versailles, 26, 27; - assigned to Munich, 33, 34; - need for guards, 62, 63; - at Verwaltungsbau, 64, 65; - Howe stays with, 66, 67; - inspects pictures, 77-78; - lends packers to Howe, 80, 81; - Rothschild jewels, 177; - visits Berchtesgaden, 216, 217; - Belgian restitution, 243, 245; - “Westward Ho” shipment, 276; - mentioned, 54, 127, 214, 254, 258 - - Soldier King, _see_ Frederick William - - Solly, Edward, 145 - - Special Evacuation Team, 228, 236, 247, 254, 256 - - Speisesaal (of Prinz Regenten Theater), 66 - - Spitzweg, 78 - - Springerwerke, 148, 149, 153, 166 - - Staatsarchiv, 231, 233, 235 - - Staedelsches Kunstinstitut, 44 - - Standen, Lt. Edith, 50, 51, 246, 259, 261, 263, 264, 272, 280, 285, - 290 - - _Stars and Stripes_, 284 - - Staedel, the, 44 - - Steinbergwerke, 134 - - Stettin Museum, 249, 250 - - Stevenson, Robert Louis, 269 - - Stevensville, Newfoundland, 16 - - _Still Life with Dead Peacocks_, Rembrandt, 269 - - Stockholm Museum, 280 - - Stokowski, Leopold, 182 - - Stone, Chief Justice Harlan Fiske, 289 - - Stoss, Veit, 252 - - Stoss altarpiece, 27, 253, 263, 272 - - Stout, Lt. George, USNR, described, 31; - plans for repositories, 32; - visits to Munich, 58, 59, 61-62, 106-107; - advises Siegen evacuation, 118; - as part of team, 128; - introduces Howe and Moore to Alt Aussee mine, 134-144; - opinion of Sieber, 154; - loading techniques, 156-161; - leaves for Pacific, 167-170, 178; - on the “old masters,” 208; - on removal of art works to the United States, 262; - mentioned, 53, 66, 68, 77, 131, 149, 162, 180, 212, 245, 263 - - Stradivarius violins at Innsbruck, 110 - - Strasbourg Cathedral, 27 - - Strigel, Bernhard, 198 - - Strobl, 131 - - Stuttgart, 228, 229, 282 - - Sudetenland, 89 - - Suk, Capt. Egon, 271 - - Sverdlik, Dr., 95, 96 - - “Swan country,” 237 - - Switzerland, 44, 146, 179, 194 - - - Table of Organization, 231, 283 - - Taunus Anlage, 29 - - Taunus mountains, 31, 266 - - Tel-el-Amarna, 286, 287 - - Ten Cate Collection, 195 - - “Teppich-Beisser, Der,” _see_ Hitler, Adolf - - Terceira, 16 - - Thacher, Major Coleman W., 87, 99, 101, 120 - - Theatinerkirche, 56 - - Third Army (U. S.), 57, 59, 62, 104, 110, 129, 147, 169, 176, 186, - 222, 226, 228, 247, 251, 260, 271 - - Third Army Headquarters, 53, 66, 68, 76, 103, 107, 112, 177, 210, - 214, 219, 226, 236, 238, 245, 246 - - Thoma, 78 - - Throne Room, 238 - - Thüngen, Baron and Baroness, 43 - - Thuringia, 32 - - Tiepolo, 47, 78 - - Tiffany’s, 238 - - Tintoretto, 150, 153 - - “Tiny,” 217 - - Titian, 24, 150, 153, 168 - - _Titus_, Rembrandt, 194 - - T.O., _see_ Table of Organization - - Transient Officers’ Mess, 126 - - Transportation Office, 32 - - Traunstein, 81, 179 - - “Treasure Room” of Walter Farmer, 284, 286 - - Treppenhaus, the, 47 - - Trianon Palace Hotel, 27 - - Trier, 147 - - True Cross, 253 - - Truman, Pres. Harry S., 230, 275 - - Tuileries Gardens, 23 - - 12th Army Group Headquarters, 31 - - 26th Division (Yankee), 100, 126 - - 263rd Field Artillery Battalion, 86, 87 - - Tyrol, the, 108, 109 - - - Ulm, 228 - - _Ungaria_, the, 86 - - UNRRA, 248 - - United States Forces, Austria (USFA), 247, 251 - - United States Forces, European Theater (USFET), 229, 231, 235, 251, - 252, 255, 259, 260, 263, 264, 271, 272, 283 - - U. S. Group Control Council, 49, 106, 229, 230, 259, 261, 283 - - United States Zone of Germany, _see_ American Zone - - University of California, 253 - - University of Frankfurt, 37, 53 - - University of Munich, 225 - - Unterstein, 180, 187, 224 - - Upper Bavaria, 282 - - Upper Franconia, 247 - - Urfahr, 87, 124 - - USFET, _see_ United States Forces, European Theater - - USFET Mission at The Hague, 268 - - USFET Mission to France, 265 - - Utrecht, 266 - - - Valland, Rose, 23, 24, 264 - - Vanderbilt, Paul, 281 - - Van Dyck, 143, 150, 153, 172, 185, 235, 245 - - Van Meegeren, 270 - - Van Meegeren fake, 199 - - Van Pannwitz collection, 194 - - Vassalle, Capt. Rudolph, 40, 41 - - Vatican, the, 152 - - VE-Day, 17, 118 - - Veitschöchheim, Germany, 46 - - Veit Stoss altarpiece, _see_ Stoss altarpiece - - Velásquez, Diego Rodríguez, 24, 168 - - Vermeer, Jan, 182, 201, 270 - - “Vermeer” fake, 182, 191, 192, 198-201, 270 - - Verona, 176 - - Veronese, Paul, 153, 172 - - Versailles, 18, 21, 24, 25, 27, 49, 58, 63, 128, 229 - - Versailles Treaty, 145, 255 - - Verwaltungsbau, 64, 65, 70, 105, 216 - - Vichy Ministry of Fine Arts, 146 - - Vienna, 25, 26, 83, 93, 140, 151, 152, 167, 176, 247, 251, 252, 253 - - Vienna Museum, 24, 167, 168, 175 - - Vierzehnheiligen, 215 - - _View of the Piazza San Marco_, Canaletto, 198 - - Vigée-Lebrun, Mme., 78 - - Villacoublay, 28 - - VJ-Day, 235 - - Volkwang Museum, 232 - - Voltaire, portrait of, Houdon, 246 - - Vorenkamp, Lt. Col. Alphonse, 256, 258, 261, 267, 269, 270, 271 - - Voss, Dr. Hermann, 163 - - Vrečko, Lt. Col. František, 271 - - Vries, Capt. Robert de, 267 - - Vroom, Nicolaes, 267 - - Vysi Brod, 89 - - - Waffenraum, Schloss Kronberg, 39, 249 - - Wagner, Richard, 237 - - Walker, John, 119, 192, 202 - - Wallraf-Richartz Museum of Cologne, 233 - - Warsaw, 249, 250, 251 - - Washington, D. C., 17, 273, 275, 279, 289 - - Webb, Lt. Col. Geoffrey, 18, 21, 24, 26, 28, 38 - - Wehrmacht, the, 121, 157 - - Weimar, 232 - - “Weinzinger,” 84 - - Weisser Saal, 48 - - Weltenburg, 215 - - Wendland, Swiss art dealer, 195, 197 - - Wesel, 266 - - Western Military District (of American Zone), 246, 260, 269 - - Western Sea Frontier Headquarters, 14 - - Westminster Abbey, 21 - - Westphalia, 32, 107 - - “Westward Ho” shipment, 275, 276, 280 - - Whistler’s _Mother_, 232 - - White House, the, 289, 290_n._ - - _White Roses_, Van Gogh, 232 - - Whittemore, Maj. Lewis W., 89, 94, 114 - - Widener Collection, 50, 262 - - Widener house, 51 - - Wies, 215 - - Wiesbaden, 31, 33, 62, 156, 247, 259, 263, 275, 278, 279, 282, 285, - 287, 288, 294 - - Wiesbaden Manifesto, 275 - - Wiesbaden Museum, 247 - - _Wilhelm Tell_, 186 - - Williams College, 177 - - Wimpole Street, 19 - - Windischgrätz, Princess, 93 - - Windsor, Duke, of, 131 - - Wolfsgarten, 250 - - Woolley, Col. Sir Leonard, 20 - - World War I, 37, 39, 70, 164, 287 - - Wright, Frank Lloyd, 284 - - Württemberg, 229 - - Württemberg-Baden, 246, 282 - - Würzburg, 46, 48, 236, 280 - - Würzburg Residenz, 215 - - - “Yankee Division,” _see_ 26th Division - - - Zell am See, 191 - - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SALT MINES AND CASTLES *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Salt mines and castles</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:1em;'>The discovery and restitution of looted European art</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Thomas Carr Howe</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: May 22, 2022 [eBook #68150]</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SALT MINES AND CASTLES ***</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_1"></a>[1]</span></p> - -<p class="center larger">SALT MINES AND CASTLES</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_2"></a>[2]</span></p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_3"></a>[3]</span></p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;" id="illus1"> -<img src="images/illus1.jpg" width="500" height="350" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">The Special Evacuation Team. Lieutenants Kovalyak, Moore and Howe, who -removed the Göring Collection from Berchtesgaden to Munich, were photographed -in the Luftwaffe Rest House at Unterstein.</p> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;" id="illus2"> -<img src="images/illus2.jpg" width="500" height="350" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">Hermann Göring, his daughter Edda, Frau Göring and Adolf Hitler. -This photograph was taken at Karinhall, the Reichmarschall’s estate -near Berlin.</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_4"></a>[4]</span></p> - -<p class="titlepage larger">Salt Mines<br /> -<span class="smcap smaller">and</span><br /> -Castles</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> -<img src="images/line.jpg" width="500" height="15" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p class="titlepage">The Discovery and Restitution of<br /> -Looted European Art</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> -<img src="images/line.jpg" width="500" height="15" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p class="titlepage"><i>By</i><br /> -THOMAS CARR HOWE, JR.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> -<img src="images/line.jpg" width="500" height="15" alt="" /> -</div> - -<p class="titlepage">THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY<br /> -<i>PUBLISHERS</i><br /> -<i>INDIANAPOLIS</i> · <i>NEW YORK</i></p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_5"></a>[5]</span></p> - -<p class="titlepage smaller">COPYRIGHT, 1946, BY THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY<br /> -PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</p> - -<p class="titlepage smaller"><i>First Edition</i></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_6"></a>[6]</span></p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_7"></a>[7]</span></p> - -<p class="titlepage"><span class="smcap">To My Mother</span></p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="nobreak">NOTE</h2> - -</div> - -<p>From May 1945 until February 1946, I served as a Monuments, -Fine Arts and Archives Officer in Germany. During the first four -months of this assignment, I was engaged in field work which included -the recovery of looted works of art from such out-of-the-way -places as a monastery in Czechoslovakia, a salt mine in Austria, and -a castle in Bavaria. Later, as Deputy Chief of the Monuments, -Fine Arts and Archives Section, Office of Military Government, -U. S. Zone, I participated in the restitution of recovered art treasures -to the countries of rightful ownership.</p> - -<p>This book is primarily an account of my own experiences in connection -with these absorbing tasks; but I have also chronicled the -activities of a number of my fellow officers, hoping thereby to provide -the reader with a more comprehensive estimate of the work -as a whole than the <i>resumé</i> of my own duties could have afforded.</p> - -<p>For many helpful suggestions, I am indebted to Captain Edith -A. Standen, Lieutenant Lamont Moore and Mr. David Bramble; -and for invaluable photographic material, I am particularly grateful -to Captain Stephen Kovalyak, Captain P. J. Kelleher, Captain -Edward E. Adams and Lieutenant Craig Smyth, USNR.</p> - -<p>For permission to reproduce three <i>International News Service</i> -photographs, I wish to thank Mr. Clarence Lindner of the San -Francisco <i>Examiner</i>.</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Thomas Carr Howe, Jr.</span></p> - -<p class="noindent">San Francisco<br /> -July 1946.</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_8"></a>[8]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CONTENTS</h2> - -</div> - -<table summary="Contents"> - <tr> - <td class="tdr smaller">CHAPTER</td> - <td></td> - <td class="tdpg smaller">PAGE</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">1</td> - <td><span class="smcap">Paris—London—Versailles</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_1">13</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">2</td> - <td><span class="smcap">Assigned to Frankfurt</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_2">35</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">3</td> - <td><span class="smcap">Munich and the Beginning of Field Work</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_3">54</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">4</td> - <td><span class="smcap">Masterpieces in a Monastery</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_4">80</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">5</td> - <td><span class="smcap">Second Trip to Hohenfurth</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_5">104</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">6</td> - <td><span class="smcap">Loot Underground: The Salt Mine at Alt Aussee</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_6">130</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">7</td> - <td><span class="smcap">The Rothschild Jewels; the Göring Collection</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_7">171</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">8</td> - <td><span class="smcap">Looters’ Castle: Schloss Neuschwanstein</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_8">219</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">9</td> - <td><span class="smcap">Hidden Treasures at Nürnberg</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_9">243</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr">10</td> - <td><span class="smcap">Mission to Amsterdam; the Wiesbaden Manifesto</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_10">259</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"></td> - <td><span class="smcap">Appendix</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#APPENDIX">297</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="tdr"></td> - <td><span class="smcap">Index</span></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#INDEX">321</a></td> - </tr> -</table> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_9"></a>[9]</span></p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_10"></a>[10]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> - -</div> - -<table summary="List of illustrations"> - <tr> - <td>The Special Evacuation Team. Lieutenants Kovalyak, Moore and Howe</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus1"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Hermann Göring, his daughter, Frau Göring and Hitler</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus2"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td></td> - <td class="tdpg smaller">FACING<br />PAGE</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>The Residenz at Würzburg</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus3">30</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Ruined Frankfurt. The Cathedral</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus4">30</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>The Central Collecting Point at Munich</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus5">31</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>A typical storage room in the Central Collecting Point</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus6">31</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>The bronze coffin of Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus7">40</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Canova’s life-size statue of Napoleon’s sister</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus8">40</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>The administration buildings at the Alt Aussee salt mine</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus9">41</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Truck at the mine being loaded with paintings</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus10">41</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Sieber and Kern view Michelangelo’s Madonna and Child</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus11">56</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>The Madonna being packed for return to Bruges</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus12">56</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>The famous Ghent altarpiece</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus13">57</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Sieber, Kern and Eder examine the altarpiece</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus14">57</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Vermeer’s <i>Portrait of the Artist in His Studio</i></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus15">64</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>One of the picture storage rooms at Alt Aussee</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus16">64</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Panel from the Louvain altarpiece, <i>Feast of the Passover</i></td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus17">65</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>The Czernin Vermeer</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus18">65</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Major Anderson supervising removal of the Göring Collection</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus19">96</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>One of the forty rooms in the Rest House</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus20">96</a><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_11"></a>[11]</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>The GI Work Party which assisted the Evacuation Team</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus21">97</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Truck loaded with sculpture from the Göring Collection</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus22">97</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>German altarpiece from the Louvre Museum</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus23">128</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>The panel, <i>Mary Magdalene</i>, by van Scorel</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus24">128</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Wing of an Italian Renaissance altarpiece by del Garbo</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus25">129</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><i>The Magdalene</i>, by Erhardt</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus26">129</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><i>Mary Magdalene</i>, by Cranach</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus27">160</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><i>The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine</i> by David</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus28">160</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><i>Diana</i>, by Boucher, from the Rothschild Collection</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus29">161</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><i>Atalanta and Meleager</i>, by Rubens</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus30">161</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><i>Portrait of a Young Girl</i> by Chardin and <i>Young Girl with Chinese Figure</i> by Fragonard</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus31">192</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><i>Christ and the Adulteress</i>, the fraudulent Vermeer</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus32">193</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td><i>Portrait of the Artist’s Sister</i> by Rembrandt</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus33">193</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Removal of treasures from Neuschwanstein</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus34">224</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Neuschwanstein—Ludwig II’s fantastic castle</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus35">224</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Packing looted furniture at Neuschwanstein</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus36">225</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Typical storage room in the castle</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus37">225</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>The Albrecht Dürer house—before and after the German collapse</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus38">256</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>The Veit Stoss altarpiece from the Church of Our Lady at Cracow</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus39">257</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>The Hungarian Crown Jewels</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus40">288</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>Treasure Room at the Central Collecting Point, Wiesbaden</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus41">289</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>The celebrated sculpture, Queen Nefertete</td> - <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus42">289</a></td> - </tr> -</table> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_12"></a>[12]</span></p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_13"></a>[13]</span></p> - -<h1>SALT MINES AND CASTLES</h1> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_1">(1)<br /> -<span class="smaller"><i>PARIS—LONDON—VERSAILLES</i></span></h2> - -</div> - -<p>“Your name’s not on the passenger list,” said Craig when I walked -into the waiting room of the Patuxent airport. “You’d better see -what you can do about it.” It was a hot spring night and I had -just flown down from Washington, expecting to board a transatlantic -plane which was scheduled to take off at midnight.</p> - -<p>“There must be some mistake,” I said. “I checked on that just -before I left Washington.” Craig went with me to the counter -where I asked the pretty WAVE on duty to look up my name. It -wasn’t on her list.</p> - -<p>“Let’s see what they know about this at the main office,” she -said with an encouraging smile as she dialed Naval Air Transport -in Washington. The next ten minutes were grim. The officer at -the other end of the line wanted to know with whom I had checked. -Had it been someone in his office? I didn’t know. All I knew was -that I had to get on that plane. I had important papers which had -to be delivered to our Paris office without delay. Was I a courier? -Yes, I was—well, that is, almost, I faltered to the WAVE ensign -who had been transmitting my replies. “Here, you talk to him,” -she said, adding, as she handed me the receiver, “I think he can -fix it up.”</p> - -<p>After going through the same questions and getting the same -answers a second time, the officer in Washington asked to speak -to the yeoman who was supervising the loading of the plane. He -was called in and I waited on tenterhooks until I heard him say,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_14"></a>[14]</span> -“Yes, sir, I can make room for the lieutenant and his gear.” Turning -the phone over to the WAVE, he asked with a reassuring grin, -“Feel better, Lieutenant?”</p> - -<p>I was so limp with relief that I scarcely noticed the tall spare -man in civilian clothes who had just come up to the counter. -“That’s Lindbergh,” said Craig in a low voice. “Do you suppose -he’s going over too?”</p> - -<p>Half an hour later we trooped out across the faintly lighted field -to the C-54 which stood waiting. Lindbergh, dressed now in the -olive-drab uniform of a Naval Technician, preceded us up the -steps. There were ten of us in all. With the exception of three -leather-cushioned chairs, there were only bucket seats. Craig and -I settled ourselves in two of these uninviting hollows and began -fumbling clumsily with the seat belts. Seeing that we were having -trouble, Lindbergh came over and with a friendly smile asked if -he could give us a hand. After deftly adjusting our belts, he returned -to one of the cushioned seats across the way.</p> - -<p>Doors slammed, the engines began to roar and, a few seconds -later, we were off. We mounted swiftly into the star-filled sky -and, peering out, watched the dark Maryland hills drop away. We -dozed despite the discomfort of our bent-over positions and didn’t -come to again until the steward roused us several hours later with -coffee and sandwiches. Afterward he brought out army cots and -motioned to us to set them up if we wanted to stretch out. As soon -as we got the cots unfolded and the pegs set in place, he turned out -the lights.</p> - -<p>Craig was dead to the world in a few minutes but I couldn’t get -back to sleep. To the accompaniment of the humming motors, the -events of the past weeks began to pass in review: that quiet April -afternoon at Western Sea Frontier Headquarters in San Francisco<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_15"></a>[15]</span> -when my overseas orders had come through—those orders I had -been waiting for so long, more than a year. It was in March of -1944 that I first learned there was a chance of getting a European -assignment, to join the group of officers working with our armies -in the “protection and salvaging of artistic monuments in war -areas.” That was the cumbersome way it was described. The -President had appointed a commission with a long name, but it -came to be known simply as the Roberts Commission. Justice -Roberts of the Supreme Court was the head of it. It was the first -time in history that a country had taken such precautions to safeguard -cultural monuments lying in the paths of its invading armies.</p> - -<p>It was the commission’s job to recommend to the War Department -servicemen whose professional qualifications fitted them for -this work. I had been in the Navy for two years. Before that I had -been director of the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, one -of San Francisco’s two municipal museums of the fine arts. The -commission had recommended me, but it was up to me to obtain -my own release. I had been in luck on that score. My commanding -officer had agreed to let me go. And more important, my wife -had too. Only Francesca had wanted to know why Americans -should be meddling with Europe’s art treasures. Weren’t there -enough museum directors over there to take care of things? Of -course there were in normal times. But now they needed men in -uniform—to go in with the armies.</p> - -<p>And after all that planning nothing had happened, until three -weeks ago. Then everything had happened at once. The orders -directed me to report to SHAEF for duty with the Monuments, -Fine Arts and Archives Section, G-5, and additional duty with the -Allied Control Council for Germany.</p> - -<p>The papers had been full of stories about German salt mines—the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_16"></a>[16]</span> -big one at Merkers where our troops had found the Nazi -gold and the treasures from the Berlin museums. I was going to -Germany. Would I find anything like that?</p> - -<p>I had flown to Washington to receive last-minute instructions. -I was to make the trip across by air and was given an extra allowance -of twenty-five pounds to enable me to take along a dozen -Baedekers and a quantity of photographic paper for distribution -among our officers in the field. I had been introduced to Craig -Smyth while in the midst of these final preparations. Like me, he -was a naval lieutenant and his orders were identical with mine. He -was a grave young Princetonian, formerly on the staff of the -National Gallery of Art in Washington.</p> - -<p>It was raining when we reached Stevensville, Newfoundland, -early the next morning. After an hour’s stop we were on our way -again. Shortly before noon we struck good weather and all day -long sea and sky remained unvaryingly blue. Late in the afternoon -we landed on the island of Terceira in the Azores. We had set -our watches ahead two hours at Stevensville. Now we set them -ahead again. We took off promptly at seven. This was the last -lap of the journey—we’d be in Paris in the morning. Presently -our fellow passengers settled down for the night. Two of the -cushioned chairs were empty, so Craig and I took possession. They -were more comfortable than the cots, and as soon as the steward -turned out the lights I dropped off to sleep.</p> - -<p>It was still dark when I awoke hours later, but there was enough -light for me to distinguish two black masses of land rising from the -sea. On one, the beacon of a lighthouse revolved with monotonous -regularity. We had just passed over two of the Channel Islands. -The dawn came rapidly and a pink light edged the eastern horizon. -It was not long before we sighted the coast of France. We flew<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_17"></a>[17]</span> -into rosy clouds and, as they billowed about the plane, we caught -tantalizing glimpses of the shore line below. The steward pointed -out one promontory and told us it was Brest. Soon we had a -spectacular view of Mont St. Michel and the long causeway over -which I had driven years before on a sketching tour in Normandy. -I wondered what had become of Mère Poulard and her wonderful -omelettes and lobster. Some people said they had brought more -visitors to Mont St. Michel than the architecture. Very likely she -was dead and the Germans had probably disposed of her fabulous -cuisine.</p> - -<p>We had lost two more hours in the course of the night, so it was -only seven-thirty when we swooped down at Orly field, half an -hour from Paris. It was a beautiful morning and the sun was so -bright that it took us a few minutes to get accustomed to the glare. -As we walked over to the airport office, we had our first glimpse -of war damage at close range—bombed-out hangars and, scattered -about the field, the wreckage of German planes. But the airport -was being repaired rapidly. Trim new offices had been built and -additional barracks were nearing completion. Craig and I booked -places on the afternoon plane for London and then climbed onto -the bus waiting to take us into Paris.</p> - -<p>Thanks to various delays in getting out of Washington, we had -missed the Paris celebration of VE-Day by a margin of three days. -So we were about to see the wonderful old city at the beginning of -a period of readjustment. But a peaceful Sunday morning is no -time to judge any city—least of all Paris. Everything looked the -same. The arcades along the right side of the Rue de Rivoli and -the gardens at the left were empty, as one would expect them to -be. We turned into the Rue Castiglione and came to a halt by the -column in the Place Vendôme.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_18"></a>[18]</span></p> - -<p>After we had checked our bags at the ATC office, we walked -over to the Red Cross Club on the Place de la Concorde. We -shaved, washed and then had doughnuts and coffee in the canteen.</p> - -<p>Our next move was to call Lieutenant Colonel Geoffrey Webb, -the British officer who was head of the MFA&A Section at SHAEF -headquarters in Versailles. Before the war, Colonel Webb had -been Slade Professor of Art at Cambridge. I explained to him that -Smyth and I had arrived but that our orders directed us to report -first to Naval Headquarters in London—ComNavEu—and that -as soon as we had complied with them we would be back. That -was all right with the colonel. He said that Lieutenant Kuhn, -USNR, his deputy, was away on a three-day field trip and wouldn’t -be returning before the middle of the week. And we were primarily -Charlie Kuhn’s problem.</p> - -<p>With that formality out of the way, we retrieved our luggage -and wheedled the ATC into giving us transportation to the Royal -Monceau, the Navy hotel out near the Étoile. It was time to relax -and luxuriate in the thought that it was May and that we were in -Paris—that climatic and geographic combination so long a favorite -theme of song-writers. I thought about this as we drove along -the Champs Élysées. The song writers had something, all right—Paris -in May was a wonderful sight. But they had been mooning -about a gala capital filled with carefree people, and the Paris of -May 1945 wasn’t like that. Architecturally, the city was as elegant -as ever, but the few people one saw along the streets looked anything -but carefree. And there were no taxis. Taxis have always -seemed to me as much a part of Paris as the buildings themselves. -In spite of a superficial sameness, Paris had an air of empty magnificence -that made one think of a beautiful woman struck dumb by -shock. I wondered if my thoughts were running away with me, -but found that Craig’s impressions were much the same.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_19"></a>[19]</span></p> - -<p>These musings were cut short by our arrival at the hotel. The -Navy had done all right for itself. The same efficient French staff -that had presided over this de luxe establishment in prewar days -was still in charge. I left the Baedekers and photographic paper -for Charlie Kuhn, and then Craig and I walked to Naval Headquarters -in the Rue Presbourg. There we attended to routine matters -in connection with our orders. It was almost noon by the time -we got squared away, so we retraced our steps to the Monceau. -Lunch there was a demonstration of what a French chef could do -with GI food.</p> - -<p>Midafternoon found us headed back to Orly in a Navy jeep. Our -plane was scheduled to leave at four. This was no bucket-seat job, -but a luxurious C-47 equipped with chairs of the Pullman-car -variety, complete with antimacassars. We landed at Bovingdon -less than two hours later and from there took a bus up to London. -Naval Headquarters was in Grosvenor Square. With the American -Embassy on one side of it, the Navy on another, and the -park in the center used by the Navy motor pool, the dignified old -square was pretty thoroughly Americanized.</p> - -<p>London was still crowded with our armed forces. The hotels -were full, so we were assigned to lodgings in Wimpole Street. -These were on the third floor of a pleasant, eighteenth century -house, within a stone’s throw of No. 50, where Elizabeth Barrett -had been wooed and won by Robert Browning. An inspection of -our quarters revealed that the plumbing was of the Barrett-Browning -period; but the place was clean and, anyway, it wasn’t likely -that we’d be spending much time there. It had been a long day and -we were too tired to think of anything beyond getting a bite to eat -and hitting the sack.</p> - -<p>For our two days in London we had “Queen’s weather”—brilliant -sunshine and cloudless skies. Our first port of call early the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_20"></a>[20]</span> -next morning was the Medical Office, where we were given various -inoculations. From there Craig and I went across the square to the -American Embassy for a long session with Sumner Crosby, at that -time acting as the liaison between the Roberts Commission and its -British counterpart, the Macmillan Committee. Sumner provided -us with a great deal of useful information. The latest reports from -Germany indicated that caches of looted art were being uncovered -from day to day. The number of these hiding places ran into the -hundreds. The value of their contents was, of course, incalculable. -Only a fraction of the finds had as yet been released to the press.</p> - -<p>Craig and I began licking our chops at the prospect of what lay -ahead. Had we made a mistake in planning to stay two days in -London? Perhaps we could get a plane back to Paris that evening. -Sumner thought not. There were several things for us to do on the -spot, things that would be of use to us in our future activities. One -was to call on Colonel Sir Leonard Woolley, the British archaeologist -who, with his wife, was doing important work for the Macmillan -Committee. Another was to see Jim Plaut, a naval lieutenant -at the London office of OSS. He would probably have valuable -information about German museum personnel. It would be helpful -to know the whereabouts of certain German scholars, specifically -those whose records were, from our point of view, “clean.”</p> - -<p>Sumner made several appointments for us and then hurried off -to keep one of his own. Craig and I stayed on at the office to study -the reports. Sumner had already given us the glittering highlights. -By noon our heads were filled with facts and figures that made E. -Phillips Oppenheim seem positively unimaginative. And <i>The -Arabian Nights</i>—that was just old stuff.</p> - -<p>It was late afternoon when we finished calling on the various -people Sumner had advised us to see, but plenty of time remained<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_21"></a>[21]</span> -to do a little sightseeing before dinner. The cabbie took us past -Buckingham Palace, along the Embankment, Birdcage Walk, the -Abbey, the Houses of Parliament and finally to St. Paul’s. What -we saw was enough to give a cruel picture of the damage the Germans -had inflicted on the fine old monuments of London.</p> - -<p>Craig and I flew back to Orly the following evening, arriving -too late to obtain transportation into Paris. We spent an uncomfortable -night in the barracks at the airport and drove to the Royal -Monceau early the next morning. It was stiflingly hot and I was -in a bad humor in spite of the soothing effect of a short haircut—the -kind Francesca said needed a couple of saber scars to make it -look right. My spirits fell still lower when Craig and I were told -that we could stay only two nights at the hotel. Since we were assigned -to SHAEF, it was up to the Army to billet us. It seemed -rather unfriendly of the Navy, but that’s the way it was and there -wasn’t anything we could do about it.</p> - -<p>After lunch we set out for Versailles in a Navy jeep. It was a -glorious day despite the heat, and the lovely drive through the -Bois and on past Longchamps made us forget our irritation at -the Navy’s lack of hospitality. The office of the Monuments, Fine -Arts and Archives Section was in two tiny “between-floor” rooms -in the Grandes Écuries—the big stables which, together with their -matching twin, the Petites Écuries, face the main palace.</p> - -<p>When we arrived Colonel Webb was deep in conference with a -lady war correspondent. The tall, rangy colonel, who reminded me -of a humorous and grizzled giraffe, came out to welcome Craig -and me. His cordiality was overwhelming at first, but we soon -learned the reason. Miss Bonney, the correspondent, was giving the -colonel a bad time and he needed moral support. She was firing a -rapid barrage of searching questions, and in some cases the colonel<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_22"></a>[22]</span> -didn’t want to answer. I was fascinated by his technique. He obviously -didn’t wish to offend his inquisitor, but on the other hand -he wasn’t going to be pressed for an expression of opinion on -certain subjects. At times he would parry her query with one of his -own. At others he would snort some vague reply which got lost in -a hearty laugh. Before the interview was over, it was Miss Bonney -who was answering the questions—often her own—not the colonel.</p> - -<p>Neither Craig nor I could make much of what we heard, but -after Miss Bonney’s departure the colonel took us into his confidence. -Somewhere this indomitable lady had got hold of stray bits -of information which, properly pieced together, made one of the -most absorbing stories of the war, as far as Nazi looting of art -treasures was concerned. The time was not yet ripe to break the -story, according to the colonel, so it had been up to him to avoid -giving answers which would have filled in the missing pieces of -the puzzle.</p> - -<p>Then the colonel proceeded to tell us about the <i>Einsatzstab -Rosenberg</i>, the infamous “task force”—to translate the word literally—organized -under the direction of Alfred Rosenberg, the -“ideological and spiritual leader” of the Reich, for the methodical -plundering of the great Jewish collections and the accumulated -artistic wealth of other recognized “enemies of the state.” Rosenberg -was officially responsible for cultural treasures confiscated in -the occupied countries. He had virtually unlimited resources at -his command. In the fall of 1940, not long after his appointment, -Rosenberg received a congratulatory letter from Göring in which -the Reichsmarschall promised to support energetically the work of -his staff and to place at its disposal “means of transportation and -guard personnel,” and specifically assured him the “utmost assistance” -of the Luftwaffe. Even before the war, German agents had<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_23"></a>[23]</span> -accumulated exhaustive information concerning collections which -were later to be confiscated. The whereabouts of every object of -artistic importance was known. Paintings, sculpture, tapestries, -furniture, porcelain, enamels, jewels, gold and silver—all were a -matter of record. When the Nazis occupied Paris, the Rosenberg -Task Force was able to go into operation with clocklike precision. -And so accurate was their information that in many instances they -even knew the hiding places in which their more foresighted victims -had concealed their valuables.</p> - -<p>The headquarters of the E.R.R.<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> had been set up in the Musée -du Jeu de Paume, the little museum in the corner of the Tuileries -Gardens overlooking the Place de la Concorde. The large staff was -composed mainly of Germans, but some of the members were -French. Looted treasures poured into the building, to be checked, -labeled and shipped off to Germany. But it was more than a clearing -house. The choicest things were placed on exhibition and to -these displays the top-flight Nazis were invited—to select whatever -caught their fancy. Hitler had first choice, Göring second.</p> - -<p>It did not occur to the members of the E.R.R. staff that their every -move was watched. A courageous Frenchwoman named Rose -Valland had ingratiated herself with the “right people” and had -become a trusted member of the staff. During the months she -worked at the museum, she had two main objectives. One was to -sabotage the daily work as much as possible by making intentionally -stupid mistakes and by encouraging the French laborers, engaged -by the Germans, to do likewise. The other, and far and -away the more important, was the compilation of a file, complete -with biographical data and photographs, of the German personnel<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_24"></a>[24]</span> -at the Jeu de Paume. How she ever accomplished this is a mystery. -The colonel said that Mlle. Valland, now a captain in the French -Army, was working with the official French committee for Fine -Arts. She had already provided our Versailles office with a copy -of her E.R.R. file. Later in the summer I met Captain Valland, a -robust woman with gray hair and the most penetrating brown eyes -I have ever seen. I asked her how she had ever had the courage to -do what she had done. She said with a laugh, “I could never do it -again. The Gestapo followed me home every night.”</p> - -<p>After regaling us with this account of the E.R.R., Colonel Webb -whetted our appetites still further with an outline of what his -deputy, Charlie Kuhn, was up to. As the result of a “signal,” he -had taken off by plane for Germany, and at the moment was -either in the eastern part of Bavaria or over the Austrian border, -trying to trace two truckloads of paintings and tapestries which two -high-ranking Nazis had spirited away from the Laufen salt mine at -the eleventh hour. Latest information indicated that the finest -things from the Vienna Museum had been stored at Laufen, which -was in the mountains east of Salzburg; and it was further believed -that the “top cream” of the stuff—the Breughels, Titians and -Velásquezes—was in those two trucks. These pictures were world-famous -and consequently not marketable, so there was the appalling -possibility that the highjackers had carried them off with the -idea of destroying them—Hitler’s mad Götterdämmerung idea. -There was also the possibility that they intended to hold the pictures -as a bribe against their own safety.</p> - -<p>Back at the hotel that night, Craig and I reviewed the events of -the day. What we had learned from Colonel Webb was only an -affirmation of the exciting things we had gleaned from the reports -in the London office. We were desperately anxious to get into Germany<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_25"></a>[25]</span> -where we could be a part of all these unbelievable adventures -instead of hearing about them secondhand. Strict censorship -was still in force, so we weren’t able to share our exuberance with -our respective families in letters home. But we could at least exult -together over the fantastic future shaping up before us.</p> - -<p>We found Charlie Kuhn at the office the next morning. He was -a tall quiet fellow with a keen sense of humor, whom I had first -known when we had been fellow students at Harvard back in the -twenties. During the intervening years we had met only at infrequent -intervals. He had remained to teach and had become an outstanding -member of the Fine Arts faculty in Cambridge, while I -had gone to a museum. His special field of scholarship was German -painting and it was this attribute which had led the Roberts -Commission to nominate him for his present assignment as Deputy -Chief of the MFA&A Section. He had already been in the Navy -for two years when this billet was offered him. Notwithstanding -his obvious qualifications for his present job, he had so distinguished -himself in the earlier work upon which he had been engaged—special -interrogation of German prisoners—that it had required -White House intervention to “liberate” him for his new -duties. No closeted scholar, Charlie chafed under the irritations of -administrative and personnel problems which occupied most of his -time.</p> - -<p>That morning at Versailles he was fresh from his adventures in -the field, and we buttonholed him for a firsthand account. Yes, -the trucks had been located. They had been abandoned by the -roadside, but everything had been found intact. The reports had -not been exaggerated: the trucks had contained some of the finest -of the Vienna pictures and also some of the best tapestries. They -were now in a warehouse at Salzburg and would probably remain<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_26"></a>[26]</span> -there until they could be returned to Vienna. As to their condition, -the pictures were all right; the tapestries had mildewed a bit, but -the damage wasn’t serious.</p> - -<p>It was hard to settle down to the humdrum of office routine after -his recital of these adventures. Charlie said he wanted to ship us -off to Germany as soon as possible because there was so much to be -done and so few officers were available.</p> - -<p>It turned out that we weren’t destined for nearly so swift an invasion -of Germany as we had hoped. Later that afternoon Charlie -received a letter from the Medical Officer at Naval Headquarters -in Paris informing him that Lieutenants Howe and Smyth had not -completed their course of typhus shots, and that he would not recommend -their being sent into Germany until thirty days after the -second and final shot. Charlie wanted to know what this was all -about, and we had to admit that we had not been given typhus injections -before leaving the States, and had only received the first one -in London. After deliberating about it most of the following morning, -Colonel Webb and Charlie decided that, if we were willing -to take the chance, they’d cut the waiting period to ten days. We -were only too willing.</p> - -<p>Craig and I made good use of the waiting period. We were put -to work on the reports submitted at regular intervals by our officers -in the field. These reports contained information concerning art -repositories. It was our job to keep the card file on them up to date; -to make a card for each new one; to sort out and place in a separate -file those which had become obsolete; to check duplications. Each -card bore the name of the place, a brief description of the contents, -and a map reference consisting of two co-ordinates. In Germany -there was much duplication in the names of small towns and -villages, so these map references were of great importance.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_27"></a>[27]</span></p> - -<p>There was also a file on outstanding works of art which were -known to have been carried off by the Germans or hidden away for -safekeeping, but the whereabouts of which were as yet unknown—such -things, for example, as the crown jewels of the Holy Roman -Empire, the Michelangelo <i>Madonna and Child</i> from Bruges, the -Ghent altarpiece, the treasure from the Cathedral of Metz, the -stained glass from Strasbourg Cathedral, and the Veit Stoss altarpiece. -The list read like an Almanach de Gotha of the art world.</p> - -<p>So far as our creature comforts were concerned, they suffered a -great decline when we moved out to Versailles. Our lodging there -was a barren, four-story house at No. 1 Rue Berthier. Craig had a -room on the ground floor, while I shared one under the eaves with -Charlie Kuhn. Judging from the signs still tacked up in various -parts of the house, it had been used as a German billet during -the occupation; and judging by its meager comforts, only the -humblest ranks had been quartered there. No spruce Prussian -would have put up with such austerity. A couple of British soldiers -also were living there. They were batmen for two officers quartered -in a near-by hotel and, for a hundred francs a week, they agreed to -do for us as well. They brought us hot water in the morning, -polished our shoes each day and pressed our uniforms.</p> - -<p>Outwardly our life was rather magnificent, for we usually had -our meals at the Trianon Palace Hotel just inside the park grounds. -It was a pleasant walk from the Rue Berthier, and an even pleasanter -one from the office, involving a short cut behind the main -palace and across the lovely gardens. On the whole the gardens -had been well kept up and a stroll about the terraces or through -the long <i>allées</i> was something to look forward to when the weather -was fine. Craig and I got into the habit of retiring to a quiet corner -of the gardens after work with our German books. There we would<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_28"></a>[28]</span> -quiz each other for an hour or two a day. We made occasional trips -into Paris but, more often than not, we followed a routine in which -the bright lights—what few there were—played little part.</p> - -<p>At the end of our ten-day “incubation” period, Charlie gave us -our instructions. We were to go to Frankfurt by air and from there -to Bad Homburg by car. At Bad Homburg we were to report to -ECAD headquarters, that is, the European Civil Affairs Division, -where we would be issued further orders. As members of a pool of -officers attached to ECAD, we could be shifted about from one -part of Germany to another.</p> - -<p>Charlie told us that he and Colonel Webb would be moving to -Frankfurt in a few days as SHAEF Headquarters was soon to be -set up there. The MFA&A office would continue to function with -a joint British and American staff until the dissolution of SHAEF -later in the summer. But that would not take place, he said, until -the four zones of occupation had been established.</p> - -<p>We left for the airport at six-thirty in the morning. Our French -driver asked us which airport we wanted. Craig and I looked at -each other in surprise. What field was there besides Orly? The -answer was Villacoublay. We had never heard of it, so we said -Orly. We couldn’t have been more wrong. When we finally -reached Villacoublay we found great confusion. We couldn’t even -find out whether our plane had taken off.</p> - -<p>After making three attempts to get a coherent answer from the -second lieutenant who appeared to be quietly going mad behind -the information counter, I gave up.</p> - -<p>“This is where you take over, Craig,” I said. I had suddenly -developed an evil headache and had lost all interest in going any -place. I walked over to my luggage, which I had dumped in front -of the building, and plunked myself down on top of it, put on dark -glasses and went to sleep. An hour later, Craig shook me.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_29"></a>[29]</span></p> - -<p>“Come on,” he said. “I’ve found a B-17 that’s going to Frankfurt.” -We piled our gear onto a truck and rumbled out over the -bumpy field for a distance of half a mile. One of the B-17’s crew -was sitting unconcernedly in the grass.</p> - -<p>“We’d like to go to Frankfurt,” said Craig.</p> - -<p>“Okay,” he said, “we’ll be going along pretty soon.” He was -disconcertingly casual. But the trip wasn’t. We ran into heavy fog -and got lost, so it took us nearly three hours to make the run which -shouldn’t have taken more than two.</p> - -<p>We finally landed in a green meadow near Hanau. Craig said -he’d look for transportation if I’d stand guard over our luggage. -It was an agreeable assignment. The day was warm, the meadow -soft and inviting. I took out my German book and a chocolate bar, -curled up in the grass and hoped he’d be gone a long time.</p> - -<p>Craig came back an hour and a half later with a jeep. We were -about twenty miles outside Frankfurt. On the way in the driver -said that the city had been eighty percent destroyed. He hadn’t -exaggerated. As we turned into the Mainzer Landstrasse, we saw -nothing but gutted buildings on either side. We continued up the -Taunus Anlage and I recognized the Opera House ahead. At first -I thought it was undamaged. Then I saw that the roof was gone, -and only the outer walls remained. Most of the buildings were -like that. This was just the shell of a city.</p> - -<p>Our first stop was SHAEF headquarters, newly established in -the vast I. G. Farben building which, either by accident or design, -was completely undamaged. There we got another car to take us to -Bad Homburg.</p> - -<p>The little resort town where the fashionable world of Edward -VII’s day had gone to drink the waters and enjoy the mineral baths -consisted mostly of hotels. Some of them were occupied by our -troops. Others were being used as hospitals for wounded German<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_30"></a>[30]</span> -soldiers. The big Kurhaus had received a direct hit, but the rest -of the buildings appeared to be undamaged.</p> - -<p>At ECAD headquarters we were assigned a billet in the Grand -Hotel Parc. That sounded pretty snappy to us—another Royal -Monceau, maybe. The billeting officer must have guessed our -thoughts, because he shook his head glumly and said, “’Tain’t anything -special. Don’t get your hopes up.”</p> - -<p>It was nice of him to have prepared us for the rat hole which -was the Grand Hotel Parc. This shabby structure, built around -three sides of a narrow courtyard, had an air of vanished refinement -about it, but it could hardly have rated a star in Baedeker. -Yet it must have had a certain cachet fifty years ago, for in the -entrance hallway hung a white marble plaque. Its dim gold letters -told us that Bismarck’s widow had spent her declining years “in -peaceful happiness beneath this hospitable roof.”</p> - -<p>Our room was on the fourth floor. The stairs, reminiscent of a -lighthouse, might have been designed for a mountain goat. We -thought we had struck the ultimate in drabness at the Rue Berthier, -but this was worse. The room itself was worthy of its approach. -When I opened the big wardrobe I half expected a body to fall -out. Two sofas masquerading as beds occupied corners by the -window. The window gave onto the dingy courtyard. We silently -made up our beds with Army blankets and sprinkled them lavishly -with DDT powder.</p> - -<p>“Do you suppose there’s such a thing as a bathroom?” Craig -asked.</p> - -<p>“I’d sooner expect to find one in an igloo,” I said. “Maybe -there’s a pump or a trough somewhere out in back. Why don’t you -go and see?”</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;" id="illus3"> -<img src="images/illus3.jpg" width="500" height="350" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">The Residenz at Würzburg. The palace of the Prince-Bishops was -gutted by fire in March 1945. The magnificent ceiling by Tiepolo -miraculously escaped serious damage.</p> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;" id="illus4"> -<img src="images/illus4.jpg" width="500" height="350" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">Ruined Frankfurt. In the center, the cathedral. Only the tower and the -walls of the nave remain standing.</p> -<p class="caption-r"><i>International News Photo</i></p> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;" id="illus5"> -<img src="images/illus5.jpg" width="500" height="350" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">The Central Collecting Point at Munich, formerly the Administration Building -of the Nazi Party. The director of the Central Collecting Point was Lieutenant -Craig Smyth, USNR.</p> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;" id="illus6"> -<img src="images/illus6.jpg" width="500" height="350" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">A typical storage room in the Central Collecting Point at Munich. The racks -for pictures were built by civilian carpenters under the direction of American -Monuments officers.</p> -</div> - -<p>When he returned fifteen minutes later he was in high spirits. -“There’s a bathroom all right and it’s got hot water,” he said, “but<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_31"></a>[31]</span> -you have to be a combination of Theseus and Daniel Boone to find -it. Come along, I’ll show you the way.”</p> - -<p>It was clever of him to find it a second time. I took a piece of red -crayon with me and marked little arrows on the walls to show -which turns to make. They were a timesaver to us during the next -couple days.</p> - -<p>After breakfast the next morning, we telephoned 12th Army -Group Headquarters in Wiesbaden and talked with Lieutenant -George Stout, USNR, who, with Captain Bancel La Farge, was in -charge of the advance office of MFA&A in Germany. Stout suggested -that we come on over. It was a pleasant drive along the Autobahn, -with the blue Taunus mountains in the distance. Parts of -Wiesbaden had been badly mauled, but the destruction was negligible -compared with Frankfurt. Although many buildings along -the main streets had been hit, the colonnaded Kurhaus, now a Red -Cross Club, was intact. So was the Opera House.</p> - -<p>We found George on the top floor of a dingy building in the -center of the town. I hadn’t seen him for fifteen years but he -hadn’t changed. His face was a healthy brown, his eyes were as -keen and his teeth as dazzlingly white as ever. George was in his -middle forties. His oldest boy was in the Navy but George didn’t -look a day over thirty. The Roberts Commission had played in -luck when they had got him. Of course he was an obvious choice—tops -in his field, the technical care and preservation of pictures. He -was known and respected throughout the world for his brilliant -research work at Harvard, where he presided over the laboratory of -the Fogg Museum.</p> - -<p>“Bancel’s got jobs lined up for you fellows, but I think he’d like -to tell you about them himself,” George said. “He ought to be -back tonight.”</p> - -<p>“Can’t you tell us in a general way what they are?” I asked.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_32"></a>[32]</span></p> - -<p>“I think one of them is going to be in Frankfurt and the other -will probably be in Munich. You see, all the stuff from the Merkers -mine is in the vaults of the Reichsbank at Frankfurt and it ought to -be moved to a place where it can be permanently stored.”</p> - -<p>The “stuff” he referred to was the enormous collection of paintings -and sculpture—comprising the principal treasures of the Berlin -museums—which George himself had brought out of the -Merkers mine in Thuringia. He had carried out the operation virtually -singlehanded and in the face of extraordinary difficulties -just before the end of hostilities.</p> - -<p>“As for Munich,” he continued, “repositories are springing up -like mushrooms all through Bavaria. Most of it is loot and we’re -going to have to set up some kind of depot where we can put the -things until they can be returned to the countries from which the -Nazis stole them.”</p> - -<p>“What are your plans?” I asked.</p> - -<p>“Well, if the trucks show up,” he said, “I want to get started for -Siegen this afternoon. That’s in Westphalia. It’s another mine—copper, -not salt—and it’s full of things from the Rhineland museums. -I’ve got to take them up to Marburg. We have two good -depots there.”</p> - -<p>We lunched with George and then returned to Bad Homburg. -There wasn’t anything for us to do but wait around until we heard -from Captain La Farge. To fill in the time we took our German -books and spent the afternoon studying in the Kurpark.</p> - -<p>The telephone was ringing in the entrance lobby as we walked -in at five. It was Captain La Farge. He had just returned and -wanted to see us at once. I said I didn’t know whether we could -get transportation. He chuckled and said, “Tell them a general -wants to see you.” Craig and I dashed over to the Transportation<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_33"></a>[33]</span> -Office and tried it out. It worked. So, for the second time -that day, we found ourselves on the road to Wiesbaden.</p> - -<p>Captain La Farge was waiting for us in the office where we had -seen George that morning. He was a tall, slender man in his early -forties. With a high-domed head and a long, rather narrow face, -he was the classic New Englander. His eyes were hazel and, at that -first meeting, very weary. But he had one of the most ingratiating -smiles and one of the most pleasant voices I had ever heard. He -reminded me of an early Copley portrait.</p> - -<p>Without much preamble he launched into a detailed explanation -of the plans he had for us.</p> - -<p>“I want you to take over the Frankfurt job,” he said to me, “and -I am sending you down to Munich, Smyth. As George probably -told you, we’ve got to set up two big depots. The one in Frankfurt -will be mainly for German-owned art which is now coming in -from repositories all over this part of Germany. The one in -Munich will be chiefly for loot, though there will be German-owned -things down in Bavaria too. Both jobs are equally interesting, -equally important and, above all, equally urgent.”</p> - -<p>We were to get started without delay. Craig would be attached -to the Regional Military Government office in Munich, I to the -Military Government Detachment in Frankfurt. Captain La Farge -suggested that I investigate the possibility of requisitioning the -university buildings for a depot, and advised Craig to consider one -of the large Nazi party buildings in Munich which he had been -told was available.</p> - -<p>On the way home that night Craig and I compared notes on our -new assignments. I was frankly envious of Craig, not only because -there was something alluring about all that loot, but because I -loved Munich and the picturesque country around it. In turn,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_34"></a>[34]</span> -Craig thought I had drawn a fascinating job—one that involved -handling the wonderful riches of Berlin’s “Kaiser Friedrich,” admittedly -one of the world’s greatest museums.</p> - -<p>The following morning we parted on the steps of the Grand -Parc Hotel. Craig took off first, in a jeep with trailer attached, a -crusty major for his companion. Half an hour later a jeep appeared -for me. On the way over to Frankfurt I thought about the experiences -of the past three weeks. It had been fun sharing them with -Craig and I wished that we might have continued this odyssey together. -I didn’t realize how soon our paths were to cross again.</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_35"></a>[35]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_2">(2)<br /> -<span class="smaller"><i>ASSIGNED TO FRANKFURT</i></span></h2> - -</div> - -<p>The Military Government Detachment had its headquarters in a -gray stone building behind the Opera House. It was one of the -few in the city that had suffered relatively little damage. I reported -to the Executive Officer, a white-haired major named James Franklin. -After I had explained the nature of the work I was expected -to do, he took me around to the office of Lieutenant Julius Buchman, -the Education and Religious Affairs Officer, who had also the -local MFA&A problems as part of his duties. Buchman couldn’t -have been more pleasant, and said he’d do everything he could to -help. There was an air of quiet good humor about him that I liked -at once. I learned that he was an architect by profession and had -studied at the Bauhaus in Dessau before the war. He spoke fluent -German. I told him that first of all I’d like to get settled, so he -guided me to Captain Wyman Ooley, the Billeting Officer.</p> - -<p>Ooley was a happy-go-lucky fellow, the only Billeting Officer I -ever met who was always cheerful. He had been a schoolteacher in -Arkansas. Together we drove out to the residential section where -a group of houses had been set aside for the Military Government -officers. This part of the city had not been heavily bombed and -each one of the houses had a pretty garden.</p> - -<p>“I’ll tell you, I’ve got a real nice room in that house over there,” -he said, pointing to a gray stucco house partly screened by a row -of trees. “But it’s for lieutenant colonels. It’s empty right now, but -I might have to throw you out later.” Thinking that lieutenant<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_36"></a>[36]</span> -colonels would be very likely to have ideas about good plumbing, -I quickly said I’d take the chance.</p> - -<p>The front door was locked. Ooley called, “Lucienne!” One of -the upper windows was instantly flung open and a woman, dust-cloth -in hand, leaned out, waved and disappeared. A moment later -she reappeared at the front door. Lucienne, all smiles, was as -French as the tricolor. Ooley explained in pidgin French, with gestures, -that I was to have a room on the second floor, wished me luck -and departed. Lucienne bustled up to the second floor chattering -away at a great rate, expressing surprise and delight that I was -“officier de la Marine” and also taking considerable satisfaction in -having recognized my branch of the service.</p> - -<p>She threw open a door and then dashed off to the floor above, -still chattering and gesticulating. I was left alone to contemplate -the splendor before me—an enormous, airy bedroom looking out on -a garden filled with scarlet roses. This couldn’t be true. Even -lieutenant colonels didn’t deserve this. The room had cream-colored -walls, paneled and decorated with chinoiserie designs. A -large chest of drawers and a low table were decorated in the same -manner. In one corner was an inviting chaise longue, covered in -rose brocade. Along the end wall stood the bed—complete with -sheets and a pillow. The built-in wardrobe had full-length mirrors -which reflected the tall French windows and the garden beyond.</p> - -<p>As I stood there trying to take it all in, Lucienne appeared again. -With her was a dapper little fellow whom she introduced as her -husband, René. He acknowledged the introduction and then solemnly -introduced Lucienne. After this bit of mock formality, he -explained that he and Lucienne had charge of all the houses in the -block. If anything was not to my liking I was to let them know and -it would be righted at once.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_37"></a>[37]</span></p> - -<p>Further conversation revealed that the two of them had been -deported from Paris early in 1941 and been obliged to remain in -Frankfurt, working for the Germans, ever since. All through the -bombings, I asked? But of course, and they had been too terrible. -During one of the worst raids they had been imprisoned in the -bomb shelter. The falling stones had blocked the exit. They had -had to remain under the ground for forty-eight hours. They had -been made deaf by the noise, yes, for two months. And the concussion -had made them bleed from the nose and the ears. I asked if -they expected to go back to Paris. Yes, of course, but they were in -no hurry. It was very nice in Germany, now that the Americans -were there. With that they left me to unpack and get settled.</p> - -<p>When I had finished, I decided to explore a bit. There were two -other bedrooms on the second floor. Neat labels on the doors indicated -that they were occupied by lieutenant colonels. There were -two other doors at the end of the hall. Neither one was labeled, so -I peered in. They were the bathrooms. And what bathrooms! -Marble floors, tiled walls, double washbasins and built-in tubs. Although -it was only the middle of the morning, I had to sample one -of those magnificent tubs. And as a kind of tribute to all this elegance, -I felt constrained to discard my khakis and put on blues.</p> - -<p>Captain La Farge had stressed the urgency of setting up an art -depot, so the next ten days were given over to that project. Buchman -generously shelved his own work to help me with it. Together -we inspected the University of Frankfurt. The newest of -the German universities, it had opened its doors at the outbreak of -the first World War. The main administration building, an imposing -structure of red sandstone, had been badly damaged by incendiaries -but could be repaired. It would be a big job, but we -could worry about that later. The first step was to have it allocated<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_38"></a>[38]</span> -for our use. That had to be done through the proper Army -“channels.” Buchman steered me through. Then we had to obtain -an estimate of the repairs. It took three days to get one from -the university architect. It was thorough but impractical and had -to be completely revised. We took the revised estimate to the -Army Engineers and asked them to make an inspection of the -building and check the architect’s figures. They were swamped -with work. It would be a week before they could do anything. I -said it was a high priority job, hoping to speed things along. But -the Engineers had heard that one before. We’d have to be patient.</p> - -<p>Charlie Kuhn and Colonel Webb had moved up to Frankfurt -and were established at SHAEF headquarters in the I. G. Farben -building. Their office was only a few blocks from mine, and during -my negotiations for the use of the university building I was in -daily communication with them.</p> - -<p>While waiting for the Engineers to make the promised inspection, -I made a couple of field trips with Buchman. The first was a -visit to Schloss Kronberg, a few kilometers from Frankfurt. It -was a picturesque medieval castle, unoccupied since the first part -of the seventeenth century. Valuable archives were stored there. -We wanted to see if they were in good condition, and also to -make sure that the place had been posted with the official “Off -Limits” signs.</p> - -<p>A flock of geese scattered before us as we drove up to the entrance -at the end of a narrow, winding road. We knocked on the -door of the caretaker’s cottage and explained the purpose of our -visit to the old fellow who timidly appeared with a large bunch -of keys. He limped ahead of us across the cobbled courtyard, and -we waited while he fitted one of the keys into the lock.</p> - -<p>A wave of heavy perfume issued from the dark room as the door<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_39"></a>[39]</span> -swung open. When our eyes had become accustomed to the dim -light, we saw that we were in the original <i>Waffenraum</i> of the -castle. But, in addition to the clustered weapons affixed to the -walls, there were five sarcophagi in the center of the vaulted room. -Around them stood vases filled with spring flowers. On the central -sarcophagus rested a spiked helmet of the first World War. The -others were unadorned.</p> - -<p>The old caretaker explained that the central tomb was that of -the Landgraf of Hesse who had died thirty years ago. Those on -either side contained the remains of his two sons who had likewise -died in the first World War. The other two coffins were -those of the elder son’s wife and of a princess of Baden who had -been killed in one of the air raids on Frankfurt in 1944. All five -sarcophagi had originally stood in the little chapel across the -courtyard. It had been destroyed by an incendiary bomb the winter -before.</p> - -<p>We left this funerary chamber with a feeling of relief and continued -our inspection of the castle. A winding ramp in one of the -towers led to the floors above. From the top story we had a superb -view of the broad Frankfurt plain spread out below. The caretaker -told us he had watched the bombings from that vantage -point. The great banqueting hall, with a musicians’ gallery at one -end, had been emptied of its original furnishings and was now a -jumble of papers stacked in piles of varying heights. These were -part of the Frankfurt archives. Others were stored in two rooms -on the ground floor. All of the rooms were dry and weatherproof, -so there was nothing further to be done about them for the present. -There was no place in Frankfurt as yet to which they could be -moved. “Off Limits” signs had been posted. They would discourage -souvenir hunters from unauthorized delving.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_40"></a>[40]</span></p> - -<p>On our way back to the car the caretaker told us that the castle -still belonged to Margarethe, Landgräfin of Hesse, the youngest -sister of the last Kaiser. Although she was now in her seventies, -she came every day to put fresh flowers beside the tombs of her -husband and her two sons. She lived at a newer castle, Schloss -Friedrichshof, only a few kilometers away. He apparently didn’t -know that Schloss Friedrichshof had been taken over by the Army -and was being used as an officers’ country club. The old Landgräfin -was living modestly in one of the small houses on the property. -Her scapegrace son, Prince Philip, as I learned later, had -played an active role in the artistic depredations of the Nazi ringleaders. -I was to hear more of the Hesse family before the end -of the year.</p> - -<p>A second excursion took us still farther afield. On an overcast -morning two days later, Buchman, Charlie Kuhn, Captain Rudolph -Vassalle (who was the Public Safety Officer of the detachment) -and I set out in the little Opel sedan which had been assigned the -MFA&A office. We struck out to the east of Frankfurt on the road -to Gelnhausen. We stopped at this pleasant little town with its -lovely, early Gothic church and went through the formality of obtaining -clearance from the local Military Government Detachment -to make an inspection in that area.</p> - -<p>From there we continued by a winding secondary road which led -us through increasingly hilly country to Bad Brückenau. Our mission -there was twofold: Captain Vassalle wanted to track down a -young Nazi officer, reportedly a member of the SS, and to find a -warehouse said to contain valuable works of art. I had gathered -from Buchman that many such reports petered out on investigation. -Still, there was always the chance that the one you dismissed -as of no importance would turn out to be something worth while.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;" id="illus7"> -<img src="images/illus7.jpg" width="400" height="500" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">The bronze coffin of Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia was -found in a mine near Bernterode.</p> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;" id="illus8"> -<img src="images/illus8.jpg" width="400" height="500" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">Canova’s life-size marble statue of Napoleon’s sister -was found at the monastery of Hohenfurth.</p> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;" id="illus9"> -<img src="images/illus9.jpg" width="500" height="350" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">The administration buildings at the salt mine at Alt Aussee, Austria. Removal -of stolen art treasures from the mine was carried out late in 1945.</p> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;" id="illus10"> -<img src="images/illus10.jpg" width="500" height="350" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">Truck at entrance to the main building of the mine is being loaded with -paintings, to be taken to Munich for dispersal to their owner nations.</p> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_41"></a>[41]</span></p> - -<p>After making several inquiries, we eventually located a small -house on the edge of town. In response to our insistent hammering, -the door of the house was finally opened by a pallid young man -probably in his late twenties. If he was the object of the captain’s -search he had certainly undergone a remarkable metamorphosis, -for he bore little resemblance to the dapper officer of whom Captain -Vassalle carried a photograph for identification. The captain -seemed satisfied that he was the man. So leaving them in conversation, -the three of us followed up the business of the reported -works of art. The other two occupants of the house—an old man -and a young woman who may have been the wife of the man who -had opened the door—responded to our questions with alacrity -and took us to the cellar. There we were shown a cache of pictures, -all of them unframed and none of them of any value. They appeared -to be what the old man claimed—their own property, -brought to Bad Brückenau when they had left Frankfurt to escape -the bombings. In any case, we made a listing of the canvases, identifying -them as best we could and making notations of the sizes, -and also admonishing the couple not to remove them from the -premises.</p> - -<p>After that the old man took us across the back yard to a large -modern barn which was heavily padlocked. Once inside he unshuttered -a row of windows along one side of the main, ground-floor -room. It was jammed to the ceiling with every conceivable -item of household furnishings: chairs, tables, beds, bedding, kitchen -utensils and porcelain. But no pictures. We poked around enough -to satisfy ourselves that first appearances were not deceiving. They -weren’t, so, having made certain that the old fellow, who claimed -to be merely the custodian of these things, understood the regulations -forbidding their removal, we picked up Captain Vassalle.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_42"></a>[42]</span> -He had completed his interrogation of the alleged SS officer and -placed him under house arrest.</p> - -<p>Our next objective was an old Schloss which, according to our -map, was still a good hour’s drive to the northeast. As it was nearly -noon and we were all hungry, we decided to investigate the possibilities -of food in the neighborhood. On our way back through -Bad Brückenau we stopped at the office of a small detachment of -troops and asked where we could get some lunch. The hospitable -second lieutenant on duty in the little stucco building, which had -once been part of the Kurhaus establishment, gave us directions to -the sprawling country hotel, high up above the town, where his -outfit was quartered. He said that he would telephone ahead to -warn the mess sergeant of our arrival.</p> - -<p>For a little way we followed along the Sinn, which flows through -the grassy valley in which Bad Brückenau nestles. Then we began -to mount sharply and, for the next fifteen minutes, executed a series -of hairpin turns and ended abruptly beside a rambling structure -which commanded a wonderful view of the valley and the wooded -hills on the other side. Our hosts were a group of friendly young -fellows who seemed delighted to have the monotony of their rural -routine interrupted by our visit. They asked Charlie and me the -usual question—what was the Navy doing in the middle of Germany—and -got our stock reply: we are planning to dig a canal -from the North Sea to the Mediterranean.</p> - -<p>We had a heavy downpour during lunch, and we waited for the -rain to let up before starting out again. Then we took the winding -road down into town, crossed the river and drove up into the hills -on the other side of the valley. An hour’s drive brought us to upland -meadow country and a grove of handsome lindens. At the -end of a long double row of these fine trees stood Schloss Rossbach.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_43"></a>[43]</span> -“Castle” was a rather pompous name for the big seventeenth -century country house with whitewashed walls and heavily barred -ground-floor windows.</p> - -<p>We were received by the owners, a Baron Thüngen and his wife, -and explained that we had come to examine the condition of the -works of art, which, according to our information, had been placed -there for safekeeping. They ushered us up to a comfortable sitting -room on the second floor where we settled down to wait while the -baroness went off to get the keys. In the meantime we had a few -words with her husband. His manner was that of the haughty -landed proprietor, and he looked the part. He was a big, burly -man in his sixties. He was dressed in rough tweeds and wore a -matching hat, adorned with a bushy “shaving brush,” which he -hadn’t bothered to remove indoors. That may have been unintentional, -but I idly wondered if it weren’t deliberate discourtesy -and rather wished that I had kept my own cap on. I wished also -that I could have matched his insolent expression, but thought it -unlikely because I was frankly enjoying the obvious distaste which -our visit was causing the old codger.</p> - -<p>However, his attitude was almost genial compared with that of -his waspish wife, who reappeared about that time, armed with a -huge hoop from which a great lot of keys jangled. The baroness, -who was much younger than her husband, had very black hair and -discontented dark eyes. She spoke excellent English, without a -trace of accent. I felt reasonably sure that she was not German but -couldn’t guess her nationality. It turned out that she was from the -Argentine. She was a sullen piece and made no effort to conceal -her irritation at our intrusion. She explained that neither she nor -her husband had anything to do with the things stored there; that, -in fact, it was a great inconvenience having to put up with them.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_44"></a>[44]</span> -She had asked the young woman who knew all about them to join -us.</p> - -<p>The young woman in question arrived and was completely -charming. She took no apparent notice of the baroness’ indifference, -which was that of a mistress toward a servant whom she -scarcely knew. Her fresh, open manner cleared the atmosphere -instantly. She introduced herself as Frau Holzinger, wife of the -director of Frankfurt’s most famous museum, the Staedelsches -Kunstinstitut. Because of conditions in Frankfurt, and more particularly -because their house had been requisitioned by the American -military authorities, she had come to Schloss Rossbach with her -two young children. Country life, she continued, was better for the -youngsters and, besides, her husband had thought that she might -help with the things stored at the castle. I had met Dr. Holzinger -when I went one day to have a look at what remained of the museum, -so his wife and I hit it off at once. I was interested to learn -that she was Swiss and a licensed physician. She smilingly suggested -that we make a tour of the castle and she would show us -what was there.</p> - -<p>The first room to be inspected was a library adjoining the sitting -room in which we had been waiting. Here we found a quantity of -excellent French Impressionist paintings, all from the permanent -collection of the Staedel, and a considerable number of fine Old -Master drawings. Most of these were likewise the property of the -museum, but a few—I remember one superb Rembrandt sketch—appeared -to have come from Switzerland. Those would, of course, -have to be looked into later, to determine their exact origin and -how they came to be on loan at the museum. But for the moment -we were concerned primarily with storage conditions and the -problem of security. In another room we found an enormous collection<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_45"></a>[45]</span> -of books, the library of one of the Frankfurt museums. In -a third we encountered an array of medieval sculpture—saints of -all sizes and description, some of carved wood, others of stone, -plain or polychromed. These too were of museum origin.</p> - -<p>The last storage room was below ground, a vast, cavernous -chamber beneath the house. Here was row upon row of pictures, -stacked in two tiers down the center of the room and also along -two sides. From what we could make of them in the poor light, -they were not of high quality. During the summer months they -would be all right in this underground room, but we thought that -the place would be very damp in the winter. Frau Holzinger assured -us that this was so and that the pictures should be removed -before the bad weather set in.</p> - -<p>The baroness chipped in at this point and affably agreed with -that idea, undoubtedly happy to further any scheme which involved -getting rid of these unwelcome objects. She also warned -us that the castle was far from safe as it was, what with roving -bands of Poles all over the countryside. As we indicated that we -were about to take our leave, she elaborated upon this theme, declaring -that their very lives were in danger, that every night she and -her husband could hear prowlers in the park. Since they—as Germans—were -not allowed to have firearms, they would be at the -mercy of these foreign ruffians if they should succeed in breaking -into the castle. By this time we were all pretty fed up with the -whining baroness. As we turned to go, Charlie Kuhn, eyeing her -coldly, asked, “Who brought those Poles here in the first place, -madam? We didn’t.”</p> - -<p>To our delight, the weather had cleared and the sun was shining. -Ahead of us on the roadway, the foliage of the lindens made -a gaily moving pattern. Our work for the day was done and we<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_46"></a>[46]</span> -still had half the afternoon. I got out the map and, after making -some quick calculations, proposed that we could take in Würzburg -and still get back to Frankfurt at a reasonable hour. We figured -out that, with the extra jerry can of gas we had with us, we could -just about make it. We would be able to fill up at Würzburg for -the return trip. So, instead of continuing on the road back to Bad -Brückenau, we turned south in the direction of Karlstadt.</p> - -<p>It was pleasant to be traveling a good secondary road instead of -the broad, characterless Autobahn, on which there were no unexpected -turns, no picturesque villages. There was little traffic, so -we made very good time. In half an hour we had threaded our way -through Karlstadt-on-the-Main. In this part of Franconia the Main -is a capricious river, winding casually in and out of the gently undulating -hills. A little later we passed the village of Veitschöchheim -where the Prince-Bishops of Würzburg had an elaborate country -house during the eighteenth century. The house still stands, and -its gardens, with a tiny lake and grottoes in the Franco-Italian manner, -remain one of the finest examples of garden planning of that -day. As we drove by we were glad that this inviting spot had not -attracted the attention of our bombers.</p> - -<p>Alas, such was not the case with Würzburg, as we realized the -minute we reached its outskirts! The once-gracious city, surely one -of the most beautiful in all Germany, was an appalling sight. Its -broad avenues were now lined with nothing but the gaping, ruined -remnants of the stately eighteenth century buildings which had -lent the city an air of unparalleled distinction and consistency of -design. High on its hilltop above the Main, the mellow walls of -the medieval fortress of Marienberg caught the rays of the late -afternoon sun. From the distance, the silhouette of that vast structure -appeared unchanged, but the proud city of the Prince-Bishops -which it overlooked was laid low.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_47"></a>[47]</span></p> - -<p>We drove slowly along streets not yet cleared of rubble, until -we came to the Residenz, the great palace of the Prince-Bishops, -those lavish patrons of the arts to whom the city owed so much -of its former grandeur. This magnificent building, erected in the -first half of the eighteenth century by the celebrated baroque architect, -Johann Balthasar Neumann, for two Prince-Bishops of the -Schönborn family, was now a ghost palace, its staring glassless -windows and blackened walls pathetic vestiges of its pristine splendor.</p> - -<p>We walked up to the main entrance wondering if it could really -be true that the crowning glory of the Residenz—the glorious ceiling -by Tiepolo, representing Olympus and the Four Continents—was, -as we had been told, still intact. With misgivings we turned -left across the entrance hall to the Treppenhaus and mounted the -grand staircase. We looked up and there it was—as dazzling and -majestically beautiful as ever—that incomparable fresco, the masterpiece -of the last great Italian painter. Someone with a far -greater gift for words than I may be able to convey the exaltation -one experiences on seeing that ceiling, not just for the first time but -at any time. I can’t. It leaves artist and layman alike absolutely -speechless. I think that, if I had to choose one great work of art, it -would be this ceiling in the Residenz. You can have even the Sistine -ceiling. I’ll take the Tiepolo.</p> - -<p>For the next half hour we examined every corner of it. Aside -from a few minor discolorations, the result of water having seeped -through the lower side of the vault just above the cornice, the -fresco was undamaged. Considering the destruction throughout -the rest of the building, I could not understand how this portion of -the palace could be in such a remarkable state of preservation. The -explanation was an interesting example of how good can sometimes -come out of evil. Some forty years ago, as I remember the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_48"></a>[48]</span> -story, there was a fire in the Residenz. The wooden roof over a -large portion, if not all, of the building was burned away. When -it came to replacing the roof, the city fathers decided it would be -a prudent idea to cover the part above the Tiepolo with steel and -concrete. This was done, and consequently, when the terrible conflagration -of March 1945 swept Würzburg—following the single -raid of twenty minutes which destroyed the city—the fresco was -spared. As we wandered through other rooms of the Residenz—the -Weisser Saal with its elaborate stucco ornamentation and the -sumptuous Kaiser Saal facing the garden, once classic examples of -the Rococo—I wished that those city fathers had gone a little farther -with their steel and concrete.</p> - -<p>We stopped briefly to examine the chapel in the south wing. -Here, miraculously enough, there had been relatively little damage, -but the caretaker expressed concern over the condition of the roof -and said that if it weren’t repaired before the heavy rains the ceiling -would be lost. Knowing how hard it was to obtain building -materials for even the most historic monuments when people didn’t -have a roof over their heads, we couldn’t reassure him with much -conviction.</p> - -<p>The spectacle of ruined Würzburg had a depressing effect upon -us, so we weren’t very talkative on our way back to Frankfurt. We -passed through only one town of any size, Aschaffenburg, which, -like Würzburg, had suffered severe damage. Although I had not -been long in Germany and had seen but few of her cities, I was -beginning to realize that the reports of the Allied air attacks had -not been exaggerated. I was ready to believe that there were only -small towns and villages left in this ravaged country.</p> - -<p>One morning Charlie Kuhn rang up to say that I should meet -him at the Reichsbank early that afternoon. This was something<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_49"></a>[49]</span> -I had been looking forward to for some time, the chance to look -at the wonderful things from the Merkers mine which were temporarily -stored there. With Charlie came two members of the -MFA&A organization whom I had not seen since Versailles and -then only briefly. They had been stationed at Barbizon, as part of -the Allied Group Control Council for Germany (usually referred -to simply as “Group CC”) the top level policy-making body as -opposed to SHAEF, which dealt with the operational end of -things. These two gentlemen were John Nicholas Brown, who -had come over to Germany with the assimilated rank of colonel as -General Eisenhower’s adviser on cultural affairs, and Major Mason -Hammond, in civilian life professor of the Classics at Harvard.</p> - -<p>It had been decided, now that we were about to acquire a permanent -depot in which to store the treasures, to make one Monuments -officer responsible for the entire collection. By this transfer -of custody, the Property Control Officer in whose charge the things -were at present, could be relieved of that responsibility. Major -Hammond had with him a paper designating me as custodian. -Knowing in a general way what was stored in the bank, I felt that -I was on the point of being made a sort of director, pro tem, of the -Kaiser Friedrich Museum.</p> - -<p>The genial Property Control Officer, Captain William Dunn, -was all smiles at the prospect of turning his burden over to someone -else. But before this transfer could be made, a complete check -of every item was necessary. Major Hammond knew just how he -wanted this done. I was to have two assistants, who could come -over the next morning from his office in Hoechst, twenty minutes -from Frankfurt. The three of us, in company with Captain Dunn, -would make the inventory.</p> - -<p>We wandered through the series of rooms in which the things<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_50"></a>[50]</span> -were stored. In the first room were something like four hundred -pictures lined up against the wall in a series of rows. In two adjoining -rooms were great wooden cases piled one above another. In a -fourth were leather-bound boxes containing the priceless etchings, -engravings and woodcuts from the Berlin Print Room. Still another -room was filled with cases containing the renowned Egyptian collections. -It was rumored that one of them held the world-famous -head of Queen Nefertete, probably the best known and certainly -the most beloved single piece of all Egyptian sculpture. It had occupied -a place of special honor in the Berlin Museum, in a gallery -all to itself.</p> - -<p>Still other rooms were jammed with cases of paintings and sculpture -of the various European schools. In a series of smaller alcoves -were heaped huge piles of Oriental rugs and rare fabrics. And last, -one enormous room with bookshelves was filled from floor to ceiling -with some thirty thousand volumes from the Berlin Patent Office. -Quite separate and apart from all these things was a unique -collection of ecclesiastical vessels of gold and silver, the greater -part of them looted from Poland. These extremely precious objects -were kept in a special vault on the floor above.</p> - -<p>Captain Dunn brought out a thick stack of papers. It was the -complete inventory. Major Hammond said that the two officers -who would help with the checking were a Captain Edwin Rae and -a WAC lieutenant named Standen. Aside from having heard that -Rae had been a student of Charlie Kuhn’s at Harvard, I knew -nothing about him. But the name Standen rang a bell: was she, by -any chance, Edith Standen who had been curator of the Widener -Collection? Major Hammond smilingly replied, “The same.” I -had known her years ago in Cambridge where we had taken -Professor Sachs’ course in Museum Administration at the same<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_51"></a>[51]</span> -time. I remembered her as a tall, dark, distinguished-looking -English girl. To be exact, she was half English: her father had -been a British Army officer, her mother a Bostonian. Recalling her -very reserved manner and her scholarly tastes, I found it difficult to -imagine her in uniform.</p> - -<p>Early the following morning, I met my cohorts at the entrance -to the Reichsbank. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Captain -Rae was an old acquaintance if not an old friend. He also had been -around the Fogg Museum in my time. Edith looked very smart in -her uniform. She had a brisk, almost jovial manner which was not -to be reconciled with her aloof and dignified bearing in the marble -halls of the Widener house at Elkins Park. We hunted up Captain -Dunn and set to work. Our first task was to count and check off -the paintings stacked in the main room. We got through them -with reasonable speed, refraining with some difficulty from pausing -to admire certain pictures we particularly fancied. Then we -tackled the Oriental rugs, and that proved to be a thoroughly -thankless and arduous task. We had a crew of eight PWs—prisoners -of war—to help us spread the musty carpets out on the floor. -Owing to the fact that the smaller carpets—in some cases they -were hardly more than fragments—had been rolled up inside larger -ones, we ended with nearly a hundred more items than the inventory -called for. That troubled Captain Dunn a bit, but I told him -that it didn’t matter so long as we were over. We’d have to start -worrying only if we came out short. By five o’clock we were tired -and dirty and barely a third of the way through with the job.</p> - -<p>The next day we started in on the patent records. There had -been a fire in the mine where the records were originally stored. -Many of them were slightly charred, and all of them had been -impregnated with smoke. When we had finished counting the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_52"></a>[52]</span> -whole thirty thousand, we smelled just the way they did. As a -matter of fact we hadn’t wanted to assume responsibility for these -records in the first place. Certainly they had nothing to do with -art. But Major Hammond had felt that they properly fell to us -as archives. And of course they were archives of a sort.</p> - -<p>On the morning of the third day, as I was about to leave my -office for the Reichsbank, I had a phone call from Charlie Kuhn. -He asked me how the work was coming along and then, in a -guarded voice, said that something unexpected had turned up -and that he might have to send me away for a few days. He told -me he couldn’t talk about it on the telephone, and anyway, it wasn’t -definite. He’d probably know by afternoon. I was to call him later. -This was hardly the kind of conversation to prepare one for a -humdrum day of taking inventory, even if one were counting real -treasure. And for a person with my curiosity, the morning’s work -was torture.</p> - -<p>When I called Charlie after lunch he was out but had left word -that I was to come to his office at two o’clock. When I got there he -was sitting at his desk. He looked up from the dispatch he was -reading and said with a rueful smile, “Tom, I am going to send you -out on a job I’d give my eyeteeth to have for myself.” Then he -explained that certain developments had suddenly made it necessary -to step up the work of evacuating art repositories down in -Bavaria and in even more distant areas. For the first time in my -life I knew what was meant by the expression “my heart jumped a -beat”—for that was exactly what happened to mine! No wonder -Charlie was envious. This sounded like the real thing.</p> - -<p>Charlie told me that I was to fly down to Munich the next morning -and that I would probably be gone about ten days. To save time -he had already had my orders cut. All I had to do was to pick them<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_53"></a>[53]</span> -up at the AG office. I was to report to Third Army Headquarters -and get in touch with George Stout as soon as possible. Charlie -didn’t know just where I’d find George. He was out in the wilds -somewhere. As a matter of fact he wasn’t too sure about the exact -location of Third Army Headquarters. A new headquarters was -being established and the only information he had was that it would -be somewhere in or near Munich. The name, he said, would be -“Lucky Rear” and I would simply have to make inquiries and be -guided by signs posted along the streets.</p> - -<p>I asked Charlie what I should do about the completion of the -inventory at the Reichsbank, and also about the impending report -from the Corps of Engineers on the University of Frankfurt building. -He suggested that I leave the former in Captain Rae’s hands -and the latter with Lieutenant Buchman. Upon my return I could -take up where I had left off.</p> - -<p>That evening I threw my things together, packing only enough -clothes to see me through the next ten days. Not knowing where I -would be billeted I took the precaution of including my blankets. -Even at that my luggage was compact and light, which was desirable -as I was traveling by air.</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_54"></a>[54]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_3">(3)<br /> -<span class="smaller"><i>MUNICH AND THE BEGINNING OF FIELD WORK</i></span></h2> - -</div> - -<p>The next morning I was up before six and had early breakfast. It -was a wonderful day for the trip, brilliantly clear. The corporal -in our office took me out to the airfield, the one near Hanau where -Craig Smyth and I had landed weeks before. It was going to be -fun to see Craig again and find out what he had been up to since -we had parted that morning in Bad Homburg. The drive to -the airfield took about forty-five minutes. There was a wait of -half an hour at the field, and it was after ten when we took off in -our big C-47. We flew over little villages with red roofs, occasionally -a large town—but none that I could identify—and now and -then a silvery lake.</p> - -<p>Just before we reached Munich, someone said, “There’s Dachau.” -Directly below us, on one side of a broad sweep of dark pine trees, -we saw a group of low buildings and a series of fenced-in enclosures. -On that sunny morning the place looked deserted and -singularly peaceful. Yet only a few weeks before it had been filled -with the miserable victims of Nazi brutality.</p> - -<p>In another ten minutes we landed on the dusty field of the -principal Munich airport. Most of the administration buildings -had a slightly battered look but were in working order. It was a -welcome relief to take refuge from the blazing sunshine in the cool -hallway of the main building. The imposing yellow brick lobby<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_55"></a>[55]</span> -was decorated with painted shields of the different German states -or “Länder.” The arms of Bavaria, Saxony, Hesse-Nassau and the -rest formed a colorful frieze around the walls.</p> - -<p>A conveyance of some kind was scheduled to leave for town in -a few minutes. Meanwhile there were sandwiches and coffee for -the plane passengers. By the time we had finished, a weapons -carrier had pulled up before the entrance. Several of us climbed -into its dust-encrusted interior. It took me a little while to get my -bearings as we drove toward Munich. I had spotted the familiar -pepper-pot domes of the Frauenkirche from the air but had recognized -no other landmark of the flat, sprawling city which I had -known well before the war.</p> - -<p>It was not until we turned into the broad Prinz Regenten-Strasse -that I knew exactly where I was. As we drove down this -handsome avenue, I got a good look at a long, colonnaded building -of white stone. The roof was draped with what appeared to -be an enormous, dark green fishnet. The billowing scallops of the -net flapped about the gleaming cornice of the building. It was the -Haus der Deutschen Kunst, the huge exhibition gallery dedicated -by Hitler in the middle thirties to the kind of art of which he approved—an -art in which there was no place for untrammeled freedom -of expression, only the pictorial and plastic representation -of all the Nazi regime stood for. The dangling fishnet was part of -the elaborate camouflage. I judged from the condition of the -building that the net had admirably served its purpose.</p> - -<p>In a moment we rounded the corner by the Prinz Karl Palais. -Despite the disfiguring coat of ugly olive paint which covered its -classic façade, it had not escaped the bombs. The little palace, -where Mussolini had stayed, had a hollow, battered look and the -formal garden behind it was a waste of furrowed ground and straggling<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_56"></a>[56]</span> -weeds. We turned left into the wide Ludwig-Strasse and -came to a grinding halt beside a bleak gray building whose walls -were pockmarked with artillery fire. I asked our driver if this were -Lucky Rear headquarters and was told curtly that it wasn’t, but -that it was the end of the line. It was MP headquarters and I’d have -to see if they’d give me a car to take me to my destination, which -the driver said was “’way the hell” on the other side of town.</p> - -<p>Before going inside I looked down the street to the left. The -familiar old buildings were still standing, but they were no longer -the trim, cream-colored structures which had once given that part -of the city such a clean, orderly air. Most of them were burned -out. Farther along on the right, the Theatinerkirche was masked -with scaffolding. At the end of the street the Feldherren-Halle, -Ludwig I’s copy of the Loggia dei Lanzi, divested of its statuary, -reared its columns in the midst of the desolation.</p> - -<p>It was gray and cool in the rooms of the MP building, but the -place was crowded. Soldiers were everywhere and things seemed -to be at sixes and sevens. After making several inquiries and -being passed from one desk to another, I finally got hold of a -brisk young sergeant to whom I explained my troubles. At first he -said there wasn’t a chance of getting a ride out to Lucky Rear. -Every jeep was tied up and would be for hours. They had just -moved into Munich and hadn’t got things organized yet. Then all -at once he relented and with a grin said, “Oh, you’re Navy, aren’t -you? In that case I’ll have to fix you up somehow. We can’t have -the Navy saying the Army doesn’t co-operate.”</p> - -<p>He walked over to a window that looked down on the courtyard -below, shouted instructions to someone and then told me I’d find a -jeep and driver outside. “Think nothing of it, Lieutenant,” he said<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_57"></a>[57]</span> -in answer to my thanks. “Maybe I’ll be wanting a ship to take me -home one of these days before long. Have to keep on the good side -of the Navy.”</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;" id="illus11"> -<img src="images/illus11.jpg" width="500" height="350" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">In the Kaiser Josef chamber of the Alt Aussee mine Karl Sieber and Lieutenant -Kern view Michelangelo’s Madonna and Child, stolen from a church -at Bruges.</p> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;" id="illus12"> -<img src="images/illus12.jpg" width="500" height="350" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">Lieutenants Kovalyak, Stout and Howe pack the Michelangelo Madonna for -return to Bruges. The statue was restored to the Church of Notre Dame in -September of 1945.</p> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;" id="illus13"> -<img src="images/illus13.jpg" width="500" height="350" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">The famous Ghent altarpiece by van Eyck was flown from the Alt Aussee -mine to Belgium in the name of Eisenhower as a token restitution.</p> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;" id="illus14"> -<img src="images/illus14.jpg" width="500" height="350" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">Karl Sieber, German restorer, Lieutenant Kern, American Monuments officer, -and Max Eder, Austrian engineer, examine the panels of the Ghent altarpiece -stored in the Alt Aussee mine.</p> -</div> - -<p>On my way out I gathered up my luggage from the landing below -and climbed into the waiting jeep. We turned the corner and followed -the Prinz Regenten-Strasse to the river. I noticed for the first -time that a temporary track had been laid along one side. This -had been done, the driver said, in order to cart away the rubble -which had accumulated in the downtown section. We turned right -and followed the Isar for several blocks, crossed to the left over the -Ludwig bridge, then drove out the Rosenheimer-Strasse to the east -for a distance of about three miles. Our destination was the enormous -complex of buildings called the Reichszeugmeisterei, or -Quartermaster Corps buildings, in which the rear echelon of General -Patton’s Third Army had just established its headquarters.</p> - -<p>Even in the baking sunlight of that June day, the place had a -cold, unfriendly appearance. We halted for identification at the -entrance, and there I was introduced to Third Army discipline. -One of the guards gave me a black look and growled, “Put your -cap on.” Startled by this burly order, I hastily complied and then -experienced a feeling of extreme irritation at having been so easily -cowed. I could at least have asked him to say “sir.”</p> - -<p>The driver, sensing my discomfiture, remarked good-naturedly, -“You’ll get used to that sort of thing around here, sir. They’re -very, very fussy now that the shooting’s over. Seems like they don’t -have anything else to worry about, except enforcing a lot of regulations.” -This was my first sample of what I learned to call by its -popular name, “chicken”—a prudent abbreviation for the exasperating -rules and regulations one finds at an Army headquarters.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_58"></a>[58]</span> -Third Army had its share of them—perhaps a little more than its -share. But I didn’t find that out all at once. It took me all of two -days.</p> - -<p>My driver let me out in front of the main building, over the -central doorway of which the emblem of the Third Army was -proudly displayed—a bold “A” inside a circle. The private at the -information desk had never heard of the “Monuments, Fine Arts -and Archives Section,” but said that if it was a part of G-5 it would -be on the fifth floor. I found the office of the Assistant Chief of -Staff and was directed to a room at the end of a corridor at least -two blocks long. I was told that the officer I should see was Captain -Robert Posey. I knew that name from the reports I had studied -at Versailles, as well as from a magazine article describing his discovery, -months before, of some early frescoes in the little Romanesque -church of Mont St. Martin which had been damaged by bombing. -The article had been written by an old friend of mine, Lincoln -Kirstein, who was connected with the MFA&A work in Europe.</p> - -<p>When I opened the door of the MFA&A office, George Stout was -standing in the middle of the room. The expression of surprise on -his face changed to relief after he had read the letter I handed him -from Charlie Kuhn.</p> - -<p>“You couldn’t have arrived at a more opportune time,” he said. -“I came down from Alt Aussee today to see Posey, but I just missed -him. He left this morning for a conference in Frankfurt. I wanted -to find out what had happened to the armed escort he promised me -for my convoys. We’re evacuating the mine and desperately shorthanded, -so I’ve got to get back tonight. It’s a six-hour drive.”</p> - -<p>“Charlie said you needed help. What do you want me to do?” -I asked. I hoped he would take me along.</p> - -<p>“I’d like to have you stay here until we get this escort problem<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_59"></a>[59]</span> -straightened out. I was promised two half-tracks, but they didn’t -show up this morning. I’ve got a call in about them right now. -It’s three o’clock. I ought to make Salzburg by five-thirty. There’ll -surely be some word about the escort by that time, and I’ll phone -you from there.”</p> - -<p>Before he left, George introduced me to Lieutenant Colonel -William Hamilton, the Assistant Chief of Staff, and explained to -him that I had come down on special orders from SHAEF to help -with the evacuation work. George told the colonel that I would be -joining him at the mine as soon as Captain Posey returned and provided -me with the necessary clearance. After we had left Colonel -Hamilton’s office, I asked George what he meant by “clearance.” -He laughed and said that I would have to obtain a written permit -from Posey before I could operate in Third Army territory. As -Third Army’s Monuments Officer, Posey had absolute jurisdiction -in all matters pertaining to the fine arts in the area occupied by his -Army. At that time it included a portion of Austria which later -came under General Mark Clark’s command.</p> - -<p>“Don’t worry,” said George. “I’ll have you at the mine in a few -days, and you’ll probably be sorry you ever laid eyes on the place.”</p> - -<p>I went back to the MFA&A office and was about to settle down -at Captain Posey’s vacant desk. I looked across to a corner of the -room where a lanky enlisted man sat hunched up at a typewriter. -It was Lincoln Kirstein, looking more than ever like a world-weary -Rachmaninoff. Lincoln a private in the U. S. Army! What a far -cry from the world of modern art and the ballet! He was thoroughly -enjoying my astonishment.</p> - -<p>“This is a surprise, but it explains a lot of things,” I said, dragging -a chair over to his desk. “So you are the Svengali of the Fine -Arts here at Third Army.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_60"></a>[60]</span></p> - -<p>“You mustn’t say things like that around this headquarters,” he -said apprehensively.</p> - -<p>During the next two hours we covered a lot of territory. First -of all, I wanted to know why he was an enlisted man chained to a -typewriter. With his extraordinary intelligence and wide knowledge -of the Fine Arts, he could have been more useful as an -officer. He said that he had applied for a commission and had been -turned down. I was sorry I had brought up the subject, but knowing -Lincoln’s fondness for the dramatic I thought it quite possible -that he had wanted to be able to say in later years that he had -gone through the war as an enlisted man. He agreed that he could -have been of greater service to the Fine Arts project as an officer.</p> - -<p>Then I asked him what his “boss”—he was to be mine too—was -like. He said that Captain Posey, an architect in civilian life, had -had a spectacular career during combat. In the face of almost insurmountable -obstacles, such as lack of personnel and transportation -and especially the lack of any real co-operation from the higher-ups, -he had accomplished miracles. Now that the press was devoting -more and more space to the work the Monuments officers -were doing—the discovery of treasures in salt mines and so on—they -were beginning to pay loving attention to Captain Posey -around the headquarters.</p> - -<p>I gathered from Lincoln that the present phase of our activities -appealed to the captain less than the protection and repair of historic -monuments under fire. If true, this was understandable -enough. He was an architect. Why would he, except as a matter -of general cultural interest, find work that lay essentially in the -domain of a museum man particularly absorbing? It seemed reasonable -to assume that Captain Posey would welcome museum men -to shoulder a part of the burden. But I was to learn later that my -assumption was not altogether correct.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_61"></a>[61]</span></p> - -<p>Eventually I had to interrupt our conversation. It was getting -late, and still no word about the escort vehicles. Lincoln told me -where I would find the officer who was to have called George. He -was Captain Blyth, a rough-and-ready kind of fellow, an ex-trooper -from the state of Virginia. The outlook was not encouraging. No -vehicles were as yet available. Finally, at six o’clock, he rang up -to say that he wouldn’t know anything before morning.</p> - -<p>Lincoln returned from chow, I gave him the message in case -George called while I was out and went down to eat. It was after -eight when George telephoned. The connection from Salzburg was -bad, and so was his temper when I told him I had nothing to report.</p> - -<p>Lincoln usually spent his evenings at the office. That night we -stayed till after eleven. Here and there he had picked up some fascinating -German art books and magazines, all of them Nazi publications -lavishly illustrated. They bore eloquent testimony to Hitler’s -patronage of the arts. The banality of the contemporary work -in painting was stultifying—dozens of rosy-cheeked, buxom -maidens and stalwart, brown-limbed youths reeking with “strength -through joy,” and acres of idyllic landscapes. The sculpture was -better, though too often the tendency toward the colossal was -tiresomely in evidence. It was in recording the art of the past, -notably in the monographs dealing with the great monuments of -the Middle Ages and the Baroque, that admirable progress had -been made. I asked Lincoln enviously how he had got hold of these -things. He answered laconically that he had “liberated” them.</p> - -<p>Captain Blyth had good news for me the next morning. Two -armored vehicles had left Munich for the mine. I gave the message -to George when he called just before noon.</p> - -<p>“They’re a little late,” he said. “Thanks to the fine co-operation -of the 11th Armored Division, I am being taken care of from this -end of the line. I’ll try to catch your fellows in Salzburg and tell<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_62"></a>[62]</span> -them to go back where they came from. I am sending you a letter -by the next convoy. It’s about a repository which ought to be evacuated -right away. I can’t give you any of the details over the phone -without violating security regulations. As soon as Posey gets back, -you ought to go to work on it. After that I want you to help me -here.”</p> - -<p>After George had hung up, I asked Lincoln if he had any idea -what repository George had in mind. Lincoln said it might be -the monastery at Hohenfurth. It was in Czechoslovakia, just over -the border from Austria. While we were discussing this possibility, -Craig Smyth walked in.</p> - -<p>As soon as he had recovered from the surprise of finding me at -Captain Posey’s desk, he explained the reason for his visit. Something -had to be done right away about the building he was setting -up as a collecting point. He had been promised a twenty-four-hour -guard. He had been promised a barrier of barbed wire. So far, -Third Army had failed to provide either one. A lot of valuable stuff -had already been delivered to the building, and George was sending -in more. He couldn’t wait any longer.</p> - -<p>“Let’s have a talk with Colonel Hamilton,” I said. As we walked -down to the Assistant Chief of Staff’s office, Craig told me that the -buildings he had requisitioned were the ones Bancel La Farge had -suggested when we saw him at Wiesbaden a month ago.</p> - -<p>“Can’t this matter wait until Captain Posey returns?” the colonel -asked.</p> - -<p>“I am afraid it can’t, sir,” said Craig. “As you know, the two -buildings were the headquarters of the Nazi party. The Nazis -meant to destroy them before Munich fell. Having failed to do so, -I think it quite possible that they may still attempt it. Both buildings -are honeycombed with underground passageways. Only this<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_63"></a>[63]</span> -morning we located the exit of one of them. It was half a block -from the building. We hadn’t known of its existence before. The -works of art stored in the building at present are worth millions -of dollars. In the circumstances, I am not willing to accept the -responsibility for what may happen to them. I must have guards -or a barrier at once.”</p> - -<p>The colonel reached for the telephone and gave orders that a -cordon of guards was to be placed on the buildings immediately. -He made a second call, this time about the barbed wire. When he -had finished he told Craig that the guard detail would report that -afternoon; the barbed wire would be strung around the building -the next morning. We thanked the colonel and returned to Posey’s -office.</p> - -<p>We found two officers who had just come in from Dachau. They -were waiting to see someone connected with Property Control. -They had brought with them a flour sack filled with gold wedding -rings; a large carton stuffed with gold teeth, bridgework, crowns -and braces (in children’s sizes); a sack containing gold coins (for -the most part Russian) and American greenbacks. As we looked -at these mementos of the concentration camp, I thought of the -atrocity film I had seen at Versailles and wondered how anyone -could believe that those pictures had been an exaggeration.</p> - -<p>I went back with Craig to his office at the Königsplatz. The damage -to Munich was worse than I had realized. The great Deutsches -Museum by the river was a hollow-eyed specter, but sufficiently -intact to house DPs. Aside from its twin towers, little was left of -the Frauenkirche. The buildings lining the Brienner-Strasse had -been blasted and burned. Along the short block leading from the -Carolinen Platz to the Königsplatz, the destruction was total: on -the left stood the jagged remnants of the little villa Hitler had<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_64"></a>[64]</span> -given D’Annunzio; on the right was a heap of rubble which had -been the Braun Haus. But practically untouched were the two -Ehrentempel—the memorials to the “martyrs” of the 1923 beer-hall -“putsch.” The colonnades were draped with the same kind of -green fishnet that had been used to camouflage the Haus der -Deutschen Kunst. The classic façades of the museums on either -side of the square—the Glyptothek and the Neue Staatsgalerie—were -intact. The buildings themselves were a shambles.</p> - -<p>I followed Craig up the broad flight of steps to the entrance of -the Verwaltungsbau, or Administration Building. It was three -stories high, built of stone, and occupied almost an entire block. -True to the Nazi boast, it looked as though it had been built to -“last a thousand years.” And it was so plain and massive that I -didn’t see how it could change much in that time. There was -nothing here that could “grow old gracefully.” The interior -matched the exterior. There were two great central courts with -marble stairs leading to the floor above.</p> - -<p>Although the building had not been bombed, it had suffered -severely from concussion. Craig said that when he had moved in -two weeks ago the skylights over the courts had been open to the -sky. On rainy days one could practically go boating on the first -floor. There had been no glass in the windows. Now they had -been boarded up or filled in with a translucent material as a substitute. -All of the doors had been out of line and would not lock. -But the repairs were already well under way and, according to -Craig, the place would be shipshape in another month or six weeks. -He said that his colleague, Hamilton Coulter, a former New York -architect now a naval lieutenant, was directing the work and -doing a magnificent job. Even under normal conditions it would -have been a staggering task. With glass and lumber at a premium,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_65"></a>[65]</span> -to say nothing of the scarcity of skilled labor, a less resourceful man -would have given up in despair.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;" id="illus15"> -<img src="images/illus15.jpg" width="500" height="350" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">Vermeer’s <i>Portrait of the Artist in His Studio</i> in the Alt Aussee mine was -purchased by Hitler for his proposed museum. It has been returned to -Vienna.</p> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;" id="illus16"> -<img src="images/illus16.jpg" width="500" height="350" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">One of the picture storage rooms in the mine, constructed with wooden partitions -and racks. The temperature was constant, averaging 40° Fahrenheit in -summer, 47° in winter.</p> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;" id="illus17"> -<img src="images/illus17.jpg" width="400" height="500" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">Panel from the Louvain altarpiece, <i>Feast of the Passover</i>, -by Bouts, was stored at Alt Aussee.</p> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;" id="illus18"> -<img src="images/illus18.jpg" width="400" height="500" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">Hitler acquired the Czernin Vermeer for an alleged -price of 1,400,000 Reichsmarks.</p> -</div> - -<p>Craig was rapidly building up a staff of German scholars and -museum technicians to assist him in the administration of the -establishment. It would soon rival a large American museum in -complexity and scope. Storage rooms on the ground floor had -been made weatherproof. Paintings and sculpture were already -pouring in from the mine at Alt Aussee—six truckloads at a time. -In accordance with standard museum practice, Craig had set up an -efficient accessioning system. As each object came in, it was identified, -marked and listed for future reference. Quarters had been -set aside for a photographer. Racks were being built for pictures. -A two-storied record room was being converted into a library.</p> - -<p>Craig had also requisitioned the “twin” of this colossal building—the -Führerbau, where Hitler had had his own offices. This -was only a block away on the same street and also faced the Königsplatz. -It was connected with the Verwaltungsbau by underground -passageways. It was in the Führerbau that the Munich Pact of -1938—the pact that was to have guaranteed “peace in our time”—had -been signed. Craig showed me the table at which Mr. Chamberlain -had signed that document. Craig was using it now for a -conference table.</p> - -<p>Repairs were being concentrated on the Administration Building, -since its “twin” was being held in reserve for later use. At the -moment, however, a few of the rooms were occupied by a small -guard detail. The truck drivers and armed guards who came each -week with the convoys from the mine were also billeted there.</p> - -<p>Just as Craig and I were finishing our inspection of the Führerbau, -a convoy of six trucks, escorted by two half-tracks, pulled into -the parking space behind the building. The convoy leader had a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_66"></a>[66]</span> -letter for me. It was the one George Stout had mentioned on the -telephone. Lincoln was right. The repository George had in -mind was the monastery at Hohenfurth. In his letter he stressed -the fact that the evacuation should be undertaken at once. He -suggested that I try to persuade Posey to send Lincoln along to -help me.</p> - -<p>Craig had a comfortable billet in the Kopernikus-Strasse, a four-room -flat on the fourth floor of a modern apartment building. The -back windows looked onto a garden. Over the tops of the poplar -trees beyond, one could see the roof of the Prinz Regenten Theater -where, back in the twenties, I had seen my first complete performance -of Wagner’s <i>Ring</i>. Craig told me that the theater was undamaged -except for the Speisesaal where, in prewar days, lavish -refreshments were served during intermissions. That one room -had caught a bomb.</p> - -<p>I accepted Craig’s invitation to share the apartment with him -while in Munich and made myself at home in the dining room. It -had a couch, and there was a sideboard which I could use as a chest -of drawers. The bathroom was across the hall and he said that -the supply of hot water was inexhaustible. By comparison, the -officers’ billets at Third Army Headquarters were tenements.</p> - -<p>Ham Coulter had similar quarters on the ground floor. We -stopped there for a drink on our way to supper at the Military Government -Detachment. “Civilized” was the word that best described -Ham. He was a tall, broad-shouldered fellow with sleek black -hair, finely-chiseled features and keen, gray eyes. When he smiled, -his mouth crinkled up at the corners, producing an agreeably sarcastic -expression. Ham poured out the drinks with an elegance the -ordinary German cognac didn’t deserve. They should have been -dry martinis. I liked him at once that first evening, and when I<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_67"></a>[67]</span> -came to know him better I found him the wittiest and most amiable -of companions. He and Craig were a wonderful combination. -They had the greatest admiration and respect for each other, and -during the many months of their work together there was not the -slightest disagreement between them.</p> - -<p>The officers’ dining room that evening was a noisy place. The -clatter of knives and forks and the babble of voices mingled with -the rasping strains of popular American tunes pounded out by a -Bavarian band. As we were about to sit down, the music stopped -abruptly and a second later struck up the current favorite, “My -Dreams Are Getting Better All the Time.” Colonel Charles Keegan, -the commanding officer, had entered the dining hall. I was -puzzled by this until Ham told me that it happened every night. -This particular piece was the colonel’s favorite tune and he had -ordered it to be played whenever he came in to dinner. The colonel -was a colorful character—short and florid, with a shock of white -hair. He had figured prominently in New York politics and would -again, it was said. He had already helped Craig over a couple of -rough spots and if some of his antics amused the MFA&A boys, -they seemed to be genuinely fond of him.</p> - -<p>While we were at dinner, three officers came and took their -places at a near-by table. Craig identified one of them as Captain -Posey. I had been told that he was in his middle thirties, but he -looked younger than that. He had a boyish face and I noticed that -he laughed a great deal as he talked with his two companions. -When he wasn’t smiling, there was a stubborn expression about -his mouth, and I remembered that Lincoln had said something -about his “deceptively gentle manner.” On our way out I introduced -myself to him. He was very affable and seemed pleased at -my arrival. But he was tired after the long drive from Frankfurt,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_68"></a>[68]</span> -so, as soon as I had arranged to meet him at his office the next day, -I joined Ham and Craig back at the apartment.</p> - -<p>I got out to Third Army Headquarters early the following -morning and found Captain Posey already at his desk, going -through the papers which had accumulated during his absence. -We discussed George’s letter at considerable length, and I was -disappointed to find that he did not intend to act on it at once. -Somehow it had never occurred to me that anyone would question -a proposal of George’s.</p> - -<p>For one thing, Captain Posey said, he couldn’t spare Lincoln; and -for another, there was a very pressing job much nearer Munich -which he wanted me to handle. He then proceeded to tell me of a -small village on the road to Salzburg where I would find a house -in which were stored some eighty cases of paintings and sculpture -from the Budapest Museum. He showed me the place on the map -and explained how I was to go about locating the exact house upon -arrival. I was to see a certain officer at Third Army Headquarters -without delay and make arrangements for trucks. He thought I -would need about five. It shouldn’t take more than half a day to -do the job if all went well. After this preliminary briefing, I was -on my own.</p> - -<p>My first move was to get hold of the officer about the trucks. -How many did I need? When did I want them and where should -he tell them to report? I said I’d like to have five trucks at the -Königsplatz the following morning at eight-thirty. The officer -explained that the drivers would be French, as Third Army was -using a number of foreign trucking companies to relieve the existing -shortage in transportation.</p> - -<p>Later in the day I had a talk with Lincoln about my plans and -he gave me a piece of advice which proved exceedingly valuable—that<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_69"></a>[69]</span> -I should go myself to the trucking company which was to -provide the vehicles, and personally confirm the arrangements. -So, after lunch I struck out in a jeep for the west side of Munich, a -distance of some seven or eight miles.</p> - -<p>I found a lieutenant, who had charge of the outfit, and explained -the purpose of my visit. He had not been notified of the -order for five trucks. There was no telephone communication between -his office and headquarters, so all messages had to come by -courier, and the courier hadn’t come in that day. He was afraid he -couldn’t let me have any trucks before the following afternoon. I -insisted that the matter was urgent and couldn’t wait, and, after -much deliberating and consulting of charts, he relented. I told him -a little something about the expedition for which I wanted the -trucks and he showed real interest. He suggested that I ought to -have extremely careful drivers. I replied that I should indeed, as -we would be hauling stuff of incalculable value.</p> - -<p>Thereupon he gave me a harrowing description of the group -under his supervision. All of them had been members of the -French Resistance Movement—ex-terrorists he called them—and -they weren’t afraid of God, man or the Devil. Well, I thought, isn’t -that comforting! “Oh, yes,” he said, “these Frenchies drive like -crazy men. But,” he continued, “one of the fellows has got some -sense. I’ll see if I can get him for you.” He went over to the window -that looked out on a parking ground littered with vehicles of -various kinds. Here and there I saw a mechanic bent over an open -hood or sprawled out beneath a truck. The lieutenant bellowed, -“Leclancher, come up here to my office!”</p> - -<p>A few seconds later a wiry, sandy-haired Frenchman of about -forty-five appeared in the doorway. Leclancher understood some -English, for he reacted with alert nods of the head as the lieutenant<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_70"></a>[70]</span> -gave a brief description of the job ahead, and then turned and asked -me if I spoke French. I told him I did, if he had enough patience. -This struck him as inordinately funny, but I was being quite serious. -What really pleased him was the fact that I was in the Navy. He -said that he had been in the Navy during the first World War. -Then and there a lasting bond was formed, though I didn’t appreciate -the value of it at the time.</p> - -<p>Eight-thirty the next morning found me pacing the Königsplatz. -Not a truck in sight. Nine o’clock and still no trucks. At nine -thirty, one truck rolled up. Leclancher leaped out and with profuse -apologies explained that the other four were having carburetor -trouble. There had been water in the gas, too, and that hadn’t -helped. For an hour Leclancher and I idled about, whiling away -the time with conversation of no consequence, other than that it -served to limber up my French. At eleven o’clock Leclancher -looked at his watch and said that it would soon be time for lunch. -It was obvious that he understood the Army’s conception of a day -as a brief span of time, in the course of which one eats three meals. -If it is not possible to finish a given job during the short pauses -between those meals, well, there’s always the next day. I told him -to go to his lunch and to come back as soon as he could round up -the other trucks. In the meantime I would get something to eat -near by.</p> - -<p>When I returned shortly after eleven thirty—having eaten a -K ration under the portico of the Verwaltungsbau in lieu of a -more formal lunch—my five trucks were lined up ready to go. I -appointed Leclancher “chef de convoi”—a rather high-sounding -title for such a modest caravan—and he assigned positions to the -other drivers, taking the end truck himself. Since my jeep failed -to arrive, I climbed into the lead truck. The driver was an amiable<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_71"></a>[71]</span> -youngster whose name was Roger Roget. During the next few -weeks he was the lead driver in all of my expeditions, and I took -to calling him “Double Roger,” which I think he never quite -understood.</p> - -<p>To add to my anxiety over our belated start, a light rain began -to fall as we pulled out of the Königsplatz and turned into the -Brienner-Strasse. We threaded our way cautiously through the -slippery streets choked with military traffic, crossed the bridge over -the Isar and swung into the broad Rosenheimer-Strasse leading to -the east.</p> - -<p>Once on the Autobahn, Roger speeded up. The speedometer -needle quivered up to thirty-five, forty and finally forty-five miles -an hour. I pointed to it, shaking my head. “We must not exceed -thirty-five, Roger.”</p> - -<p>He promptly slowed down, and as we rolled along, I forgot the -worries of the morning. I dozed comfortably. Suddenly we struck -an unexpected hole in the road and I woke up. We were doing -fifty. This time I spoke sharply, reminding Roger that the speed -limit was thirty-five and that we were to stay within it; if we didn’t -we’d be arrested, because the road was well patrolled. With a -tolerant grin Roger said, “Oh, no, we never get arrested. The MPs, -they stop us and get very angry, but—” with a shrug of the shoulders—“we -do not understand. They throw the hands up in the -air and say ‘dumb Frenchies’ and we go ahead.”</p> - -<p>“That may work with you,” I said crossly, “but what about me? -I’m not a ‘dumb Frenchy.’”</p> - -<p>For the next hour I pretended to doze and at the same time kept -an eye on the speedometer. This worked pretty well. Now and -again I would look up, and each time, Roger would modify his -speed.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_72"></a>[72]</span></p> - -<p>Presently we came to a bad detour, where a bridge was out. We -had to make a sharp turn to the left, leave the Autobahn and -descend a steep and tortuous side road into a deep ravine. That -day the narrow road was slippery from the rain, so we had to crawl -along. The drop into the valley was a matter of two or three hundred -feet and, as we reached the bottom, we could see the monstrous -wreckage of the bridge hanging drunkenly in mid-air. The -ascent was even more precarious, but our five trucks got through.</p> - -<p>We had now left the level country around Munich and were in -a region of rolling hills. Along the horizon, gray clouds half concealed -the distant peaks. Soon the rain stopped and the sun came -out. The mountains changed to misty blue against an even bluer -sky. The road rose sharply, and when we reached the crest, I caught -a glimpse of shimmering water. It was Chiemsee, largest of the -Bavarian lakes.</p> - -<p>In another ten minutes the road flattened out again and we -came to the turnoff marked “Prien.” There we left the Autobahn -for a narrow side road which took us across green meadows. Nothing -could have looked more peaceful than this lush, summer countryside. -Reports of SS troops still hiding out in the near-by forests -seemed preposterous in the pastoral tranquillity. Yet only a few -days before, our troops had rounded up a small band of these die-hards -in this neighborhood. The SS men had come down from the -foothills on a foraging expedition and had been captured while -attempting to raid a farmhouse. It was because of just such incidents, -as well as the ever-present fire hazard, that I had been sent -down to remove the museum treasures to a place of safety.</p> - -<p>The road was dwindling away to a cow path and I was beginning -to wonder how much farther we could go with our two-and-a-half-ton -trucks, when we came to a small cluster of houses. This was<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_73"></a>[73]</span> -Grassau. I had been told that a small detachment of troops was -billeted there, so I singled out the largest of the little white houses -grouped around the only crossroads in the village. It had clouded -over and begun to rain again. As I entered the gate and was crossing -the yard, the door of the house was opened by a corporal.</p> - -<p>He didn’t seem surprised to see me. Someone at Munich had -sent down word to Prien that I was coming, and the message had -reached him from there. I asked if he knew where the things I -had come for were stored. He motioned to the back of the house -and said there were two rooms full of big packing cases. He explained -that he and one other man had been detailed to live in the -house because of the “stuff” stored there. They had been instructed -to keep an eye on the old man who claimed to be responsible for it. -That would be Dr. Csanky, director of the Budapest Museum, who, -according to my information, would probably raise unqualified hell -when I came to cart away his precious cases. The corporal told me -that the old man and his son occupied rooms on the second floor.</p> - -<p>I was relieved to hear that they were not at home. It would make -things much simpler if I could get my trucks loaded and be on my -way before they returned. It was already well after two and I -wanted to start back by five at the latest. I asked rather tentatively -about the chances of getting local talent to help with the loading, -and the corporal promptly offered to corral a gang of PWs who -were working under guard near by.</p> - -<p>While he went off to see about that, I marshaled my trucks. -There was enough room to back one truck at a time to the door of -the house. A few minutes later the motley “work party” arrived. -There were eight of them in all and they ranged from a young fellow -of sixteen, wearing a faded German uniform, to a reedy old -man of sixty. By and large, they looked husky enough for the job.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_74"></a>[74]</span></p> - -<p>I knew enough not to ask my drivers to help, but knew that the -work would go much faster if they would lend a hand. Leclancher -must have read my thoughts, for he immediately offered his services. -As soon as the other four saw what Leclancher was doing, -they followed suit.</p> - -<p>There were eighty-one cases in all. They varied greatly in size, -because some of them contained sculpture and, consequently, were -both bulky and heavy. Others, built for big canvases, were very -large and flat but relatively light. We had to “design” our loads in -such a way as to keep cases of approximately the same type together. -This was necessary for two reasons: first, the cases would -ride better that way, and second, we hadn’t any too much space. As -I roughly figured it, we should be able to get them all in the five -trucks, but we couldn’t afford to be prodigal in our loading.</p> - -<p>The work went along smoothly for an hour and we were just finishing -the second truck when I saw two men approaching. They were -Dr. Csanky and his son. This was what I had hoped to avoid. The -doctor was a dapper little fellow with a white mustache and very -black eyes. He was wearing a corduroy jacket and a flowing bow -tie. The artistic effect was topped off by a beret set at a jaunty -angle. His son was a callow string bean with objectionably soulful -eyes magnified by horn-rimmed spectacles. They came over to the -truck and began to jabber and wave their arms. We paid no attention -whatever—just kept on methodically lifting one case after -another out of the storage room.</p> - -<p>The dapper doctor got squarely in my path and I had to stop. I -checked his flow of words with a none too civil “Do you speak -English?” That drew a blank, so I asked if he spoke German. No -luck there either. Feeling like an ad for the Berlitz School, I inquired -whether he spoke French. He said “Yes,” but the stream of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_75"></a>[75]</span> -Hungarian-French which rolled out from that white mustache was -unintelligible. It was hopeless. At last I simply had to take him -by the shoulders and gently but firmly set him aside. This was -the ultimate indignity, but it worked. At that juncture he and the -string bean took off. I didn’t know what they were up to and I -didn’t care, so long as they left us alone.</p> - -<p>Our respite was short-lived. By the time we had the third truck -ready to move away, they were back. And they had come with reinforcements: -two women were with them. One was a rather handsome -dowager who looked out of place in this rural setting. Her -gray hair, piled high, was held in place by a scarlet bandanna, and -she was wearing a shabby dress of green silk. Despite this getup, -there was something rather commanding about her. She introduced -herself as the wife of General Ellenlittay and explained in -perfect English that Dr. Csanky had come to her in great distress. -Would I be so kind as to tell her what was happening so that she -could inform him?</p> - -<p>“I am removing these cases on the authority of the Commanding -General of the Third United States Army,” I said. If she were -going to throw generals’ names around, I could produce one too—and -a better one at that.</p> - -<p>Her response to my pompous pronouncement was delivered -charmingly and with calculated deflationary effect. “Dear sir, forgive -me if I seemed to question your authority. That was not my -intention. It is quite apparent that you are removing the pictures, -but where are you taking them?”</p> - -<p>“I am sorry, but I am not at liberty to say,” I replied. That too -sounded rather lordly, but I consoled myself by recalling that Posey -had admonished me not to answer questions like that.</p> - -<p>She relayed this information to Dr. Csanky and the effect was<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_76"></a>[76]</span> -startling. He covered his face with his hands and I thought he was -going to cry. Finally he pulled himself together and let forth a -flood of unintelligible consonants. His interpreter tackled me again.</p> - -<p>“Dr. Csanky is frantic. He says that he is responsible to his government -for the safety of these treasures and since you are taking -them away, there is nothing left for him to do but to blow his brains -out.”</p> - -<p>My patience was exhausted. I said savagely, “Tell Dr. Csanky -for me that he can blow his brains out if he chooses, but I think it -would be silly. If you must know, Madame, I am a museum director -myself and you can assure him that no harm is going to come to his -precious pictures.”</p> - -<p>I should never have mentioned that I had even so much as been -inside a museum, for, from that moment until we finished loading -the last truck, the little doctor never left my side. I was his “cher -collègue,” and he kept up a steady barrage of questions which the -patient Madame Ellenlittay tried to pass along to me without interrupting -our work.</p> - -<p>As we lined the trucks up, preparatory to starting back to Munich, -Dr. Csanky produced several long lists of what the cases contained. -He asked me to sign them. This I refused to do but explained to -him through the general’s wife that if he cared to have the lists -translated from Hungarian and forwarded to Third Army Headquarters, -they could be checked against the contents and eventually -returned to him with a notation to that effect.</p> - -<p>Our little convoy rolled out of Grassau at six o’clock, leaving -the group of Hungarians waving forlornly from the corner. Just -before we turned onto the Autobahn, Leclancher signaled from the -rear truck for us to stop. He came panting up to the lead truck with -a bottle in his hand. With a gallant wave of the arm he said that<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_77"></a>[77]</span> -we must drink to the success of the expedition. It was a bottle of -Calvados—fiery and wonderful. We each took a generous swig -and then—with a rowdy “en voiture!”—we were on our way again. -It was a nice gesture.</p> - -<p>The trip back to Munich was uneventful except for the extraordinary -beauty of the long summer evening. The sunset had all the -extravagance of the tropics. The sky blazed with opalescent clouds. -As we drove into Munich, the whole city was suffused with a coral -light which produced a more authentic atmosphere of Götterdämmerung -than the most ingenious stage Merlin could have contrived.</p> - -<p>It was nearly nine when we rolled into the parking area behind -the Führerbau—too late to think about unloading and also, I was -afraid, too late to get any supper. We had pieced out with K -rations and candy bars, but were still hungry. A mess sergeant, -lolling on the steps of the building, reluctantly produced some lukewarm -stew. After we had eaten, I prevailed on one of the building -guards to take my five drivers out to their billets south of town. It -was Saturday night. I told Leclancher we would probably be making -a longer trip on Monday and that I would need ten drivers. He -promised to select five more good men, and we arranged to meet in -the square as we had that morning. But Monday, he promised, -they would be on time.</p> - -<p>After checking the tarpaulins on my five trucks, I sauntered over -to the Central Collecting Point on the off-chance that Craig might -be working late. I found him looking at some of the pictures which -George had sent in that day from the mine. The German packers -whom Craig had been able to hire from one of the old established -firms in Munich—one which had worked exclusively for the museums -there—had finished unloading the trucks only a couple of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_78"></a>[78]</span> -hours earlier. Most of the things in this shipment had been found -at the mine, so now the pictures were stacked according to size in -neat rows about the room. In one of them we found two brilliant -portraits by Mme. Vigée-Lebrun. Labels on the front identified -them as the likenesses of Prince Schuvalov and of the Princess -Golowine. Marks on the back indicated that they were from the -Lanckoroncki Collection in Vienna, one of the most famous art -collections in Europe. Hitler was rumored to have acquired it en -bloc—through forced sale, it was said—for the great museum he -planned to build at Linz. In another stack we came upon a superb -Rubens landscape, a fine portrait by Hals and two sparkling allegorical -scenes by Tiepolo. These had no identifying labels other -than the numbers which referred to lists we didn’t have at the moment. -However, Craig said that the documentation on the pictures, -as a whole, was surprisingly complete. Then we ran into a lot of -nineteenth century German masters—Lenbach, Spitzweg, Thoma -and the like. These Hitler had particularly admired, but they didn’t -thrill me. I was getting sleepy and suggested that we had had -enough art for one day. I still had a report of the day’s doings to -write up for Captain Posey before I could turn in, so we padlocked -the room and took off.</p> - -<p>Even though the next day was Sunday, it was not a day of rest -for me. The trek to Hohenfurth, scheduled for Monday, involved -infinitely more complicated preliminary arrangements than the -easy run of yesterday. Captain Posey got out maps of the area -into which the convoy would be traveling; gave me the names of -specific outfits from whom I would have to obtain clearance as well -as escorts along the way; and, most important of all, supplied information -concerning the material to be transported. None of it, I -learned, was cased. He thought it consisted mainly of paintings,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_79"></a>[79]</span> -but there was probably also some furniture. This wasn’t too definite. -Nor did we have a very clear idea as to the exact number of -trucks we would need. I had spoken for ten on the theory that a -larger number would make too cumbersome a convoy. At least I -didn’t want to be responsible for more at that stage of the game, -inexperienced as I was. In the circumstances, two seasoned packers -might, I thought, come in handy, so I was to see if I could borrow a -couple of Craig’s men. There was the problem of rations for the -trip up and back. Posey procured a big supply of C rations, not so -good as the K’s, but they would do. While at Hohenfurth we -would be fed by the American outfit stationed there. It was a -good thing that there was so much to be arranged, because it kept -me from worrying about a lot of things that could and many that -did happen on that amazing expedition.</p> - -<p>In the afternoon I went out to make sure of my trucks and on -the way back put in a bid for the two packers. My request wasn’t -very popular, because Craig was shorthanded, but he thought he -could spare two since it was to be only a three-day trip—one day -to go up, one day at Hohenfurth, and then back the third day. -Craig gloomily predicted that I’d never get ten trucks loaded in -one day, but I airily tossed that off with the argument that we had -loaded five trucks at Grassau in less than four hours. “But that -stuff was all in cases,” he said. “You’ll find it slow going with loose -pictures.” Of course he was right, but I didn’t believe it at the -time.</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_80"></a>[80]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_4">(4)<br /> -<span class="smaller"><i>MASTERPIECES IN A MONASTERY</i></span></h2> - -</div> - -<p>We woke up to faultless weather the following morning, and on -the way down to the Königsplatz with Craig I was in an offensively -optimistic frame of mind. All ten of my trucks were there. This -was more like it—no tiresome mechanical delays. We were all -set to go. Leclancher had even had the foresight to bring along an -extra driver, just in case anything happened to one of the ten. -That was a smart idea and I congratulated him for having thought -of it.</p> - -<p>It wasn’t till I started distributing the rations that I discovered -our two packers were missing. But that shouldn’t take long to -straighten out. Craig’s office was just across the way. I found them -cooling their heels in the anteroom. They looked as though they -had come right out of an Arthur Rackham illustration—stocky -little fellows with gnarled hands and wizened faces as leathery as -the <i>Lederhosen</i> they were wearing. Each wore a coal-scuttle hat -with a jaunty feather, and each had a bulging bandanna attached -to the end of a stick. There was much bowing and scraping. The -hats were doffed and there was the familiar “Grüss Gott, Herr Kapitän,” -when I walked in.</p> - -<p>Craig appeared and explained the difficulty. Until the last minute, -no one had thought to ask whether the men had obtained a -Military Government permit to leave the area—and of course they -hadn’t. With all due respect to the workings of Military Government, -I knew that it would take hours, even days, to obtain the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_81"></a>[81]</span> -permits. So, what to do? I asked Craig what would happen if -they went without them. He didn’t know. But if anyone found out -about it, there would be trouble. I didn’t see any reason why anyone -should find out about it. The men would be in my charge and -I said I’d assume all responsibility.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile the two Rackham characters were shifting uneasily -from one foot to the other, looking first at Craig and then at me, -without the faintest idea what the fuss was all about. Craig reluctantly -left it up to me. Not wanting to waste any more time, I told -the little fellows that everything was “in Ordnung” and bundled -them off to the waiting trucks.</p> - -<p>Again our way led out to the east, the same road we had taken -two days before; and again I was perched up in the lead truck with -Double Roger. The country was more beautiful than ever in the -morning sunlight. We skirted the edge of Chiemsee and sped on -through Traunstein. The mountains loomed closer, their crests -gleaming with snow. Roger commented that it was “<i>la neige -éternelle</i>,” and I was struck by the unconscious poetry of the phrase.</p> - -<p>To save time we ate our midday rations en route, pulling off to -one side of the Autobahn in the neighborhood of Bad Reichenhall. -Farther on we came to a fork in the highway. A sign to the right -pointed temptingly to Berchtesgaden, only thirty kilometers away. -But our road was the one to the left—to Salzburg. In another few -minutes we saw its picturesque fortress, outlined against the sky, -high above the town.</p> - -<p>I had to make some inquiries in Salzburg. Not knowing the exact -location of the headquarters where I could obtain the information -I needed, I thought it prudent to park the convoy on the outskirts -and go on ahead with a single truck. It probably wasn’t going to be -any too easy, even with exact directions, to get all ten of them<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_82"></a>[82]</span> -through the narrow streets, across the river and out the other side. -This was where a jeep would have come in handy. I had been a -fool not to insist on having one for this trip.</p> - -<p>Leclancher asked if he might go along with Roger and me. The -three of us drove off, leaving the other nine drivers and the two -little packers to take their ease in the warm meadow beside which -we had halted. It was about three miles into the center of town -and the road was full of confusing turns. But on the whole it was -well marked with Army signs. Before the end of the summer I -became reasonably proficient in translating the cabalistic symbols -on these markers, but at that time I was hopelessly untutored and -neither of my companions was any help. After driving through -endless gray archways and being soundly rebuked by the MPs for -going the wrong direction on several one-way streets, we found -ourselves in a broad square paved with cobblestones. It was the -Mozartplatz.</p> - -<p>The lieutenant colonel I was supposed to see had his office in -one of the dove-colored buildings facing the square. It was a big, -high-ceilinged room with graceful rococo decorations along the -walls and a delicate prism chandelier in the center. I asked the -colonel for clearance to proceed to Linz with my convoy. After I -had explained the purpose of my trip to Hohenfurth, he offered to -expedite the additional clearance I would need beyond Linz.</p> - -<p>He rang up the headquarters of the 65th Infantry Division which -was stationed there. In a few minutes everything had been arranged. -The colonel at the other end of the line said that he would -send one of his officers to the outskirts of the city to conduct us -to his headquarters on our arrival. There would be no difficulty -about billets. He would also take care of our clearance across the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_83"></a>[83]</span> -Czechoslovakian border the following day. I thanked the colonel -and hurried down to rejoin Leclancher and Roger.</p> - -<p>Since the proposed Autobahn to Linz had never been finished, -we had to take a secondary highway east of Salzburg. Our road -led through gently rolling country with mountains in the distance. -I was grateful for the succession of villages along the way. They -were a relief after the monotony of the Autobahn and also served to -control the speed of the convoy. We wound through streets so -narrow that one could have reached out and touched the potted -geraniums which lined the balconies of the cottages on either side. -Laughing, towheaded children waved from the doorways as we -passed by. Roger, intent on his driving, didn’t respond to the exuberance -of the youngsters, and I wondered if he might be thinking -of the villages of his own country, where the invaders had left a -bitter legacy of wan faces.</p> - -<p>It was after seven when we reached the battered outskirts of -Linz, the city of Hitler’s special adoration. He had lavished his -attention on the provincial old town, his mother’s birthplace, hoping -to make it a serious rival of Vienna as an art center. To this -end, plans for a magnificent museum had been drawn up, and already -an impressive collection of pictures had been assembled -against the day when a suitable building would be ready to receive -them.</p> - -<p>We approached the city from the west—its most damaged sector. -It was rough going, as the streets were full of chuckholes and narrowed -by piles of rubble heaped high on both sides. There was no -sign of an escort, so we drew up beside an information post at a -main intersection. Our cavalcade was too large to miss, as long -as we stayed in one place. We waited nearly an hour before a jeep<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_84"></a>[84]</span> -came along. A jaunty young lieutenant came over, introduced -himself as the colonel’s “emissary” and said that he had been -combing the town for us. The confusion of the debris-filled streets -had caused us to take a wrong turn and, consequently, we had -missed the main thoroughfare into town. The lieutenant, whose -name was George Anderson, led us by a devious route to a large, -barrackslike building with a forecourt which afforded ample parking -space for the trucks. Billets had already been arranged, as -promised, but to get food at such a late hour was another matter. -However, by dint of coaxing in the right quarter, Anderson even -contrived to do that.</p> - -<p>As we drove off in his jeep to the hotel where the officers were -billeted, he remarked with a laugh that he wouldn’t be able to do -as well by me but thought he could dig up something. The hotel -was called the “Weinzinger,” and Anderson said that Hitler had -often stayed there. Leaving me to get settled, he went off on a -foraging expedition. He returned shortly with an armful of rations, -a bottle of cognac and a small contraption that looked like a tin -case for playing cards. This ingenious little device, with a turn of -the wrist, opened out into a miniature stove. Fuel for it came in -the form of white lozenges that resembled moth balls. Two of -these, lighted simultaneously, produced a flame of such intensity -that one could boil water in less than a quarter of an hour. I got -out my mess kit while Anderson opened the rations, and in ten -minutes we whipped up a hot supper of lamb stew. With a generous -slug of cognac for appetizer, the lack of variety in the menu -was completely forgotten.</p> - -<p>While we topped off with chocolate bars, I asked him about -conditions up the line in the direction of Hohenfurth.</p> - -<p>“You won’t have any trouble once you reach Hohenfurth, because<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_85"></a>[85]</span> -it’s occupied by our troops,” he said, “but before swinging -north into Czechoslovakia you’ll have to pass through Russian-held -Austrian territory.”</p> - -<p>This was bad news, for I had no clearance from the Russians. I -hadn’t foreseen the need of it. Captain Posey couldn’t have known -about it either because he was punctilious and would never have let -me start off without the necessary papers.</p> - -<p>I had heard stories of the attitude of the Russians toward anyone -entering their territory without proper authorization. An officer in -Munich told me that his convoy had been stopped. He had been -subjected to a series of interrogations and not allowed to proceed -for a week.</p> - -<p>“Could your colonel obtain clearance for me from the Russians?” -I asked.</p> - -<p>“He could try, but it would probably take weeks,” Anderson -said. “If you’re in a hurry, your best bet is to take a chance and go -on through without clearance. You never can tell about the Russians. -They might stop you and again they might not.”</p> - -<p>Then I mentioned my problem children—my German packers. -Anderson didn’t think the Russians would look on them with much -favor, if my trucks were stopped and inspected. I asked about another -road to Hohenfurth. Perhaps there was one to the west of -the Russian lines. He didn’t know about any other route but said -that we could take a look at the big map in the O.D.’s office on the -next floor.</p> - -<p>To my great relief, it appeared that there was another road—one -which ran parallel with the main road, four or five miles to the west -of it. But Anderson tempered enthusiasm with the remark that -it might not be wide enough for my two-and-a-half-ton trucks. -There was nothing on the map to indicate whether it was much<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_86"></a>[86]</span> -more than a cow path and the duty officer didn’t know. One of the -other officers might be able to tell me. I could ask in the morning.</p> - -<p>That night I worried a good deal about the hazards that seemed -to lie ahead, and woke up feeling depressed. Things, I reflected, -had been going too well. I should have guessed that there would -be rough spots here and there. After early breakfast I called to -thank the colonel, Anderson’s chief, for his kindness, and while -in his office had a chance to inquire about the alternate route.</p> - -<p>“The back road is all right,” he said without hesitation. “Take -it by all means. You will cross the Czech frontier just north of -Leonfelden. A telephone call to our officer at the border control -will fix that up. You should be able to make Hohenfurth in about -two hours. The C.O. at Hohenfurth is Lieutenant Colonel Sheehan -of the 263rd Field Artillery Battalion.”</p> - -<p>On my way through the outer office I stopped for a word with -Lieutenant Anderson, and while there the colonel gave instructions -about the call to the border control post. That done, Anderson -said, “If you’ve got a minute, there’s something I want to show -you.” I followed him down the stairs and through the back entrance -of the hotel to the broad esplanade beside the Danube. -The river was beautiful that morning. Its swiftly flowing waters -were really blue.</p> - -<p>We walked over to the river where a white yacht tugged at her -moorings. She was the <i>Ungaria</i>, presented by Hitler to Admiral -Horthy, the Hungarian Regent. Anderson took me aboard and we -made a tour of her luxurious cabins. She was about a hundred -twenty feet over all and her fittings were lavish to the last detail. -The vessel was now in the custody of the American authorities, but -her original crew was still aboard.</p> - -<p>After this unexpected nautical adventure, Anderson took me to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_87"></a>[87]</span> -my trucks and saw us off on the last lap of the journey. Beyond -Urfahr, the town across the Danube from Linz, we turned north. -It was slow going for the convoy because the road was steep and -winding. Our progress was further impeded by an endless line of -horse-drawn carts and wagons, all moving in the direction of Linz. -Most of them were filled with household furnishings. Presently -the road straightened out and we entered a region of rolling, upland -meadows and deep pine forests. After an hour and a half’s -drive we reached Leonfelden, a pretty village with a seventeenth -century church nestling in a shallow valley. Just beyond it was -the frontier. We identified ourselves to the two officers—one -American, the other Czech—and continued on our way. Our entry -into Czechoslovakia had been singularly undramatic. In another -twenty minutes we pulled into Hohenfurth.</p> - -<p>It was not a particularly prepossessing village on first sight. -Drab, one-story houses lined the one main street. The headquarters -of the 263rd Field Artillery Battalion occupied an unpretentious -corner building. Lieutenant Colonel John R. Sheehan, the -C.O., was a big, amiable fellow, with a Boston-Irish accent.</p> - -<p>“If you’ve come for that stuff in the monastery,” he said, “just -tell me what you need and I’ll see that you get it. I’m anxious to -get the place cleared out because we’re not going to be here much -longer. When we leave, the Czechs are going to take over.” The -colonel called for Major Coleman W. Thacher, his “Exec,” a -pleasant young Bostonian, and told him to see that I was properly -taken care of. The major, in turn, instructed his sergeant to show -me the way to the monastery and to provide billets for my men.</p> - -<p>It was after eleven, but the sergeant said we’d have time to take -a look at the monastery before chow. He suggested that we take -the trucks to the monastery, which was not more than three-quarters<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_88"></a>[88]</span> -of a mile from headquarters. We drove down a narrow side -street to the outskirts of town. The small villas on either side were -being used for officers’ billets. The street ended abruptly, and up -ahead to the left, on a slight eminence, I saw the cream-colored -walls of the monastery.</p> - -<p>A curving dirt road wound around to the entrance on the west -side. The monastery consisted of a series of rambling buildings -forming two courtyards. In the center of the larger of these stood -a chapel of impressive proportions. An arched passageway, leading -through one of the buildings on the rim of the enclosure, provided -the only means of access to the main courtyard. It had plenty of -“Old World charm” but looked awfully small in comparison with -our trucks.</p> - -<p>Leclancher pooh-poohed my fears and said he’d take his truck -through. He did—that is, part way through. With a hideous -scraping sound the truck came to a sudden stop. The bows supporting -the tarpaulin had not cleared the sloping sides of the pointed -arch. This was a fine mess, for it was a good two hundred yards -from the entrance to the building, behind the chapel, in which the -things were stored. It would prolong the operation beyond all -reason if we had to carry them all that way to the trucks. And -what if it rained? As if in answer to my apprehension, it suddenly -did rain, a hard drenching downpour. I should have had more -faith in the resourcefulness of my Frenchmen; at that critical juncture -Leclancher announced that he had found the solution. The -bows of the trucks could be forced down just enough to clear the -archway.</p> - -<p>As soon as this had been done, nine of the trucks filed through -and lined up alongside the buttresses of the chapel. The tenth -remained outside to take the drivers and the two packers to chow.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_89"></a>[89]</span> -After seeing to it that they were properly cared for, the sergeant -deposited me at the officers’ mess.</p> - -<p>At lunch, Colonel Sheehan introduced me to the military Government -Officer of his outfit, Major Lewis W. Whittemore, a bluff -Irishman, who gave me considerable useful information about the -setup at the monastery.</p> - -<p>“Mutter, an elderly Austrian, is in charge of the collections stored -there—a custodian appointed by the Nazis. He is a dependable -fellow so we’ve allowed him to stay on the job. You’ll find him -thoroughly co-operative,” said the major. “One of the buildings -of the monastery is being used as a hospital for German wounded.”</p> - -<p>“Are there any monks about the place?” I asked.</p> - -<p>“Hitler ran them all out, but a few have returned. When Hohenfurth -is turned over to the Czechs, it will make quite a change in -this Sudetenland community. Even the name is going to be -changed—to its Czech equivalent, Vysi Brod. All the signs in -town will be printed in Czech, too. It will be the official language. -Except for a few families, the entire population is German.”</p> - -<p>“How will that work?” I asked.</p> - -<p>The major apparently interpreted my question as an expression -of disapproval of the impending change-over, for he said rather -belligerently, “The Czechs in this region have had a mighty raw -deal from the Germans during the past few years.” I rallied weakly -with the pious observation that two wrongs had never made a right -and that I hoped some satisfactory solution to the knotty problem -could be reached.</p> - -<p>By the time we had finished lunch the rain had dwindled to a -light drizzle. I started out on foot to the monastery, leaving word -at the colonel’s quarters for the sergeant to meet me in the courtyard -of the <i>Kloster</i>. He got there about the same time I did, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_90"></a>[90]</span> -together we started looking for Dr. Mutter, the Austrian custodian. -We went first to the library of the monastery—a beautiful baroque -room lined with sumptuous bookcases of burled walnut surmounted -with elaborate carved and gilded scroll-shaped decorations. The -room was beautifully proportioned, some seventy feet long and -about forty feet wide. Tall French windows looked out on the -peaceful monastery garden, which, for lack of care, was now overgrown -with tangled vines and brambles. Along the opposite side -of the handsome room stood a row of massive sixteenth century -Italian refectory tables piled high with miscellaneous bric-a-brac: -Empire candelabra, Moorish plates, Venetian glass, Della Robbia -plaques and Persian ceramics. Across one end, an assortment of -Louis Quinze sofas and chairs seemed equally out of place. What, -I wondered, were these incongruous objects doing in this religious -establishment?</p> - -<p>The explanation was soon forthcoming. The sergeant found Dr. -Mutter in a small room adjoining the library. He was a lanky, -studious individual with a shock of snow-white hair, prominent -teeth and a gentle manner which just missed being fawning. Hohenfurth’s -Uriah Heep, I thought unkindly. The moment he began to -speak in halting English, I revised my estimate of him. He was -neither crafty nor vicious. On the contrary, he was just a timid, -and, at the moment, frightened victim of circumstance. What German -I know has an Austrian flavor, and when I trotted this out he -was so embarrassingly happy that I wished I had kept my tongue in -my head. But it served to establish an <i>entente cordiale</i> which -proved valuable during the next few days. They were to be more -hectic than I had even faintly imagined.</p> - -<p>After a little introductory palaver, I explained that I had come -to remove the collections which had been brought to the monastery<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_91"></a>[91]</span> -by the Germans, and that I would like to make a preliminary tour -of inspection. I suggested that we look first at the paintings.</p> - -<p>“Paintings?” he asked doubtfully. “You mean the modern pictures? -They are not very good—just the work of some of the -Nazi artists. They were brought here—and quite a lot of sculpture -too—when it was announced that Hitler was coming to Hohenfurth -to see the really important things.”</p> - -<p>Then I learned what he meant by the “really important things”—room -after room, corridor after corridor, all crammed with furniture -and sculpture, methodically looted from two fabulous collections, -the Rothschild of Vienna and the Mannheimer of Amsterdam. -By comparison, the Hearst collection at Gimbel’s was trifling. -The things I had seen in the library were only a small part of this -mélange. In an adjoining chamber—a vaulted gallery, fifty feet -long—there were a dozen pieces of French and Dutch marquetry. -And stacked against the walls were entire paneled rooms, coffered -ceilings and innumerable marble busts. Next to that was a room -crowded with more of the same sort of thing, except that the pieces -were small and more delicate. In one corner I saw an extraordinary -table made entirely of tortoise shell and mounted with exquisite -ormolu.</p> - -<p>It was an antique-hunter’s paradise, but for me quite the reverse. -How was I going to move all of this stuff? Dr. Mutter -could see that I was perplexed, and apologetically added that I -had seen only a part of the collections. Remembering that I had -asked to see the pictures, he took me to a corner room containing -approximately a hundred canvases. As he had said, they were a -thoroughly dull lot—portraits of Hitler, Hess and some of the -other Nazi leaders, tiresome allegorical scenes, a few battle subjects -and a group of landscapes. The labels pasted on the backs indicated<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_92"></a>[92]</span> -that they had all been shown at one time or another in -exhibitions at the Haus der Deutschen Kunst in Munich. While I -was looking at them, Dr. Mutter shyly confessed that he was a -painter but that he didn’t admire this kind of work.</p> - -<p>On the floor below, there was a forest of contemporary German -sculpture—plaster casts, for the most part, all patinated to -resemble bronze. In addition there were a few portrait busts in -bronze and one or two pieces in glazed terra cotta. The terra-cotta -pieces had some merit. The sculpture occupied one entire -side of a broad corridor which ran around the four sides of a charming -inner garden. The corridor had originally been open but the -archways were now glassed in. Turning a corner, we came upon a -jumble of architectural fragments—carved Gothic pinnacles, sections -of delicately chiseled moldings, colonnettes, Florentine well-heads -and wall fountains. At one end was a pair of elaborate -gilded wrought-iron doors and at either side were handsome wall -lanterns, also of wrought iron. These too were Mannheimer, Dr. -Mutter replied, when I hopefully asked if they were not a part of -the monastery fittings.</p> - -<p>As final proof of the looters’ thorough methods, I was shown a -vaulted reception hall, into the walls of which had been set a large -and magnificent relief by Luca della Robbia, a smaller but also -very beautiful relief of the Madonna and Child by some Florentine -sculptor of the fifteenth century, and an enormous carved stone -fireplace of Renaissance workmanship. The hall was stacked with -huge cases as yet unpacked, and from the ceiling were suspended -two marvelous Venetian glass chandeliers—exotic accents against -a background of chaste plaster walls.</p> - -<p>This partial tour of inspection ended with a smaller room across -from the reception hall where Dr. Mutter proudly exhibited what<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_93"></a>[93]</span> -he considered the finest thing of all—a life-sized, seated marble -portrait by Canova. It was indeed a distinguished piece of work. -Hitler had bought the statue in Vienna, so Dr. Mutter said, from -the Princess Windischgrätz. It had been destined for the Führer -Museum at Linz.</p> - -<p>I learned afterward that the statue had belonged at one time to -the Austrian emperor, Franz Josef. Canova began the statue in -1812 as a portrait of Maria-Elisa, Princess of Lucca—a sister of -Napoleon. The sculptor’s more celebrated portrait of Napoleon’s -sister Pauline had been carved a few years earlier. When Maria-Elisa -lost her throne and fortune, she was unable to pay for the portrait. -But Canova was resourceful: he changed the portrait into a -statue of Polyhymnia, the Muse of poetry and song. He accomplished -this metamorphosis by idealizing the head and adding the -appropriate attributes of the Muse. Later the statue was given -to Franz Josef. Eventually it passed into the collection of his -granddaughter—the daughter of Rudolf, who died at Mayerling—the -Princess Windischgrätz.</p> - -<p>The statue was one of the most delicate and graceful examples -of the great neoclassic master’s style, and I marveled both at its -cold perfection and the fact that it had come through its travels -completely unscathed. For all her airy elegance, the Muse must -weigh at least a ton and a half, I calculated—suddenly coming down -to earth with the realization that I would be expected to take her -back to Munich!</p> - -<p>Over Dr. Mutter’s protest that I had not yet seen everything, I -said that I should get my men started. There was no time to be -lost. Colonel Sheehan provided eight men and, after cautioning -them about the value and fragility of the objects, I detailed Dr. -Mutter to supervise their work. The first job was to bring some of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_94"></a>[94]</span> -the furniture down to the ground floor. As yet we had no packing -materials, so we could do no actual loading. The next step was to -show the packers what we were up against. At first they went from -room to room shaking their heads and muttering, but after I had -explained that we would only select certain things, they cheered up -and set to work. Luckily, some of the furniture had a fair amount -of protective padding—paper stuffed with excelsior—and that -could be used until we were able to get more. We had enough, -they agreed, to figure on perhaps two truckloads. Leaving them -to mull over that, I went off to round up a couple of the trucks. -Here was another problem. Not only did the furniture have to be -brought down a long flight of stone stairs, but to reach the stairs -in the first place it had to be carried a distance of two hundred -yards. Once down the stairs it had to be carried another two hundred -yards down a long sloping ramp to the only doorway opening -onto the courtyard. I told Leclancher to bring one of the -trucks around to that doorway and then took off in search of paper, -excelsior, rope and blankets. In one of the near-by sheds I found -only a small supply of paper and some twine. We would need -much more.</p> - -<p>Major Whittemore came to the rescue and drove me to a lumber -and paper mill several kilometers away. As we drove along he -told me that he had been having trouble with the German managers -of the mill, but they knew now that he meant business, so I -was not to <i>ask</i> for what I wanted, I was to <i>tell</i> them. At the mill -I got a generous supply of paper, excelsior and rope and, on my -return to the monastery, sent one of the trucks back to pick it up. -But there wasn’t a spare blanket to be had in all of Hohenfurth.</p> - -<p>When I got back, it looked like moving day. The ramp was -already lined with tables, chairs and chests. Dr. Mutter was running<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_95"></a>[95]</span> -back and forth, cautioning one GI not to drop a delicate -cabinet, helping another with an overambitious armful of equal -rarity and all the while trying in vain to check the numbers marked -on the pieces as they flowed down the stairs in a steady stream. -Meanwhile, my two packers trudged up and down the ramp, lugging -heavy chests and monstrous panels which looked more than -a match for men twice their size.</p> - -<p>In spite of their concerted efforts, we didn’t have anything like -enough help, so I appealed to Leclancher. With discouraging independence, -he indicated that his men were drivers, not furniture -movers, and that he couldn’t order them to help. But he would put -it up to them. After a serious conference with them, Leclancher -reported that they had agreed to join the work party. Now, with -a crew of twenty, things moved along at a faster pace. With a -couple of the GIs, the two packers and I set to work loading the -first truck. Here was where the little Rackhamites shone. In half -an hour the first truck was packed and ready to be driven back to its -place beside the chapel wall. The second truck was brought up -and before long joined its groaning companion, snugly parked -against a buttress.</p> - -<p>Presently, the eight GIs trooped out into the courtyard. It was -half past five and time for chow. The Frenchmen knocked off too, -leaving Dr. Mutter, the two packers and me to take stock of the -afternoon’s accomplishment. While we were thus engaged, Leclancher -came to tell me that my driver, the one I called “Double -Roger,” was feeling sick and wanted to see a doctor. In the confusion -of the afternoon’s work I hadn’t noticed that he was not -about. We found him curled up in the back of the truck and feeling -thoroughly miserable. I drove him down to the Medical Office -in the village and there Dr. Sverdlik, the Battalion Surgeon, examined<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_96"></a>[96]</span> -him. Roger’s complaint was a severe pain in the midriff and -the doctor suggested heat treatments. He said that the German -surgeon up at the monastery hospital had the necessary equipment.</p> - -<p>That seemed simple enough, since the drivers were billeted in -rooms adjoining the hospital wing. But I reckoned without -Roger. What? Be treated by a German doctor? He was terrified -at the prospect, and it required all my powers of persuasion to -talk him into it. Finally he agreed, but only after Dr. Sverdlik had -telephoned to the hospital doctor and given explicit instructions. I -also had to promise to stand by while the doctor ministered to -him.</p> - -<p>The German, Major Brecker, was methodical and thorough. He -found that Roger had a kidney infection and recommended that he -be taken to a hospital as soon as possible. I explained that we -would not be returning to Munich for at least two days and asked -if the delay would be dangerous. He said that he thought not. In -the meantime he would keep Roger under a “heat basket.” Roger -eyed this device with suspicion but truculently allowed it to be -applied. When I went off to my supper, twenty minutes later, he -was sleeping peacefully—but not alone. Three of his fellow -drivers were sprawled on cots near by, just in case that Boche had -any intentions of playing tricks on their comrade. Maybe not, but -they were taking no chances! What a lot of children they were, I -thought, as I walked wearily down to supper.</p> - -<p>That evening I asked the colonel if I could get hold of some -PWs to help out with the work the following day. He said that -there was a large camp between Hohenfurth and Krummau and -that I could have as many as I wanted. So I put in a bid for sixteen. -After arranging for them to be at the monastery at eight the -next morning, I went to my own quarters which were in a house just -across the way.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;" id="illus19"> -<img src="images/illus19.jpg" width="500" height="350" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">At the Rest House at Unterstein near Berchtesgaden, Major Harry -Anderson supervises the removal of the Göring Collection, brought from -Karinhall, near Berlin.</p> -<p class="caption-r"><i>International News Photo</i></p> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;" id="illus20"> -<img src="images/illus20.jpg" width="500" height="350" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">One of the forty rooms in the Rest House in which the Göring pictures, -1,100 in all, were exhibited before their removal to Munich for subsequent -restitution.</p> -<p class="caption-r"><i>International News Photo</i></p> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;" id="illus21"> -<img src="images/illus21.jpg" width="500" height="350" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">The GI Work Party which assisted the Special Evacuation Team (Lieutenants -Howe, Moore and Kovalyak) pack the Göring Collection for -removal from Berchtesgaden to Munich.</p> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;" id="illus22"> -<img src="images/illus22.jpg" width="500" height="350" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">Truck loaded with sculpture from the Göring Collection at Berchtesgaden. -Statues were packed upright in excelsior for removal to the Central -Collecting Point in Munich.</p> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_97"></a>[97]</span></p> - -<p>I had one little errand of mercy to take care of before I turned -in. There was a recreation room on the first floor and adjoining -it a makeshift bar. Most of the officers had gone to the movies, so -I managed to slip in unobserved and pilfer two bottles of beer. -Tucking them inside my blouse, I made off for the monastery. -There, after some difficulty in finding my way around the dark passageways, -I located the rooms occupied by my two little packers. -They were making ready for bed, but when they saw what I had -for them, their leathery old faces lighted up with ecstatic smiles. -If I had been a messenger from heaven, they couldn’t have been -happier. Leaving them clucking over their unexpected refreshments, -I went back to my own billet and fell into bed. I hadn’t had -exactly what one would call a restful day myself.</p> - -<p>That beer worked wonders I hadn’t anticipated. When I arrived -at the monastery a little before eight the next morning I found that -my two packers, together with Dr. Mutter, had been at work since -seven. As yet there was no sign of the Frenchmen, but I thought -that they would probably show up before long. At eight my gang -of PWs appeared and the sergeant who brought them explained -that I wouldn’t be having the crew of GIs who had helped out -the day before. When I protested that I needed them more urgently -than ever, he informed me that the combination of GI and PW -labor simply wouldn’t work out; that I certainly couldn’t expect to -have them both doing the same kind of work together. I said that -I most certainly could and did expect it. Well, my protest was -completely unavailing, and if I had to make a choice I was probably -better off with the sixteen PWs. Perhaps my two packers<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_98"></a>[98]</span> -could get enough work out of them to compensate for the loss of -the GIs.</p> - -<p>I had just finished assigning various jobs to the PWs when -Leclancher turned up. “May I have a word with you?” he asked. -“It is about Roger.”</p> - -<p>“What about Roger? Is he any worse?” I asked.</p> - -<p>“No, but he is not any better either,” he said. “Is it possible -that we shall be returning to Munich tomorrow morning?”</p> - -<p>“Not the ghost of a chance,” I said. “We shan’t be through -loading before tomorrow night. We’re too shorthanded.”</p> - -<p>“But if we all pitched in and worked, even after supper?” he -asked.</p> - -<p>“It would make a big difference,” I said. “But it’s entirely up -to you. It’s certainly worth a try if the drivers are willing.”</p> - -<p>I’ll never forget that day. I never saw Frenchmen move with -such rapidity or with such singleness of purpose. When five o’clock -came, we had finished loading the fifth truck. Taking into account -the two from the preceding day, that left only three more trucks -to fill. Leclancher came to me again. The drivers wanted to work -until it got dark. That meant until nine o’clock. Knowing that the -two packers were equally eager to get back to Munich, I agreed. I -hurried off to call the sergeant about the PWs. Special arrangements -would have to be made to feed them if we were keeping -on the job after supper. Also, I had to make sure that someone at -Battalion Headquarters would be able to provide a vehicle to take -them back to their camp.</p> - -<p>While the drivers went off to chow and the PWs were being -fed in the hospital kitchen, I joined Dr. Mutter and the packers to -discuss these new developments. I felt sure that I would be returning -to Hohenfurth in another few days with additional trucks to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_99"></a>[99]</span> -complete the evacuation. That being the case, some preliminary -planning was necessary. I instructed Dr. Mutter to call in a stonemason -to remove the Della Robbia relief and the other pieces -which had been set into the walls, so that they would be ready for -packing when we came back. I gave him a written order which -would enable him to lay in a supply of lumber for packing cases -which would have to be built for some of the more fragile pieces. -Lastly, the four of us surveyed the storage rooms and made an estimate -of the number of trucks we would need for the things still -on hand.</p> - -<p>To save time I had a couple of chocolate bars for my supper and -was ready to resume work when our combined forces reappeared. -The next two hours and a half went by like a whirlwind and by -eight o’clock we knotted down the tarpaulin on the last truck. -Everybody was content. Even the PWs seemed less glum than -usual, but that was probably because they had been so well fed in -the hospital kitchen.</p> - -<p>If we were to make it through to Munich in the one day, we -would have to start off early the next morning. Accordingly I left -word that the trucks were to be lined up outside the monastery -entrance at seven-thirty sharp. Then I went down to the colonel’s -quarters to see about an armed escort for the convoy. I found -Colonel Sheehan and Major Thacher making preparations to “go -out on the town.” They looked very spruce in their pinks and were -in high spirits.</p> - -<p>“We missed you at supper,” said the colonel. “How’s the work -coming along?”</p> - -<p>“My trucks are loaded and ready to roll first thing in the morning -if I can have an escort,” I said.</p> - -<p>“That calls for a celebration,” he said. “Pour yourself a drink.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_100"></a>[100]</span> -I’ll make a bargain with you. You can have the escort on one condition—that -you join our party tonight.”</p> - -<p>I didn’t protest. I thought it was a swell idea. A few minutes -later, the captain with whom I was billeted arrived and the four -of us set out for an evening of fun.</p> - -<p>In the short space of two days I had grown very fond of these -three officers, although we had met only at mealtime. They were, -in fact, characteristic of all the officers I had encountered at Hohenfurth—friendly, -good-natured and ready to do anything they could -to help. That they were all going home soon may have had something -to do with their contented outlook on life, and they deserved -their contentment. As members of the 26th Division, the famous -“Yankee Division,” they had seen plenty of action, and as we drove -along that night in the colonel’s car, my three companions did a -lot of reminiscing.</p> - -<p>While they exchanged stories, I had a chance to enjoy the romantic -countryside through which we were passing. We were, the -colonel had said, headed for Krummau, an old town about fifteen -miles away.</p> - -<p>The road followed along the winding Moldau River, which had -an almost supernatural beauty in the glow of the late evening light. -The bright green banks were mirrored, crystal clear, on its unrippled -surface, as were the rose-gold colors of the evening clouds.</p> - -<p>We crossed the river at Rosenberg, and as we went over the -bridge I noticed that it bore—as do all bridges in that region—the -figure of St. John Nepomuk, patron saint of Bohemia. The castle, -perched high above the river, was the ancestral seat of the Dukes -of Rosenberg who ruled this part of Bohemia for hundreds of years. -One of them murdered his wife and, according to the legend, she -still haunted the castle. Robed in white, she was said to walk the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_101"></a>[101]</span> -battlements each night between eleven-thirty and twelve. Major -Thacher thought that we should test the legend by paying a visit to -the castle on our return from Krummau later that evening.</p> - -<p>When we arrived in Krummau it was too dark to see much of the -old town except the outline of the gray buildings which lined the -narrow streets. Our objective was a night club operated by members -of an underground movement which was said to have flourished -there throughout the years of Nazi oppression. There was -nothing in any way remarkable about the establishment, but it -provided a little variety for the officers stationed thereabouts. My -companions were popular patrons of the place. They were royally -welcomed by the proprietor, who found a good table for us, not -too near the small noisy orchestra. Two pretty Czech girls joined -us and we all took turns dancing. There were so many more men -than girls that we had to be content with one dance each. Then -the girls moved on to another table.</p> - -<p>We whiled away a couple of hours at the club before the colonel -said that we should be starting back. I hoped that we would be in -time to pay our respects to the phantom duchess, but the clock in -the square was striking twelve when we rumbled through the empty -streets of Rosenberg. It had begun to rain again.</p> - -<p>At six the next morning, I looked sleepily out the window. It -was still raining. We would have a slow trip unless the weather -cleared, and I thought apprehensively of the steep road leading -into Linz. Fresh eggs—instead of the usual French toast—and two -cups of black coffee brightened my outlook on the soggy morning -and I was further cheered to find the convoy smartly lined up like -a row of circus elephants when I reached the monastery at seven-thirty. -Leclancher had taken the lead truck and the ailing Roger -was bundled up in the cab of one of the others.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_102"></a>[102]</span></p> - -<p>Dr. Mutter waved agitated farewells from beneath the ribs of a -tattered umbrella as we slid slowly down the monastery drive. -At the corner of the main street of the village we picked up our -escort, two armed jeeps. They conducted us to the border where -we gathered in two similar vehicles which would set the pace for -us into Linz. The bad weather was in one respect an advantage: -there was practically no traffic on the road.</p> - -<p>At Linz I stopped long enough to thank Anderson and his colonel -for the escort vehicles they had produced on a moment’s notice -that morning in response to a call from Colonel Sheehan. This third -pair of jeeps were very conscientious about their escort duties. The -one in the vanguard kept well in the lead and would signal us -whenever he came to a depression in the road. This got on Leclancher’s -nerves, for I heard him muttering under his breath every -time it happened. But I was so glad to have an escort of any kind -that I pretended not to notice his irritation.</p> - -<p>When we reached Lambach, midway between Linz and Salzburg, -we lost this pair of guardians but acquired two sent on from -the latter city. While waiting for them to appear, I scrounged -lunch for myself and the drivers at a local battery. As soon as the -new escorts arrived we started on again and pulled into Salzburg -at two-thirty. This time there were no delays and we threaded our -way through the dripping streets and out on to the Autobahn without -mishap.</p> - -<p>I now had only one remaining worry—the bad detour near -Rosenheim. Again, perhaps thanks to the weather, we were in -luck and found this treacherous by-pass free of traffic. As we rolled -into Munich, the rain let up and by the time we turned into the -Königsplatz, the sun had broken through the clearing skies.</p> - -<p>My first major evacuation job was finished. As soon as I got my<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_103"></a>[103]</span> -drivers fixed up with transportation back to their camp and the -members of our escort party fed and billeted I could relax with a -clear conscience. It was a little after five-thirty, and Third Army’s -inflexible habits about the hour at which all enlisted men should -eat didn’t make this problem such an easy one. Third Army Headquarters -was a good twenty minutes away, so I took the men to the -Military Government Detachment where the meal schedule was -more elastic. Afterward I shepherded them to their billets and -went off to my own. I would have to write up a report of the expedition -for Captain Posey, but that could wait.</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_104"></a>[104]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_5">(5)<br /> -<span class="smaller"><i>SECOND TRIP TO HOHENFURTH</i></span></h2> - -</div> - -<p>The first order of business the next morning was a conference with -Captain Posey. I gave him a complete account of the Hohenfurth -trip and presented my recommendations for a second and final -visit to complete the evacuation. It was my suggestion that I return -to the monastery with the same trucks—as soon as they could -be unloaded and serviced—and that he send up another officer with -at least eight additional trucks, the second convoy to arrive by the -time I had completed the loading of my own. I proposed taking -four packers this time instead of two, the idea being that two of -the packers could help me with the loading while the others were -building cases for the fragile objects which would have to be crated. -I mentioned also the impending withdrawal of our troops from -Hohenfurth, which would make later operations of such nature impossible.</p> - -<p>This was of course no news to Captain Posey as, presumably, it -had been the determining factor in the removal of the Hohenfurth -things in the first place. He approved my plan and advised me -to get my trucks lined up, and said he would see what he could -do about sending an additional officer. I didn’t like the sound of -that. Too often I had used those same words myself when confronted -with a difficult request. Furthermore, it had been my -experience with the Army in general thus far—and with Third -Army in particular—that “out of sight, out of mind” was a favorite -motto. I had no intention of going back to Hohenfurth until I<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_105"></a>[105]</span> -had a definite promise that reinforcements would be forthcoming. -I think that my insistence piqued the captain a bit. But at that -point I was feeling exceedingly brisk and businesslike—a mood -which I found new and stimulating. It would be better to have a -clear understanding now as to who would join me in Hohenfurth; -as I explained to Captain Posey, I would like to give the officer -some detailed instructions, preferably oral ones, before I started -off.</p> - -<p>I spent the rest of that day and most of the following one at the -Verwaltungsbau supervising the unloading of the ten trucks from -Hohenfurth and making trips out to the trucking company headquarters -to conclude arrangements for continued use of the vehicles. -Also, I had to put in a request for eight others. It was -gratifying to find that every piece we had packed at Hohenfurth -came through without a scratch. My two packers, to whom all -credit for this belonged, were equally elated. My request for the -services of four packers was met with black looks, but when I -promised that we’d not be gone more than four or five days, Craig -acquiesced.</p> - -<p>Late in the afternoon of the second day, I went again to Posey’s -office. He was not there but I found Lincoln, as usual hunched -morosely over his typewriter. He said he had good news for me. -Captain Posey had pulled a fast one and snatched a wonderful -guy away from Jim Rorimer, Monuments Officer at Seventh Army—a -fellow named Lamont Moore. Moore was already, he thought, on -his way down to Munich to make the trip to Hohenfurth. When -I said I didn’t know Moore, Lincoln proceeded to tell me about him.</p> - -<p>“Lamont was director of the educational program at the National -Gallery in Washington before he went into the Army. Before -that he had a brilliant record at the Newark Museum. The<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_106"></a>[106]</span> -two of you ought to get along famously. Lamont’s got a wonderful -sense of humor. He’s exceedingly intelligent and he’s had a -lot of experience in evacuation work.”</p> - -<p>“Where did you know him?” I asked.</p> - -<p>“We were in France last winter. That was before he was commissioned. -He’s a lieutenant now,” Lincoln said.</p> - -<p>“That sounds perfect. But I want to ask you a question about -something else and I want a truthful answer. I have a sneaking notion -that you knew all the time what was in that monastery -at Hohenfurth. How about it?”</p> - -<p>“Furniture and sculpture, you mean, instead of paintings?” he -asked. “Of course I didn’t.”</p> - -<p>“Well, maybe you didn’t, but perhaps you can imagine how I -felt when I found that the Mannheimer collection alone contained -more than two thousand items, and that the Rothschild pieces totaled -up to a similar figure.”</p> - -<p>Lincoln’s chuckle belied his protestations. “I’ve got another -piece of news for you,” he said. “John Nicholas Brown and Mason -Hammond are arriving tomorrow. I thought you might like to -see them before you return to Hohenfurth.”</p> - -<p>“You told me once that Captain Posey, like many another officer, -doesn’t relish visitors from higher headquarters,” I said. “Am I -to infer a connection between his absence from the office and the -impending arrival of these two distinguished emissaries from the -Group Control Council?”</p> - -<p>He assured me that I was not, but I left the office wondering -about it all the same.</p> - -<p>That evening George Stout paid one of his rare and fleeting visits -to Munich. On these occasions he stayed either with Craig or Ham -Coulter. This time the four of us—all “strays” from the Navy—gathered -in Ham’s quarters.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_107"></a>[107]</span></p> - -<p>“The work at the mine,” George said, “is going along as rapidly -as can be expected in the circumstances. But it’s got to be stepped -up. I came down to find out how soon you could join me.”</p> - -<p>“I’m going back to Hohenfurth again,” I said. “Lamont Moore -is to meet me there.”</p> - -<p>George was glad to hear this and said that he and Lamont had -worked together at the Siegen mine in Westphalia. He confirmed -all of the good things Lincoln had told me about Lamont and said -that he’d like to have both of us at Alt Aussee. He promised to -have a talk with Posey about it, because he was of the opinion -that these big evacuation jobs should be handled by a team rather -than by a single officer. According to George, a team of at least -three—and preferably four—officers would be the perfect setup. -Then the work could be divided up. Each officer would have specific -duties, assigned to him on the basis of his particular talents. -But all members of the team would have responsibilities of equal -importance. It would be teamwork in the real sense of the term.</p> - -<p>Like all of George’s proposals, this one sounded very sensible. -At the same time, when I recalled the haphazard way I had been -obliged to conduct operations thus far myself, I wondered if it -weren’t Utopian. That didn’t discourage George. When he had -a good idea he never let go of it. And, if we had only been a -larger group, I am convinced that his brain child about teams -would have had wonderful results. As it was, the events of the -next few weeks were to demonstrate how effective the scheme was -on a small scale.</p> - -<p>When I got out to Third Army Headquarters the next morning, -George had already come and gone. I would have liked to ask -Posey about their conversation but he didn’t seem to be in a chatty -mood—at least not on that subject. However, he did have a few -caustic things to say about “people from high headquarters who<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_108"></a>[108]</span> -have nothing better to do than travel around and interrupt the work -of others.”</p> - -<p>Knowing that he was referring to Messrs. Brown and Hammond—Lincoln’s -assurance of the night before to the contrary notwithstanding—I -piously observed that high-level visitors to the field -might do quite a lot of good. For one thing, the fact that they had -taken the trouble to visit it emphasized the importance of the work -they had come to inspect; and, for another, it pleased the officer -in the field to have his job noticed by the boys at the top. I -thought I sounded pretty convincing, but sensing that I was not, -I turned to other topics.</p> - -<p>About that time John and Mason arrived. Our last meeting -had taken place in the vaults of the Reichsbank at Frankfurt several -weeks before. Mason referred to that and jokingly accused me of -having run out on him. When I told him that I was about to return -to Hohenfurth he announced loudly that that was perfect—he -and John would drop in to see me there. I said that would be fine -but, when I noted the expression on Captain Posey’s face, I added to -myself, “fine, if they get the clearance.” Before coming up to see -me, they expected to visit one or two places south of Munich, so -they wouldn’t reach Hohenfurth before the end of the week.</p> - -<p>Captain Posey was a great believer in the old theory that the -Devil finds work for idle hands, at least as far as I was concerned. -That same afternoon he casually suggested that I take a “little run -down into the Tyrol” for him and inspect a castle about which he -had been asked to make a report. He proposed the trip with such -prewar insouciance that it sounded like a pleasant holiday excursion. -As a matter of fact it was an appealing suggestion, despite -my plans for an early morning start to Hohenfurth.</p> - -<p>It was a beautiful summer day and my jeep driver asked if a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_109"></a>[109]</span> -friend of his, a sergeant who was keen about photography, might -come along. I agreed and the three of us headed out east of Munich -on the Autobahn. It was fun to be riding in an open jeep instead -of an enclosed truck.</p> - -<p>We reached Rosenheim in record time and there struck south -into the mountains. Our objective was the little village of Brixlegg, -between Kufstein and Innsbruck. We were on the main -road to the Brenner Pass. Italy was temptingly close. We stopped -from time to time so that the sergeant could get a snapshot of some -particularly dramatic vista. But there was an embarrassment of -riches—every part of the road was spectacularly beautiful.</p> - -<p>Brixlegg was a tiny cluster of picturesque chalets, but it had not -been tiny enough to elude the attentions of the air force. On the -outskirts we saw the shattered remains of what had been an important -factory for the manufacture of airplane parts. Happily, the -bombers had concentrated their efforts on the factory. The little -village had suffered practically no damage at all.</p> - -<p>We located our castle without difficulty. It was Schloss Matzen, -one of the finest castles of the Tyrol—the property of a British -officer, Vice-Admiral Baillie-Grohman. This gentleman had requested -a report on the castle from the American authorities. We -found everything in perfect order. The admiral’s cousin—a Hungarian -baron named Von Schmedes who spoke excellent English—was -in residence. He showed us over the place. The castle was an -example of intelligent restoration. According to the inscription on -a plaque over the entrance, the aunt of the present owner had -devoted her life to this task.</p> - -<p>Although an “Off Limits” sign was prominently displayed on -the premises, the baron was fearful of intruders. As the castle -stood some distance from the main highway, I thought he was<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_110"></a>[110]</span> -being unduly apprehensive. He said that an official letter of warning -to unwelcome visitors would be an added protection. To -please him I wrote out a statement to the effect that the castle was -an historic monument, the property of a British subject, etc., and -signed it in the name of the Commanding General of the Third -U. S. Army.</p> - -<p>On our way out we were shown two rooms on the ground floor -which were filled with polychromed wood sculpture from the -museum at Innsbruck. The baron said that additional objects from -the Innsbruck museum were stored in a near-by castle, Schloss -Lichtwert.</p> - -<p>It was but a few minutes’ drive from Schloss Matzen, so I decided -to have a look at it. Schloss Lichtwert, though not nearly so picturesque -either in character or as to site, was the more interesting -of the two. It stood baldly in the middle of a field and was actually -a big country house rather than a castle.</p> - -<p>We were hospitably received by a courtly old gentleman, Baron -von Iname, to whom I explained the reason for our visit. One of -his daughters offered to do the honors, saying that her father was -extremely deaf. We followed her to a handsome drawing room -on the second floor, where several other members of the family -were gathered in conversation around a large table set with coffee -things. In one of the wall panels was a concealed door, which the -daughter of the house opened by pressing a hidden spring. Leading -the way, she took us into a room about twenty feet square filled -with violins, violas and ’cellos. They hung in rows from the ceiling, -like hams in a smokehouse. Fräulein von Iname said that the -collection of musical instruments at Innsbruck was a very fine one. -We were standing in a Stradivarius forest.</p> - -<p>When we passed back into the drawing room, the father whispered<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_111"></a>[111]</span> -a few words to his daughter. She turned to us smiling and -said, “Father asked if I had pointed out to you the thickness of the -walls in this part of the castle. He is very proud of the fact that -they date from the fourteenth century and that our family has always -lived here. He also asks me to invite you to take coffee with -us.”</p> - -<p>Knowing that coffee was valued as molten gold, I declined the -invitation on the grounds that we had a long trip ahead of us. -Thanking her for her courtesy, we left. It was after eleven when -we got back to Munich. We had driven a little more than three -hundred miles.</p> - -<p>Bad weather and bad luck attended us all the way to Hohenfurth -the next day. Less than an hour out on the Autobahn, we came -upon a gruesome accident—an overturned jeep and the limp figures -of two GIs at one side of the road, the mangled body of a German -soldier in the center of the pavement. An ambulance had already -arrived and a doctor was ministering to the injured American soldiers. -The German was obviously beyond medical help. As soon as -the road was cleared, we continued—but at a very sober pace.</p> - -<p>On the other side of Salzburg we had carburetor trouble which -held us up for nearly two hours. It was after five thirty when we -reached Linz. We stopped there for supper and I had a few words -with the colonel who had looked after us so well a few days -before. He seemed surprised to see me again, and rather agitated.</p> - -<p>“You can get through this time,” he said, “but don’t try to come -back this way.”</p> - -<p>“What do you mean, sir?” I asked, puzzled by his curt admonition.</p> - -<p>Apparently annoyed by my query, he said brusquely, “Don’t -ask any questions. Just do as I say—don’t come back this way.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_112"></a>[112]</span></p> - -<p>At supper I saw Lieutenant Anderson again and I broached the -subject to him. “Does the colonel mean that the Russians are -expected to move up to the other side of the Danube?” I asked.</p> - -<p>“Take a good look at the bridge when you cross over tonight,” -he said.</p> - -<p>It was my turn to be nettled now. “Look here, I don’t mean to -be intruding on any precious military secret, but I am expecting a -second convoy to join me at Hohenfurth in two days; if the other -trucks aren’t going to be able to get through I ought to let the -people at Third Army Headquarters know.”</p> - -<p>“Well, frankly I don’t know just what the score is, but the colonel -probably has definite information,” he said. “What I meant about -the bridge is that it’s jammed with people and carts, all coming -over to the west side of the Danube. It’s been like that for the -past two days and it can mean only one thing—that the Russians -aren’t far behind.”</p> - -<p>This wasn’t too reassuring, but I decided to take a fatalistic attitude -toward it. If I had to find some other route back from Hohenfurth, -I’d worry about it when the time came. I did, however, try -to get through to Third Army Headquarters on the phone. Posey’s -office didn’t answer, so I asked Anderson to put in a call for me in -the morning.</p> - -<p>It was slow going over the bridge, but we finally forced our way -through the welter of carts and wagons. Once we were in open -country, the traffic thinned out and we moved along at a faster -pace. The Czech and American officers at the frontier recognized -us and waved us through without formality. We arrived in Hohenfurth -a little before nine. I knew the ropes this time, so it was a -simple matter to get the men billeted in the monastery. After that -I went on to my own former billet. When I reached the house, I -found a group of officers in the recreation room. They were holding<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_113"></a>[113]</span> -an informal meeting. Colonel Sheehan was presiding and motioned -to me to join the group. He had just returned from the headquarters -at Budweis with important news. His own orders had -come through, so he would be pulling out for home in a few days. -But of greater concern to me was the news that the Czechs would -definitely take over at the end of the week. We would still have -some troops in the area, but their duties would be greatly curtailed. -I would have to finish the job at the monastery as fast as possible -and head back to Munich.</p> - -<p>We resumed our work at the monastery with surprisingly few -delays. It was almost as if there had been no interruption of our -earlier operations. This time I had double the number of PWs, -so I did not have to call on the drivers to help with the loading. -During my absence, Dr. Mutter had put a stonemason to work on -the pieces which had been set into the wall, and these now lay -like parts of a puzzle in a neat pattern on the floor of the reception -hall, ready to be packed. He had also procured lumber and nails, -so my two extra packers were able to get to work on the cases -which had to be built. By evening, seven of the trucks were loaded, -leaving only one more to do the next day.</p> - -<p>That night I consulted one of the officers, who had a wide knowledge -of the roads in that area, about an alternate route to Munich. -He showed me, on the map, a winding back road which would take -me through Passau—instead of Linz and Salzburg—to Munich. It -was, he said, a very “scenic route” but longer than the way I had -come. He felt sure, though, that I could get my trucks through, that -there were no bad detours, etc. It was comforting to know that this -route existed as a possibility—just in case. But I still had hopes of -being able to go back by way of Linz, in spite of the colonel’s warning.</p> - -<p>The next day was the Fourth of July—not that I expected either<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_114"></a>[114]</span> -my French or German associates to take special notice of the fact. -Still I was glad that I had only one truck to load on the holiday. I -took advantage of the later breakfast hour, knowing that my faithful -German packers would be on the job at seven o’clock as usual. -When I arrived at the monastery at nine-thirty, I found that the -last truck was already half loaded. There was enough room to add -the two cases containing the Della Robbia plaque and the Renaissance -fireplace taken out of the wall; and, if we were careful, we -might find a place for the fifteenth century Florentine relief which -the stonemason had also painstakingly removed. Once that was -done, there was nothing to do but wait for the arrival of Lieutenant -Moore and the additional trucks.</p> - -<p>I called the workmen together. In halting German, I explained -the significance of the Fourth of July and announced that there -would be no more work that day. It was providentially near the -lunch hour. I could send the PWs back to their camp as soon as -they had eaten. The German packers, intent on returning to -Munich as soon as possible, chose to get on with the cases they -were building. Dr. Mutter and I retired to his study to take stock of -the receipts we had thus far made out. As for the French drivers, -they had disappeared to their quarters.</p> - -<p>After lunching at the officers’ mess, I decided to celebrate the -Glorious Fourth in my own quiet way. Major Whittemore had lent -me a car, so I set out on an expedition of my own devising. Ever -since the night of our trip to Krummau, I had wanted to explore the -castle of Rosenberg, and this seemed the logical time to do it. -Rosenberg was only eight kilometers away.</p> - -<p>It was a sleepy summer afternoon. Not a leaf was stirring as -I followed the winding Moldau into the pretty village with its -storybook castle. The road to the castle was rough and tortuous,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_115"></a>[115]</span> -reminding me of a back road in the Tennessee mountain country. -Just as I was beginning to wonder if the little sedan were equal to -the climb, the road turned sharply into a level areaway before the -castle courtyard.</p> - -<p>I parked the car and went in search of the caretaker. When I -found no one, I ascended a flight of stone steps which led from the -courtyard to the second floor. The room at the head of the stairs -was empty, but I heard voices in the one adjoining. Two cleaning -women were scrubbing the floor, chattering to each other as they -worked. They were startled to see me, but one of them had the -presence of mind to scurry off and return a few minutes later with -the archetype of all castle caretakers. He had been custodian for the -past fifty-six years. Lately there hadn’t been many visitors.</p> - -<p>He took me first to the picture gallery—a long high-ceilinged -room with tall windows looking out over the river. There were -a dozen full-length canvases around the rough plaster walls, past -Dukes of Rosenberg and their sour-faced Duchesses. The <i>clou</i> of -the collection was a tubercular lady in seventeenth century costume. -The caretaker solemnly informed me that she was the ill-fated -duchess who paced the ramparts of the castle every night just before -twelve. She had lived, he told me, in the fourteenth century. -When I mentioned as tactfully as possible that her gown indicated -she had been a mere three hundred years ahead of the styles, he -gave me a dirty look as much as to say, “a disbeliever.” I did my -best to erase this unfortunate impression and proceeded to the next -series of apartments. They included a weapon room, a sumptuous -state bedchamber reserved for royal visitors, several richly furnished -reception rooms, and a long gallery called the Crusaders’ -Hall—a copy, the caretaker said, of a room in the Palace at Versailles. -Here hung full-length portraits of such historic personages<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_116"></a>[116]</span> -as Godefroy de Bouillon, Robert Guiscard and Frederick Barbarossa—all -done by an indifferent German painter of the last century. -Notwithstanding its ostentatious atmosphere, the gallery -had a dignity quite in keeping with the musty elegance of the castle.</p> - -<p>I thanked the old man, gave him a couple of cigarettes and returned -to the car. It was time for me to be getting back to the -monastery.</p> - -<p>I gauged my arrival nicely. As I pulled up to the entrance, the -guard at the archway came over to the car to tell me that eight -trucks had just driven through. When I reached the courtyard -the last of them was backing up against the chapel wall.</p> - -<p>A tall, rangy lieutenant, wearing the familiar helmet liner prescribed -by Third Army regulations, walked up to the car as I was -getting out and said, “Good afternoon, sir. Dr. Livingstone, I -presume?”</p> - -<p>So this was Lamont Moore. Just as Lincoln had predicted, I -liked him at once. There was a quiet self-possession about him, -coupled with a quizzical, humorous expression, which was pleasantly -reassuring. I have never forgotten the impression of Olympian -calm I received at that first meeting. In succeeding months, -there were many times when Lamont got thoroughly riled, but his -composure never deserted him. His even temper and his sense of -humor could always be depended upon to leaven the more impetuous -actions of his companions.</p> - -<p>Without wasting breath on inconsequential conversation, he suggested -that we “case the joint.” After introducing him to Dr. -Mutter, who was still hovering around like a distracted schoolmaster, -we made a tour of the premises. By the time we had finished -I had the comforting, if somewhat unflattering, feeling that -he had a clearer understanding of the work there than I, notwithstanding -the time I had spent at the monastery.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_117"></a>[117]</span></p> - -<p>On our way down to the village afterward, I asked Lamont if he -had had any difficulty coming up through Linz. He said no, but that -he also had been warned not to return that way.</p> - -<p>As soon as he had found a billet, we settled down to talk over -the loading of his trucks. “The colonel says that we’ll have to finish -the job in a hurry. The Czechs are taking over at the end of the -week,” I said. “And if the Russians move up to the Danube, we -won’t be able to go back by way of Linz. We’ll have to return by -way of Passau.”</p> - -<p>“I understand that there isn’t any bridge over the Danube at -Passau,” Lamont said quietly. At that I got excited, but in the -same quiet voice Lamont said, “Don’t worry. We’ve got more important -things to think about—something to drink, for example.”</p> - -<p>We went over to the officers’ club, arriving just in time to be -offered a sample of the Fourth of July punch which two of the -officers had been mixing that afternoon. From the look of things, -they had perfect confidence in their recipe, which called for red -wine, armagnac and champagne. After the first sip I didn’t have -to be told there would be fireworks in Hohenfurth that evening.</p> - -<p>Lamont and I began to discuss mutual friends and acquaintances -in the museum world, a habit deeply ingrained in members of our -profession. We agreed that a mutual “hate” often brought people -together more quickly than a mutual admiration. Then inconsistently—it -was probably the punch—we started talking about -Lincoln, whom we both liked very much.</p> - -<p>“It was Lincoln who told me what a fine fellow you are, Lamont,” -I said.</p> - -<p>“That’s interesting,” he said with a noiseless laugh. “He said -the same thing about you.”</p> - -<p>Comparing notes, we found that Lincoln had given us identical -vignettes of each other.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_118"></a>[118]</span></p> - -<p>“Tell me something about the work you’ve been doing in -MFA&A. This is my first real job, so I’m still a neophyte,” I said.</p> - -<p>Lamont rolled his eyes wearily and said, “Oh, I’ve been evacuating -works of art for the past four months, and I wonder sometimes -if it’s ever going to end. Siegen was my big show. It was -the foul and dripping copper mine in Westphalia where the priceless -treasures from the Rhineland museums were stored. The shaft -was two thousand feet deep and some of the mine chambers were -more than half a mile from the shaft. Walker Hancock of First -Army and George Stout had inspected it originally and advised -immediate evacuation. But no place was available. First Army was -pushing eastward, so all Walker could do was to reassure himself -from time to time that the contents were adequately guarded.</p> - -<p>“Shortly before VE-Day, I received a cryptic telegram at Ninth -Army Headquarters stating that, as of midnight that particular -night, Siegen was my headache. Then followed weeks of activity -in which Walker, Steve and I were involved.”</p> - -<p>“Who is Steve?” I asked.</p> - -<p>“Steve Kovalyak of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania,” said Lamont. -“I think he’s with George at Alt Aussee now. I hope you’ll -meet him. He’s a great character.</p> - -<p>“A bunker at Bonn was approved as a new repository for the -Siegen treasures. I surveyed the roads to Bonn and found them -impossible for truck transport. George was called to Alt Aussee. -Walker went off to see about setting up a collecting point at Marburg.</p> - -<p>“Then I was called back to Ninth Army Headquarters. The -evacuation of Siegen was momentarily at a standstill.</p> - -<p>“Later I returned and, with Walker’s and Steve’s assistance, -completed the evacuation. We moved everything to Marburg, except<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_119"></a>[119]</span> -the famous Romanesque doors from the church of Santa Maria -im Kapitol. Walker took them to the cathedral at Cologne, along -with the Aachen crown jewels.</p> - -<p>“Siegen was the second major evacuation—perhaps you could -say it was the first carried out by a <i>team</i> of MFA&A officers.”</p> - -<p>“What was the first?” I asked.</p> - -<p>“The Merkers mine, where the Nazi gold and the Berlin Museum -things were stored. That was the most spectacular of the early -evacuations—that and Bernterode.”</p> - -<p>“What about Bernterode?” I asked. I had read Hancock’s official -report of the operation and had seen some snapshots taken in -the mine, so I was curious to have a firsthand account.</p> - -<p>“Walter Hancock was the officer in charge of the evacuation,” -said Lamont. “Like Siegen, it was a deep-shaft mine, so the contents -had to be brought up by an elevator. It was a hell of a job to -get the elevator back in working order. The dramatic thing about -Bernterode was the discovery of a small chapel, or shrine, constructed -in one of the mine chambers and then completely walled -up.</p> - -<p>“In this concealed shrine, the Nazis had placed the bronze sarcophagi -of Frederick the Great, Frederick William—the Soldier -King—and those of Von Hindenburg and his wife. On the coffins -had been laid wreaths, ribbons and various insignia of the Party. -Around and about them were some two hundred regimental banners, -many of them dating from the early Prussian wars.</p> - -<p>“When Walker was ready to take the coffins out of the mine, he -found they were so large and heavy that they’d have to come up -one at a time. He was standing at the top of the shaft as the coffin -of Frederick the Great rose slowly from the depths. As it neared -the level, a radio in the distance blared forth the ‘Star-Spangled<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_120"></a>[120]</span> -Banner.’ And just as the coffin came into view, the radio band -struck up ‘God Save the King.’ The date,” Lamont added significantly, -“was May the eighth.”</p> - -<p>If I thought I was going to get much sleep that night, I reckoned -without the patriotic officers of the Yankee Division, who were -hell-bent on making it a really Glorious Fourth. It had been my -mistake in the first place to move into quarters directly over the -recreation room. It wasn’t much of a bedroom anyway—just an alcove -with an eighteenth century settee for a bed. I was resting precariously -on this spindly collector’s item when the door was flung -open and Major Thacher shouted that I was wanted below. I told -him to go away. To my surprise he did—but only to return a few -minutes later with reinforcements. I must come down at once—colonel’s -orders, and if I wouldn’t come quietly, they’d carry me -down. Before I could get off my settee, it was pitched forward -and I sprawled on the floor. What fun it was for everybody—except -me! I put on a dressing gown and was marched down the -stairs. I had been called in, as a naval officer, to settle an argument: -Who had won the Battle of Jutland? The Battle of Jutland, -of all things! At that moment I wasn’t at all sure in what war it had -been fought, let alone who had won it. But assuming an assurance -I was far from feeling I declared that it had been a draw. My luck -was with me that night after all, for that had been the colonel’s -contention. So I was allowed to return to my makeshift bed.</p> - -<p>Lamont took some of the wind out of my sails by assuring me -the next morning that the British had defeated the German fleet -at Jutland in 1916.</p> - -<p>But we were having our own battle of Hohenfurth that morning, -so I was too preoccupied to give Jutland more than a passing -thought. Just before noon, as we finished our fourth truck, John<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_121"></a>[121]</span> -Nicholas Brown and Mason Hammond arrived. Mason, as was -his custom when traveling about Germany, was bundled up in a -great sheepskin coat—the kind used by the Wehrmacht on the -Russian front—and looked like something out of <i>Nanook of the -North</i>. John, less arctically attired, hailed us gaily from the back -seat of the command car.</p> - -<p>Lamont and I suspended operations to show them around. We -were pleased by their comments on our work—how admirably it -was being handled and so on—but we struck a snag when we -showed them Canova’s marble Muse. Lamont and I had just about -decided to leave her where she was. Our two visitors thought -that would be a pity, a downright shame. We pointed out that to -transport the statue would be a hazardous business, even if we succeeded -in getting it onto a truck in the first place. We had no equipment -with which to hoist anything so heavy. On our inspection -tour they kept coming back to the subject of the Canova, and Lamont -gave me an irritated look for having called their attention to -it at all.</p> - -<p>At lunch, which we had with the colonel, they fixed us. When -the subject of the statue was brought up, the colonel instantly -agreed to provide us with a winch and also two extra trucks. We -needed the trucks all right, but we weren’t particularly happy about -the winch.</p> - -<p>As soon as we got back to the monastery, we broke the news to -Dr. Mutter. The Muse was about to take a trip. He held up his -hands in dismay and said it would take us half a day to get the -statue loaded. When we told the German packers what we had -in mind, they made a few clucking noises, and then began the -necessary preparations. The first thing they did was to get hold of -two logs, each about six feet in length and five inches in diameter.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_122"></a>[122]</span> -With the help of a dozen PWs, they got them placed beneath the -base of the statue. From that point on, it was a matter of slowly -rolling the statue as the logs rolled. It was arduous work. A -distance of well over four hundred yards was involved, and the last -half of it was along a sloping ramp where it was particularly difficult -to keep the heavy marble under control.</p> - -<p>Once the truck was reached, it was necessary to set up a stout -runway from the ground to the bed of the truck. This done, the -next move was to place heavy pads around the base of the statue, so -that the cable of the winch would not scratch the surface of the -marble. It was a tense moment. Would the winch be strong -enough to drag its heavy burden up the runway? It began to grind, -and slowly the Muse slid up the boards, paused for a quivering -instant and then glided majestically along the bed of the truck. -There were cheers from the PWs who had gathered around the -truck to watch. We all sighed with relief, and then congratulated -the little packers who had engineered the whole operation. Dr. -Mutter kept shaking his head in disbelief. He told us that when -the statue had been brought to the monastery in the first place, it -had taken three hours to unload it. The present operation had -taken forty-five minutes.</p> - -<p>After this triumph, the loading of the remaining trucks seemed -an anticlimax, but we kept hard at it for the next six hours. By -seven o’clock, all ten of them were finished. All told, we would be -a convoy of eighteen trucks.</p> - -<p>We were on the point of starting down to the village for supper, -when Dr. Mutter, even more agitated than he had been before, -rushed up and implored us to grant him a great favor. Would we, -out of the kindness of our hearts—oh, he knew he had no right to -ask such a favor—would we take him and his wife and little girl<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_123"></a>[123]</span> -along with us to Linz the next day? Linz was his home, he had a -house there. He had brought his family to Hohenfurth only because -the Nazis wouldn’t allow him to give up his duties as custodian -of the collections at the monastery. Now the Czechs were -going to be in complete control. He and his family were Austrians -and there was no telling what would happen to them.</p> - -<p>How news does get around, I thought to myself. We hadn’t said -a word about the Czechs taking over, but when I expressed the -proper surprise and asked him where he had heard <i>that</i> rumor, he -wagged his head as much as to say, “Oh, I know what I am talking -about, all right!”</p> - -<p>My heart wasn’t exactly bleeding for Dr. Mutter, but at the -thought of his little girl, who was about the age of my own, I -couldn’t say no. I told him to be ready to leave at seven the next -morning. I didn’t tell him how uncertain it was that we would ever -get to Linz at all.</p> - -<p>It was pouring when I crawled out of my bed at six <span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span> I seemed -to specialize in bad weather, particularly when starting out with a -convoy! At the monastery everything was in order. At the last -minute I decided to tell Dr. Mutter there was a possibility—even -a probability—that we would not be able to cross over at Linz, and -I told him why. He was terrified when I mentioned the prospect -of being stopped by the Russians. I assured him that we would -drop him and his family off at one of the villages on the other -side of the Austrian border, if we found there was going to be -trouble. It was cold comfort but the best I had to offer.</p> - -<p>I climbed into the lead truck, Lamont into the tenth, and Leclancher, -as usual, took over the last truck. Leclancher, with his -customary ability to pull a rabbit out of a hat at a critical juncture, -had found among his drivers one who spoke some Russian, so we<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_124"></a>[124]</span> -had put him at the controls of the first truck. It might make a good -impression.</p> - -<p>Once again we had a jeep escort to the border, and there we -picked up three others to conduct us as far as Linz. The cocky -little sergeant in the jeep that was to lead came over to my truck, -squinted up at me and said, “You look nervous this morning, -Lieutenant.”</p> - -<p>Well, I thought, if it’s that apparent, what’s the use of denying -it? “I am,” I said. “This is a big convoy and it’s filled with millions -of dollars’ worth of stuff. I’d hate to have anything happen -to it.”</p> - -<p>He whistled at that. Then, rubbing his hands briskly, he retorted, -“And nothing is going to happen to it.”</p> - -<p>He took off and we swung in behind him. The first hour was a -long one. There was more traffic than ever before—a steady stream -of carts all moving toward Linz. At last we shifted into low gear, -and I knew that we were on the steep grade leading down to -Urfahr. If there were going to be trouble, we’d know it in a minute. -At that moment, the sergeant in the lead jeep turned around -and waved. I thought, There’s trouble ahead. But he was only -signaling that the road was clear.</p> - -<p>We rolled over the rough cobblestones onto the bridge. I saw -the gleaming helmet liners of the new escort awaiting us as we -drew up to the center of the span. I motioned to one of our new -guardians that we would stop at the first convenient place on -the other side.</p> - -<p>We were such a long convoy that I thought we’d be halfway -through Linz before our escort directed us to pull over to the curb. -There we unloaded the Mutter family and their luggage. The doctor -and his wife were tearfully grateful and the little girl smiled -her thanks.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_125"></a>[125]</span></p> - -<p>I was feeling relaxed and happy and wanted to share my relief -with someone, so I suggested to Lamont that we pay our respects -to the colonel who had warned us not to come through Linz. It -was a letdown to find only a warrant officer in the colonel’s anteroom. -But he remembered us and was surprised to see us again. -He said we had been lucky; the latest news was that the Russians -would move up to the opposite side of the Danube by noon. We -left appropriate messages for the colonel and his adjutant, returned -to our trucks and headed west toward Lambach.</p> - -<p>As on the previous trip, the escort turned back at that point. A -new one—this time an impressive array of six armed jeeps—shepherded -us from there. We stopped for lunch with a Corps of Engineers -outfit of the 11th Armored Division on the outskirts of -Schwannenstadt. The C.O., Major Allen, and his executive officer, -Captain Myers, welcomed us as warmly as if we had been commanding -generals instead of a motley crew of eighteen French -drivers, plus twelve “noncoms” from the escorting jeeps—a total -of thirty-two, including Lamont and me. We doled out K rations -to our four packers, for we couldn’t take civilians into an Army -mess.</p> - -<p>After lunch I telephoned ahead to Salzburg to ask for an escort -from there to Munich, requesting that it meet us on the edge of -town, east of the river. The weather had cleared, and drying -patches of water on the road reflected a blue sky. By the time we -had sighted Salzburg it was actually hot. As we rolled into -the outskirts we were enveloped in clouds of dust from the steady -procession of military vehicles. We waited in vain for our new -escort. After an hour we decided to proceed without one. I didn’t -like the idea very much, but it was getting on toward five o’clock, -and we wanted to reach Munich in time for supper. We fell far -short of our goal, being forced to stop once because of a flat tire,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_126"></a>[126]</span> -and a second time because of carburetor trouble. These two delays -cost us close to two hours. At seven o’clock we halted by the placid -waters of Chiemsee and ate cold C rations in an idyllic setting. It -was after nine when we lumbered into the parking area behind the -Gargantuan depot at the Königsplatz. Lamont and I had twin -objectives—hot baths and bed. It didn’t take us long to achieve -both!</p> - -<p>We had had every intention of making an early start the next -morning, not so much because of any blind faith in Benjamin -Franklin’s precepts, but simply because they stopped serving breakfast -in the Third Army mess shortly before eight o’clock. In fact, -the first thing one saw on entering the mess hall was a large placard -which stated peremptorily, “The mess will be cleared by 0800. By -order of the Commanding General.” And such was Third Army -discipline—we had a different name for it—that the mess hall -was completely devoid of life on the stroke of eight.</p> - -<p>It was a little after seven when I woke up. Lamont was still -dead to the world, so I shaved and dressed before waking him. -There was a malevolent gleam in his eyes when he finally opened -them. He asked frigidly, “Are you always so infernally cheerful at -this hour of the morning?” I told him not to confuse cheerfulness -with common courtesy, and mentioned the peculiar breakfast habits -of the Third Army.</p> - -<p>We arrived at the mess hall with a few minutes to spare. The -sergeant at the entrance asked to see our mess cards. We had -none but I explained that we were attached to the headquarters.</p> - -<p>“Temporary duty?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“Yes, just temporary duty,” I said with a hint of thankfulness.</p> - -<p>“Then you can’t eat here. Take the bus to the Transient Officers’ -Mess downtown.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_127"></a>[127]</span></p> - -<p>I asked about the bus schedule. “Last bus left at 0745,” he said. -It was then 0750.</p> - -<p>“Well, how do you like ‘chicken’ for breakfast?” I asked Lamont -as we walked out to the empty street.</p> - -<p>There was nothing to do but walk along until we could hail a -passing vehicle. We had gone a good half mile before we got a -lift. Knowing that the downtown mess closed at eight, I thought -we’d better try the mess hall at the Military Government Detachment -where the officers usually lingered till about eight-thirty. -Among the laggards we found Ham Coulter and Craig. After airing -our views on the subject of Third Army hospitality, we settled -down to a good breakfast and a full account of our trip back from -Hohenfurth. We told Craig that a couple of our French drivers -were to meet us at the Collecting Point at nine. They were to -bring some of the trucks around for unloading before noon. It was -a Saturday and in Bavaria everything stopped at noon. Once -in a great while Craig could persuade members of his civilian -crew to work on Saturday afternoons, but it was a custom they -didn’t hold with, so he avoided it whenever possible. There -were those who frowned on this kind of “coddling,” as they called -it, but they just didn’t know their Bavarians. Craig did, and I think -he got more work out of his people than if he had tried to change -their habits.</p> - -<p>We spent part of the morning with Herr Döbler, the chief packer, -at the Collecting Point, helping him decipher our trucking lists, -hastily prepared at Hohenfurth in longhand. Meanwhile the trucks, -one after another, drew up to the unloading platform and disgorged -their precious contents. The descent of the marble Muse -caused a flurry of excitement. Our description of loading the statue -had lost nothing in the telling and we were anxious to see how she<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_128"></a>[128]</span> -had stood the trip. The roads had been excruciatingly rough in -places, especially at Linz and on the dread detour near Rosenheim. -At each chuckhole I had offered up a little prayer. But my -worries had been groundless—she emerged from the truck in all -her gleaming, snow-white perfection.</p> - -<p>Just before noon, Captain Posey summoned Lamont and me to -his office. He cut short our account of the Hohenfurth operation -with the news that we were to leave that afternoon for the great -mine at Alt Aussee. At last we were to join George—both of us. -George was going to have his team after all.</p> - -<p>A command car had already been ordered. The driver was to -pick us up at one-thirty. Posey got out a map and showed us the -road we were to take beyond Salzburg. As his finger ran along -the red line of the route marked with the names St. Gilgen, St. -Wolfgang, Bad Ischl and Bad Aussee, our excitement grew. Untold -treasures were waiting to be unearthed at the end of it.</p> - -<p>He said that the trip would take about six hours. We could perhaps -stop off at Bad Aussee for supper. Two naval officers—Lieutenants -Plaut and Rousseau, both of them OSS—had set up a -special interrogation center there, an establishment known simply -as “House 71,” and were making an intensive investigation of German -art-looting activities. They lived very well, Posey said with a -grin. We could do a lot worse than to sample their hospitality. I -knew Jim Plaut and Ted Rousseau—in fact had seen them at Versailles -not so many weeks ago—so I thought we could prevail on -them to take us in.</p> - -<p>The mention of food reminded Lamont that we ought to pick -up a generous supply of rations—the kind called “ten-in-ones”—somewhere -along the road. The captain gave us a written order -for that, and also provided each of us with a letter stating that we<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_129"></a>[129]</span> -were authorized to “enter art repositories in the area occupied by -the Third U. S. Army.” Our earlier permits had referred to specific -localities. These were blanket permits—marks of signal favor, -we gathered from the ceremonious manner in which they were -presented to us.</p> - -<p>There were various odds and ends to be attended to before we -could get off, among them the business of our PX rations. That -was Lamont’s idea. He said that we might not be able to get them -later. He was right; they were the last ones we were able to lay -our hands on for three weeks.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;" id="illus23"> -<img src="images/illus23.jpg" width="500" height="350" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">German altarpiece from the Louvre Museum, by the Master of the Holy Kinship, -was acquired by Göring in exchange for paintings from his own collection.</p> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;" id="illus24"> -<img src="images/illus24.jpg" width="500" height="400" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">This panel, <i>Mary Magdalene</i>, by van Scorel, was given to Hitler by Göring. -Shortly before the war’s end the Führer returned it to Göring for safekeeping.</p> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;" id="illus25"> -<img src="images/illus25.jpg" width="300" height="700" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">Wing of an Italian Renaissance altarpiece by del Garbo, representing -Saint John the Evangelist and Saint Justin.</p> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 250px;" id="illus26"> -<img src="images/illus26.jpg" width="250" height="700" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">Life-size statue of polychromed wood, <i>The Magdalene</i>, by Erhardt, -was formerly owned by the Louvre.</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_130"></a>[130]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_6">(6)<br /> -<span class="smaller"><i>LOOT UNDERGROUND: THE SALT MINE AT ALT AUSSEE</i></span></h2> - -</div> - -<p>It was nearly two o’clock by the time we were ready to start. I was -now so familiar with the road between Munich and Salzburg that -I felt like a commuter. Just outside Salzburg, Lamont began looking -for signs that would lead us to a Quartermaster depot. He -finally caught sight of one and, after following a devious route -which took us several miles off the main road, we found the depot. -We were issued two compact and very heavy wooden boxes bound -with metal strips. We dumped them on the floor of the command -car and drove on into town.</p> - -<p>Across the river, we picked up a secondary road which led out -of the city in a southeasterly direction. For some miles it wound -through hills so densely wooded that we could see but little of the -country. Then, emerging from the tunnel of evergreens, we skirted -Fuschl See, the first of the lovely Alpine lakes in that region. -Somewhere along its shores, we had been told, Ribbentrop had had -a castle. It was being used now as a recreation center for American -soldiers.</p> - -<p>Our road led into more rugged country. We continued to -climb and with each curve of the road the scenery became more -spectacular. After an hour’s drive we reached St. Gilgen, its neat -white houses and picturesque church spire silhouetted against the -blue waters of St. Wolfgang See. Then on past the village of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_131"></a>[131]</span> -Strobl and finally into the crooked streets of Bad Ischl, where the -old Emperor Franz Josef had spent so many summers. From Bad -Ischl our road ribboned through Laufen and Goisern to St. Agatha.</p> - -<p>Beyond St. Agatha lay the Pötschen Pass. The road leading up -to it was a series of hairpin turns and dangerous grades. As we -ground slowly up the last steep stretch to the summit, I wondered -what route George was using for his convoys from the mine. -Surely not this one. Large trucks couldn’t climb that interminable -grade. I found out later that this was the only road to Alt Aussee.</p> - -<p>On the other side of the pass, the road descended gradually -into a rolling valley and, in another half hour, we clattered into the -narrow main street of Bad Aussee. From there it was only a few -miles to Alt Aussee. Midway between the two villages we hoped -to find the house of our OSS friends.</p> - -<p>We came upon it unexpectedly, around a sharp bend in the -road. It was a tall, gabled villa, built in the gingerbread style of -fifty years ago. Having pictured a romantic chalet tucked away in -the mountains, I was disappointed by this rather commonplace -suburban structure, standing behind a stout iron fence with padlocked -gates, within a stone’s throw of the main highway.</p> - -<p>Jim and Ted received us hospitably and took us to an upper -veranda with wicker chairs and a table immaculately set for dinner. -We were joined by a wiry young lieutenant colonel, named -Harold S. Davitt, who bore a pronounced resemblance to the Duke -of Windsor. He was the commanding officer of a battalion of the -11th Armored Division stationed at Alt Aussee, the little village -just below the mine. Colonel Davitt’s men constituted the security -guard at the mine. He knew and admired our friend George Stout. -It was strange and pleasant to be again in an atmosphere of well-ordered -domesticity. To us it seemed rather a fine point when<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_132"></a>[132]</span> -one of our hosts rebuked the waitress for serving the wine in the -wrong kind of glasses.</p> - -<p>During dinner we noticed a man pacing about the garden below. -He was Walter Andreas Hofer, who had been Göring’s agent and -adviser in art matters. A shrewd and enterprising Berlin dealer -before the war, Hofer had succeeded in ingratiating himself with -the Reichsmarschall. He, more than any other single individual, -had been responsible for shaping Göring’s taste and had played the -stellar role in building up his priceless collection of Old Masters.</p> - -<p>Some of his methods had been ingenious. He was credited with -having devised the system of “birthday gifts”—a scheme whereby -important objects were added to the collection at no cost to the -Reichsmarschall. Each year, before Göring’s birthday on January -twelfth, Hofer wrote letters to wealthy industrialists and businessmen -suggesting that the Reichsmarschall would be gratified to -receive a token of their continued regard for him. Then he would -designate a specific work of art—and the price. More often -than not, the piece in question had already been acquired. The -prospective donor had only to foot the bill. Now and then the -victim of this shakedown protested the price, but he usually came -through.</p> - -<p>In Hofer, the Reichsmarschall had had a henchman as rapacious -and greedy as himself. And Hofer had possessed what his master -lacked—a wide knowledge of European collections and the international -art market. Göring had been a gold mine and Hofer had -made the most of it.</p> - -<p>Hofer had been arrested shortly after the close of hostilities. He -had been a “guest” at House 71 for some weeks now, and was -being grilled daily by our “cloak and dagger boys.” They were -probing into his activities of the past few years and had already<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_133"></a>[133]</span> -extracted an amazing lot of information for incorporation into an -exhaustive report on the Göring collection and “how it grew.” -Hofer was just one of a long procession of witnesses who were -being questioned by Plaut and Rousseau in the course of their tireless -investigation of the artistic depredations of the top Nazis. -These OSS officers knew their business. With infinite patience, -they were cross-examining their witnesses and gradually extracting -information which was to lend an authentic fascination to their -reports.</p> - -<p>Hofer’s wife, they told us, had ably assisted her husband. Her -talents as an expert restorer had been useful. She had been charged -with the technical care of the Göring collection—no small job when -one stopped to consider that it numbered over a thousand pictures. -Indeed, there had been more than enough work to keep one person -busy all the time. We learned that Frau Hofer was living temporarily -at Berchtesgaden where, until recently, she had been allowed -to attend to emergency repairs on some of the Göring pictures -there.</p> - -<p>We turned back to the subject of Hofer, who had not yet finished -his daily constitutional and could be seen still pacing back -and forth below us. He was, they said, a voluble witness and had -an extraordinary memory. He could recall minute details of complicated -transactions which had taken place several years before. -On one occasion Hofer had recommended an exchange of half a -dozen paintings of secondary importance for two of the very first -quality. As I recall, the deal involved a group of seventeenth century -Dutch pictures on the one hand, and two Bouchers on the -others. Hofer had been able to reel off the names of all of them -and even give the price of each. It was just such feats of memory, -they said with a laugh, that made his vague and indefinite answers<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_134"></a>[134]</span> -to certain other questions seem more than merely inconsistent.</p> - -<p>Listening to our hosts, we had forgotten the time. It was getting -late and George would be wondering what had happened to us. -There had been a heavy downpour while we were at dinner. The -weather had cleared now, but the evergreens were dripping as we -pulled out of the drive.</p> - -<p>The road to Alt Aussee ran along beside the swift and milky -waters of an Alpine river. It was a beautiful drive in the soft evening -light. The little village with its winding streets and brightly -painted chalets was an odd setting for GIs and jeeps, to say nothing -of our lumbering command car.</p> - -<p>We found our way to the Command Post, which occupied a -small hotel in the center of the village. There we turned sharply -to the right, into a road so steep that it made the precipitous grades -over which we had come earlier that afternoon seem level by -comparison. We drove about a mile on this road and I was beginning -to wonder if we wouldn’t soon be above the timber line—perhaps -even in the region of “eternal snow” to which Roger had once -so poetically referred—when we came to a bleak stone building -perched precariously on a narrow strip of level ground. Behind it, -a thousand feet below, stretched an unbroken sea of deep pine -forests. This was the control post, and the guard, a burly GI -armed with a rifle, signaled us to stop. We asked for Lieutenant -Stout. He motioned up the road, where, in the gathering dusk, we -could distinguish the outlines of a low building facing an irregular -terrace. It was a distance of about two hundred yards. We drove -on up to the entrance where we found George waiting for us.</p> - -<p>He took us into the building which he said contained the administrative -offices of the salt mine—the Steinbergwerke, now a government -monopoly—and his own living quarters. We entered a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_135"></a>[135]</span> -kind of vestibule with white plaster walls and a cement floor. A -narrow track, the rails of which were not more than eighteen inches -apart, led from the entrance to a pair of heavy doors in the far wall. -“That,” said George, “is the entrance to the mine.”</p> - -<p>He led the way to a room on the second floor. Its most conspicuous -feature was a large porcelain stove. The woodwork was -knotty pine. Aside from the two single beds, the only furniture -was a built-in settle with a writing table which filled one corner. -The table had a red and white checked cover and over it, suspended -from the ceiling, was an adjustable lamp with a red and -white checked shade. Opening off this room was another bedroom, -also pine-paneled, which was occupied by the captain of the -guard and one other officer. George apologized for the fact that -the only entrance to the other room was through ours. Apparently, -in the old days, the two rooms had formed a suite—ours -having been the sitting room—reserved for important visitors to -the mine. For the first few days there was so much coming and -going that we had all the privacy of Grand Central Station, but -we soon got used to the traffic. George and Steve Kovalyak shared -a room just down the hall. Lamont had spoken of Steve when we -had been at Hohenfurth, and I was curious to meet this newcomer -to the MFA&A ranks. George said that Steve would be back -before long. He had gone out with Shrady. That was Lieutenant -Frederick Shrady, the third member of the trio of Monuments -Officers at the mine.</p> - -<p>While Lamont and I were getting our things unpacked, George -sat and talked with us about the work at the mine and what he expected -us to do. As he talked he soaked his hand in his helmet liner -filled with hot water. He had skinned one of his knuckles and an -infection had set in. The doctors wanted to bring the thing to a head<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_136"></a>[136]</span> -before lancing it the next day. I had noticed earlier that one of his -hands looked red and swollen. But George hadn’t said anything -about it. As he was not one to relish solicitous inquiries, I refrained -from making any comment.</p> - -<p>George outlined the local situation briefly. The principal bottle-neck -in the operation lay in the selection of the stuff which was to -be brought out of the various mine chambers. There were, he said, -something like ten thousand pictures stored in them, to say nothing -of sculpture, furniture, tapestries, rugs and books. At the moment -he was concentrating on the pictures and he wanted to get the -best of them out first. The less important ones—particularly the -works of the nineteenth century German painters whom Hitler -admired so much—could wait for later removal.</p> - -<p>He and Steve and Shrady had their hands full above ground. -That left only Sieber, the German restorer, who had been at the -mine ever since it had been converted into an art repository, to -choose the paintings down below. In addition Sieber had to supervise -the other subterranean operations, which included carrying the -paintings from the storage racks, dividing them into groups according -to size, and padding the corners so that the canvases -wouldn’t rub together on the way up to the mine entrance. Where -we could be of real help would be down in the mine chambers, -picking out the cream of the pictures and getting them up -topside. (George’s vocabulary was peppered with nautical expressions.)</p> - -<p>In the midst of his deliberate recital, we heard a door slam. -The chorus of “Giannina Mia” sung in a piercingly melodic baritone -echoed from the stairs. “Steve’s home,” said George.</p> - -<p>A second later there was a knock on the door and the owner of -the voice materialized. Steve looked a bit startled when he caught<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_137"></a>[137]</span> -sight of two strange faces, but he grinned good-naturedly as George -introduced us.</p> - -<p>“I thought you were going out on the town with Shrady tonight,” -said George.</p> - -<p>“No,” said Steve, “I left him down in the village and came back -to talk to Kress.”</p> - -<p>Kress was an expert photographer who had been with the Kassel -Museum before the war. He had been captured when our troops -took over at the mine just as the war ended. Since Steve’s arrival, -he had been his personal PW. Steve was an enthusiastic amateur -and had acquired all kinds of photographic equipment. Kress, we -gathered, was showing him how to use it. Their “conversations” -were something of a mystery, because Steve knew no German, -Kress no English.</p> - -<p>“I use my High German, laddies,” Steve would say with a -crafty grin and a lift of the eyebrows, as he teetered on the balls of -his feet.</p> - -<p>We came to the conclusion that “High German” was so called -because it transcended all known rules of grammar and pronunciation. -But, for the two of them, it worked. Steve—stocky, gruff -and belligerent—and Kress—timid, beady-eyed and patient—would -spend hours together. They were a comical pair. Steve -was always in command and very much the captor. Kress was -long-suffering and had a kind of doglike devotion to his master, -whose alternating jocular and tyrannical moods he seemed to accept -with equanimity and understanding. But all this we learned -later.</p> - -<p>That first evening, while George went on with his description of -the work, Steve sat quietly appraising Lamont and me with his -keen, gray-green eyes. He had worked with Lamont at Bernterode,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_138"></a>[138]</span> -so I was his main target. Now and then he would look over at -George and throw in a remark. Between the two there existed an -extraordinary bond. As far as Steve was concerned, George was -perfect, and Steve had no use for anyone who thought otherwise. -If, at the end of a hard day, he occasionally beefed about George -and his merciless perfection—well, that was Steve’s prerogative. -For his part, George had a fatherly affection for Steve and a quiet -admiration for his energy and resourcefulness and the way he -handled the men under him.</p> - -<p>Presently Steve announced that it was late and went off to bed. -I wondered if he had sized me up. There was a flicker of amusement -in Lamont’s eyes and I guessed that he was wondering the -same thing. When George got up to go, he said, “You’ll find hot -water down in the kitchen in the morning. Breakfast will be at -seven-thirty.”</p> - -<p>Steve roused us early with a knock on the door and said he’d -show us the way to the kitchen. We rolled out, painfully conscious -of the cold mountain air. Below, in the warm kitchen, the sun -was pouring in through the open door. There were still traces of -snow on the mountaintops. The highest peak, Steve said, was -Loser. Its snowy coronet glistened in the bright morning light.</p> - -<p>When my eyes became accustomed to the glare, I noticed that -there were several other people in the kitchen. One of them, a -wrinkled little fellow wearing <i>Lederhosen</i> and white socks, was -standing by the stove. Steve saluted them cheerfully with a wave -of his towel. They acknowledged his greeting with good-natured -nods and gruff monosyllables. These curious mountain people, he -said, belonged to families that had worked in the mine for five -hundred years. They were working for us now, as members of his -evacuation crew.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_139"></a>[139]</span></p> - -<p>We washed at a row of basins along one wall. Above them -hung a sign lettered with the homely motto:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">“<i>Nach der Arbeit</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Vor dem Essen</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Hände waschen</i></div> - <div class="verse indent0"><i>Nicht vergessen.</i>”</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="noindent">It rang a poignant bell in my memory. That same admonition to -wash before eating had hung in the little pension at near-by -Gründlsee where I had spent a summer fifteen years ago.</p> - -<p>Our mess hall was in the guardhouse down the road, the square -stone building where the sentry had challenged us the night before. -We lined up with our plates and, when they had been heaped with -scrambled eggs, helped ourselves to toast, jam and coffee and sat -down at a long wooden table in the adjoining room. George was -finishing his breakfast as the three of us came in. With him was -Lieutenant Shrady, who had recently been commissioned a Monuments -officer at Bad Homburg. Subsequently he had been sent -down to Alt Aussee by Captain Posey. He was a lean, athletic, -good-looking fellow. Although he helped occasionally with the -loading, his primary duties at the mine were of an administrative -nature—handling the workmen’s payrolls through the local Military -Government Detachment, obtaining their food rations, making -inspections in the area, filing reports and so on. After he and -George had left, Steve told us that Shrady was a portrait painter. -Right now he was working on a portrait of his civilian interpreter-secretary -who, according to Steve, was something rather special in -the way of Viennese beauty. This was a new slant on the work at -the mine and I was curious to know more about the glamorous -Maria, whom Steve described as being “beaucoup beautiful.” But<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_140"></a>[140]</span> -George was waiting to take us down into the mine. As we walked -up the road, Steve explained to us that the miners worked in two -shifts—one crew from four in the morning until midday, another -from noon until eight in the evening. The purpose of the early -morning shift was to maintain an uninterrupted flow of “stuff” -from the mine, so that the daytime loading of the trucks would not -bog down for lack of cargo.</p> - -<p>At the building in which the mine entrance was located we -found George with a group of the miners. It was just eight o’clock -and the day’s work was starting. We were introduced to two -men dressed in white uniforms which gave them an odd, hybrid -appearance—a cross between a street cleaner and a musical-comedy -hussar. This outfit consisted of a white duck jacket and trousers. -The jacket had a wide, capelike collar reaching to the shoulders. -Two rows of ornamental black buttons converging at the waistline -adorned the front of the jacket, and a similar row ran up the -sleeves from cuff to elbow. In place of a belt, the jacket was held -in place by a tape drawstring. A black garrison cap completed the -costume.</p> - -<p>The two men were Karl Sieber, the restorer, and Max Eder, an -engineer from Vienna. It was Eder’s job to list the contents of each -truck. Perched on a soapbox, he sat all day at the loading entrance, -record book and paper before him on a makeshift desk. He wrote -down the number of each object as it was carried through the door -to the truck outside. The truck list was made in duplicate: the original -was sent to Munich with the convoy; the copy was kept at the -mine to be incorporated in the permanent records which Lieutenant -Shrady was compiling in his office on the floor above.</p> - -<p>In the early days of their occupancy, the Nazis had recorded the -loot, piece by piece, as it entered the mine. The records were voluminous<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_141"></a>[141]</span> -and filled many ledgers. But, during the closing months -of the war, such quantities of loot had poured in that the system -had broken down. Instead of a single accession number, an object -was sometimes given a number which merely indicated with what -shipment it had arrived. Occasionally there would be several numbers -on a single piece. Frequently a piece would have no number -at all. In spite of this confusion, Eder managed somehow to produce -orderly lists. If the information they contained was not always -definitive, it was invariably accurate.</p> - -<p>George was anxious to get started. “It’s cold down in the mine,” -he said. “You’d better put on the warmest things you brought with -you.”</p> - -<p>“How cold is it?” I asked.</p> - -<p>“Forty degrees, Fahrenheit,” he said. “The temperature doesn’t -vary appreciably during the year. I believe it rises to forty-seven in -the winter. And the humidity is equally constant, about sixty-five -per cent. That’s why this particular salt mine was chosen as a -repository, as you probably know.”</p> - -<p>While we went up to get our jackets and mufflers, George ordered -Sieber to hitch up the train. When we returned we noticed -that the miners, who resembled a troop of Walt Disney dwarfs, -were wearing heavy sweaters and thick woolen jackets for protection -against the subterranean cold.</p> - -<p>The train’s locomotion was provided by a small gasoline engine -with narrow running boards on either side which afforded foothold -for the operator. Attached to it were half a dozen miniature flat-cars -or “dollies.” The miners called them “Hünde,” that is, dogs. -They were about five feet long, and on them were placed heavy -wooden boxes approximately two feet wide. The sides were roughly -two feet high.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_142"></a>[142]</span></p> - -<p>Following George’s example, we piled a couple of blankets on -the bottom of one of the boxes and squeezed ourselves in. Each -box, with judicious crowding, would accommodate two people -facing each other.</p> - -<p>At a signal from Sieber, who was sardined into a boxcar with -George, one of the gnomes primed the engine. After a couple of -false starts, it began to chug and the train rumbled into the dim -cavern ahead. For the first few yards, the irregular walls were -whitewashed, but we soon entered a narrow tunnel cut through the -natural rock. It varied in height and width. In some places there -would be overhead clearance of seven or eight feet, and a foot or -more on either side. In others the passageway was just wide enough -for the train, and the jagged rocks above seemed menacingly close. -There were electric lights in part of the tunnel, but these were -strung at irregular intervals. They shed a dim glow on the moist -walls.</p> - -<p>George shouted that we would stop first at the Kaiser Josef mine. -The track branched and a few minutes later we stopped beside a -heavy iron door set in the wall of the passageway. This part of the -tunnel was not illuminated, so carbide lamps were produced. By -their flickering light, George found the keyhole and unlocked the -door.</p> - -<p>We followed him into the unlighted mine chamber. Flashlights -supplemented the wavering flames of the miners’ lamps. Ahead of -us we could make out row after row of huge packing cases. Beyond -them was a broad wooden platform. The rays of our flashlights -revealed a bulky object resting on the center of the platform. -We came closer. We could see that it was a statue, a marble statue. -And then we knew—it was Michelangelo’s Madonna from Bruges, -one of the world’s great masterpieces. The light of our lamps<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_143"></a>[143]</span> -played over the soft folds of the Madonna’s robe, the delicate -modeling of the face. Her grave eyes looked down, seemed only -half aware of the sturdy Child nestling close against her, one hand -firmly held in hers. It is one of the earliest works of the great -sculptor and one of his loveliest. The incongruous setting of the -bare boards served only to enhance its gentle beauty.</p> - -<p>The statue was carved by Michelangelo in 1501, when he was -only twenty-six. It was bought from the sculptor by the Mouscron -brothers of Bruges, who presented it to the Church of Notre Dame -early in the sixteenth century. There it had remained until September -1944, when the Germans, using the excuse that it must be -“saved” from the American barbarians, carried it off.</p> - -<p>In the early days of the war, the statue had been removed from -its traditional place in the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament to a -specially built shelter in another part of the church. The shelter -was not sealed, so visitors could see the statue on request. Then -one afternoon in September 1944, the Bishop of Bruges, prompted -by the suggestion of a German officer that the statue was not -adequately protected, ordered the shelter bricked up. That night, -before his orders could be carried out, German officers arrived at -the church and demanded that the dean hand over the statue. -With an armed crew standing by, they removed it from the shelter, -dumped it onto a mattress on the floor of a Red Cross lorry and -drove away. At the same time, they perpetrated another act of -vandalism. They took with them eleven paintings belonging to -the church. Among them were works by Gerard David, Van Dyck -and Caravaggio. The statue and the pictures were brought to the -Alt Aussee mine. It was a miracle that the two lorries with their -precious cargo got through safely, for the roads were being constantly -strafed by Allied planes.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_144"></a>[144]</span></p> - -<p>Now we were about to prepare the Madonna for the trip back. -This time she would have more than a mattress for protection.</p> - -<p>In the same mine chamber with the Michelangelo was another -plundered masterpiece of sculpture—an ancient Greek sarcophagus -from Salonika. It had been excavated only a few years ago and -was believed to date from the sixth century <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span> Already the Greek -government was clamoring for its return.</p> - -<p>On our way back to the train, George said that the other cases—the -ones we had seen when we first went into the Kaiser Josef -mine—contained the dismantled panels of the Millionen Zimmer -and the Chinesisches Kabinett from Schönbrunn. The Alt Aussee -mine, he said, had been originally selected by the Viennese as a -depot for Austrian works of art, which accounted for the panels -being there. They had been brought to the mine in 1942. Then, -a year later, the Nazis took it over as a repository for the collections -of the proposed Führer Museum at Linz.</p> - -<p>We boarded the train again and rumbled along a dark tunnel -to the Mineral Kabinett, one of the smaller mine chambers. Again -there was an iron door to be unlocked. We walked through a -vestibule into a low-ceilinged room about twenty feet square. The -walls were light partitions of unfinished lumber. Ranged about -them were the panels of the great Ghent altarpiece—the <i>Adoration -of the Mystic Lamb</i>—their jewel-like beauty undimmed after five -hundred years. The colors were as resplendent as the day they -were painted by Hubert and Jan van Eyck in 1432.</p> - -<p>This famous altarpiece, the greatest single treasure of Belgium, -had also been seized by the Germans. One of the earliest examples -of oil painting, it consisted originally of twelve panels, eight of -which were painted on both sides. It was planned as a giant triptych -of four central panels, with four panels at either side. The<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_145"></a>[145]</span> -matching side panels were designed to fold together like shutters -over a window. Therefore they were painted on both sides.</p> - -<p>I knew something of the history of the altarpiece. It belonged -originally to the Cathedral of St. Bavon in Ghent. Early in the -nineteenth century, the wings had been purchased by Edward Solly, -an Englishman living in Germany. In 1816, he had sold them to -the King of Prussia and they were placed in the Berlin Museum. -There they had remained until restored to Belgium by the terms -of the Versailles Treaty. From 1918 on, the entire triptych was -again in the Cathedral of St. Bavon. In 1933, the attention of the -world was drawn to the altarpiece when the panel in the lower left-hand -corner was stolen. This was one of the panels painted on -both sides. The obverse represented the <i>Knights of Christ</i>; the -reverse, <i>St. John the Baptist</i>.</p> - -<p>According to the story, the thief sent the cathedral authorities -an anonymous letter demanding a large sum of money and guarantee -of his immunity for the return of the panels. As proof that -the panels were in his possession, he is said to have returned the -reverse panel with his extortion letter. The authorities agreed to -these terms but sought to lay a trap for the culprit. Their attempt -was unsuccessful and nothing was heard of the panel until a year -or so later.</p> - -<p>On his deathbed, the thief—one of the beadles of the cathedral—confessed -his guilt. As he lay dying, he managed to gasp, “You -will find the panel ...” but he got no further. The panel has never -been found.</p> - -<p>In May 1940, the Belgians entrusted the altarpiece to France for -safekeeping. Packed in ten cases, it was stored in the Château of -Pau together with many important works of art from the Louvre. -The Director of the French National Museums, mindful of his<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_146"></a>[146]</span> -grave responsibilities, obtained explicit guarantees from the Germans -that these treasures would be left inviolate. By the terms of -this agreement, confirmed by the Vichy Ministry of Fine Arts, the -Ghent altar was not to be moved without the joint consent of the -Director of the French National Museums, the Mayor of Ghent -and the German organization for the protection of French monuments.</p> - -<p>Notwithstanding this contract, the Director of the French National -Museums learned quite by accident in August 1942 that the -altarpiece had just been taken to Paris. Dr. Ernst Büchner, who -was director of the Bavarian State Museums, in company with three -other German officers had gone to Pau the day before with a truck -and ordered the Director of the Museum there to hand over the -retable. A telegram from M. Bonnard, Vichy Minister of Fine -Arts, arriving simultaneously, reinforced Dr. Büchner’s demands. -Nothing was known of its destination or whereabouts, beyond the -fact that it had been taken to Paris.</p> - -<p>There the matter rested until the summer of 1944. With the -arrival of Allied armies on French soil, reports of missing masterpieces -were received by our MFA&A officers. The Ghent altarpiece -was among them. But there were no clues as to where it had -gone. Months passed and by the time our troops had approached -Germany, our Monuments officers, all similarly briefed with photographs -and other pertinent data concerning stolen works of art, -began to hear rumors about the <i>Lamb</i>. It might be in the Rhine -fortress of Ehrenbreitstein; perhaps it had been taken to the -Berghof at Berchtesgaden or possibly to Karinhall, Göring’s palatial -estate near Berlin. And then again it might have been flown -out of the country altogether—to one of the neutral countries, -Spain or Switzerland.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_147"></a>[147]</span></p> - -<p>Captain Posey and Private Lincoln Kirstein picked up additional -rumors from museum directors in Luxembourg. They had heard -that the altarpiece was in a salt mine, but they had also been told -that it was in the vaults of the Berlin Reichsbank. It was impossible -to reconcile these conflicting pieces of information. Finally, -near Trier, Posey and Kirstein tracked down a young German -scholar who had been in France during the occupation. -Lincoln told me later that it was hard to believe that this unassuming -fellow had been high in the confidence of Göring and other -members of the Nazi inner circle. From him they learned that the -altarpiece had been taken to Alt Aussee.</p> - -<p>Then followed the rapid advance across Germany. To Posey -and Kirstein it was a period of agonizing suspense. They couldn’t -be sure that Third Army would move into the area in which the -mine lay. Just as their hopes began to fade, occupancy of the -cherished area did fall to Third Army. Tactical troops were alerted -to the importance of the isolated mountain region. It was of no -significance as a military objective and would doubtless otherwise -have been left unoccupied for the moment. They pressed forward -through Bad Ischl and the wild confusion of capitulating German -troops to the wilder confusion of surrendering SS units in the little -village of Alt Aussee itself. From there it was but a mile to the -mine.</p> - -<p>When they reached the mine, they found it heavily guarded by -men of the 80th Infantry Division, but the mine had been dynamited. -It wasn’t possible to go into the mine chambers. Armed -with acetylene lamps, Posey and Lincoln entered the main tunnel. -They groped their way along the damp passageway for a distance -of a quarter of a mile or more before they reached the debris of the -first block. After assessing the damage they returned to consult the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_148"></a>[148]</span> -Austrian mineworkers. The miners said it would take from ten -days to two weeks to clear the passageway. Captain Posey thought -that the Army Engineers could do it in less than a week, perhaps -in two or three days. Both were wrong. They entered the first -mine chamber the next day.</p> - -<p>And now, here before us, stood the fabulous panels which they -had found on that May morning a few weeks before. While we -examined them, Sieber pieced out the one gap in the story of the -altarpiece: the Nazis had taken it from Paris to the Castle of -Neuschwanstein where a restorer from Munich worked on the blisters -which had developed on some of the panels. The altarpiece -remained at the castle for two years. It was brought to the mine -in the summer of 1944. Pieces of waxed paper were still affixed -to the surface of the panels, on the places where the blisters had -been laid. The big panel representing St. John had split lengthwise -with the grain of wood. This had happened at the mine. -Sieber had repaired it, and George said he had done a good job. -As we were leaving the Mineral Kabinett, Sieber asked me if Andrew -Mellon really had offered ten million dollars for the altarpiece. -People had said so in Berlin. I hated to tell him that the -story was without foundation, so far as I knew.</p> - -<p>When we came out of the mine at noon we found that Steve -and Shrady had finished loading two trucks. They said they had -enough pictures left to fill two more. The afternoon crew would -be coming on at four. In the meantime it was up to Lamont and -me to select at least two hundred paintings, so that the loading -could go on without interruption.</p> - -<p>After lunch we returned to the mine with Sieber. This time the -trip on the train was much longer. Our objective was a part of the -mine called the Springerwerke. Owing to the peculiar honeycomb<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_149"></a>[149]</span> -structure of the mine network, it had been necessary to establish -guard posts at intervals along the tunnels. One of these was at -the entrance to the Springerwerke. Two GIs were on duty. It -was a dismal assignment as well as a cold one. They were bundled -up in fleece-lined coats which had been made for German -troops on the Russian front. George and Steve had obtained about -two hundred of these coats and were using them for packing unframed -pictures. Each time a convoy of empty trucks returned from -Munich, they counted the coats carefully to make sure that none -had disappeared.</p> - -<p>The Springerwerke contained more than two thousand paintings. -They were arranged in two tiers around three sides and -down the center of a room fifty feet long and thirty feet wide. In -one section we found thirty or forty Italian paintings of the fourteenth -and fifteenth centuries from the well known Lanz Collection -of Amsterdam. Next to them we came upon the group of -canvases, which the Germans in their greedy haste had filched -from Bruges when they had made off with the Michelangelo -Madonna. Aside from these two lots, the pictures had been stored -according to size rather than by provenance. It was a bewildering -assortment. Quality was to be our guide in making this initial -selection. And as a kind of corollary, we were to set aside for shipment -all pictures bearing the infamous “E.R.R.” stencil—the initials -of the Rosenberg looting organization. We had Sieber and -four of the gnomes to help. Sieber stood by with list and flashlight. -Two of the gnomes hauled out the pictures for us to examine. The -other two put protective pads of paper filled with excelsior across -the corners of the ones chosen.</p> - -<p>By the end of the afternoon we had picked out between a hundred -and fifty and two hundred paintings. The crew which had<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_150"></a>[150]</span> -come on at four had already gone up with one trainload. We took -stock of the lot waiting to go. We hadn’t done so badly: our selection -included works of Hals, Breughel, Titian, Rembrandt, Tintoretto, -Rubens, Van Dyck, Lancret, Nattier, Reynolds, and a raft -of smaller examples of the seventeenth century Dutch school. Not -a dud among them, we agreed smugly.</p> - -<p>Before we knocked off for supper, Sieber showed us an adjoining -room divided into small compartments. Each one contained a -miscellaneous assortment of art objects—pictures, porcelain, bric-a-brac -of various kinds. Each compartment bore a label with the -name of a different family, fifteen or twenty in all. They were the -pilfered possessions of Viennese Jewish families. Our feelings -were of both pathos and disgust. After working with the fruits of -looting on a grand scale, we found these trifles sordid evidences of -greedy persecution.</p> - -<p>Lamont and I spent the next two days in the Springerwerke. We -worked nights as well. It was a molelike existence. On the third -morning we transferred our base of operations to the Kammergrafen, -the largest of the mine caverns and the most remote. It -was three-quarters of a mile from the mine entrance. Whereas the -other mine chambers were on one level, the great galleries of the -Kammergrafen were on several. Beyond those in which floors had -been laid, there were vast unlighted caves of echoing blackness.</p> - -<p>The galleries were so high that those on the first level could -accommodate three tiers of pictures between floor and ceiling, while -those on the second had four tiers.</p> - -<p>The records listed <i>six thousand pictures</i>. In addition there were -quantities of sculpture, hundreds of examples of the very finest -eighteenth century French cabinetwork, tapestries and rugs, and -the books and manuscripts of the Biblioteca Herziana in Rome—one<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_151"></a>[151]</span> -of the greatest historical libraries in the world. Kammergrafen -was quality and quantity combined, for here had been stored the -collections for Linz.</p> - -<p>Among the pictures, for example, were canvases from the Rothschild, -Gutmann and Mannheimer collections, the celebrated tempera -panels of the fourteenth century Hohenfurth altarpiece, Rembrandts -and other great Dutch masters from the stock of Goudstikker, -who had been the Duveen of Amsterdam, a collection of -French pictures known as the “Sammlung Berta,” and hundreds -of nineteenth century German paintings, these last the objects of -Hitler’s special veneration.</p> - -<p>The sculpture ranged from ancient to modern, with notable emphasis -on examples of the Gothic period. There were Egyptian -tomb figures, Roman portrait busts, Renaissance and Baroque -bronzes, exquisite French marbles of the eighteenth century and -delicate Tanagra figurines. A bewildering hodgepodge of the -plastic arts.</p> - -<p>There were tapestries from Cracow, furniture from the Castle -at Posen, rows of inlaid tables and cabinets from the Vienna -Rothschilds, shelves and cases filled with the finest porcelains, -prints and drawings of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth -centuries, the decorations from the Reichskanzlei in Berlin, and -Hitler’s own purchases from the annual exhibitions of German art -in Munich. Such was the Kammergrafen treasure. And the best of -it, as I have said before, was to have adorned the galleries of the -unbuilt Führer Museum at Linz, the city by the Danube which -Hitler aspired to raise to the dignity of Vienna.</p> - -<p>The rarest treasure of that collection was the celebrated Vermeer -<i>Portrait of the Artist in His Studio</i>. This superb work of the seventeenth -Dutch master, by whom there are only some forty unquestioned<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_152"></a>[152]</span> -examples in the world, had been for years in the collection -of Count Czernin at Vienna. The collection was semipublic; I had -visited it before the war. Known simply as the “Czernin Vermeer,” -the picture had long been coveted by the great collectors. It had -remained for Hitler to succeed where others had failed: he acquired -this masterpiece in 1940 for an alleged price of one million, -four hundred thousand Reichsmarks—part of his earnings from the -sale of <i>Mein Kampf</i>. He boasted at the time that Mr. Mellon had -offered six million dollars for it. Whether the sale was made under -duress is still a matter of controversy. Members of the Czernin family -today contend that it was. The picture has now been returned -to Vienna where the matter will be ultimately decided.</p> - -<p>Rivaling the Vermeer in international significance were the -fifteen cases of paintings and sculpture from Monte Cassino. The -paintings included Titian’s <i>Danaë</i>, Raphael’s <i>Madonna of the Divine -Love</i>, Peter Breughel’s <i>Blind Leading the Blind</i>, a <i>Crucifixion</i> -by Van Dyck, an <i>Annunciation</i> by Filippino Lippi, a <i>Sacra Conversazione</i> -by Palma Vecchio, a <i>Landscape</i> by Claude Lorraine, and -Sebastiano del Piombo’s <i>Portrait of Pope Clement VII</i>. Among the -sculpture were antique bronzes of the greatest rarity and importance -from Herculaneum and Pompeii. All had belonged to the -Naples Museum. In 1943 the Italians had placed them, together -with one hundred and seventy-two other cases of objects from the -Naples Museum, in the Abbey of Monte Cassino for safekeeping. -The following January, arrangements were made for all of the -cases to be returned to the Vatican. When they arrived, fifteen -were missing. Members of the Hermann Göring Division had -carried them off as a birthday gift for the Reichsmarschall. Göring -was incensed, when he learned of the arrival of these treasures, and -refused to accept them. There is reason to believe that such was<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_153"></a>[153]</span> -his reaction, for he had striven to maintain a semblance of legality -in his art transactions. Even this rapacious collector could not have -interpreted the behavior of his loyal officers as “correct,” so far as -the Monte Cassino affair was concerned. After the Reichsmarschall’s -refusal of the cases, they were brought to Alt Aussee for -storage, pending their later return to Italy.</p> - -<p>The Springerwerke had been child’s play compared with the -task confronting us in the Kammergrafen. We began arbitrarily -with the big pictures. Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese, Van Dyck, -Rubens, Rembrandt—all were represented in profusion. Many of -them were from private collections in Holland, Belgium and France, -and were unknown to us save through reproduction. It was a -great lesson in connoisseurship, particularly when we had exhausted -the “stars” and come to the lesser masters. The Dutch -school of the seventeenth century was abundantly represented. -There were scores, hundreds, of still lifes and flower paintings. -My predilection for them amused Lamont and Sieber. I had always -admired these incredibly deft creations of the seventeenth century -Dutch artists, and here was an unparalleled opportunity to study -them.</p> - -<p>There was one peculiar thing about our selections: if a picture -looked good to us down in the mine, it invariably looked better -when we examined it later in the light of day at the mine entrance. -This happened time and again. I remember one instance in particular. -The painting was a large Rembrandt, a study of two dead -peacocks. Down in the mine we had looked at it without much -enthusiasm, though we admired it, and had even hesitated to include -it in that first selection, which was to number only the best -of the best. The next morning, as it was being loaded onto the -truck, we were struck by its distinction.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_154"></a>[154]</span></p> - -<p>And I remember the next time I saw that picture: it was at the -Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. It was included in the small group -of outstanding Dutch masterpieces returned to Holland by special -plane as a gesture of token restitution in the name of General -Eisenhower!</p> - -<p>Lamont and I liked Sieber, the German restorer. Lamont referred -to him as the “tragic Gilles in white.” Not that there was -anything particularly tragic about him, any more than there was -about the plight in which most Nazis found themselves. He made -no bones about having joined the Party in the early thirties—ironically -enough at the suggestion of one of his clients, a Jewish art -dealer, who had thought it would be a good thing for Sieber’s -business. Sieber had been a restorer of pictures in Berlin and had -done a little dealing on the side. It was the half-mournful expression -he perpetually wore, together with his white costume, that -accounted for Lamont’s appellation. George had described him as -a good, run-of-the-mill restorer, perhaps a little better than average. -He had sized him up as a man ninety-eight per cent preoccupied -with his profession and possibly two per cent concerned -with politics. And George, as I think I have observed before, was -a good judge of men. Sieber was a quiet, willing worker. He was -neither fawning on the one hand, nor arrogant on the other. When -you asked him a question, you always got a considered answer.</p> - -<p>One evening we drew Sieber out on the subject of the attempted -destruction of the mine. We had heard several versions of this -fantastic plot and, according to one, Sieber had been instrumental -in foiling the conspirators. The story was as follows: On the -tenth, thirteenth and thirtieth of April 1945, Glinz, the Gauinspektor -of Ober-Donau, had come to the mine with eight great -cases marked in black letters “<i>Marmor—Nicht stürzen</i>,” that is,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_155"></a>[155]</span> -“Marble—Don’t drop.” He was acting on explicit instructions -from Eigruber, Gauleiter of the region, to place them at strategic -positions in the mine tunnels. Each case contained a hundred-pound -bomb. Had these bombs been detonated, the entire contents -of the mine would have been destroyed. The resulting cave-ins -would have blocked every means of access. It would have taken -months to repair the apparatus which carried off the water seeping -constantly into the mine chambers. By that time the treasures they -contained would have been completely ruined. It is generally -agreed that Eigruber had obtained Hitler’s tacit consent to this -artistic Götterdämmerung, if not his actual approval of it.</p> - -<p>I learned later that Captain Posey found a letter from Martin -Bormann, Hitler’s deputy, stating in the first paragraph that the -contents of the mine must, at all costs, be kept from falling into -the hands of the enemy. And then the second paragraph stated that -the contents of the mine must not be harmed.</p> - -<p>Members of the Austrian resistance movement got wind of this -diabolical plan and took Sieber into their confidence. His intimate -knowledge of the mine passageways enabled him to set off small -charges of dynamite here and there along the tunnels without endangering -the contents of the chambers beyond. The resulting -damage was slight and served a twofold purpose: it gave the impression -that the mine had been permanently walled up; and, if -that ruse were discovered, immediate access to the art works themselves -was denied the plotters. Eigruber did discover that his -attempt had been thwarted and in his rage gave orders for the -counterconspirators to be rounded up and shot. But by that time it -was the seventh of May, so the tragedy was mercifully averted.</p> - -<p>Sieber told the story in a straightforward, factual way. I don’t -think it mattered to him who got control of the mine, but it was<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_156"></a>[156]</span> -simply unthinkable that any harm should come to the precious -things it housed. It was very much to his credit that he never capitalized -on the part he played in this affair. The only other reference -he made to it was when he later showed us the places where he had -set off the charges of dynamite.</p> - -<p>During all the time we were at the mine, Sieber made only one -request of us. It came at the very end of our stay and was reasonable -enough: he asked if we could expedite his return to Germany. -There seemed to be little prospect of regular employment for him -in Austria, but that was of less concern to him than the welfare -of his wife and young daughter who lived with him in a house -near the mine. Some months later, one of our officers tried to get -him a job in Wiesbaden, but he was not acceptable to the Military -Government authorities there because of his political affiliations. -The last I heard of him, he and his family were still at Alt Aussee, -waiting for permission to go back to Germany. I hope they finally -got it.</p> - -<p>Our concentrated efforts underground produced the desired results. -Pictures were coming out of the mine at such a prodigious -rate that George called a halt. Enough of a backlog had been -accumulated to make further selection down in the mine unnecessary -for a couple of days. Lamont and I had better help with the -actual loading.</p> - -<p>Loading a truck was a specialized operation, and George had -perfected the technique. Lamont, Steve and Shrady were his pupils. -That left me the only neophyte. So far I had had experience -only with the loading of cases and heavier objects such as furniture -and sculpture.</p> - -<p>Packing pictures, especially unframed ones—and there were a -great many of the latter at Alt Aussee—was an altogether different<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_157"></a>[157]</span> -problem. The first step was to place a length of waterproof paper -over the side bars of the truck and spread it smoothly on the floor -to the center of the truck bed. For this we had a large supply of -stout, green, clothlike paper which had been used by the Wehrmacht -as protection against gas attacks. Then a strip of felt was -laid over the paper. The third step was to place “sausages” in two -rows, end to end, on the floor of the truck. The space between the -rows would depend on the size of the pictures to be loaded, for they -were intended to cushion the shock as the trucks rumbled along -over bumpy roads. The “sausages” had been George’s invention. -Packing materials of all kinds were at a premium, and certain types -just didn’t exist. To make up for the lack of the usual packer’s -pads, George had improvised this substitute. In one of the mine -chambers he had found a large supply of ordinary curtain material -of machine-made ecru lace. This had been cut up into yard -lengths, eighteen inches wide. When rolled around a central core -of coarser cloth, or sometimes excelsior, and tied with string, they -were a very satisfactory “ersatz” product. We used to refer to them -augustly as the pads made from Hitler’s window curtains. Their -manufacture was periodically one of the major industries at the -mine. George had trained a crew of the gnomes and they loved -to turn them out. It was easy work. Seated at long benches they -resembled a kind of Alpine “husking bee.”</p> - -<p>Once the paper, felt and “sausages” were in place, the pictures -could be brought to the truck. One after another they were placed -in a stack leading from the sideboards of the truck to the center. -Pads and small blankets were inserted between them to prevent -rubbing. To ensure safe packing, all the pictures in a given -row had to be carefully selected as to size, ranging from large to -medium in one, and from medium to small in another. That was<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_158"></a>[158]</span> -the most tedious part of the entire operation. As soon as a row had -been “built,” it required only a few minutes to bring first the felt -and then the green paper over the top of the row, tuck both down -along the sides, and then lash the whole stack firmly to the side -of the truck. By this method it was possible to load as many as a -hundred and fifty medium-sized canvases on a single truck, for -three rows of twenty-five each could be built up on either side of -our big two-and-a-half-ton trucks. A truck loaded in this way -could often accommodate several pieces of sculpture as well. -Carefully padded and swathed in blankets, these could be placed -down the center. The final step was to adjust the tarpaulin -over the bows and to close the tailboard. A truck of the size we -used could normally be loaded in two hours.</p> - -<p>We were at the mercy of the weather, as far as loading was concerned. -On rainy days we could work on only one truck at a time, -because there was but one doorway with a protective stoop under -which a single truck could park. Taking advantage of the sunny -mornings, we would divide up into two teams—George and Steve -on one truck, Lamont and I on another. As soon as a truck was -filled and the tarpaulin securely fastened down, it was driven to -one side of the narrow terrace in front of the building. The average -convoy consisted of six trucks.</p> - -<p>We had a crew of eighteen Negro drivers. Barboza, the C.O., -was a very starchy lieutenant, Jamaica born. He and his men were -billeted down in the little town of Bad Aussee. They were magnificent -drivers but a bit reckless. Their occasional disregard for -their vehicles was a worry to George. It would have been so with -any drivers, I guess. A breakdown on the steep mountain roads -could be a serious matter. It meant the complete disruption of the -convoy schedule, involving reloading en route. To provide for<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_159"></a>[159]</span> -this contingency, we made a practice of loading the trucks to three-quarters -of their capacity. The contents of a single truck could -thus be absorbed by the others.</p> - -<p>When a convoy was ready to start, either George or I would -lead off in a jeep and escort the six trucks down the precipitous -road to Alt Aussee. Two half-tracks from the 11th Armored Division, -as front and rear guards, would be waiting to accompany -the convoy to Munich.</p> - -<p>At breakfast one morning George said, “This looks like a good -day to load the gold-seal products.” He meant the Michelangelo -Madonna and the Ghent altarpiece. This was an important event, -for they were unquestionably the two most precious things still at -the mine. Every possible precaution would have to be taken to -make this operation a success. It must go off without a hitch. If -anything happened to either of these masterpieces, the repercussions -would be catastrophic. They would overshadow all the accomplishments -of our MFA&A officers.</p> - -<p>For the past several days, George and Steve had been working -on the Madonna. She was now heavily padded and trussed up like -a ham, ready to be brought out of the mine. We all went down to -the Kaiser Josef chamber where we had first seen her. George -made a final inspection of the ropes and pulleys which had been -set up to hoist her onto the waiting train. Then, with a satisfied -smile, he said, “I think we could bounce her from Alp to Alp, all -the way to Munich, without doing her any harm.”</p> - -<p>Once the statue was gently loaded on the little flat car, the -train pulled slowly out of the mine chamber and switched back -onto the track of the main tunnel. From there it chugged slowly—George -walking alongside—to the mine entrance where the truck -stood waiting. This truck and the one which was to carry the altarpiece<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_160"></a>[160]</span> -had been put in perfect condition. And George had put the -fear of God into the two drivers, both of whom he had personally -chosen from our crew. A dozen of the gnomes were waiting to lift -the marble onto the truck. We slid it cautiously to the fore part -where boards had been laid parallel and nailed to the floor. -These would prevent shifting. On either side of the statue, small -packing cases about two feet square were arranged in even rows -and lashed firmly to the sides of the truck. These cases had been -stored in a chamber of the mine called the Kapelle. They contained -the coin collection intended for the Linz Museum and were -accordingly marked “Münz Kabinett” or Coin Room. Blankets -were wedged in between the cases and the statue. The large case -containing the Greek sarcophagus from Salonika was set in place -behind the statue and similarly secured to the floor and at the -sides. That done, the truck was ready to go.</p> - -<p>As George was putting the finishing touches on the packing, he -said, “Tom, will you go down and get the ‘Lamb’?” To be entrusted -with the removal of the great altarpiece was an exciting -assignment. I wanted to share it with someone who would also get -a kick out of telling his grandchildren that he had actually brought -the famous panels out of their underground hiding place. I called -Lamont, and the two of us, followed by eight of the gnomes, -hitched four of the “dogs” to the little engine and proceeded to -the Mineral Kabinett. One of the “dogs,” especially designed to -carry pictures of unusual height, had a lower bed than the others. -We would use this one for the big central panel of the altarpiece. -Otherwise it would not clear a portion of the mine tunnel where -the jagged rocks hung low over the track.</p> - -<p>The panels were now in their cases, and it was a relatively simple -matter to carry them from the storage room to the train. We -had to make two trips down and back in order to get all ten cases<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_161"></a>[161]</span> -up to the mine entrance. They were much lighter than the statue, -but the loading was a more exacting undertaking. Lashing them -upright in parallel rows, in the truck, and stowing cases on either -side for ballast, took time. We didn’t finish until well after six. -It had taken most of the day to load the “gold-seal products.”</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;" id="illus27"> -<img src="images/illus27.jpg" width="400" height="500" alt="" /> -<p class="caption"><i>Mary Magdalene</i> by Cranach. Göring was especially -fond of Cranach’s work and owned many paintings by him.</p> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;" id="illus28"> -<img src="images/illus28.jpg" width="500" height="500" alt="" /> -<p class="caption"><i>The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine</i> by David was one of the -finest in the Göring Collection.</p> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;" id="illus29"> -<img src="images/illus29.jpg" width="400" height="500" alt="" /> -<p class="caption"><i>Diana</i>, an exquisite Boucher acquired by Göring -from the Rothschild Collection, has been returned to France.</p> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;" id="illus30"> -<img src="images/illus30.jpg" width="400" height="500" alt="" /> -<p class="caption"><i>Atalanta and Meleager</i> by Rubens, found in the -Göring Collection, was from the Goudstikker Collection of Amsterdam.</p> -</div> - -<p>That night we held a conference in George’s room. He was to -go to Munich the next morning with the convoy to supervise the -unloading of the Madonna and the “Lamb” at the depot. He -expected to come back directly, but might have to go on up to -Frankfurt. He mapped out the work he wanted us to do while -he was away. In addition to the job at the mine, there was a -special one down at Bad Ischl. A series of famous panels by Albrecht -Altdorfer, one of the greatest German painters of the fifteenth -century, was stored on the second floor of a highly combustible -old inn. These panels were among his finest works and -belonged to the monastery of St. Florian outside Linz. Fifty or -sixty pieces of sculpture—mostly polychromed wood figures, -fifteenth century Gothic—also the property of the monastery, were -stored there too. George thought we’d better figure on two trucks. -We were to pick up the stuff, bring it back to the mine and then -send it to Munich with the next convoy.</p> - -<p>We made notations of what he had told us, and then Steve produced -drinks—something of an occasion, for liquor was hard to -come by at the mine. Somehow he had got hold of a bottle of cognac -and insisted on making “Alpine Specials.” This was a drink -consisting of a jigger of cognac and an equal amount of a pink -syrupy liquid resembling grenadine. Steve prized the syrup. Eder, -the chemical engineer at the mine, had concocted it especially for -him. The mixture made a drink of dubious merit. We drank to the -success of George’s trip to Munich.</p> - -<p>The convoy got off early the next morning. Lamont and I went<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_162"></a>[162]</span> -down with George as far as the village. Two half-tracks were -waiting to escort the trucks to Munich. They were equipped with -radios for intercommunication, in case of delays along the way. -Between Alt Aussee and Salzburg, the road led through isolated -country. Conditions were as yet far from settled. Small bands of -SS troops still lurked in the mountains. The half-tracks weren’t -just going along for the ride.</p> - -<p>When we returned to the mine, we found Steve and Shrady in -conversation. They were planning an excursion and asked us to -join them. We expressed pious disapproval of letting up on the -job the minute George’s back was turned. Steve’s answer was, -“That’s a crock. I haven’t taken a day off in two weeks. You can -do as you like, me lads; I’m off to see the wizard.” The two of -them climbed into the sporty Mercedes-Benz convertible which -Shrady had recently acquired, and drove off down the mountain.</p> - -<p>“I have an idea,” said Lamont. “They can have their fun today. -We’ll have ours tomorrow, while they pick up the Altdorfer panels -at Bad Ischl.”</p> - -<p>Lamont turned to the loading of trucks, while I went down to -the Kammergrafen with Sieber. In the course of the morning I -selected approximately two hundred pictures. We concentrated -on those of small size, which were stored on the top racks, and the -work went rapidly. Among the paintings we chose was one which -had a typewritten label on the back. I read the words “Von dem -Führer noch nicht entschieden”—not yet decided upon by the -Führer. I asked Sieber what this signified. He explained that every -picture intended for the Linz Museum—and this was one of them—had -to be personally approved by Hitler before it could be officially -included in the prospective collection. I could easily understand -that the Führer would have wanted to examine the more important<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_163"></a>[163]</span> -acquisitions, but that each canvas had to receive his personal approval -struck me as preposterous. Hitler had entrusted the formation -of his collections first to Dr. Hans Posse, a noted scholar, and, -after his death, to Dr. Hermann Voss, director of the Dresden -Gallery. This meticulous procedure, involving the submission of -all pictures to the Führer in Munich, must have been trying to -those two luminaries of the German art world.</p> - -<p>When I came up from the mine for lunch I found that Lamont -had completed the loading of two trucks. As the stock of pictures -in the packing room at the mine entrance was almost exhausted, -he said that he would join Sieber and me in making further selections. -We returned to the Kammergrafen and continued with the -smaller pictures.</p> - -<p>On one of the top shelves we found a cardboard carton bearing -the name of Dr. Helmut von Hümmel, who had been connected -with the formation of the Linz collections. The label indicated that -the contents had been destined for the museum. On the carton appeared -the word “<i>Sittenbilder</i>.” Lamont and I knew the word -“<i>Bilder</i>” meant pictures, but the other two syllables conveyed -nothing. Sieber knew very little English but tried to explain. He -thought perhaps the word meant “customs,” or something like -that. I thought that I understood him. He probably meant that -they were little scenes from everyday life.</p> - -<p>We opened the carton. On top were three small watercolors, -with beautiful gray-blue mounts and carved, gilt frames. If they -were not by François Boucher, they were by a close pupil. The -workmanship was exquisite and they were highly pornographic. So -these were “<i>Sittenbilder</i>.” In our limited German we tried to tell -Sieber that they might be called “scenes from life,” but hardly -everyday life.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_164"></a>[164]</span></p> - -<p>The rest of the things in the carton were of the same order, -some of them contemporary, all of them licentious. None approached -the first three watercolors in sheer virtuosity of technique. -We wondered just which department of the Linz Museum -would have harbored them.</p> - -<p>Later we showed them to Steve. When he looked at the three -watercolors he asked, “Who did those?”</p> - -<p>“They look very much like Boucher,” I said without thinking.</p> - -<p>“Boucher?” asked Steve incredulously. “Not the fellow who -painted that ‘Holy Family’ I saw this afternoon?”</p> - -<p>Lamont said quickly, “Tom means a pupil of Boucher, not -Boucher himself.”</p> - -<p>“Well, that’s more like it,” said Steve. “I didn’t see how an -artist who painted anything so beautiful as that big picture could -paint smutty things like these.”</p> - -<p>The Holy Family to which he referred was a sensitive and tender -representation. Steve’s point was well taken. The fact that -he had not seen much eighteenth century French painting didn’t -alter the validity of his argument.</p> - -<p>On our way up from the Kammergrafen that afternoon we -stopped at the Kapelle. This was one of the mine chambers which -I had visited only long enough to take out some of the cases used -in packing the Bruges Madonna. In addition to the Münz Kabinett -collections, the Kapelle contained the magnificent collection of -Spanish armor—casques, breastplates, full suits of armor, and a -great number of firearms—which had been gathered together at -Schloss Konopischt by the late Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Most -of it was of sixteenth century workmanship, exquisitely inlaid with -gold and silver. Formerly Austrian, it had been the property of -the Czech government since the last World War. Nonetheless, the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_165"></a>[165]</span> -Germans had carried it off, using some flimsy nationalistic argument -to justify their action. While the atmosphere of the mine -was excellent for paintings, it was not satisfactory for metal objects. -Consequently, every piece in the Konopischt collection had -been heavily coated with grease to keep it from oxidizing.</p> - -<p>Their storage room, the Kapelle, was—as the name indicates—a -chapel, dedicated to the memory of Dollfuss, the Austrian Chancellor. -It had an electrically illuminated altar, hewn from a block -of translucent salt crystal, which was one of the sights of the mine.</p> - -<p>That night when Steve and Shrady returned from their outing we -all had hot chocolate and cheese and crackers in the comfortable -kitchen on the ground floor of the main building. They had had a -wonderful day. Maria, Shrady’s interpreter-secretary, had been -with them. They had gone first to St. Wolfgang. There a sentry -had tried to prevent them from driving up the road leading to the -little church. Leopold, the Belgian king, was living near there -with his wife, and motorists were not allowed on that road. But -they had got around the sentry and gone into the church to see the -wonderful carved altarpiece by Michael Pacher. Steve had brought -us some colored photographs of it. Afterward they had had a -swim in the lake and a picnic lunch. And in the afternoon—this -had been the high spot of the day—they had gone over to Bad -Ischl and called on Franz Léhar. The old fellow had been delighted -to see them, had played the <i>Merry Widow</i> waltz for them -and given them autographed photographs. It sounded like fun. -Our day at the mine had been very prosaic in comparison. Mention -of Bad Ischl reminded Lamont of his scheme for the next day. -He proposed to Steve and Shrady that they should call for the -Altdorfer panels. They fell in with the suggestion at once, and -before we could explain that we thought we’d take the day off,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_166"></a>[166]</span> -Steve was telling us about some of the things we should see in -the neighborhood.</p> - -<p>We slept late and when we got up the sky was gray and threatening. -It was no day for an outing. In fact it was so cold that we -decided we’d be warmer down in the mine. There was still one -series of chambers which we had not explored. This was the -Mondsberg, and it took us almost three-quarters of an hour to -reach it. The pictures were arranged on racks as in the Kammergrafen -and the Springerwerke, only in the Mondsberg there were a -great many contemporary paintings. It didn’t take us long to run -through them. They were all obviously German-owned and, judging -from the labels, the great majority of the canvases had been -included in the annual exhibitions at the Haus der Deutschen -Kunst in Munich.</p> - -<p>Ranged along one side of the main chamber was a row of old -pictures. These were of high quality, and we went through them -carefully. I came to a canvas which looked vaguely familiar. It -was the portrait of a young woman dressed in a gown of cherry -brocade. I guessed it to be sixteenth century Venetian, perhaps by -Paris Bordone. I said to Lamont, “I’m sure I’ve seen that picture -somewhere, but I can’t place it.”</p> - -<p>“Let’s see if there’s any mark on the back that might give you a -lead,” said Lamont.</p> - -<p>He found a label and started reading aloud, “California Palace -of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco....”</p> - -<p>I thought he was joking. But not at all. There was the printed -label of my museum. And there too <i>in my own handwriting</i> appeared -the words “Portrait of a Young Woman, by Paris Bordone”! -No wonder the portrait had looked familiar. I had borrowed -it from a New York art dealer for a special loan exhibition<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_167"></a>[167]</span> -of Venetian painting in the summer of 1938. I learned from the -mine records that the dealer had subsequently sold the picture to a -Jewish private collector in Paris. The Nazis had confiscated it -with the rest of his collection. It was a weird business finding it -seven years later in an Austrian salt mine.</p> - -<p>After supper that evening Shrady asked us to go down to Alt -Aussee with him. Some Viennese friends of his were having an -evening of music. The weather had cleared and the snow on the -mountains was pink in the afterglow as we drove down the winding -road from the mine. The house, a small chalet, stood on the -outskirts of the village. Our host, his wife and their two daughters, -had taken refuge there just before the Russians reached -Vienna.</p> - -<p>He introduced us to Dr. Victor Luithlen, one of the curators of -the Vienna Museum, who had driven over from Laufen. Many -of the finest things from the museum were stored in the salt mine -there. Dr. Luithlen was the custodian.</p> - -<p>Both he and Shrady played the piano well. Luithlen played some -Brahms and Shrady followed with the music he had composed for -a ballet based on Poe’s “Raven.” Shrady said that it had been -produced by the Russian Ballet in New York. It was a very flamboyant -piece and Shrady performed it with terrific virtuosity.</p> - -<p>Afterward coffee and strudel were served. The atmosphere of -the household was casual and friendly. I was reminded of what -an Austrian friend of mine had once told me: “In other countries, -conditions are often serious, but not desperate; in Austria they are -often desperate but never serious.”</p> - -<p>Thinking that George Stout might have returned from Munich, -Lamont and I went back up to the mine that night before the others. -George had just come in. He brought exciting but disturbing news.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_168"></a>[168]</span> -We were to continue the work at Alt Aussee for another ten days. -Then we were to transfer our base of operations to Berchtesgaden. -Our job there would be the evacuation of the Göring collection! -On our way through Salzburg we were to pick up the pictures and -tapestries from the Vienna Museum. These were the paintings by -Velásquez, Titian and Breughel which had been highjacked by the -Nazis two months ago and later retrieved by our officers. The disturbing -part of what George had to tell was that he was going to -leave us to carry on alone at the mine. He would try to join us at -Berchtesgaden. But there was a possibility that he might not be -able to make it.</p> - -<p>Months ago George had put in a request for transfer to the -Pacific. He felt that things were shaping up on the European scene -and that others could carry on the work. There would be a big -job protecting and salvaging works of art in Japan. He didn’t -think that a program had been planned. He had offered his services. -He had already told us that he had asked for this assignment, -but we had never considered it as a possibility of the present or -even of the immediate future. Now it looked as though it might -materialize at once. In any case he was going up to Frankfurt the -day after tomorrow to find out.</p> - -<p>“As senior officer, Tom,” George said, “you will take over as -headman of the team. I’ll take you down to see Colonel Davitt -before I go. He is responsible for the security guard here at the -mine and has been extremely co-operative. You should go to him -if you have any complaints about the arrangements after I am -gone.”</p> - -<p>Back in our rooms that night Lamont said, “I have a hunch that -this is the last we’ll see of George. It’s not like him to talk the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_169"></a>[169]</span> -way he did tonight if he hasn’t a pretty good idea that he won’t be -coming back.”</p> - -<p>Together we mapped out a tentative division of the work ahead. -Steve, who had come into the room in time to hear George’s news, -joined our discussion. It was after midnight when the first meeting -of the “three powers” broke up.</p> - -<p>While George was in Munich he had been informed of the imminent -withdrawal of Third Army from the part of Austria in -which we were working. No one could, or would, tell him the -exact date, but it appeared likely that it would take place within -two weeks. It was difficult for me to understand why the arrival -of another American army—General Mark Clark’s Fifth from -Italy—should cause the cessation of our operations. But of course -the Army had its own way of doing things. We were attached to -Third Army and if they were getting out, we would have to get -out with them. All along we had known that this might happen -before we could empty the mine. It was quite probable that Fifth -Army would want to resume the work, but it would take time. -Such a delay would impede the processes of restitution, and we -had therefore been giving first attention to the finest things.</p> - -<p>Having taken stock of the paintings, sculpture and furniture on -which we were going to concentrate in the time we had left, we -spent George’s last day working as usual. The loading went well -and we finished four more trucks. Another convoy would be ready -to take off in the morning.</p> - -<p>George had his own jeep and driver and could make better time -than the convoy, so after early breakfast we went down to Colonel -Davitt’s office. George explained the change in his own plans and -said that I would be taking over at the mine. Then he thanked<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_170"></a>[170]</span> -the colonel for his co-operation. It was a long speech for George.</p> - -<p>When he had finished, Colonel Davitt said, “In all the time -you’ve been here, you haven’t made a single unreasonable demand. -If Lieutenant Howe can come anywhere near that record, we’ll get -along all right.”</p> - -<p>Compliments embarrassed George, so he said good-by as quickly -as possible and climbed into his jeep. He wished me luck and -drove off. I waited for Lamont to come down with the convoy and -give me a lift back up the mountain.</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_171"></a>[171]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_7">(7)<br /> -<span class="smaller"><i>THE ROTHSCHILD JEWELS; THE GÖRING COLLECTION</i></span></h2> - -</div> - -<p>We had our share of troubles during those last ten days at Alt -Aussee. They began that first day of my investiture as head of the -team. Lamont and I were sorting pictures in the room at the mine -entrance. It was early in the afternoon and we were about to start -loading our third truck. I had just said to Lamont that I thought -the morning’s convoy had probably passed Salzburg, when a jeep -pulled up to the door. The driver called out to us that one of our -trucks had broken down at Goisern. That was an hour’s drive from -the mine. Why hadn’t we been notified earlier? I asked. He didn’t -know. Perhaps there hadn’t been anybody around to bring back -word. Maybe the driver had thought he could repair the truck.</p> - -<p>We got hold of Steve and the three of us started for Goisern in -the messenger’s jeep. We’d have to transfer the load, so an empty -truck followed us. We were thankful that the breakdown hadn’t -happened while the convoy was going over the Pötschen Pass. It -would have been a tough job to shift the pictures from one truck to -another on that steep and dangerous part of the road. It was bad -enough as it was, because it looked as though we’d have rain. One -of the trucks had a lot of very large pictures. We hoped that it -wasn’t the one that had broken down.</p> - -<p>It was a little after three when we reached Goisern. The truck -had been parked by the headquarters of a small detachment of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_172"></a>[172]</span> -troops on the edge of town. There were several houses near by -but plenty of room for us to maneuver the empty truck alongside. -The Negro driver of the stranded truck said that it had “thrown a -rod” and would have to be taken to Ordnance for repairs. That -meant that the vehicle would be laid up for two or three weeks. -We’d have to see about a replacement. The main thing was to -get on with the unloading before it began to rain. And it <i>was</i> the -truck with the big pictures.</p> - -<p>With the two trucks lined up alongside, and only a few inches -apart, we could hoist the pictures over the sideboards. In this -way each row of paintings was kept in the same order. Lamont -and Steve boarded the empty truck, while one of the gnomes from -the mine and I started unlashing the first stack of loaded pictures. -Before long a crowd of women and children had collected to watch -this unusual operation. There were excited “oh’s” and “ah’s” as -we began to transfer one masterpiece after another—two large Van -Dycks, a Veronese, a pair of colossal decorative canvases by Hubert -Robert, a Rubens, and so on. The spectators were quiet and well -behaved, whispering among themselves. They didn’t pester us -with questions. We rather enjoyed having an audience. We finished -the job in an hour and a half.</p> - -<p>It wasn’t too soon, for as we were securing the tarpaulin at the -rear of the newly loaded truck, it began to pour. We parked the -truck, arranged for an overnight guard, then climbed into our jeep -and started back to the mine. In a few minutes the rain turned to -hail. The stones were so large that we were afraid they’d break -the windshield of the jeep. We pulled over to the side of the road -and waited for the storm to let up. While we waited, the gnome -told us that sometimes the hailstones were large enough to kill -sheep grazing in the high meadows. Only the summer before he<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_173"></a>[173]</span> -had lost two of his own lambs during one of the heavy summer -storms. He swore that the stones were the size of tennis balls.</p> - -<p>We were thoroughly soaked and half frozen when we got back -to the mine. But we had won our race with the weather, and the -truck would proceed to Munich with the next convoy.</p> - -<p>During the next three days we were beset by a series of minor -difficulties. Two of the trucks broke down on the way up to the -mine to be loaded. It took half a day to get replacements, so the -convoy was delayed. One night the guard on duty at the mine -entrance developed an unwarranted interest in art and poked -around among the pictures which Lamont and I had carefully -stacked according to size for loading the next morning. No harm -was done, but it caused a delay. He was under strict orders to let -no one into the temporary storage room and was not to go in -there himself. It was partly our fault; we shouldn’t have trusted -him with the key. The captain of the guard was notified and -appropriate disciplinary action taken. The gnomes developed a -tendency to prolong their regular rest periods beyond a point Steve -considered reasonable, and we had to come to an understanding -about that. On the whole, however, the work went fairly well.</p> - -<p>Even the great chambers of the Kammergrafen were beginning -to thin out. They were far from empty, but we had cleared them of -a substantial part of the external loot, that is, the loot which had -come from countries outside Germany. There were still quantities -of things taken from Austrian collections, but they had not been -our primary concern. The time had come to make a final check, to -make sure that we had not overlooked anything important in the -category of external loot.</p> - -<p>Together with Sieber, we started this last inspection. We checked -off the pictures first. Our work there had been pretty thorough.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_174"></a>[174]</span> -After that the sculpture. This also seemed to be well weeded out. -And the furniture too.</p> - -<p>Sieber was ahead of us with his flashlight. The light fell on -two cartons standing in a dark corner behind a group of Renaissance -bronzes. I asked what was in them. Sieber shrugged his -shoulders. They had never been opened. He had forgotten that -they were there. We dragged them out and looked for an identifying -label. Sieber recalled that one of the former custodians at the -mine had said the things inside were “<i>sehr wertvoll</i>”—very valuable, -but he knew nothing more.</p> - -<p>We carried the boxes to a table where there was better light. They -were the same size, square, and about two feet high. They were -not heavy. We pried open the lid of one of them with great care. -It might be Roman glass, and that stuff breaks almost when you -look at it. But it wasn’t Roman glass. Inside was a row of small -cardboard boxes. I lifted the lid and removed a layer of cotton. On -the cotton beneath lay a magnificent golden pendant studded with -rubies, emeralds and pearls. The central motif, a mermaid exquisitely -modeled and wrought in iridescent enamel, proclaimed the -piece the work of an Italian goldsmith of the Renaissance. The surrounding -framework of intricate scrolls, shells and columns blazed -with jewels.</p> - -<p>There were forty boxes filled with jewels—necklaces, pendants -and brooches—all of equal splendor. The collection was worth a -fortune. Each piece bore a minute tag on which appeared an identifying -letter and a number. These were Rothschild jewels. And we -had stumbled on them quite by accident.</p> - -<p>Lamont and I agreed that they should be taken to Munich without -delay. There they could be stored in a vault. Furthermore we -decided to deliver them ourselves. It wouldn’t do to risk such<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_175"></a>[175]</span> -precious objects with the regular convoy. We admonished Sieber -to say nothing about our find. In the meantime we would keep -the two boxes under lock and key in our room.</p> - -<p>That night we told Steve we had a special surprise for him. -After barring the door against unexpected visitors, we emptied the -boxes onto one of the beds. We told him not to look until we -were ready. We arranged each piece with the greatest care, -straightening out the links of the necklaces, adjusting the great -baroque pearls of the pendants, balancing one piece with another, -until the whole glittering collection was spread out on -the white counterpane. Then we signaled to Steve to turn around.</p> - -<p>“God Almighty, where did you find those?” he asked.</p> - -<p>While we were telling him how we had happened onto the two -cartons that afternoon, he kept shaking his head, and when we had -finished, said solemnly, “They’re beyond my apprehension.” The -expression stuck and from that time on we invoked it whenever we -were confronted with an unexpected problem.</p> - -<p>Early the following morning we stowed the jewels in the back -seat of our command car and set out for Munich. Halfway to Salzburg -we encountered Captain Posey, headed in the opposite direction. -He was surprised to see us, and still more surprised when -we told him what we had in the car. He was on his way to the -mine. There were some things he wanted to tell us about our next -job—at Berchtesgaden—but if we would come to his office the next -day that would be time enough. He wasn’t going to stay at the -mine more than a couple of hours. He should be back in Munich -before midnight. He said there was one thing we could do when -we reached Salzburg—call on the Property Control Officer and arrange -for clearance on the removal of the Vienna Museum pictures -to the Munich depot. This was an important part of the plan which<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_176"></a>[176]</span> -George had outlined, so we said that we’d see what we could do.</p> - -<p>We had some difficulty finding the right office. There were two -Military Government Detachments in Salzburg—one for the city, -and the other for the region. They were on opposite sides of the -river. We caught Lieutenant Colonel Homer K. Heller, the Property -Control Officer, as he was leaving for lunch. I explained that -it was our intention to call for the paintings and tapestries on our -way to Berchtesgaden the following week. He said he could not -authorize the removal; that we would have to see Colonel W. B. -Featherstone at the headquarters across the river. If the colonel -gave his O.K., it would be all right with him. He didn’t think that -the colonel would take kindly to the idea. This was a surprise. -Who would have the temerity to question the authority of Third -Army? Lamont was amused. He told me I could have the pleasure -of tackling Colonel Featherstone alone.</p> - -<p>It was after two o’clock before the colonel was free. Nothing -doing on the Vienna pictures. That would require an O.K. from -Verona. Why Verona, I asked? “General Clark’s headquarters,” -was the answer. Didn’t I know that the Fifth Army was taking -over the area very shortly? Then the colonel, in accents tinged -with sarcasm, expressed his satisfaction at finally meeting one of -the Monuments officers of the Third Army. He had heard such a -lot about them and the wide territory they had covered. He had -been told that a group of them was working at the Alt Aussee mine, -but I was the first one he had laid eyes on.</p> - -<p>I gathered that he was mildly nettled by Third Army in general -and by me in particular. As a matter of fact, the colonel’s attitude -about the Vienna pictures was logical: why move them out of -Austria? If, as he supposed, they were to be returned to Vienna -eventually, why take them all the way to Munich? I had no answer<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_177"></a>[177]</span> -to that and took refuge in the old “I only work here” excuse. He -found it rather droll that the Navy should be mixed up in this -high-class van and storage business. I had too, once, but the novelty -had worn off. I rejoined Lamont and the jewels. I wondered what -Captain Posey would have to say to all this.</p> - -<p>We reached Munich too late that afternoon to see Craig at the -depot, so we took the jewels with us to his quarters. I had not seen -him since my departure for Alt Aussee some weeks before. In the -interim, there had been a tightening up on billeting facilities. As -a result he and Ham Coulter were now sharing a single apartment. -I was the only one adversely affected by this arrangement. Craig -no longer had a spare couch for chance guests.</p> - -<p>When Lamont and I walked in, we found them talking with a -newly arrived naval lieutenant. He was Lane Faison, who had -been around Harvard in my day. In recent years he had been -teaching at Williams and was at present in OSS. After we had been -there a little while, Lamont asked very casually, “Would you boys -care to see the Rothschild jewels?”</p> - -<p>Ham wanted to know what the hell he was talking about. “Well, -we have two boxes filled with them here in the hall,” Lamont said.</p> - -<p>For the second time we displayed the treasures. Craig’s enthusiasm -was tempered with concern for their safety. He was relieved -when we said we had come purposely to put them in one of the -steel vaults at the depot. We went with him to the Königsplatz -forthwith and stowed them safely for the night.</p> - -<p>Lamont and I continued on our way to Third Army Headquarters. -Lincoln was working late. When we walked in he looked -up from his typewriter and said “Hello” in a flat voice. Lincoln -was in one of his uncommunicative moods. We left him alone and -busied ourselves with letters from home which we found on<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_178"></a>[178]</span> -Posey’s desk. Lincoln went on with his typing. Presently he -stopped and said, “George’s orders came through. He’s gone to -the Pacific.”</p> - -<p>“It ought to be interesting work,” said Lamont.</p> - -<p>“Oh, you knew about his orders?” asked Lincoln.</p> - -<p>“No,” said Lamont.</p> - -<p>That broke the mood. We had a lively session for the next hour. -Lincoln was always a reservoir of information, a lot of it in the -realm of rumor, but all of it fascinating. That evening he was -unusually full of news. He had a perfect audience in Lamont and -me because we had been completely out of touch with things while -at the mine.</p> - -<p>After exhausting his stock of fact and fiction, he produced his -latest box of food from home. There were brandied peaches, tins -of lobster and caviar, several kinds of cheese, dried fruits and -crackers. It was a combination you’d never risk at home, if you -were in your right mind.</p> - -<p>“You do very well for yourself,” I said when he had the refreshments -spread out on his desk.</p> - -<p>“My wife knows the enlisted men’s motto: ‘Nothing is too good -for our boys, and nothing is what they get.’”</p> - -<p>We finished the box and Lincoln showed us an article he had -written on Nazi sculpture. We were reading it when Captain -Posey came in. He asked if we had stopped in Salzburg to see -Colonel Heller. I told him what had happened there. If he was -annoyed, he gave no sign of it. He rummaged in his desk and -brought out a list of instructions for us in connection with the -operation at Berchtesgaden. He suggested that we stop there on -the way back to Alt Aussee; it wouldn’t be very much out of our -way. He gave us the names of the officers we should see about<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_179"></a>[179]</span> -billeting, and so on. It would be well to have all these things -settled in advance. Then he gave us some special orders for Lieutenant -Shrady, who was to be transferred to Heidelberg, now that -the evacuation of the mine was ending.</p> - -<p>Captain Posey said that I was to take over the Mercedes-Benz. -It had been obtained originally for the evacuation team. We were -to take it with us to Berchtesgaden. I could make good use of the -car, transportation facilities being what they were, but I didn’t -relish the prospect of taking it from Shrady. He had spent money -of his own fixing it up and looked on it as his personal property. I -told Captain Posey how I felt. He said he had a letter for me -which would take care of the matter. It was a letter directing me -to deliver Lieutenant Shrady’s orders and to appropriate the car.</p> - -<p>When we saw Faison at the depot the next morning, he asked -if he might drive back with us. He was joining Plaut and Rousseau -at House 71 to work with them on the investigation of Nazi art -looting. I said we’d be glad to have him. The three of us started -off after early lunch. We were looking forward to the Berchtesgaden -detour. None of us had been there during the Nazi regime -and I, for one, was curious to see what changes had taken place in -the picturesque resort town since I had last seen it fifteen years -before.</p> - -<p>We took the Salzburg Autobahn past Chiemsee almost to Traunstein, -and then turned off to the southwest. This was the finest -secondary road I ever traveled. It led into the mountains and the -scenery was worthy of Switzerland. Thanks to perfectly banked -turns, we made the ninety-mile run in two hours.</p> - -<p>The little town was as peaceful and quiet as I remembered it. In -fact it was so quiet that Lamont and I had difficulty locating an -Army outfit to give us directions. We learned that the 44th AAA<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_180"></a>[180]</span> -Brigade had just moved in and that the last remnants of the -famous 101st Airborne Division were pulling out. There was no -love lost between the two, as we found out later. Consequently, -when I asked an officer of the AAA Brigade where I would find -Major Anderson of the 101st Airborne, he informed me curtly that -that outfit was no longer at Berchtesgaden. Then I asked if he -knew where the Göring collection was. He didn’t seem to know -what I was talking about, so I rephrased my question, inquiring -about the captured pictures which had been on exhibition a short -time ago. Yes, he knew vaguely that there had been some kind of -a show. He thought it had been over in Unterstein, not in Berchtesgaden. -Well, where was Unterstein? He said it was about four -kilometers to the south, on the road to the Königssee.</p> - -<p>His directions weren’t too explicit, but eventually we found the -little back road which landed us in Unterstein ten minutes later. -In a clearing on the left side of the road stood the building we -were looking for. It was a low rambling structure of whitewashed -stucco in the familiar Bavarian farmhouse style. It had been a rest -house for the Luftwaffe. The center section, three stories high, -had a gabled roof with widely overhanging eaves. On either side -were long wings two stories high, similarly roofed. The casement -windows were shuttered throughout.</p> - -<p>We found Major Harry Anderson on the entrance steps. He was -a husky fellow with red hair and a shy, boyish manner. He was not -altogether surprised to see us because George had stopped by on -his last trip to Munich and told him we’d be arriving before long. -How soon could we start to work on the collection? In four or five -days’ time, we thought. Could he make some preliminary arrangements -for us? We would need billets for three officers, that is, the -two of us—and Lieutenant Kovalyak. No, there would be four,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_181"></a>[181]</span> -we had forgotten to include the Negro lieutenant in charge of the -truck drivers. Then there would be twenty drivers. Could we say -definitely what day we’d arrive? Lamont and I made some rapid -calculations. It was a Tuesday. How about Friday evening? That -was fine. The sooner the better as far as the major was concerned. -He was slated to pull out the minute the job was done, so we -couldn’t start too soon to suit him.</p> - -<p>He asked if we’d care to take a preliminary look around but we -declined. It was getting late and we still had a hard three-hour -drive ahead of us. As we turned to go, Jim Plaut and Ted Rousseau -came out of the building. They had been expecting Faison but were -surprised to find him with us. Wouldn’t we all have dinner with -them that night at House 71? They had come over from Bad -Aussee that afternoon, bringing Hofer with them. They had been -quizzing him about certain pictures in the collection and he had -wanted to refresh his memory by having a look at them. They -pointed to a stocky German dressed in gray tweeds who stood a -little distance away talking with a tall, angular woman. We recognized -him as the man we had seen pacing the garden at House 71 -weeks before—the evening Lamont and I first reported to George -at the mine. That was his wife, they said. Would we mind taking -Hofer back with us? If we could manage that, they’d take Faison -with them. There were some urgent matters they’d like to talk -over with him in connection with their work. We agreed and Ted -brought Hofer to the car.</p> - -<p>As we left he called out, “Wiederschauen, liebe Mutti,” and kept -waving and throwing kisses to his tall wife. I was struck by the -stoical expression on her face. She watched us go but made no -effort to return his salutations. I wondered if she gave a damn.</p> - -<p>Hofer was a loquacious passenger. All the way to Bad Aussee<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_182"></a>[182]</span> -he kept up a line of incessant chatter, half in English, half in German, -on all sorts of subjects. He gesticulated constantly with both -hands, notwithstanding the fact that one of them was heavily bandaged. -He explained that he had scalded it. The bandage had been -smeared with evil-smelling ointment which had soaked through. As -he gestured the air was filled with a disagreeable odor of medication. -Did we know Salzburg? Ah, such a lovely city, so musical! -Did we know Stokowski? He knew him well. “Then you’ll probably -be interested to know that he has just married one of the -Vanderbilt heiresses, a girl of nineteen,” I said. But I must be -joking. Was it really so?</p> - -<p>I was getting bored with this chatterbox when he suddenly began -to talk about Göring and his pictures. We asked him the obvious -question: What did Göring really like when it came to paintings? -Well, he was fond of Cranach. Yes, we knew that. And -Rubens; he had greatly admired Rubens. And many of the Dutch -masters of the seventeenth century. But according to Hofer it -was he who had directed the Reichsmarschall’s taste. Then, to -my surprise, he mentioned Vermeer. Did we know about the Vermeer -which Göring had bought? After that he went into a lengthy -account of the purchase, leading up to it with an involved story of -the secrecy surrounding the transaction, which had many confusing -details. When we pulled up before House 71, Hofer was still -going strong. Lamont and I were worn out.</p> - -<p>Shrady departed the following morning in compliance with the -orders I had brought him. He left the Mercedes-Benz behind. If I -could have foreseen the trouble that car was going to cause us, -nothing could have tempted me to add it to our equipment. Even -then Lamont eyed it with suspicion, but we were both talked out -of our misgivings by Steve, who rubbed his hands with satisfaction<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_183"></a>[183]</span> -at the prospect of the éclat it would lend our future operations.</p> - -<p>With Shrady’s going, we fell heir to his duties. During our last -three days at the mine they complicated our lives considerably. -There were records to be put in order, reports to be finished, pay -accounts to be adjusted, ration books to be extended for the skeleton -crew which would remain at the mine. In addition, I had to see -Colonel Davitt about the reduction and reorganization of the -guard, and make provision for different billeting and messing -facilities.</p> - -<p>In the midst of these preparations, Ted Rousseau telephoned -from House 71. Were we planning to take Kress, the photographer, -with us to Berchtesgaden? We certainly were. Steve would -sooner have parted with his right eye. Well, they wanted to interrogate -him before we left. How long would they need him? A -few days. I suggested they start right away. We’d be needing him -too. Steve was wild when he heard about it. I agreed that it was a -nuisance but that we’d have to oblige. The OSS boys came for -Kress that afternoon. Steve watched them, balefully, as they drove -off down the mountain. Then he resumed the work he had been -doing on his big Steyr truck. This was a cumbersome vehicle which -he and Kress had been putting in order. It had belonged originally -to the <i>Einsatzstab Rosenberg</i> and was part of Kress’ photographic -unit. He and Steve were refitting it to serve our purposes in a similar -capacity. It was a fine idea, but so far they hadn’t been able to -get it in running order. Steve had had it painted. When he had -nothing better to do, he tinkered with the dead motor. Next to -Kress, the truck was his most prized possession.</p> - -<p>I returned to Shrady’s old office where I found Lamont in conversation -with Dr. Hermann Michel. Michel was a shadowy -figure who had been working at the mine with Sieber and Eder<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_184"></a>[184]</span> -throughout our stay. When Posey and Lincoln Kirstein had arrived -at Alt Aussee in May, he had identified himself as one of -the ringleaders of the Austrian resistance movement and vociferously -claimed the credit of saving the mine. Since then he had -been working in the mine office. Captain Posey had given him -permission to make a routine check of the books and archives -stored there. He was such a talkative fellow that we kept out -of his way as much as possible. And we didn’t like his habit of -praising himself at the expense of others. He was forever running -to Plaut and Rousseau at House 71 with written and oral reports, -warning them to beware of this or that man in the mine organization.</p> - -<p>Lamont looked decidedly harassed when I walked in. Michel -was protesting our demands for a complete set of the records. We -were to leave them in Colonel Davitt’s care when we closed the -mine. Michel had taken the opportunity to say a few unpleasant -things about Sieber. We finally made it clear to him that there -would be no nonsense about the records, and also that what we -did about Sieber was our business. We finally packed him off still -protesting and shaking his head.</p> - -<p>The afternoon before our departure Lamont and I had to go -over to St. Agatha. The little village lay in the valley on the other -side of the Pötschen Pass. We were to verify the report that a -small but important group of paintings was stored in an old inn -there. A fine Hubert Robert <i>Landscape</i>, given to Hitler by Mussolini, -was said to be among them.</p> - -<p>We went first to the Bürgermeister who had the key. He drove -with us to the inn. It was an attractive Gasthaus, built in the early -eighteenth century. The walls were frescoed and a wrought-iron -sign hung over the doorway. When we arrived the proprietress<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_185"></a>[185]</span> -was washing clothes in the arched passageway through the center -of the building.</p> - -<p>She took us to a large corner room on the second floor. There -were some fifty pictures, all of them enormous and unframed. The -Bürgermeister helped us shift the unwieldy canvases about, so that -we could properly examine them. They were, for the most part, of -indifferent quality—sentimental landscapes by obscure German -painters of the nineteenth century.</p> - -<p>But we did find five that were fine: the mammoth landscape with -classical ruins by Hubert Robert, the eighteenth century French -master—this was the one Mussolini had given the Führer; an excellent -panel by Pannini—it too a landscape; a Van Dyck portrait; -a large figure composition by Jan Siberechts, the seventeenth century -Flemish painter; and a painting by Ribera, the seventeenth -century Spanish artist. We set them aside and said we’d return for -them in a few days.</p> - -<p>We had hoped to leave for Berchtesgaden by midmorning the -next day, but we didn’t get off until three in the afternoon. At the -last minute I received word from Colonel Davitt’s office that the -Mercedes-Benz was to be left at the mine. I said that since we had -no escort vehicle, it was an indispensable part of our convoy. That -being the case, the colonel’s adjutant said we could take the car, -but on condition that we return it within twenty-four hours. I said -I’d see what I could do about that.</p> - -<p>Steve fumed while I talked. When I hung up the receiver he -said, “Don’t be a damn fool. Once the car’s out of his area, the -colonel hasn’t got a thing to say about it. Let’s get going.”</p> - -<p>Sieber and Eder, together with a dozen of the gnomes, were -waiting in front of the mine building when we came down the -stairs. Lamont was already in the car. I gave final instructions to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_186"></a>[186]</span> -the captain of the guard, said good-bys all around, and got in the -car myself. Everybody smiled and waved as we drove off.</p> - -<p>The evacuation had been a success. Ninety truckloads of paintings, -sculpture and furniture had been removed from the mine during -the past five weeks. Although it was by no means empty, the -most important treasures had been taken out. Third Army was -withdrawing from the area. From now on the mine would be the -responsibility of General Clark’s forces.</p> - -<p>We were a lengthy cavalcade. Lamont and I took the lead. Steve -followed in the Steyr truck, in running order at last. Behind him -trailed five trucks. We were to pick up eight more at Alt Aussee. -It wasn’t going to be easy to keep such a long convoy in line. If -we could only stay together until we got over the pass, the rest of -the trip wouldn’t be too difficult.</p> - -<p>We made it over the pass without mishap. From time to time -Lamont looked back to make sure the trucks were still following. -He couldn’t count them all, they were so strung out and the road -was so winding. But we had instructed the Negro lieutenant to -give orders to his men to signal the truck ahead in case of trouble, -so we felt reasonably sure that everything was in order. When we -reached Fuschl See we stopped along the lake shore to take count. -One after another eight trucks pulled up. Five were missing. Fifteen -minutes passed and still no sign of the laggards. Steve said -not to worry, to give them another quarter of an hour.</p> - -<p>The blue waters of the lake were inviting. Schiller might have -composed the opening lines of <i>Wilhelm Tell</i> on this very spot. -“Es lächelt der See, er ladet zum Bade.” Steve and Lamont decided -to have a swim. I dipped my hand in the water; it was icy. While -they swam I kept an eye out for the missing vehicles. Presently -two officers drove by in a jeep. I hailed them and ask if they had<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_187"></a>[187]</span> -seen our trucks. They had—about ten miles back two trucks had -gone off the road. They thought there had been two or three -others at the scene of the accident. Lamont and Steve dressed -quickly. Steve said he’d go on with the eight trucks and meet us in -Salzburg. Then Lamont and I started back toward Bad Ischl.</p> - -<p>We hadn’t gone more than five miles when we came upon three -of our vehicles. We signaled them to pull over to the side of the -road. At first we couldn’t make out what the drivers were saying—all -three talked at once. We finally got the story. A driver had -taken a curve too fast and had lost control of his truck. The -one behind had been following too closely and had also crashed -over the side. The first driver had got pinned under his truck and -they had had to amputate a finger before he could be extricated. -The lieutenant in charge had stayed behind to take care of things. -He had told them to try to catch up with the rest of the convoy. -By the time they had given us all the details, we realized that -they had been drinking. And we guessed that alcohol had -also had something to do with the truck going off the road. We -would have something to say to the lieutenant when he reached -Berchtesgaden. He was new on the job, having replaced Lieutenant -Barboza only two days ago. We were thankful that our precious -packing materials had been put in two of the trucks up ahead.</p> - -<p>Steve was waiting for us in the Mozart Platz when we reached -Salzburg an hour and a half later with our three trucks in tow. He -told the drivers where they could get chow. The three of us went -across the river to the Gablerbräu, the small hotel for transients, for -our own supper. The Berchtesgaden operation hadn’t begun -auspiciously.</p> - -<p>Our troubles weren’t over. When we pulled into Berchtesgaden -at eight o’clock, we couldn’t find Major Anderson, so we had to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_188"></a>[188]</span> -fend for ourselves. We managed to put the drivers up for the one -night in a barracks by the railway station before going on to Unterstein -ourselves. The lieutenant in charge of the drivers hadn’t -turned up when we were ready to go, so I left word that he was to -report to me first thing the next morning. While we three felt -unhappy over the lack of billeting arrangements for us, we were -too tired to think much about it that night. Bed was all that mattered. -The officer on duty at the Unterstein rest house said there -was an empty room over the entrance hall which we could use -until we got permanent quarters. There were three bunks, so we -moved in.</p> - -<p>By contrast, everything started off beautifully the following -morning. Major Anderson appeared as we were finishing breakfast.</p> - -<p>His apologies were profuse and he did everything he could to -make amends. We declined his offer to obtain rooms for us at the -elegant Berchtesgadener Hof in town. We wanted to be on the -spot. There was plenty of room in the rest house where we would -be working; and we could mess with the half-dozen officers billeted -in the adjacent barracks. The major introduced us to Edward -Peck, the sergeant, who had been working on an inventory of the -collection.</p> - -<p>Together we made a tour of the premises. The paintings alone -filled forty rooms. Four rooms and a wide corridor at the end of -the ground-floor hall were jammed with sculpture. Still another -room was piled high with tapestries. Rugs filled two rooms adjoining -the one with the tapestries. Two more rooms were given over -to empty frames, hundreds of them. There was the “Gold Room” -where the objects of great intrinsic value were kept under lock and -key. And there were three more rooms crammed with barrels,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_189"></a>[189]</span> -boxes and trunks full of porcelain. One very large room was a sea -of books and magazines, eleven thousand altogether. A small -chapel on the premises was overflowing with fine Italian Renaissance -furniture.</p> - -<p>The preliminary survey was discouraging. Although the objects -were infinitely more accessible than those at the mine had been, -this advantage was largely offset by the fact that they were all loose -and would have to be packed individually. Even the porcelain in -barrels would have to be repacked.</p> - -<p>Our first request was for a work party of twelve men—GIs, not -PWs. We suggested to the young C.O., Major Paul Miller, that -he call for volunteers. If possible, we wanted men who might -prefer this kind of job to guard duty or other routine work. They -could start in on the books while we mapped out our plan of attack -on the rest of the things. Steve went off with Major Miller -to select the crew, and Lamont and I settled down to discuss other -problems with Major Anderson and Sergeant Peck.</p> - -<p>It was the sergeant’s idea that the collection could be packed up -one room at a time. He had compiled his inventory with that -thought in mind. Unfortunately we couldn’t carry out the evacuation -in that order. We explained why his system wouldn’t work: -paintings, for example, had to be arranged according to size. -Otherwise we couldn’t build loads that would travel safely. Even -if we could have packed the pictures as he suggested—one room at -a time—it would have meant the loss of valuable truck space. We -assured him that, in the long run, our plan was the practical one. -It did, however, involve considerable preliminary work. The first -job would be to assemble all of the pictures—and there were a -thousand of them—in a series of rooms on one floor of the building. -As the sergeant had not quite finished his lists, we agreed to devote<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_190"></a>[190]</span> -our energies to the books for the rest of the day. By morning he -would have his inventory completed. Then the pictures could be -shifted.</p> - -<p>Lamont and I wanted to know more about the collection. How -did it get to Berchtesgaden in the first place? Major Anderson -was the man who could answer our questions.</p> - -<p>As the war ended, the French reached the town ahead of the -Americans. They had it to themselves for about three days and had -raised hell generally. Göring’s special train bearing the collection -had reached Berchtesgaden just ahead of the French. The collection, -having been removed from the Reichsmarschall’s place, Karinhall, -outside Berlin, was to have been stored in an enormous -bunker by his hunting lodge up the road. But there hadn’t been -time. The men in charge of the train got only a part of the things -unloaded. Some of them were put in the bunker, others in a villa -near by. Most of the collection was left in the nine cars of the -train. The men had been more interested in unloading a stock of -champagne and whisky which had been brought along in two of the -compartments.</p> - -<p>When the French entered the town, the train was standing on a -siding not far from the bunker. They may have made off with a -few of the things, but there were no apparent depredations. They -peppered it along one side with machine-gun fire. However, the -damage had been relatively slight.</p> - -<p>Then the French had cleared out and the train was, so to speak, -dumped in Major Anderson’s lap, since he was the Military Government -Officer with the 101st Airborne Division. Under his -supervision, the collection had been transferred from the train, -from the bunker and from the villa, to the rest house. Later he had -been instrumental in having it set up as an exhibition. The exhibition<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_191"></a>[191]</span> -had been a great success—perhaps too great a success. He -meant that it had attracted so much attention that some of the -higher-ups began to worry about the security of the things. Finally -he had received orders that the show was to close and of course he -had complied at once.</p> - -<p>He said that General Arnold had come to see the exhibition the -day after that. We asked if he had let him in. Well, what did we -think? But he had turned down a three-star general who had come -along after hearing that General Arnold had been admitted. The -general, he said, was hopping mad.</p> - -<p>The major’s most interesting experience in connection with the -collection was his visit with Frau Göring. He heard that some of -the best pictures were in her possession, so he took a run down to -Zell am See where she was staying in a Schloss belonging to a -South American. He found the castle; he found Emmy; and he -found the pictures. There were indeed some of the best pictures—fifteen -priceless gems of the fifteenth century Flemish school, from -the celebrated Renders collection of Brussels. Göring had bought -the entire collection of about thirty paintings. We knew that M. -Renders was already pressing for the return of his treasures, claiming -that he had been forced to sell them to the Reichsmarschall. -But that was another story.</p> - -<p>Frau Göring wept bitterly when the major took the pictures, protesting -that they were her personal property and not that of her -husband. On the same visit he had recovered another painting in -the collection. Frau Göring’s nurse handed over a canvas measuring -about thirty inches square. She said Göring had given it to -her the last time she saw him. As he placed the package in her -hands he had said, “Guard this carefully. It is of great value. If -you should ever be in need, you can sell it, and you will not want for<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_192"></a>[192]</span> -anything the rest of your life.” The package contained Göring’s -Vermeer.</p> - -<p>Major Anderson stayed for lunch. As we walked back from the -mess, a command car pulled up in front of the rest house. Bancel -La Farge and a man in civilian clothes climbed out. I hadn’t seen -Bancel for two months. He was a major now. The civilian with -him was an old friend of mine, John Walker, Chief Curator of the -National Gallery at Washington and a special adviser to the Roberts -Commission. John had flown over to make a brief inspection -tour of MFA&A activities. Bancel was serving as his guide. They -were on their way to Salzburg and Alt Aussee.</p> - -<p>Major Anderson proposed a trip to the Eagle’s Nest, Hitler’s -mountain hide-out, suggesting that the visitors could look at the -Göring pictures that evening. Lamont and I said we had work to -do, but we were easily talked out of that.</p> - -<p>You could see the Eagle’s Nest from the rest house. It was -perched on top of the highest peak of the great mountain range -which rose sharply from the pine forests across the valley. We -crossed to the western side and began a steep ascent. About a -thousand feet above the floor of the valley we came to Obersalzberg, -once a select community of houses belonging to the most -exalted members of the Nazi hierarchy. In addition to the Berghof, -Hitler’s massive chalet, it included a luxurious hotel—the Platter -Hof—SS barracks, and week-end “cottages” for Göring and Martin -Bormann. The British bombed Obersalzberg in April 1945. The -place was now in ruins. The Berghof was still standing but gutted -by fire and stripped of all removable ornamentation by souvenir -hunters.</p> - -<p>We continued up the winding road carved from the solid rock, -through three tunnels, at length emerging onto a terraced turnaround,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_193"></a>[193]</span> -around, five thousand feet above Berchtesgaden. The major told -us that the road had been built by slave labor. Three thousand -men had worked on it for almost three years.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 825px;" id="illus31"> -<img src="images/illus31.jpg" width="825" height="500" alt="" /> -<p class="caption"><i>Portrait of a Young Girl</i> by Chardin (<i>left</i>) and <i>Young Girl with Chinese Figure</i> by Fragonard (<i>right</i>) were acquired by -Göring from the confiscated Rothschild Collection of Paris. The paintings have been returned to France.</p> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;" id="illus32"> -<img src="images/illus32.jpg" width="450" height="500" alt="" /> -<p class="caption"><i>Christ and the Adulteress</i>, the fraudulent Vermeer, for -which Göring exchanged 137 paintings of unquestioned authenticity.</p> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 375px;" id="illus33"> -<img src="images/illus33.jpg" width="375" height="500" alt="" /> -<p class="caption"><i>Portrait of the Artist’s Sister</i> by Rembrandt. -One of the five Rembrandts in the Göring Collection.</p> -</div> - -<p>The Eagle’s Nest was still four hundred feet above. From the -turnaround there were two means of access: an elevator and a -footpath. The elevator shaft, hewn out of the mountain itself, was -another feat of engineering skill. A broad archway of carved stone -marked the entrance. Beside the elevator stood a sign which read, -“For Field Grade Officers Only”—that is, majors and above.</p> - -<p>“A sentiment worthy of the builder,” Lamont observed as we -took to the footpath.</p> - -<p>On our steep climb we wondered what Steve would say to such -discrimination. We hadn’t long to wait. He made a trip to the -Eagle’s Nest a few days later. When stopped by the guard, he -looked at him defiantly and asked, “What do you take me for, a -Nazi?” Steve rode up in the elevator.</p> - -<p>The Eagle’s Nest was devoid of architectural distinction. Built -of cut stone, it resembled a small fort, two stories high. From the -huge, octagonal room on the second floor—a room forty feet -across, with windows on five sides—one could look eastward into -Austria, southward to Italy. A mile below lay the green valleys -and blue lakes of Bavaria. They used to say that every time Hitler -opened a window a cloud blew in. The severity of the furnishings -matched the bleakness of the exterior. An enormous conference -table occupied the center of the room. Before the stone fireplace -stood a mammoth sofa and two chairs. A smaller room adjoined -the main octagon at a lower level. The heavy carpet was frayed -along one side. The caretaker, pointing to the damage, said that in -his frequent frenzies Hitler used to gnaw the carpet, a habit which -had earned him the nickname of “<i>Der Teppich-Beisser</i>,” the rug-biter.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_194"></a>[194]</span> -Considering the labor expended on this mountain eyrie, the -place had been little used. The same caretaker told us that Hitler -had never stayed there overnight. Daytime conferences had been -held there occasionally, but that was all.</p> - -<p>It was late when we got back to the rest house, so our guests -postponed their inspection of the Göring collection until the following -morning. That evening Lamont and I made a second and -more thorough survey of the rooms in which the paintings were -stacked. We began with a room which contained works of the -Dutch, Flemish, German and French schools. The inventory listed -five Rembrandt portraits. One was the <i>Artist’s Sister</i>; another was -his son <i>Titus</i>; the third was his wife, <i>Saskia</i>; the fourth was the portrait -of a <i>Bearded Old Man</i>; and the fifth was the likeness of a -<i>Man with a Turban</i>.</p> - -<p>We examined the backs of the pictures for markings which -might give us clues to previous ownership. Two of the portraits—those -of Saskia and of the artist’s sister—had belonged to Katz, -one of the best known Dutch dealers. I had been surprised to learn -in Paris that Katz, a Jew, had done business with the Nazis. But -I was also told that only through acceding to their demands for -pictures had he been able to obtain permits for his relatives to leave -Holland. According to the information I received, he had succeeded -thereby in smuggling twenty-seven members of his family -into Switzerland. A revealing commentary on the extent and -quality of his paintings.</p> - -<p>The portrait of Titus had been in the Van Pannwitz collection. -Mme. Catalina van Pannwitz, South American born, but a resident -of the Netherlands, I believe, had sold a large part of her collection -to Göring. Whether it had been a bona fide or a forced sale -was said to be a moot question.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_195"></a>[195]</span></p> - -<p>Another important Dutch private collection, that of Ten Cate -at Almelo, had “contributed” the <i>Man with a Turban</i>. And the -<i>Bearded Old Man</i> had been bought from the Swiss dealer, Wendland, -who had agents in Paris. He had allegedly discovered the -painting in Marseilles.</p> - -<p>These five pictures posed an interesting problem in restitution. -To whom should they be returned? Who were the rightful -owners—as of the summer of 1945?</p> - -<p>At the time we were beginning our work on the Göring collection, -definite plans for the restitution of works of art were being -formulated by the American Military Government. They were an -important part of the general restitution program then being -planned by the Reparations, Deliveries and Restitution Division of -the U. S. Group Control Council. Pending the implementation of -the program, the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section of -U. S. Forces, European Theater, was the technical custodian of all -art works eventually to be restituted.</p> - -<p>Bancel La Farge, who became Chief of the Section when SHAEF -dissolved, had outlined the plans to us on our way back from the -Eagle’s Nest that afternoon. There were two main categories of -works of art slated for prompt restitution to the overrun countries -from which they had been taken. The first included all art objects -<i>easily identifiable as loot</i>—the great Jewish collections and -the property of other “enemies of the state” which had been seized -by the Nazis. The second embraced all art works <i>not</i> readily identifiable -as loot, but for which some compensation was known or -believed to have been paid by the Nazis.</p> - -<p>The actual restitution was to be made on a wholesale scale. -Works of art were to be returned <i>en bloc</i> to the claimant nations, -<i>not</i> to individual claimants of those nations. To expedite this “mass<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_196"></a>[196]</span> -evacuation” country by country, properly qualified art representatives -would be invited to the American Occupied Zone, specifically -to the Central Collecting Point at Munich, where they could -present their claims. Once their claims were substantiated—either -by documents in their possession or by records at the Collecting -Point—the representatives would be responsible for the actual -removal.</p> - -<p>We asked Bancel how the various representatives were to be -selected. He explained that several of the overrun countries had -set up special Fine Arts Commissions. The one in France was -called the <i>Commission de Récupération Artistique</i>. The one in -Holland had an unpronounceable name, so it was known simply as -“C.G.R.”—the initials stood for the name translated into French, -<i>Commission de Récupération Générale</i>. And the one in Belgium -had such a long name that he couldn’t remember it offhand. -Czechoslovakia, Poland and Greece would probably establish similar -committees before long. Each commission would choose a -representative and submit his name to the MFA&A Section for approval. -Once the names were approved and the necessary military -clearances obtained, the representatives could enter the American -Zone, proceed to Munich and start to work.</p> - -<p>Bancel said that each representative would have to sign a receipt -in the name of his country before he could remove any works of -art from the Collecting Point. The receipt would release our government -from all further responsibility for the objects concerned—as -of the time they left the Collecting Point. Furthermore, it would -contain a clause binding the receiving nation to rectify any mistakes -in restitution. For example, if the Dutch representative inadvertently -included a painting which later turned out to be the -property of a Belgian, then, by the provisions of the receipt,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_197"></a>[197]</span> -Holland would be obligated to return that painting to Belgium. -The chief merit of this system of fine arts restitution lay in the -fact that it relieved American personnel of the heavy burden -of settling individual claims. From the point of view of our government, -this was an extremely important consideration because of -the limited number of men available for so formidable an undertaking. -And from the point of view of the receiving nations, the -system had the advantage of accelerating the recovery of their -looted treasures.</p> - -<p>In the room where Lamont and I had seen the Rembrandts, we -found a pair of panels by Boucher, the great French master of the -eighteenth century. Each represented an ardent youth making -amorous advances to a coy and but half-protesting maiden in a -rustic setting. They were appropriately entitled <i>Seduction</i> and -were said to have been painted for the boudoir of Madame de -Pompadour. According to the inventory, the panels had been -bought from Wendland, the dealer of Paris and Lucerne.</p> - -<p>These slightly prurient canvases flanked one of the most beautiful -fifteenth century Flemish paintings I had ever seen, <i>The Mystic -Marriage of St. Catherine</i> by Gerard David. The Madonna with -the Child on her lap was portrayed against a landscape background, -St. Catherine kneeling at her right, dressed in russet velvet. Round -about were grouped five other female saints, each richly gowned -in a different color. It was not a large composition, measuring only -about twenty-five inches square, but it possessed the dignity and -monumentality of a great altarpiece. The authenticity of its sentiment -put to shame the facile virtuosity of the two Bouchers which -stood on either side.</p> - -<p>The second room we visited that evening contained an equally -miscellaneous assortment of pictures. Here the canvases were<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_198"></a>[198]</span> -even more varied in size. A <i>Dutch Interior</i> by Pieter de Hooch, a -<i>View of the Piazza San Marco</i> by Canaletto, and two Courbet landscapes -were lined up along one wall. The de Hooch, an exceptionally -fine example of the work of this seventeenth century master, -was listed in the inventory as having belonged to Baron Édouard -de Rothschild of Paris. The Courbets were something of a rarity, -as Göring had few French paintings of the nineteenth century. -One of the landscapes, a winter scene, was an important work, -signed and dated 1869. The inventory did not indicate from whom -it had been acquired. In one corner stood a full-length portrait -of the Duke of Richmond by Van Dyck. Our list stated that it had -come from the Katz collection. Beside it was a brilliant landscape -by Rubens. There were perhaps ten other pictures in the room, -among them several nondescript panels which appeared to be by -an artist of the fifteenth century Florentine school, a portrait by the -sixteenth century German master, Bernhard Strigel, a “fête champêtre” -by Lancret, and two or three seascapes of the seventeenth -century Dutch school.</p> - -<p>Lamont and I had been looking at this assemblage for some little -time before we noticed an unframed canvas standing on the washbasin -by the window. The upper edge of the picture leaned against -the wall mirror at an angle which made it difficult to get a good -look at the composition from where we stood. Closer inspection -revealed the subject to be <i>Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery</i>. -I studied it for a few minutes and was still puzzled. Turning to -Lamont I asked, “What do you make of this? I can’t even place -it as to school, let alone guess the artist.”</p> - -<p>“Unless I am very much mistaken,” he said slowly, “that is the -famous Göring ‘Vermeer.’”</p> - -<p>“You’re crazy,” I said. “Why, I could paint something which -would look more like a Vermeer than that.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_199"></a>[199]</span></p> - -<p>We consulted the inventory. Lamont was right. A few lines -below the listing of the Rubens landscape—a picture I had just -been admiring in another part of the room—appeared the entry -“Vermeer, Jan ... ‘The Adulteress’ ... Canvas, 90 cm. × 96 cm.” -The subject coincided with that of the picture on the washbasin. -The measurements were identical.</p> - -<p>I tried to visualize the picture properly framed, properly lighted -and hanging in a richly furnished room. But still I couldn’t conceive -how such trappings could blind one to the flat greens and -blues, the lack of subtlety in the modeling of the flesh tones, the -absence of that convincing rendering of the “total visual effect” -which Vermeer had so completely mastered.</p> - -<p>“Who attributed this painting to Vermeer?” I asked.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know,” said Lamont, “but it is related stylistically to the -‘Vermeer,’ in the Boymans Museum at Rotterdam, the <i>Christ at -Emmaus</i>.”</p> - -<p>So this was the painting Hofer was talking about; this was the -painting Göring had given the nurse. One of the notorious Van -Meegeren fakes.</p> - -<p>Lamont’s reference to the Boymans’ “Vermeer” called to mind -the great furor in the art world nearly a decade ago when that -picture had turned up in the art market.</p> - -<p>Dr. Bredius, the famous connoisseur of Dutch painting, discovered -the picture in Paris in 1936. He was convinced that it -was a hitherto unknown work by Vermeer, the rarest of all Dutch -masters. The subject matter was of special interest to Dr. Bredius, -for the <i>only</i> other Vermeer which dealt with a religious theme was -the one in the National Gallery at Edinburgh.</p> - -<p>The past history of the picture was as reassuring as that of many -another accepted “old master.” Dr. Bredius learned that it had -belonged to a Dutch family. One of the daughters had married a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_200"></a>[200]</span> -Frenchman in the middle eighties. The picture had been a wedding -present and she had taken it with her to Paris. But their house -had been too small for such a large painting—it was four feet -high and nearly square—so the canvas had been relegated to the -attic. According to the story, they hadn’t known that it was particularly -valuable or they might have sold it. In any case, the picture -remained in the attic until the couple died. It had come to -light again when the house was being dismantled.</p> - -<p>Through Dr. Bredius, the Boymans Museum had become interested -in the picture. Other experts were called in. A few questioned -it, but the majority accepted it as a Vermeer. In 1937, the -directors of the Boymans Museum purchased the <i>Christ at Emmaus</i> -for the staggering price of three hundred and seventy-five thousand -dollars.</p> - -<p>Unknown to the outside world, several more Vermeers were -“discovered” during the war years. All were of religious subjects. -One was bought at a fantastic price by Van Beuningen, the great -private collector of Rotterdam; another by the Nazi-controlled -Dutch Government for an exorbitant sum; and a third by Hermann -Göring. Though the Reichsmarschall did not pay cash for -his Vermeer, the price was high; he traded one hundred and thirty-seven -pictures from his collection. According to Hofer, his adviser -and agent, the paintings he gave in exchange were all of high -quality.</p> - -<p>The final chapter in the story of these newly found Vermeers -is one of the most interesting in the annals of the art world. At the -close of the war, Dr. van Gelder, the director of the Mauritshuis—the -museum at The Hague—and other Dutch art authorities began -an official investigation. It was curious that so many lost Vermeers -had come to light in such a short space of time. It was recalled<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_201"></a>[201]</span> -that in 1942 an artist named Van Meegeren had delivered a million -guilders to a Dutch bank for credit to his account. The money -was in thousand-guilder notes, which the Germans had ordered -withdrawn from circulation at that time. The artist was not known -to be a man of means and his mediocre talents as a painter could -not have enabled him to amass such a fortune.</p> - -<p>Van Meegeren was questioned and finally admitted that he had -painted the <i>Christ at Emmaus</i> and the other lately discovered -“Vermeers.” Even after he had made a full confession, there were -certain Dutch critics who doubted the truth of his statements. -This nettled Van Meegeren, and he promptly offered to demonstrate -his prowess. His choice of a subject might have been symbolic: -Jesus Confounding the Doctors. It took him two months to -finish the picture. The work was done in the presence of several -witnesses. He painted entirely from memory, using no models.</p> - -<p>In the course of the demonstration, he explained the ingenious -methods he had used to defraud the experts. In the first place his -compositions were original but painted <i>in the style</i> of Vermeer. In -the second, he used old canvas and only the pigments known to the -Dutch masters of the seventeenth century. It had not been difficult -to pick up at auctions old paintings of little value. It was not always -necessary to remove the existing pictures. He frequently -adapted portions of them to his own compositions, or, conversely, -rearranged his to take advantage of part of an old picture. He -was scrupulously careful to avoid modern zinc white and used -only lead white which had been employed by the artists of the -seventeenth century. He took equal precautions with his other -colors, using ground lapis lazuli and cochineal for his blues and -reds. He had obtained these, at great expense, from abroad.</p> - -<p>At the time I was evacuating the Göring pictures, the Dutch<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_202"></a>[202]</span> -government was completing its investigation of Van Meegeren’s -activities. Subsequently, the Ministry of Education, Arts and -Sciences publicly announced its findings, confirming the fact that -Henrik van Meegeren was the author of the celebrated picture in -the Boymans Museum and also of “other forgeries done so marvelously -that the best art experts pronounced them genuine.”</p> - -<p>Bancel La Farge and John Walker returned the following morning. -Although it was Sunday, our crew of GIs had reported for -work at seven-thirty and, under Steve’s supervision, continued to -pack books. Some eight thousand volumes remained to be placed -in cases before they could be loaded onto the trucks. While this -work was in progress Lamont and I made a tour of the pictures with -our guests. We looked again at the rooms we had visited the night -before, singling out the paintings we thought would be of greatest -interest to them, such as the best of the Dutch and Flemish masters, -the Cranachs, the eighteenth century French pictures and the -finest sculptures. We concluded the tour at noon. Our visitors had -to get started on their way to the mine at Alt Aussee.</p> - -<p>After lunch Lamont joined the crew at work on the books, while -I went in search of Sergeant Peck. We had explained to him that -all of the paintings would have to be numbered before we could -prepare them for loading. The sergeant had agreed, but I was not -certain that he altogether understood why we were so insistent -on this point. I found Peck in his room at the end of the south -wing of the rest house. As usual, he was working on the inventory. -He was a serious, scholarly fellow. Before entering the Army, -he had been an art teacher at an Ohio college, so his present assignment -was very much to his liking. He had done a remarkably fine -job on the inventory. It was a detailed seventy-page document giving -the title of each picture, the name of the artist, the dimensions<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_203"></a>[203]</span> -of the canvas and, where known, the name of the collection from -which it had been acquired.</p> - -<p>I told him that we hoped to get started on the pictures the next -morning. We would arrange them in rooms on the second floor -of the center section of the building. Those rooms were the ones -most accessible to the door leading to our loading platform. We -would want him to be responsible for checking off each picture -as it was carried onto the truck. Since there were more than a -thousand paintings in the inventory, there was only one practical -way this checking could be done: by going through all the rooms -and numbering each picture, setting down the corresponding -number on the correct entry in the inventory.</p> - -<p>I asked if he could spare the time to help me with the numbering -that afternoon. He agreed; so, armed with the inventory and -some chalk, we began with the rooms on the second floor. By -midafternoon we had finished marking two hundred pictures. -Lamont could start with these the next forenoon. They would -keep him busy until we had numbered an additional batch.</p> - -<p>At three Steve and I drove over to Brigade Headquarters to make -arrangements for escort vehicles. We expected to have our first -convoy ready to leave for Munich the following afternoon. It was -only a ninety-mile run, Autobahn all the way, so two jeeps would -suffice.</p> - -<p>The 44th AAA Brigade was established in General Keitel’s -old headquarters, about two miles northwest of Berchtesgaden. -With its smooth gravel driveways and well-tended lawns, the place -had the air of a luxurious country club. The administrative offices -were located in an L-shaped building, a modern adaptation of the -familiar Bavarian provincial style. The surrounding buildings—barracks -and small houses—had been designed in the same style.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_204"></a>[204]</span></p> - -<p>We were received by Captain Putman, the Chief of Staff’s adjutant, -a brisk young man, who promised to provide us with the -necessary escort vehicles.</p> - -<p>“Cocky fellow, wasn’t he?” said Steve as we left the office.</p> - -<p>“Yes, but I have a feeling we’ll get our jeeps on schedule,” I -said.</p> - -<p>My hunch was right. Only once during the entire Berchtesgaden -operation did the escort vehicles fail to report for duty at the appointed -hour. That one time was when Captain Putman had a -day off.</p> - -<p>By noon the next day our first convoy of four trucks was ready -for the road. Two of the trucks were filled with books, twenty-seven -cases of them. The other two contained twenty-five cases, -but not cases of books: four were filled with glassware (308 -pieces); seven contained porcelain (1135 pieces); eight contained -gold and silver plate (415 pieces); and the remaining six were -packed with rugs. These were from Karinhall, near Berlin, the -largest of Göring’s seven households.</p> - -<p>As soon as we had dispatched the convoy, Lamont and four -members of the work party resumed the sorting and stacking of -the numbered paintings. Sergeant Peck and I, with two helpers -to shift the larger canvases, proceeded with the numbering. Steve -took off for Alt Aussee to pick up Kress, the photographer, and his -paraphernalia.</p> - -<p>That night Lamont decided we should improve our quarters. -This involved moving from the room we occupied at the front of -the building to a much larger one at the back. The new room had -several advantages which the old one lacked. It had been the reading -room of the rest house in the days of the Luftwaffe occupancy -and was attractively paneled in natural oak with built-in bookshelves.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_205"></a>[205]</span> -It was thirty feet long and fifteen wide, nearly twice the -size of our former room, and opened onto a broad porch. There -were French doors and two large windows which afforded a spectacular -view of the mountain range to the east. The Eagle’s Nest -crowned the highest of the peaks. At one end of the room was an -alcove, with a built-in desk and couch. With a little fixing up, it -could be turned into a comfortable sitting room.</p> - -<p>Before we could transfer our belongings to this spacious apartment, -we had to clear out a few of the Reichsmarschall’s—half a -dozen pieces of sculpture and three large altarpieces. The outstanding -piece of sculpture was a life-size statue of the Magdalene which -Göring had acquired from the Louvre. Similarly, the most important -of the three altarpieces was a big triptych which also had come -from the Louvre. Göring did not remove these objects by force. He -obtained them by exchange after prolonged negotiations with the -officials of the museum. According to the information given me, -both parties were well pleased with the trade. As I recall, the -Louvre received six objects from the Reichsmarschall’s collection in -return for the triptych and the statue. I was told that one of the -six pieces was a painting by Coypel, the eighteenth century French -artist, which had belonged to one of the Paris Rothschilds. It was -because they were of German workmanship that Göring particularly -coveted the pieces which he obtained from the Louvre. It is -presumed that this did not prejudice the Louvre in their favor.</p> - -<p>The statue, portraying the Magdalene clothed only in her long -blonde tresses, was known as “la belle allemande,” the beautiful -German. It was an exceptionally fine example, in polychromed -wood, of the work of Gregor Erhardt, a Swabian sculptor of the -first quarter of the sixteenth century. I fancied that Göring detected -a resemblance between the statue and his wife. Lamont and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_206"></a>[206]</span> -I carried the statue down to the first floor of the rest house and -placed it at the foot of the stairs.</p> - -<p>It was one of the last objects we packed for shipment and, during -our stay at Berchtesgaden, I had the uncomfortable feeling that -I had caught Frau Göring on her way to the bath. I was not the -only one with that idea. One evening I found the GI guard draping -a raincoat about the Magdalene’s shoulders. I had given strict -orders that the guards were to touch nothing in the collection, so -I stopped to have a word with him on the subject. He said with a -sheepish look, “I didn’t mean to break the rules, sir, but I thought -Emmy looked cold.”</p> - -<p>The altarpiece which Göring acquired from the Louvre was a -sumptuous affair consisting of three panels painted with nearly life-size -figures against a gold background. It was by the Master of the -Holy Kinship, an artist of the Cologne School of the fifteenth century. -The large center panel represented the <i>Presentation in the -Temple</i>; the right-hand panel, the <i>Adoration of the Magi</i>; the left-hand -panel, <i>Christ Appearing to Mary</i>. During its recent peregrinations -the central panel had cracked from top to bottom. But fortunately -the cleavage, which ran through the center of the middle -panel, fell in an area devoid of figures. An adroit restorer could -easily repair the damage. We shifted the altarpiece to an adjoining -room.</p> - -<p>The two remaining altarpieces were works of the fifteenth century -French school. One represented the <i>Crucifixion</i>; the other, the -<i>Passion of Christ</i>. The <i>Crucifixion</i> had belonged to the Paris -dealer Seligmann, whose collection had been confiscated by the -Nazis. The inventory did not show the name of the former owner -of the other panel. A highly imaginative composition with nocturnal -illumination, it was attributed to the rare French master,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_207"></a>[207]</span> -Jean Bellegambe. As we carried the altarpieces into the room in -which we had placed the one from the Louvre, I remarked to Lamont -that for a godless fellow Göring seemed to have had a nice -taste for religious subjects. The pieces of sculpture, which we added -to the collection in the lower hallway, were also of devotional character: -two Gothic statues of St. George and the Dragon, one of St. -Barbara, and two of the Madonna and Child.</p> - -<p>We brought three large wardrobes from our old room, placed -two of them at right angles to the walls to form a partition, and set -the third in a corner of the new room. The beds came next. In -another hour we had the furniture arranged to our satisfaction. -By the time we had added a silver lamp, borrowed temporarily from -the Göring collection, and tacked up a few of our photographs, the -place looked as though we had been living there for weeks.</p> - -<p>Without Steve the loading went more slowly, but we managed -to finish three trucks by two o’clock the next day. The driver of -one of the escort jeeps had brought us a message from Munich that -it would simplify the work at the Central Collecting Point if we dispatched -the trucks in groups of three or four instead of waiting until -we had six loaded. At the Alt Aussee mine we hadn’t been able -to work on such a schedule because we lacked sufficient escort vehicles. -We didn’t have that problem at Berchtesgaden because the -shorter distance made possible a one day turnaround. The jeeps -could easily make the round trip in half a day. Accordingly, we -sent off our second convoy that afternoon. The trucks contained -the rest of the books—forty-three cases in all—sixty-five paintings -and fifteen of the larger pieces of sculpture.</p> - -<p>In anticipation of Kress’ arrival, we spent the next morning assembling -all the paintings that appeared to have suffered recent -damage of any kind. His first job would be to make a photographic<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_208"></a>[208]</span> -record which we would include in our final report on the evacuation -of the collection. We found thirty-four pictures in this category. -Only two had sustained serious injury. These were the side panels -of a large triptych by the sixteenth century Italian artist, Raffaellino -del Garbo. They had been badly splintered by machine-gun fire -while the collection was still aboard the special train which had -brought it to Berchtesgaden. Three other panels bore the marks -of stray bullets, but the harm done was relatively slight. In general, -the damage consisted of minor nicks and scratches and water -spots. Considering the hazards to which the collection had been -exposed, the pictures had come through remarkably well. I was -reminded of what George Stout had said, “There’s a lot of nonsense -talked about the fragility of the ‘old masters.’ By and large, -they are a hardy lot. Otherwise they wouldn’t have lasted this -long.”</p> - -<p>We had worked our crew all day Sunday, so we told them to -knock off as soon as we had finished selecting and segregating the -damaged pictures. With the afternoon to ourselves, we turned -our attention to the miscellaneous assortment of objects in the -“Gold Room.” This was the name given the small room on the -ground floor in which Sergeant Peck had stored the things of great -intrinsic value. There were seventy-five pieces in all: gold chalices -studded with precious stones; silver tankards; reliquaries of gold -and enamel work; boxes of jade and malachite; candelabra, clocks -and lamps of marble and gold; precious plaques of carved ivory; -and sets of gold table ornaments. They presented a specialized -packing job which Lamont and I could handle better alone than -with inexperienced helpers.</p> - -<p>Our first problem was to find some small packing cases. We -searched the rest house without success. Then Lamont remembered<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_209"></a>[209]</span> -seeing a pile of individual wooden file cabinets in the little -chapel where most of the furniture was stored. These were admirably -suited to our purpose. They were rectangular boxes about -six feet long and two feet high. Each was divided into three compartments. -There were thirty of them—more than enough for the -job. We had a supply of flannel cloths which we had borrowed -from a packing firm in Munich. After wrapping each piece, we -placed it in one of the compartments of the file cabinet. We stuffed -the compartments with excelsior so that the objects could not move -about.</p> - -<p>A few of the items were equipped with special leather cases. -Among these were two swords: one, with a beautifully etched -blade of Toledo steel, had been presented to Göring by the Spanish -air force; the other, with a jewel-studded gold handle, had been a -gift from Mussolini. There was also a gold baton encrusted with -precious stones, a present from the Reichsmarschall’s own air -force.</p> - -<p>Of all these objects, perhaps twenty were of modern workmanship. -In contrast to the older things, they were ornate without being -beautiful. Ugliest of the lot was a standing lamp. The stalk, eight -inches in diameter, was a shaft of beaten gold. The shade, with a -filigree design, was also of gold, as were the pull cords. Rivaling it -in costly vulgarity was a set of gold table ornaments. The large -centerpiece consisted of an elliptical framework. At each end -and in the center of the two sides stood Egyptian maidens, fashioned -of gold, four feet high. The German slang word for such -stuff is “kitsch.” I think the closest English equivalent is “corny.”</p> - -<p>Toward the end of the afternoon we were waited on by a delegation -of three officers from the 101st Airborne Division. They -had come to inquire if we would consider turning over to them the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_210"></a>[210]</span> -gold sword which Mussolini had given to Göring. They wanted it -as a trophy for a club of 101st Airborne officers which they were -organizing. They planned to set up a clubroom when they got -back home and have annual reunions. The sword, they said, would -be such an appropriate souvenir. I told them that I had been directed -to ship everything to Munich and did not have authority -to make any other disposition of objects in the collection. But, -since the sword could not be regarded as a “cultural object”—a -fact which I called to their attention—I suggested that they take -the matter up with Third Army Headquarters in Munich. I refrained -from informing them that, for all of me, they could have -their pick of the modern objects in the “Gold Room.”</p> - -<p>We made an interesting discovery that afternoon. Rummaging -in a closet off the “Gold Room” we found a stack of photograph -albums. At the bottom of the heap lay an enormous portfolio. It -contained architect’s drawings for the proposed expansion of Karinhall. -The estate, greatly enlarged, was to have become a public -museum. We had heard that Göring intended to present his art -collection to the Reich on his sixtieth birthday. Here was concrete -proof of those intentions. Each drawing bore the date “January -1945.”</p> - -<p>Steve returned in triumph at noon the next day. With him in -the command car was Kress, looking more timid than ever. Steve -said that Kress had had a bad time after we left Alt Aussee; the -boys at House 71 had clapped him in jail and left him there for -two days before interrogating him. Steve had been “burned up” -about it and had given them a piece of his mind. He said contemptuously -that he had known all along they didn’t have anything -on Kress. But he was content to let bygones be bygones. -Steve had his man Friday back again.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_211"></a>[211]</span></p> - -<p>He pointed happily to the six-by-six which had pulled up behind -the command car. All of Kress’ photographic equipment was -packed up inside it. There was a tremendous lot of stuff: three -large cameras, a metal table for drying prints, reflectors, a sink, -pipes of various sizes, boxes of film and paper, and a couple of -large cabinets. Steve planned to get everything installed at once. -Kress was to sleep in one of the rooms of the rest house. An adjoining -room was to be set up as a darkroom.</p> - -<p>We showed Steve our new quarters and suggested that Kress -take over our old room. The one next door would make a good -darkroom. I asked Steve how he was going to get all the stuff installed. -He’d have to have a plumber. That didn’t bother Steve. -He asked me to tell the mess sergeant that Kress was to have his -meals with the civilian help in the kitchen. He’d take care of -everything else. Steve was as good as his word. He found a -plumber and by the end of the day Kress was ready to start work.</p> - -<p>Notwithstanding these interruptions, Lamont and I managed to -load and dispatch a convoy of three trucks. This third convoy contained -two hundred paintings, thirty tapestries, fifteen more pieces -of large sculpture and a dozen pieces of Italian Renaissance furniture.</p> - -<p>At odd moments during our first days at Berchtesgaden, we had -worried about the sculpture. In the first three convoys we had disposed -of only thirty of the two hundred and fifty pieces. Most of -those remaining were just under life size. We had no materials -with which to build crates. And even if we had had the lumber, the -labor of building them would have greatly delayed the evacuation. -That evening we found the solution of the problem. The three of -us were standing on the open porch outside our room after supper. -Two of the trucks were parked by the loading platform directly<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_212"></a>[212]</span> -below. Why not make a checkerboard pattern of ropes, strung -waist high across the truck bed? The floor of the truck could be -padded with excelsior. We could set a statue in each of the -squares. The ropes would hold each piece in place. If we stuffed -quantities of excelsior between the statues, they wouldn’t rub. -Perhaps it was a crazy idea. On the other hand, it might work.</p> - -<p>The following morning Steve and two of the men prepared the -truck while Lamont and I selected the statues for the trial load. -We chose thirty of the largest pieces. We figured on seven or eight -rows, with four statues in each row. Kress set up his camera on -the porch and photographed the progress of the operation. One -by one the long row of madonnas, saints and angels was set in place. -We hadn’t been far off in our calculations. There were twenty-nine -in all. The truck looked like a tumbrel of the French Revolution -filled with victims for the guillotine. It was a new technique in the -packing of sculpture. Steve said we’d have to send George Stout a -photograph. “And we’ll have to send for more excelsior, too,” -Lamont said. He was quite right. We had used up the last shred.</p> - -<p>That afternoon Steve combed the countryside for a fresh supply -of excelsior, returning just before supper with three new bales. In -the meantime, Lamont went over, with Kress, the paintings to be -photographed. Sergeant Peck and I completed numbering the last -of the pictures.</p> - -<p>The next day we loaded three more trucks. With Steve on hand -to crack the whip over the men, the loading went fast, so fast in -fact that Sergeant Peck had a hard time checking off the paintings -as they were hoisted onto the trucks. We packed four hundred pictures, -the cases containing the gold and silver objects which Lamont -and I had finished the day before, and another dozen pieces of furniture. -The convoy—our fourth—got off in the early afternoon.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_213"></a>[213]</span> -We placed a special guard on the truck with the sculpture to make -sure that the driver didn’t smoke on the way.</p> - -<p>We finished one more truck and stopped for a cigarette. It was -a hot day and we didn’t feel like doing any more work. Steve had -gone up to the darkroom to see Kress. Lamont said, “Let’s go up -to Munich.”</p> - -<p>“That suits me, but what excuse have we got?” I asked.</p> - -<p>“If we must have an excuse, I can think of at least four,” he said -thoughtfully. “We’re out of cigarettes and candy. We ought to be -on hand when they unpack the sculpture at the Collecting Point. -We’ve worked for a week without taking a day off. And perhaps -there’ll be some mail for us at Posey’s office.”</p> - -<p>“What about the little brown bear? Do you think he’ll mind -our taking off?” I asked. This was Lamont’s name for Steve, but it -was never used when he was within earshot.</p> - -<p>“Steve’s had his trip for this week,” said Lamont, meaning -Steve’s trip to Alt Aussee.</p> - -<p>Sergeant Peck, who had overheard part of our conversation, -asked if he might join us. We told him to be ready in ten minutes -and went off to notify Steve of our plans and to pack up our -musette bags. Steve was so busy helping Kress with his developing -that he scarcely paid any attention to us. After leaving him a -final injunction to have at least three trucks loaded before we -got back the next evening, we called for the command car. The -driver, a restless redhead named Freedberg, who hated the monotonous -routine at Berchtesgaden, was delighted with the idea of going -to Munich. Sergeant Peck appeared and we set off.</p> - -<p>We chose the shorter road through the mountains and overtook -the convoy on the Autobahn, halfway to Munich. The front escort -jeep was holding the speed down to thirty-five miles an hour, in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_214"></a>[214]</span> -accordance with my instructions. The driver waved envyingly as -we passed them doing fifty. Twenty miles from Munich, Freedberg -turned west off the Autobahn and took the back road from Bad -Tölz, a short cut which brought us directly to Third Army Headquarters.</p> - -<p>We arrived at Captain Posey’s office just as Lincoln Kirstein was -leaving for chow. He told us that the captain had gone to Pilsen -the middle of the week but was due back that evening. “There’s -quite a lot of mail for both of you,” Lincoln said. He handed us -each a thick batch of letters. It was the first mail I had received -from home in six weeks. There were forty-two letters!</p> - -<p>“I told you there’d be mail for us,” said Lamont with a satisfied -smile.</p> - -<p>We had supper with Craig Smyth and Ham Coulter at the Detachment -that evening. Craig said that the convoy had not arrived -before he left the Collecting Point, but two of his German workmen -were to be on duty the next morning, even though it was -Sunday. We arranged to meet him at his office and supervise the -unloading. Lincoln had said that Posey would not be back before -ten, so we spent the evening with Craig and Ham at their apartment.</p> - -<p>Just before we returned to Third Army Headquarters, Ham gave -us a small paper-bound volume. It was entitled <i>The Ludwigs of -Bavaria</i>. The author was Henry Channon.</p> - -<p>“This is one of the most fascinating books I’ve ever read,” Ham -said. “You might take it along with you.”</p> - -<p>I thanked him, and stuck it in my musette bag. Before our operations -in Bavaria ended two months later, that little book had come -to mean a great deal to the members of the evacuation team. We -called it our “Bavarian bible.” So alluring were Channon’s descriptions<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_215"></a>[215]</span> -of the “Seven Wonders of Bavaria” that whenever we had a -free day—or even a few hours to ourselves—we made excursions -to these architectural fantasies: the swirling, baroque churches of -Wies, Weltenburg, Ottobeuren and Vierzehnheiligen; the Amalienburg -and the palace of Herrenchiemsee. The Residenz at -Würzburg, which we had seen, was one of the seven. Unofficially -we added an eighth to the list: Schloss Linderhof, Ludwig II’s opulent -little palace near Oberammergau—ornate and vulgar, yet fascinating -in its lonely mountain setting. But these were extracurricular -activities, falling outside the orbit of our official work.</p> - -<p>We found Captain Posey at his office when we got there a few -minutes before ten that evening. He asked us for a complete account -of our operations at Berchtesgaden. We reported that we -had sent a total of fourteen truckloads up to Munich the first -week; that we had cleaned out half the pictures, but that we had -just begun on the sculpture. We estimated that it would take us -another ten days to finish; we would probably fill seventeen or -eighteen more trucks.</p> - -<p>We asked him what plans he would have for us when we completed -the job. He said he might send us to the Castle of Neuschwanstein. -The place was full of things looted from Paris. In fact, -it was one of the major repositories of the <i>Einsatzstab Rosenberg</i>. -The French were clamoring to have it evacuated. Then there was -another big repository in a Carthusian monastery at Buxheim. That -too contained loot from Paris. Perhaps we could take a run down to -both places and size up the jobs after we had finished with the -Göring things. The captain was tired after his long trip, so we -didn’t go into details about either of the two prospective assignments. -He offered us a billet for the night and the three of us -turned in shortly after eleven. It was none too soon for me: I still<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_216"></a>[216]</span> -had forty-two unopened letters from home in the pocket of my -jacket.</p> - -<p>When we arrived at the Collecting Point the next morning, the -two German workmen who had been with me at Hohenfurth were -starting to unpack the truck with the sculpture. Lamont and I -examined each statue as it was lifted from its nest of excelsior. All -twenty-nine had come through without a scratch. Our experiment -was a success. We would be able to use the same technique -with the rest of the sculpture. I instructed the workmen to leave -all of the excelsior in the truck, as we had none to spare.</p> - -<p>I persuaded Craig to drive back to Berchtesgaden with us for the -night. He looked tired and I thought the change would do him -good. His responsibilities at the Collecting Point—the “Bau,” as -we called it (our abbreviation for Verwaltungsbau)—were heavy; -and he never took a day off.</p> - -<p>On the return trip he told us his latest troubles. Only three days -ago a small bomb had exploded in the basement of the “Bau.” It -had blown one of the young German workmen to bits. Craig gave -all the grisly details, which included discovering one of the poor -fellow’s arms in a heap of debris fifty feet from the scene of the -explosion. The tragedy had had one beneficial result. For weeks -Craig had been harping on the subject of additional guards for the -Collecting Point. His words had fallen on deaf ears—until the -bomb episode. He said that a general and three colonels arrived -at the building within half an hour. Since then everyone had been -so “security-conscious” that he had had no further difficulty in -obtaining the desired number of guards. The Bomb Disposal Unit -inspected the premises and some pointed comments were made -about the thoroughness of the original survey.</p> - -<p>In our absence Steve had loaded three trucks. As a reward for<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_217"></a>[217]</span> -his labors, I suggested that he take Craig up to the Eagle’s Nest -the following morning. While they were gone, Lamont and I finished -three more loads. We had the convoy of six lined up by -noon. Craig returned to Munich in one of the escort jeeps. This -fifth convoy contained one hundred and sixty-seven paintings, one -hundred and six pieces of sculpture, twenty-five tapestries, sixty-eight -cases filled with bibelots, and fifty-three pieces of furniture. -It was our largest convoy out of Berchtesgaden thus far.</p> - -<p>It was also the first one to break down. Late in the afternoon, -the rear escort jeep arrived at the rest house with word that two -of the trucks had broken down fifteen miles out of Berchtesgaden. -Steve and I drove to Berchtesgaden to arrange to have them towed -in for reloading. I also wanted to do a little investigating. There -could be little excuse for breakdowns on the Munich road if the -trucks had been in good mechanical condition when they started -out.</p> - -<p>On the way into town, Steve said, “Tom, I think I know what -caused the trouble. I didn’t think of it till just now. But the other -day on the road back from Alt Aussee, two six-by-sixes passed me -at a hell of a clip. I thought I recognized the drivers as two of -ours.”</p> - -<p>I questioned the lieutenant in charge of the drivers. He professed -ignorance of any unauthorized junkets back to Alt Aussee.</p> - -<p>“I am going to have a word with Tiny,” said Steve as we left -the lieutenant’s room. Tiny was the head mechanic and the only -one of the entire crew who was always on the job. Steve wanted -to talk to him alone, so I waited in the car.</p> - -<p>A few minutes later he came back with a satisfied grin on his -face. “I got the whole story,” he said. “The drivers have been -racing back and forth to Alt Aussee all the time we’ve been here.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_218"></a>[218]</span> -They were crazy about it up at the mine. Tiny says they hate it -here at Berchtesgaden.”</p> - -<p>“Well, we’ll fix that,” I said. I went back to see the lieutenant. -“How many drivers have you got and how many trucks?” I asked.</p> - -<p>“Sixteen drivers and thirteen trucks,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Send eight of the drivers and five of the trucks up to Munich -first thing in the morning and have them report to the trucking -company. We can finish the job here without them.”</p> - -<p>Steve always sang when he was in a particularly happy frame of -mind. That evening, on the way back to the rest house, he was in -exceptionally good voice.</p> - -<p>Five days later we completed the evacuation of the Göring collection. -The last two convoys, of four and seven trucks respectively, -contained the larger pictures, one hundred and seventy-seven of -them; sixty pieces of sculpture, twenty miscellaneous cases, sixty-seven -pieces of furniture and two hundred empty picture frames. -We had heavy rain that last week and the mud was ankle-deep -around the loading platform. Although it was early August, the -nights were cold and the rest house, emptied of its treasures, was a -cheerless place. We were glad to see the last of the trucks pull out -of the drive. It had been a strenuous operation—thirty-one truckloads -in thirteen days. In the early afternoon we would collect our -personal belongings and return to Munich.</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_219"></a>[219]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_8">(8)<br /> -<span class="smaller"><i>LOOTERS’ CASTLE: SCHLOSS NEUSCHWANSTEIN</i></span></h2> - -</div> - -<p>A telephone call from Brigade Headquarters changed our plans. -It was Major Luther Miller of G-2. He had just made an inspection -of a house belonging to one of Göring’s henchmen and -there was a lot of “art stuff” in it. He had reported the find to -Third Army Headquarters and Captain Posey had told him to get -in touch with me. Could I go up to the house with him that afternoon?</p> - -<p>Major Miller picked me up after lunch. He was a handsome -fellow, tall and sparely built. He had an easy, pleasant manner. -As we drove along he gave me further details about the house to -which we were going. It had been occupied until the day before -by Fritz Görnnert and his wife. Görnnert had been the social secretary -and close confidant of Göring. The Görnnerts had been living -on the second and third floors. They shared the house with a -man named Angerer, who had the first floor. Both Görnnert and -Angerer had been apprehended and were now in jail. Major Miller -had found a suspiciously large number of tapestries and other art -objects on the premises. He thought they might be loot.</p> - -<p>The house was an unpretentious villa hidden among pine trees -high up in the hills above the town. The place was under guard. -On the ground floor we examined the contents of a small store-room. -There were several cases bearing Angerer’s name and three<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_220"></a>[220]</span> -or four large crates containing Italian furniture. A similar store-room -on the second floor contained a dozen tapestries, a pile of -Oriental rugs, a large collection of church vestments and nearly a -hundred rare textiles mounted on cardboard. I noticed that the -tapestries, vestments and textiles were individually tagged and that -the markings were in French.</p> - -<p>Concealed beneath the tapestries were ten cases, each one about -two feet square and a foot high. Major Miller hadn’t seen these -before. On each one was stenciled in Gothic letters: “Reichsmarschall -Hermann Göring.” They contained a magnificent collection -of Oriental weapons.</p> - -<p>In a room which Görnnert had apparently used for a study we -found six handsome leather portfolios filled with Old Master -drawings. The drawings were by Dutch and French artists of the -seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.</p> - -<p>There was a possibility that all of these things, with the exception -of the weapon collection, which Göring had probably entrusted to -Görnnert, were the legitimate property of the tenants. It was -equally possible that they had been illegally acquired. In the circumstances, -Major Miller wished me to take charge of them. I -said that I could take them to the Central Collecting Point at -Munich where they would be held in safekeeping until ownership -had been determined.</p> - -<p>The house had been thoroughly ransacked. Drawers had been -pulled out and their contents disarranged. Closet doors stood open -and the clothing on the hangers had been gone over. The beds were -rumpled, for even the mattresses had been searched. Despite the -topsy-turvy look of things, there was no evidence of wanton destruction. -The search had been thorough and methodical. I asked -the major what his men had been looking for, but his answer was<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_221"></a>[221]</span> -noncommittal. He did say, though, that the discovery of documents -hidden in a false partition in the living room had prompted -the search.</p> - -<p>The following morning Steve, Lamont and I went to the Görnnert -house in the command car. It would have been difficult to -take a large truck up the narrow winding road. In any case, I -thought we could probably load all of the stuff in the command -car. Major Miller had sent one of his officers ahead with the -key. The house had been searched again. This time it looked as -though a cyclone had struck it. Pillows had been ripped open; -drawers had been emptied on the floor; clothes were scattered -all over the bedrooms. I was relieved to find that the things which -we had come to take away had not been tampered with. I asked -the lieutenant with the key what had been going on in the house, -and he muttered something about “those CIC boys.” I seemed to -have touched on a sore subject, so I didn’t pursue the matter. -Lamont, who knew the ways of the Army far better than I, said -that probably there had been a “jurisdictional dispute” over who -had the right to search the place and that perhaps two different outfits -had taken a crack at it. I was glad that Major Miller’s emissary -was there to bear witness to <i>our</i> behavior.</p> - -<p>We bundled up the rugs, tapestries and textiles and got out as -quickly as possible. They completely filled the command car. -Lamont and Steve sat in front with the driver. I wedged myself in -between the top of the pile and the canvas top of the car. There -was no room for the ten cases of weapons, so I sent a message to -Major Miller to have one of his men deliver them to us later in the -day.</p> - -<p>When we got back to the rest house, Kress had dismantled his -darkroom and after lunch we loaded the photographic equipment<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_222"></a>[222]</span> -onto the one truck we had held over for that purpose. There was -ample space for the things from the Görnnert house. Before packing -them we had to make a complete list of the items. There were -two hundred and thirteen church vestments, eighty-one mounted -textiles, twenty rugs and eleven tapestries. It was suppertime when -we finished. As the ten cases of weapons hadn’t arrived, we decided -to wait till morning and load everything at once.</p> - -<p>That evening Major Anderson of the 101st Airborne came over -with the official receipt which I was to sign. It was an elaborate -document comprising Sergeant Peck’s seventy-page inventory and -a covering letter from the C.O. of the 101st Airborne Division to -the Commanding General of the Third Army stating that I had received -from Major Anderson the entire Göring collection for delivery -to the Central Collecting Point at Munich. Having discharged -his responsibility, the major was free to go home to the -U.S.A. That called for a celebration and he had brought a bottle of -cognac. It was sixty years old. He said that it came from Hitler’s -private stock at the Berghof. Even Steve, who had harbored a -slight grudge toward Anderson since the night of our arrival in -Berchtesgaden, relented and the four of us toasted the successful -evacuation of the Göring treasures.</p> - -<p>The major had another surprise for us: he had engaged a room -at the Berchtesgadener Hof. He insisted that the three of us move -over from the rest house. The next day was Sunday. What would -be the point of going up to Munich? We had been working hard -for two weeks. Why not take life easy for a day or two?</p> - -<p>The Berchtesgadener Hof was a luxurious resort hotel. Its appointments -were modern and lavish. In the days of the Nazi regime, -it had been patronized by all visiting dignitaries, save the -chosen few who had been invited to stay at the Berghof or the small<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_223"></a>[223]</span> -hotel at Obersalzberg. It was now being used by the Army as a -“leave hotel.” We had an enormous double room with twin beds -and a couch. We had our own private terrace. The room faced -south with a wonderful view of the mountains. We even had a -telephone which worked. I hadn’t seen such magnificence since -the Royal Monceau in Paris. There was a room for our driver on -the top floor. The final de luxe touch was the schedule of meal -hours; breakfast wasn’t even served until eight-thirty. It was hard -to believe that we were in Germany.</p> - -<p>We were awakened early by a call from Major Miller. He had -another job for me—two, in fact. They had been interrogating -Görnnert and he had told them that several pieces of valuable -sculpture had been buried in the grounds of his house. The major -had located the spot and the things were to be excavated before -noon. Also he wanted me to go with him to inspect a cache of -pictures reported hidden in a forester’s house not far from Berchtesgaden. -I said I’d be ready in an hour.</p> - -<p>The phone rang again. This time it was Captain Posey. Had -we remembered to pick up the pictures at St. Agatha? The ones -Mussolini had given to Hitler? No, we hadn’t. We were to be -sure to attend to that before we returned to Munich. Steve was -cursing these early callers and Lamont was shaking his head sadly. -Our life of ease was getting off to a hell of a poor start.</p> - -<p>When Major Miller and I reached the Görnnert place, the Sergeant -of the Guard and one of his men were standing beside a hole -in the ground some twenty yards behind the house. The hole was -about six feet square and four feet deep. Four bundles wrapped in -discolored newspaper lay on the ground at the edge of the excavation. -The first bundle I opened contained a wood statue of the -Madonna and Child, about eighteen inches high. It had been an<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_224"></a>[224]</span> -attractive example of the fifteenth century French school, but -moisture had seriously damaged the original polychromy and the -wood beneath was soft and pulpy. The next two bundles contained -pieces of similar workmanship, but they were not polychromed. -One was a Madonna and Child; the other a figure of St. -Barbara. Although they were damp, the wood had not disintegrated. -The fourth package contained the prize of the lot, an ivory -figure of the Madonna and Child. It was a fine piece from the -hand of a French sculptor of the late fourteenth century. The -ivory was discolored but otherwise in good condition. I wrapped -the statues in fresh paper and put them in the car.</p> - -<p>Our next objective was the little village of Hintersee, a few -kilometers west of Berchtesgaden. The forester’s house, a large -chalet with overhanging eaves, stood at the edge of a meadow several -hundred yards from the road. I explained the purpose of our -visit to the young woman in peasant dress who answered our knock. -She took us to a room on the second floor which was filled with -unframed canvases stacked in neat rows along the walls. They -were the work of contemporary German painters and, according -to the young woman, had been the property of the local Nazi organization. -From my point of view, the trip had been a waste of -time. There wasn’t a looted picture in the lot. While I looked at -the paintings, Major Miller thumbed through a pile of books on a -big table in one corner of the room. Among them he found a volume -called <i>Die Polnische Grausamkeit</i>—<i>The Polish Atrocity</i>. A characteristic -sample of German propaganda, it was a compilation of -“horror photographs” illustrating the alleged inhuman treatment -of Germans by the Poles. It added a gruesome touch to our visit.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;" id="illus34"> -<img src="images/illus34.jpg" width="300" height="500" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">Removal of treasures from the castle of -Neuschwanstein was completed by Captain Adams and Captain de Brye.</p> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;" id="illus35"> -<img src="images/illus35.jpg" width="400" height="500" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">Neuschwanstein—Ludwig II’s fantastic castle -in which the Nazis stored looted art treasures -from France.</p> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;" id="illus36"> -<img src="images/illus36.jpg" width="500" height="350" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">Neuschwanstein. Packing looted furniture for return to France. The carpentry -shop was set up in the castle kitchen. (Note the large range in the -foreground.)</p> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;" id="illus37"> -<img src="images/illus37.jpg" width="500" height="350" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">Neuschwanstein. Typical storage room in the castle. In adjoining room Lieutenants -Howe, Moore and Kovalyak packed 2,000 pieces of gold and silver -looted from M. David-Weill.</p> -</div> - -<p>When I got back to the hotel at noon I found messages from -Steve and Lamont. Steve had gone over to Unterstein to see about<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_225"></a>[225]</span> -the repairs on his Steyr truck, the one he and Kress had spent so -much time on—fitting it up as a mobile photographic unit. There -was also some work to be done on the Mercedes-Benz, which had -been standing idle, concealed behind a clump of bushes by the rest -house, during our evacuation of the Göring collection. Steve had -been right about the car; Colonel Davitt at Alt Aussee had not -pressed his claim to it.</p> - -<p>Lamont had taken off for St. Agatha in a truck borrowed from -Brigade Headquarters to pick up the Hitler-Mussolini pictures.</p> - -<p>There was also a message brought down by courier from Captain -Posey’s office. It contained a list of three places in the vicinity -of Berchtesgaden which should be inspected on the chance that -they contained items from the Göring collection. One of them was -the forester’s hut at Hintersee which I had just seen. The other two -were castles in the neighborhood: Schloss Stauffeneck-Tiereck and -Schloss Marzoll. I asked Major Anderson at lunch what he knew -about them. He had nothing to contribute on the subject and said -I’d probably draw a blank on all three. After removing the Göring -things from the train, he had taken the precaution of publishing a -notice to all residents of the area instructing them to declare all art -works in their possession. He had done this as a means of recovering -objects which might have been sequestered by Göring’s agents -and objects which might have been surreptitiously removed from -the train while it stood on the siding. The results had been disappointing. -Only about thirty pictures had been turned in and -none of them was in any way connected with Göring.</p> - -<p>The major’s prediction was correct. Lamont, Steve and I visited -the two castles the next day. In addition to their own furnishings, -Schloss Stauffeneck-Tiereck and Schloss Marzoll contained -only books from the University of Munich. These fruitless researches<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_226"></a>[226]</span> -took all day. It was after five when we left Berchtesgaden.</p> - -<p>It was raining when we reached Munich three hours later. Kress -had no place to stay and it took us an hour to locate a civilian -agency which provided billets for transients. The only thing they -had to offer was a room for one night in a ruined nunnery on the -Mathilde-Strasse. It was a gloomy place. There was no light and -the windows were without glass. One of the Sisters, candle in -hand, led us along a dark corridor to a small single room at the -back. We followed with our flashlights. We gave Kress a box of -K rations and told him we’d come back for him in the morning. -Steve was of two minds about the place: on the one hand it wasn’t -good enough for Kress; on the other he was impressed by the compassion -of the Sisters in offering refuge to strangers. He wanted -me to point out to Kress the anomaly of his being given sanctuary -by the Church. I convinced him that my German wasn’t fluent -enough. We thanked the Sister and went off to find ourselves a -billet. We decided on the Excelsior, the hotel for transient officers. -We were several miles from Third Army Headquarters, whereas -the hotel was only a few blocks away.</p> - -<p>I didn’t like driving the Mercedes-Benz around Munich, even -though I had got away with it so far. The Third Army regulation -forbidding officers to drive was strictly enforced. Perhaps my -uniform baffled the MPs. It consisted of a Navy cap with blue -cover, a British battle jacket with Navy shoulder boards, khaki -trousers and black riding boots. It was my personal opinion that -the MPs mistook the shoulder bars for the insignia of a Polish -officer. The Poles, and the other liaison officers as well, were allowed -to drive their own cars. Steve used to pooh-pooh my apprehensions -about the MPs. “They’re a bunch of dumbheads,” he -would say. “I ought to know. I used to be one.” All the same, -he didn’t do much daytime driving around town.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_227"></a>[227]</span></p> - -<p>Captain Posey had our next job lined up for us. We were to -evacuate the records of the <i>Einsatzstab Rosenberg</i>—the German -art-looting organization—from Neuschwanstein Castle. The job -would include the removal of part of the stolen art treasures also. -The captain told us that the castle contained a great quantity of -uncrated objects, mostly gold and silver. They presented a serious -security problem and it wasn’t safe to leave them there indefinitely. -Even though the French were anxious to get everything back from -Neuschwanstein, for the present they would have to be content -with the gold and the silver objects and as many of the smaller -cases as we could handle. It would be more practicable to ship -the larger things—furniture, sculpture and pictures—direct to -France by rail. This possibility was being investigated. It would -save moving the things twice—first from Neuschwanstein to -Munich, and then from Munich to Paris. But the records were -badly needed at the Collecting Point in connection with the identification -of the plunder stored there. So we were to concentrate on -them and on the objects of great intrinsic value.</p> - -<p>It was going to take three or four days to line up the trucks -necessary for this operation. There was a critical shortage of transportation -at the moment because all available vehicles were being -used to haul firewood. This was popularly known as “Patton’s pet -project.” For some weeks it had first priority after foodstuffs.</p> - -<p>We welcomed the delay, for it gave us time to make a trip to -Frankfurt. All three of us had urgent business to attend to there. -Lamont’s and Steve’s records had to be straightened out. Both -of them had been working in the field for so long that the headquarters -to which they were technically assigned had lost track -of them. And I wanted to find out what had happened to the -personal belongings I had left in Frankfurt months ago. When I -left I had expected to be gone ten days.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_228"></a>[228]</span></p> - -<p>In the back of our minds, too, lurked the hope of becoming “incorporated” -as a Special Evacuation Team. That’s what we were -in fact, but we wanted to be recognized as such in name. The three -of us worked well together and did not want to be separated. The -decision would rest with Major La Farge and Lieutenant Kuhn.</p> - -<p>We wheedled a command car out of the sergeant at the motor -pool and took off late in the afternoon. Lamont, Steve and I rode -in the Mercedes-Benz, the command car following. I had little confidence -in our rakish convertible. The car had been behaving well -enough mechanically, but the tires were paper-thin. They were an -odd size and we had not been able to get any replacements. It was -reassuring to know that the sturdy command car was trailing along -behind.</p> - -<p>We arrived at Ulm in time for supper. Long before we reached -the city, we could see the soaring single spire of the cathedral silhouetted -against the sky. There was literally nothing left of the -old city. All the medieval houses which, with the cathedral, had -made it one of the most picturesque cities in Germany, lay in ruins. -But the cathedral was undamaged.</p> - -<p>We stopped for gas just outside Ulm. To our surprise, the -Army attendant filled our tanks. This was Seventh Army territory. -In Third Army area the maximum was five gallons. I mentioned -this to the attendant. He said, “There’s no gas shortage -here. General Patton must be building up one hell of a big stockpile.”</p> - -<p>We spent the night in Stuttgart. As the main transient hotel was -full, we were assigned rooms at a small inn on the outskirts of the -battered city. It took us an hour to find the place, so it was past -midnight when we turned in.</p> - -<p>The next morning we detoured a few kilometers in order to visit<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_229"></a>[229]</span> -the castle at Ludwigsburg. The little town was laid out in the -French manner, and its atmosphere was that of a miniature Versailles. -The caretaker told us that the kings of Württemberg had -lived at the castle until 1918. Our visit to it was the one pleasant -experience of the day, which happened to be my birthday. We had -our first flat tire in the castle courtyard, a second one an hour later, -and a third between Mannheim and Darmstadt. It was Sunday and -we had a devilish time finding places where we could get the -inner tubes repaired. It was ten <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span> when we pulled into Frankfurt. -The trip from Stuttgart had taken eleven hours instead of -the usual four. We had spent seven hours on tire repairs.</p> - -<p>My old room with the pink brocaded furniture was vacant, so I -moved in for the night. In my absence it had been successively -occupied by three lieutenant colonels. All of my belongings had -been boxed and stored away in the closet. Lamont and Steve put -up at the house next door.</p> - -<p>We called on Bancel La Farge and Charlie Kuhn at USFET -Headquarters the next morning. We were lucky to find them together. -Their office at that time was a kind of house divided against -itself. Thanks to the organizational whim of a colonel, Bancel and -Charlie had to spend part of the day in the office at the big Farben -building—where we found them—and part at their office in Höchst. -Höchst was about six miles away. The remnant of the U. S. -Group Control Council, which had not yet moved up to Berlin, was -located there—in another vast complex of I. G. Farben buildings. -It was an exhausting arrangement.</p> - -<p>Bancel and Charlie looked tired—and worried too. They seemed -glad to see us, but they were preoccupied and upset about something. -Presently Charlie showed us a document which had just -reached his desk a few days earlier. It was unsigned and undated.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_230"></a>[230]</span></p> - -<p>It bore the letterhead “Headquarters U. S. Group Control Council.” -The subject was “Art Objects in the U. S. Zone.”<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> In the first -paragraph reference was made to the great number and value of -the art objects stored in emergency repositories throughout the -U. S. Zone. Farther on, the art objects were divided into three -classes, according to ownership.</p> - -<p>Those in “Class C” were defined as “works of art, placed in the -U. S. Zone by Germany for safekeeping, which are the bona fide -property of the German nation.”</p> - -<p>Concerning the disposition of the works of art thus described, -the letter had this to say: “It is not believed that the U. S. would -desire the works of art in Class C to be made available for reparations -and to be divided among a number of nations. Even if this is -to be done, these works of art might well be returned to the U. S. -to be inventoried, and cared for by our leading museums.”</p> - -<p>The next, and last, sentence contained this extraordinary proposal: -“They could be held in trusteeship for return, many years -from now, to the German people if and when the German nation -had earned the right to their return.”</p> - -<p>Clipped to the document was a notation, dated July 29, 1945, -bearing the signature of the Chief of Staff of General Lucius D. -Clay, Deputy Military Governor. It read, in part, “General Clay -states that this paper has been approved by the President for implementation -after the close of the current Big 3 Conference.”</p> - -<p>We were dumfounded. No wonder Bancel and Charlie were -worried. It had never occurred to any of us that German national -art treasures would be removed to the United States. After speculating<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_231"></a>[231]</span> -on the possible consequences attendant on an implementation -of the document, we dropped the subject. Momentarily there -was nothing to do but wait—and hope that the whole matter would -be dropped.</p> - -<p>By comparison, our personal problems seemed insignificant. But -Charlie and Bancel heard us out. They approved our idea of remaining -together as a team working out of USFET. I was already -permanently assigned to USFET and there were two vacancies on -their T.O. (Table of Organization) to which Lamont and Steve -could be appointed. The necessary “paper work” took up most of -the day and involved a trip to ECAD headquarters at Bad Homburg. -At five o’clock we had our new orders.</p> - -<p>Steve suggested that we drive up to Marburg to see Captain Hancock, -the Monuments officer in charge of the two great art repositories -which had been established there. They were the prototype -of the Central Collecting Point at Munich. However, they differed -in an important respect from the one at Munich: they contained -practically no loot. Virtually everything in them belonged to -German museums and had been recovered by our Monuments officers -from the mines in which the Germans had placed them for -safekeeping during the war.</p> - -<p>Marburg, some fifty miles north of Frankfurt, lay in the Regierungsbezirk, -or government district, of Kassel, which was in turn -a subdivision of the Province of Hesse. It was a two-hour drive, but -we stopped en route for supper with a Quartermaster outfit at -Giessen, so it was nearly eight o’clock when we arrived.</p> - -<p>We found Walker Hancock in his office in the Staatsarchiv building. -He was a man in the middle forties, and of medium height. -His face broke into a smile and his fine dark eyes lighted up with -an expression of genuine pleasure at the sight of Lamont and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_232"></a>[232]</span> -Steve. This was the first time they had seen one another since the -close of the war when they had been working together in Weimar. -I had never met Walker Hancock, but I had heard more about him -than about any other American Monuments officer. I knew that -he had had a distinguished career as a sculptor before the war and -that he had been the first of our Monuments officers to reach -France. He had been attached to the First Army until the end of -hostilities. Lamont was devoted to Walker, and Steve’s regard -for him bordered on worship. While the three of them reminisced, -I found myself responding to his warmth and sincerity.</p> - -<p>He wouldn’t hear of our returning to Frankfurt that night. He -wanted to show us the things in his two depots and we wouldn’t -be able to see more than a fraction of them before morning. The -few that we did see whetted our appetite for more. In the galleries -on the second floor we saw some of the finest pictures from the -museums of the Rhineland: there were three wonderful Van -Goghs. One was the portrait of Armand Rollin, the young man -with a mustache and slouch hat. It belonged to the Volkwang -Museum at Essen. Color reproductions of this portrait had, in -recent years, rivaled those of Whistler’s <i>Mother</i> in popularity. -Walker said that it had been covered with mold when he found it -in the Siegen mine with the rest of the Essen pictures. His assistant, -Sheldon Keck, formerly the restorer of the Brooklyn Museum, -had successfully removed the mold before it had done any serious -damage.</p> - -<p>The second Van Gogh was the famous large still life entitled -<i>White Roses</i>. The third was a brilliant late landscape. There -were other magnificent nineteenth century canvases: the bewitching -portrait of M. and Mme. Sisley by Renoir, a full-length Manet, -and a great Daumier. Walker climaxed the display with the celebrated<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_233"></a>[233]</span> -Rembrandt <i>Self-Portrait</i> from the Wallraf-Richartz Museum -of Cologne. This was the last and most famous of the portraits the -artist painted of himself.</p> - -<p>We spent the night at the Gasthaus Sonne, a seventeenth century -inn facing the old market place. The proprietor reluctantly -assigned us two rooms on the second floor. They were normally -reserved for the top brass. Judging from the austerity of the furnishings -and the simplicity of the plumbing, I thought it unlikely -that we would be routed from our beds by any late-arriving generals.</p> - -<p>Walker met us for breakfast the next morning with word that -the war with Japan had ended. Announcements in German had -already been posted in several of the shop windows. Though -thrilling to us, the news seemed to make very little impression on -the citizens of the sleepy university town. The people in the streets -were as unsmiling as ever. If anything, some of them looked a little -grimmer than usual.</p> - -<p>We drove to the Staatsarchiv building with Walker. He took -us to a room containing a fabulous collection of medieval art objects. -There were crosses and croziers, coffers and chalices, wrought -in precious metals and studded with jewels—masterpieces of the -tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries. The most arresting individual -piece was the golden Madonna, an archaic seated figure two -feet high, dating from the tenth century. These marvelous relics -of the Middle Ages belonged to the Cathedral of Metz. It was -one of the greatest collections of its kind in the entire world. Its -intrinsic value was enormous; its historic value incalculable. -Walker said that arrangements were being made for its early return -to the cathedral. The French were planning an elaborate -ceremony in honor of the event.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_234"></a>[234]</span></p> - -<p>It was a five-minute drive to the other depot under Captain -Hancock’s direction. This was the Jubiläumsbau, or Jubilee Building, -a handsome structure of pre-Nazi, modern design. It was the -headquarters of the archaeological institute headed by Professor -Richard Hamann, the internationally famous medieval scholar. It -also housed the archives of “Photo Marburg,” the stupendous -library of art photographs founded and directed by the professor. -Walker was putting the resources of Photo Marburg to good use, -compiling a complete photographic record of the objects in his -care.</p> - -<p>Among the treasures stored in the Jubiläumsbau were some of -the choicest masterpieces from the Berlin state museums. Perhaps -the most famous were the twin canvases by Watteau entitled -<i>Gersaint’s Signboard</i>. Regarded by many as the supreme work of -the greatest painter of the French Rococo period, the two pictures -had been the prized possessions of Frederick the Great. Painted -to hang side by side forming a continuous composition, they represented -the shop of M. Gersaint, dealer in works of art. It is said -that the paintings were finished in eight days. They were painted -in the year 1732 when the artist was at the height of his career. I -was told that, during the early years of the war, Göring made overtures -to the Louvre for one of its finest Watteaus. According to -the story, the negotiations ended abruptly when the museum signified -its willingness to part with the painting in exchange for -<i>Gersaint’s Signboard</i>.</p> - -<p>The brilliant French school of the eighteenth century was further -represented at the Jubiläumsbau by a superb Boucher—the -subject, <i>Mercury and Venus</i>—and two exquisite Chardins: <i>The -Cook</i>, one of his most enchanting scenes of everyday life, and the -<i>Portrait of a Lady Sealing a Letter</i>, an unusually large composition<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_235"></a>[235]</span> -for this unpretentious painter whose canvases are today worth a -king’s ransom.</p> - -<p>There were masterpieces of the German school; the great series -of Cranachs which had belonged to the Hohenzollerns filled one -entire room. Excellent examples of Rubens and Van Dyck represented -the Flemish school; Ruysdael and Van Goyen, the Dutch. -The high quality of every picture attested to the taste and connoisseurship -of German collectors.</p> - -<p>Walker said that he hoped to arrange a public exhibition of the -pictures. Marburg had been neglected by our bombers. Only one -or two bombs had fallen in the city and the resulting damage had -been slight. Concussion had blasted the windows of the Staatsarchiv, -but the Jubiläumsbau was untouched. Perhaps he would -put on a series of small exhibitions, say fifty pictures at a time. -The members of his local German committee were enthusiastic -about the project. It would be an important first step in the rehabilitation -of German cultural institutions which was an avowed -part of the American Fine Arts program. Thanks to the hesitancy -of an officer at higher headquarters who was exasperatingly “security-conscious,” -Walker did not realize his ambition until three -months later, on the eve of his departure for the United States.</p> - -<p>We celebrated VJ-Day on our return to Frankfurt that evening. -The big Casino, behind USFET headquarters, was the scene of the -principal festivities. Drinks were on the house until the bar closed -at ten. It was a warm summer night and the broad terrace over -the main entrance was crowded. An Army band blared noisily inside. -Civilian attendants skulked in the background, avidly collecting -cigarette butts from the ash trays and the terrace floor. They -reaped a rich harvest that night.</p> - -<p>The Mercedes-Benz presented a problem. Its status was a dubious<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_236"></a>[236]</span> -one. Since it was still registered with an MG Detachment in -Austria, I felt uncomfortable about driving it around Germany. -At Charlie Kuhn’s suggestion we filed a request with the Naval -headquarters in Frankfurt for assignment of the vehicle to our -Special Evacuation Team. The request was couched in impressive -legal language which Charlie thought would do the trick. Armed -with a copy of this request, I felt confident that we would not be -molested by inquisitive MPs on our trip back to Munich.</p> - -<p>We didn’t get started until late afternoon, having wasted two -hours dickering with the Transportation Officer at the Frankfurt -MG Detachment for a spare tire. We returned by way of Würzburg -and Nürnberg. It was dark when we reached Nürnberg, but -the light of the full moon was sufficient to reveal the ruined walls -and towers of the old, inner city. As we struck south of the city to -the Autobahn, we could see the outlines of the vast unfinished stadium, -designed to seat one hundred and forty thousand people. -We had to proceed cautiously since many of the bridges had been -destroyed and detours were frequent. As a result it was midnight -when we reached Munich. The transient hotel was full, so we -had to be content with makeshift quarters at the Central Collecting -Point.</p> - -<p>In our absence the transportation situation had eased up a little. -Captain Posey told us the next morning that six trucks would be -available in the early afternoon. We decided to keep the command -car for the trip to Neuschwanstein and leave the Mercedes-Benz -in Munich to be painted. In anticipation of registration papers -from the Navy, we thought it would be appropriate to have the -car painted battleship gray and stenciled with white letters reading -“U. S. Navy.” One of the mechanics in the garage at the Central -Collecting Point agreed to do this for us in exchange for a bottle<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_237"></a>[237]</span> -of rum and half a bottle of Scotch. Officers at Third Army Headquarters -had bar privileges plus a liquor ration, but the enlisted -men didn’t fare so well.</p> - -<p>Our base of operations for the evacuation of the Castle of -Neuschwanstein was the picturesque little town of Füssen, some -eighty miles south of Munich, in the heart of the “Swan country.” -This region of southern Bavaria, celebrated for its association with -the name of Richard Wagner, is one of the most beautiful in all -Germany. The mountains rise sharply from the floor of the level -green valley. The turreted castle, perched on top of one of the -lower peaks, at an elevation of a thousand feet, is visible for miles. -Built in the eighteen-seventies by Ludwig II, the “Mad King” of -Bavaria, it was the most fantastic creation of that exotic monarch -whose passion for building nearly bankrupted his kingdom. When -we saw the castle rising majestically from its pine-covered mountaintop, -we were struck by the incongruity of our six-truck convoy -lumbering through the romantic countryside.</p> - -<p>We presented our credentials to a swarthy major who was the -commanding officer of the small MG Detachment at Füssen. He -arranged for our billets at the Alte Post, the hotel where officers -of the Detachment were quartered, and, after we had deposited -our gear in a room on the fourth floor, conducted us to the Schloss.</p> - -<p>The steep road to the lower courtyard of the castle wound for -more than a mile up the side of the mountain. At the castle entrance, -the major identified us to the guard and our six trucks filed -into the courtyard. In the upper courtyard, reached by a broad -flight of stone steps, we found the caretaker who had the keys to -the main section of the castle. He did not, however, have access to -the wing in which the records of the <i>Einsatzstab Rosenberg</i> were -stored. The only door to that part of the building had been locked<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_238"></a>[238]</span> -and sealed by Lieutenant James Rorimer, the Monuments officer of -the Seventh Army, when the castle had first fallen into American -hands. We had brought the key with us from Third Army Headquarters.</p> - -<p>Before examining those rooms, we made a tour of the four main -floors of the castle. The hallways and vaulted kitchens on the first -floor were filled to overflowing with enormous packing cases and -uncrated furniture, all taken from French collections. Three -smaller storage rooms resembling the stock rooms of Tiffany’s and -a porcelain factory combined, were jammed with gold and silver -and rare china. Most of the loot had been concentrated on the first -floor, but the unfinished rooms of the second had been fitted with -racks for the storage of paintings. In addition to the looted pictures, -there were several galleries of stacked paintings from the -museums of Munich. The living apartments on the third floor, -divested of their furnishings, were filled with stolen furniture, -Louis Quinze chairs, table and sofas and ornate Italian cabinets -lined the walls of rooms and corridors. They contrasted strangely -with scenes from the Wagner operas which King Ludwig had -chosen as the theme for the mural decorations. Only the gold-walled -Throne Room and, on the floor above, the lofty Fest-Saal, -were devoid of loot.</p> - -<p>We proceeded to the wing of the castle which contained the -records. Having broken the seals and unlocked the door, we entered -a hallway about thirty feet long. The doors opening onto -this hallway were also locked and sealed. Behind them lay the -offices of the <i>Einsatzstab Rosenberg</i>. They were crowded with -bookshelves and filing cabinets. In one room stood a huge show-case -filled with fragile Roman glass. The rooms of the second -floor were full of French furniture and dozens of small packing<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_239"></a>[239]</span> -cases. These cases were made of carefully finished quarter-sawed -oak. We had seen similar ones in the Göring collection. They -had been the traveling cases for precious objects belonging to the -Rothschilds. These too contained Rothschild treasures—exquisite -bibelots of jade, agate, onyx and jasper, and innumerable pieces of -Oriental and European porcelain.</p> - -<p>At one end of the hallway were two rooms which had been -used as a photographic laboratory. We had brought Kress with -us. Steve went off to make arrangements to install his equipment, -while Lamont and I calculated the number of men we would need -for the evacuation work the next morning. We asked the major -for twenty—two shifts of ten.</p> - -<p>The Neuschwanstein operation lasted eight days. We worked -nights as well, because there were thousands of small objects—many -of them fragile and extremely valuable—which we could -not trust to the inexpert hands of our work party. There was no -electricity in the small storage rooms, so we had to work by candlelight. -It took us one evening to pack the Roman glass and the four -succeeding evenings, working till midnight, to pack the two thousand -pieces of gold and silver in the David-Weill collection. The -Nazi looters had thoughtfully saved the well-made cases in which -they had carted off this magnificent collection from M. David-Weill’s -house in Paris. There were candelabra, dishes, knives, -forks, spoons, snuffboxes—the rarest examples of the art of the -French goldsmiths of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. -This unique collection had created a sensation when it was exhibited -in Paris a few years before the war. The fact that the incomparable -assemblage would probably one day be left to the Louvre -by the eminent connoisseur, who had spent a lifetime collecting it, -had not deterred the Nazi robbers. He was a Jew. That justified<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_240"></a>[240]</span> -its confiscation. Aside from the pleasure it gave me to handle the -beautiful objects, I relished the idea of helping to recover the -property of a fellow Californian: M. David-Weill had been born -in San Francisco. The Nazis had been methodical as usual. Every -piece was to have been systematically recatalogued while the collection -was at Neuschwanstein. On some of the shelves we found -slips of paper stating that this or that object had not yet been photographed—“<i>noch -nicht fotografiert</i>.”</p> - -<p>The tedious manual labor involved in packing small objects and -the great distance which the packed cases had to be carried when -ready for loading were the chief difficulties at Neuschwanstein. -Not only did the cases have to be carried several hundred feet from -the storage rooms to the door of the castle; but from the door to -the trucks was a long trek, down two flights of steps and across a -wide courtyard. In this respect the operation resembled the evacuation -of the monastery at Hohenfurth.</p> - -<p>Three months after our partial evacuation of the castle, a team -composed of Captain Edward Adams, Lieutenant (jg) Charles -Parkhurst, USNR, and Captain Hubert de Brye, a French officer, -completed the removal of the loot. This gigantic undertaking required -eight weeks. If I remember the figures correctly, more than -twelve thousand objects were boxed and carted away. The cases -were built in a carpenter shop set up in the castle kitchens. One -hundred and fifty truckloads were delivered to the railroad siding -at Füssen and thence transported to Paris. It was an extraordinary -achievement, carried out despite heavy snowfall. The only operation -which rivaled it was the evacuation of the salt mine at Alt -Aussee.</p> - -<p>The last morning of our stay at Füssen, Lamont and I had a special -mission to perform. A German art dealer named Gustav<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_241"></a>[241]</span> -Rochlitz was living at Gipsmühle, a five-minute drive from Hohenschwangau, -the small village below the castle. For a number of -years Rochlitz had had a gallery in Paris. His dealings with the -Nazis, in particular his trafficking in confiscated pictures, had -been the subject of special investigation by Lieutenants Plaut and -Rousseau, our OSS friends. They were the two American naval -officers who were preparing an exhaustive report on the activities -of the infamous <i>Einsatzstab Rosenberg</i>. They had interrogated -Rochlitz and placed him under house arrest. In his possession were -twenty-two modern French paintings, including works by Dérain, -Matisse and Picasso, formerly belonging to well known Jewish -collections. He had obtained them from Göring and other leading -Nazis in exchange for old master paintings. We were to relieve -Herr Rochlitz of these canvases.</p> - -<p>At the farmhouse in which Rochlitz and his wife were living, -the maid of all work who answered our knock said that no one -was at home. Herr Rochlitz would not be back before noon. -Lamont and I returned to our jeep and started back across the -fields to the highway. We had driven about a hundred yards -when we saw a heavy-set sullen-faced man of about fifty walking -toward us.</p> - -<p>“I’ll bet that’s Rochlitz,” I said to Lamont. Stopping the car, I -called out to him, “Herr Rochlitz?”</p> - -<p>After a moment’s hesitation, he nodded.</p> - -<p>“Hop in, we want to have a talk with you,” I said.</p> - -<p>We returned to the farmhouse and followed our truculent host -up the stairs to a sitting room on the second floor. There we were -joined by his wife, a timid young woman who, like her husband, -spoke fluent English.</p> - -<p>I said that we had come for the pictures. Rochlitz made no protest.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_242"></a>[242]</span> -He brusquely directed his wife to bring them in. As she left -the room, I thought it odd that he hadn’t gone along to help her. -But she returned almost immediately with the paintings in her -arms. All twenty-two were rolled around a long mailing tube. -Together they spread the canvases about the room, on the table, -on the chairs and on the floor. They were, without exception, -works of excellent quality. One large early Picasso, the portrait of -a woman and child, was alone worth a small fortune.</p> - -<p>I was wondering what Rochlitz had given in exchange for the -lot, when he began to explain how the pictures had come into his -possession. He must have taken us for credulous fools, because -the story he told made him out a victim of tragic circumstance. -He said that Göring had made an offer on several of his pictures. -Rochlitz had accepted but insisted on being paid in cash. Göring -had agreed to the terms and the pictures were delivered. Then, -instead of paying in cash, Göring had forced him to accept these -modern paintings. He had protested, but to no avail. Of course -these pictures were all right in their way, he said deprecatingly, -but he was not a dealer in modern art. Naturally he did not know -that they had been confiscated. It was all a dreadful mistake, but -what could he do? I said that I realized how badly he must have -felt and that I knew he would be relieved to learn that the pictures -were now going back to their rightful owners.</p> - -<p>The pictures were carefully rerolled and we got up to leave. At -the door, Rochlitz told us that he had lost his entire stock. He had -stored all of his paintings at Baden-Baden, in the French Zone. -Did we think he would be able to recover them? We assured him -that justice would be done and, leaving him to interpret that remark -as he saw fit, drove off with the twenty-two pictures.</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_243"></a>[243]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_9">(9)<br /> -<span class="smaller"><i>HIDDEN TREASURES AT NÜRNBERG</i></span></h2> - -</div> - -<p>On our return to Munich that evening, Craig told us that preparations -were being made for the immediate restitution of several -important masterpieces recovered in the American Zone. General -Eisenhower had approved a proposal to return at once to each of -the countries overrun by the Germans at least one outstanding -work of art. This was to be done in his name, as a gesture of “token -restitution” symbolizing American policy with regard to ultimate -restitution of all stolen art treasures to the rightful owner nations. -It was felt that the gracious gesture on the part of the Commanding -General of United States Forces in Europe would serve to reaffirm -our intentions to right the wrongs of Nazi oppression. In -view of the vast amount of art which had thus far been recovered, -it would be months before it could all be restored to the plundered -countries. Meanwhile these “token restitutions” would be an -earnest of American good will. They would be sent back from -Germany at the expense of the United States Government. Thereafter, -representatives of the various countries would be invited to -come to our Collecting Points to select, assemble and, in transportation -of their own providing, remove those objects which the -Germans had stolen.</p> - -<p>Belgium was to receive the first token restitution. The great -van Eyck altarpiece—<i>The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb</i>—was -the obvious choice among the stolen Belgian treasures.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_244"></a>[244]</span></p> - -<p>The famous panels had been reposing in the Central Collecting -Point at Munich since we had removed them from the salt mine -at Alt Aussee. A special plane had been chartered to fly them to -Brussels. The Belgian Government had signified approval of air -transportation. Direct rail communication between Munich and -Brussels had not been resumed, and the highways were not in -the best of condition. By truck, it would be a rough two-day trip; -by air, a matter of three hours.</p> - -<p>Bancel La Farge had already flown from Frankfurt to Brussels, -where plans had been made for an appropriate ceremony on the -arrival of the altarpiece. The American Ambassador was to present -the panels to the Prince Regent on behalf of General Eisenhower. -It was to be an historic occasion.</p> - -<p>I went out to the airport to confirm the arrangements for the -C-54. It was only a fifteen-minute drive from the Königsplatz to -the field. I was also to check on the condition of the streets: they -were in good shape all the way.</p> - -<p>The plane was to take off at noon. Lamont, Steve and I supervised -the loading of the ten precious cases. We led off in a jeep. -The truck followed with the panels. Four of the civilian packers -went along to load the cases onto the plane. Captain Posey was -to escort the altarpiece to Brussels.</p> - -<p>When we got to the airport we learned that the plane had not -arrived. There would be a two-hour delay. At the end of two -hours, we were informed that there was bad weather south of -Brussels. All flights had been canceled for the day. We drove back -to the Collecting Point at the Königsplatz and had just finished -unloading the panels when a message came from the field. The -weather had cleared. The plane would be taking off in half an -hour. I caught Captain Posey as he was leaving the building for<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_245"></a>[245]</span> -his office at Third Army Headquarters. The cases were reloaded -and we were on our way to the field in fifteen minutes.</p> - -<p>The truck was driven onto the field where the big C-54 stood -waiting. In another quarter of an hour the panels were aboard -and lashed securely to metal supports in the forepart of the passenger -compartment. Captain Posey, the only passenger, waved -jauntily as the doors swung shut. Enviously we watched the giant -plane roll down the field, lift waveringly from the airstrip and -swing off to the northwest. The altarpiece was on the last lap of -an extraordinary journey. We wished George Stout could have -been in on this.</p> - -<p>The plane reached Brussels without mishap. The return of the -great national treasure was celebrated throughout the country. Encouraged -by the success of this first “token restitution,” Major La -Farge directed that a similar gesture be made to France. At the Collecting -Point Craig selected seventy-one masterpieces looted from -French private collections. The group included Fragonard, Chardin, -Lancret, Rubens, Van Dyck, Hals, and a large number of -seventeenth century Dutch masters. Only examples of the highest -quality were chosen.</p> - -<p>Ham Coulter, the naval officer who worked with Craig at the -“Bau,” was the emissary appointed to accompany the paintings to -Paris. It was decided to return them by truck, inasmuch as it would -have been impracticable to attempt shipping uncrated pictures by -air. The convoy consisted of two trucks—one for the pictures, the -other for extra gasoline. It was a hard two-day trip from Munich -to Paris. Ham got through safely, but reported on his return that -the roads had been extremely rough a good part of the way. He -had delivered the pictures in Paris to the Musée du Jeu de Paume, -the little museum which the Germans had used during the Occupation<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_246"></a>[246]</span> -as the clearinghouse for their methodical plundering of the -Jewish collections. His expedition had been marred by only one -minor incident. When the paintings were being unloaded at the -museum, one of the women attendants watching the operation -noticed that some of the canvases were unframed. She had asked, -“And where are the frames?” This was too much for Coulter. In -perfect French, the courteous lieutenant told her precisely what she -could do about the frames.</p> - -<p>Shortly after the return of the Ghent altarpiece, Captain Posey -was demobilized. His duties as MFA&A Officer at Third Army -Headquarters in Munich were assumed by Captain Edwin Rae. I -had not seen Rae since the early summer when he and Lieutenant -Edith Standen had been assigned to assist me in inventorying the -collections of the Berlin museums in the vaults of the Reichsbank -at Frankfurt. Edwin was a meticulous fellow, gentle but determined. -Although by no means lacking in a sense of humor, he -resented joking references to a fancied resemblance to Houdon’s -well known portrait of Voltaire, and I didn’t blame him.</p> - -<p>He took on his new responsibilities with quiet assurance and in -a short time won the complete confidence of his superiors at Third -Army Headquarters. Throughout his long tenure of office, he -maintained an unruffled calm in the face of obstacles which would -have exhausted a less patient man. He was responsible for all -matters pertaining to the Fine Arts in the Eastern Military District -of the American Zone—that is, Bavaria—an area more than twice -the size of the two provinces Greater Hesse and Württemberg-Baden -comprising the Western Military District of our Zone.</p> - -<p>During the early days of Captain Rae’s regime, Charlie Kuhn -paid a brief visit to Munich. He had just completed the transfer -of the Berlin Museum collections from Frankfurt to the Landesmuseum<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_247"></a>[247]</span> -at Wiesbaden. The university buildings in Frankfurt—which -I had requisitioned for a Collecting Point—had proved unsuitable. -The repairs, he said, would have taken months. On the -other hand, the Wiesbaden Museum, though damaged, was ideal -for the purpose. Of course there hadn’t been a glass left in any of -the windows, and the roof had had to be repaired. But thanks to -the energy and ingenuity of Walter Farmer, the building had been -rehabilitated in two months. Captain Farmer was the director of -the new Collecting Point. When I asked where Farmer had got the -glass, Charlie was evasive. All he would say was that Captain -Farmer was “wise in the ways of the Army.”</p> - -<p>Charlie was headed for Vienna to confer with Lieutenant Colonel -Ernest Dewald, Chief of the MFA&A Section at USFA Headquarters -(United States Forces, Austria). Colonel Dewald wanted to -complete the evacuation of the mine at Alt Aussee, which was -now under his jurisdiction. For this project he hoped to obtain -the services of the officers who had worked there when the mine -had been Third Army’s responsibility. Captain Rae was reluctant -to lend the Special Evacuation Team, because there was still -so much work to be done in Bavaria. But he agreed, provided -that Charlie could sell the idea to the Chief of Staff at Third -Army. This Charlie succeeded in doing, and departed for Vienna -a day later. Steve was crazy to see Vienna—I think his parents had -been born there—so Charlie took him along.</p> - -<p>After they had left, Captain Rae requested Lamont and me to -make an inspection trip to northern Bavaria. Our first stop was -Bamberg. There we examined the <i>Neue Residenz</i>, which Rae -contemplated establishing as an auxiliary Collecting Point to -house the contents of various repositories in Upper Franconia. Reports -reaching his office indicated that storage conditions in that<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_248"></a>[248]</span> -area were unsatisfactory. Either the repositories were not weatherproof, -or they were not being adequately guarded.</p> - -<p>It was also rumored that UNRRA was planning to fill the -<i>Neue Residenz</i> with DPs—Displaced Persons. Captain Rae was -determined to put a stop to that, because the building, a fine example -of late seventeenth century architecture, was on the SHAEF -List of Protected Monuments. This fact should have guaranteed its -immunity from such a hazard. Even during combat, the SHAEF -list had been a great protection to monuments of historic and artistic -importance. Now that no “doctrine of military necessity” could -be invoked to justify improper use of the building, Rae did not propose -to countenance its occupancy by DPs.</p> - -<p>The <i>Neue Residenz</i> contained dozens of empty, brocaded -rooms—but no plumbing. We decided that it would do for a Collecting -Point and agreed with Rae that the DPs should be housed -elsewhere if possible. The officer from the local MG Detachment, -who was showing us around, confirmed the report that UNRRA -intended to move in. He didn’t think they would relinquish the -building without a protest. The influx of refugees from the Russian -Zone had doubled the town’s normal population of sixty -thousand.</p> - -<p>It was a disappointment to find that the superb sculpture in the -cathedral across the square was still bricked up. The shelters had -proved a needless precaution, for Bamberg had not been bombed. -Only the bridge over the Regnitz had been blown up, and the -Germans had done that themselves.</p> - -<p>From Bamberg we drove north to Coburg, where we had a twofold -mission. First we were to obtain specific information about -ten cases which contained a collection of art objects belonging to a -prince of Hesse. The cases were said to be stored in Feste Coburg,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_249"></a>[249]</span> -the walled castle above the town. If they were the property of -Philip of Hesse, then they would probably be taken into custody -by the American authorities. We had been told that he was in -prison. His art dealings during the past few years were being reviewed -by the OSS officers charged with the special investigation -of Nazi art-looting activities. Philip was the son of the Landgräfin -of Hesse. It was in the flower-filled Waffenraum of her -castle near Frankfurt that I had seen the family tombs months -before.</p> - -<p>If, on the other hand, the cases belonged to a different prince of -Hesse—one whose political record was clean—and storage conditions -were satisfactory, we would simply leave them where they -were for the time being.</p> - -<p>Our second objective was Schloss Tambach, a few kilometers -from Coburg. Paintings stolen by Frank, the Nazi Governor of -Poland, from the palace at Warsaw were stored there. Schloss -Tambach also contained pictures from the Stettin Museum. Stettin -was now in the Russian Zone of Occupied Germany.</p> - -<p>On our arrival in Coburg, Lamont and I drove to the headquarters -of the local MG Detachment, which were located in the Palais -Edinburgh. This unpretentious building was once the residence of -Queen Victoria’s son, the Duke of Edinburgh. There we arranged -with Lieutenant Milton A. Pelz, the Monuments officer of the -Coburg Detachment, to inspect the storage rooms at the castle.</p> - -<p>Pelz was a big fellow who spoke German fluently. He welcomed -us hospitably and took us up to the castle where we met Dr. -Grundmann, who had the keys to the storage rooms. This silent, -sour-faced German was curator of the Prince’s collections. He said -that his employer was Prince Ludwig of Hesse, a cousin of Philip. -The cases contained paintings and <i>objets d’art</i> which had been in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_250"></a>[250]</span> -the possession of the family for years. Grundmann had personally -removed them from Ludwig’s estate in Silesia the day before the -Russians occupied the area.</p> - -<p>Ludwig’s most important treasure was the world-famous painting -by Holbein known as the <i>Madonna of Bürgermeister Meyer</i>. -Painted in 1526, it had hung for years in the palace at Darmstadt. -The Dresden Gallery owned a seventeenth century replica. Early -in the war, Prince Ludwig had sent the original to his Silesian -castle for safekeeping. Grundmann had brought it back to Bavaria -along with the ten cases now at Coburg. From Coburg he had -taken the Holbein to Schloss Banz, a castle not far from Bamberg.</p> - -<p>He said that the Prince was living at Wolfsgarten, a small -country place near Darmstadt. Ludwig was eager to regain possession -of the painting. Did we think that could be arranged? We -told him he would have to obtain an authorization from Captain -Rae at Munich.</p> - -<p>Schloss Tambach was a ten-minute drive from Coburg. This -great country house, built around three sides of a courtyard, belonged -to the Countess of Ortenburg. She occupied the center -section. A detachment of troops was billeted in one wing. The -other was filled with the Stettin and Warsaw pictures. There were -over two hundred from the Stettin Museum. Nineteenth century -German paintings predominated, but I noticed two fine Hals portraits -and a Van Gogh landscape among them.</p> - -<p>The civilian custodian, answerable to the MG authorities at -Coburg, was Dr. Wilhelm Eggebrecht. He had been curator of the -Stettin Museum until thrown out by the Nazis because his wife was -one-quarter Jewish. He was a mousy little fellow with a bald head -and gold-rimmed spectacles. He asked apprehensively if we intended -to send the paintings back to Russian-held Stettin. We<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_251"></a>[251]</span> -said that we had come only to check on the physical security of -the present storage place. So far as we knew, the paintings would -remain where they were for the present. This inconclusive piece -of information seemed to reassure him.</p> - -<p>The paintings looted from Warsaw were the <i>pièces de résistance</i> -of the treasures at Schloss Tambach—especially the nine great canvases -by Bellotto, the eighteenth century Venetian master. Governor -Frank had ruthlessly removed the pictures from their -stretchers and rolled them up for shipment. As a result of this -rough handling, the paint had flaked off in places, but the damage -was not serious. When we examined the pictures, they were spread -out on the floor. They filled two rooms, forty feet square. Later -they were taken to the Munich Collecting Point and mounted on -new stretchers, in preparation for their return to Warsaw.</p> - -<p>When we got back to Munich, Steve had returned from Vienna. -He had news for us. Charlie Kuhn had already left for Frankfurt. -Colonel Dewald was coming to Munich in a few days to talk to -Colonel Roy Dalferes, Rae’s Chief of Staff at Third Army, about -reopening the Alt Aussee mine. Either Charlie or Bancel would -come down from USFET Headquarters when Dewald arrived. A -new man had joined the MFA&A Section at USFA—Andrew -Ritchie, director of the Buffalo Museum. He had come over as a -civilian. Steve thought that Ritchie would be the USFA representative -at Munich. There was a lot of stuff at the Collecting -Point which would eventually go back to Austria. It would have -to be checked with the records there. That would be Ritchie’s job. -Steve told us also that Lincoln Kirstein had gone home. His -mother was seriously ill and Lincoln had left on emergency orders.</p> - -<p>The three of us went to Captain Rae’s office. Lamont and I had -to make a report on our trip to Coburg. Rae had a new assignment<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_252"></a>[252]</span> -for us. He had just received orders from USFET Headquarters to -prepare the Cracow altarpiece for shipment. It was to be sent -back to Poland as a token restitution. This was the colossal carved -altarpiece by Veit Stoss which the Nazis had stolen from the -Church of St. Mary at Cracow. Veit Stoss had been commissioned -by the King of Poland in 1477 to carve the great work. It had -taken him ten years. After the invasion of Poland in 1939, the -Nazis had carted it off, lock, stock and barrel, to Nürnberg. They -contended that, since Veit Stoss had been a native of Nürnberg, it -belonged in the city of his birth.</p> - -<p>The missing altarpiece was the first of her looted treasures for -which Poland had registered a claim with the American authorities -at the close of the war. After months of diligent investigation, -it was found by American officers in an underground bunker -across the street from the Albrecht Dürer house in Nürnberg. In -addition to the dismantled figures of the central panel—painted -and gilded figures of hollow wood ten feet high—the twelve -ornate side panels, together with the statues and pinnacles surmounting -the framework, had been crowded into the bunker.</p> - -<p>The same bunker contained another priceless looted treasure—the -coronation regalia of the Holy Roman Empire. Among these -venerable objects were the jeweled crown of the Emperor Conrad—commonly -called the “Crown of Charlemagne”—dating from the -eleventh century, a shield, two swords and the orb. Since 1804 they -had been preserved in the Schatzkammer, the Imperial Treasure -Room, at Vienna. In 1938, the Nazis removed them to Nürnberg, -basing their claim to possession on a fifteenth century decree of the -Emperor Sigismund that they were to be kept in that city.</p> - -<p>On the eve of the German collapse, two high officials of the city -had spirited away these five pieces. The credit for recovering the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_253"></a>[253]</span> -treasures goes to an American officer of German birth, Lieutenant -Walter Horn, professor of art at the University of California. The -two officials at first disclaimed any knowledge of their whereabouts. -After hours of relentless grilling by Lieutenant Horn, the -men finally admitted their guilt. They were promptly tried, heavily -fined and sent to prison. Three months later, at the request of the -Austrian Government, the imperial treasures were flown back to -Vienna. This historic shipment contained other relics which the -Nazis had taken from the Schatzkammer—relics of the greatest -religious significance. They included an alleged fragment of the -True Cross, a section of the tablecloth said to have been used at the -Last Supper, a lance venerated as the one which had touched the -wounds of Christ, and links from the chains traditionally believed -to have bound St. Peter, St. Paul and St. John.</p> - -<p>On Captain Rae’s instructions, Steve and I went to Nürnberg to -pack the Stoss altarpiece. (At that time the coronation regalia was -still in the bunker, where, on the afternoon of our arrival, we had -an opportunity to examine it.) We found that the heavy framework -which supported the altar panels was not stored in the bunker. -Because of its size—the upright pieces were thirty feet high—it had -been taken to Schloss Wiesenthau, an old castle outside Forchheim, -thirty miles away.</p> - -<p>Leaving Steve to start packing the smaller figures and pinnacles, -I got hold of a semitrailer, the only vehicle long enough to accommodate -a load of such length. It was an hour’s drive to the castle. -With a crew of twenty PWs, I finished loading the framework in -two hours and returned to Nürnberg in time for supper.</p> - -<p>That evening Steve and I figured out the number of trucks we -would need for the altarpiece. Lamont had remained in Munich -to make tentative arrangements, pending word from us. He was<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_254"></a>[254]</span> -going to ask for ten trucks and we came to the conclusion that this -would be about the right number—in addition, of course, to the -semitrailer for the supporting framework. We got out our maps -and studied our probable route to Cracow. One road would take -us through Dresden and Breslau; another by way of Pilsen and -Prague. Perhaps we could go one way and return the other. In -either case we would have to pass through Russian-occupied territory. -It would probably take some time to obtain the necessary -clearances. We figured on taking enough gas for the round trip, -since we doubted if there would be any to spare in Poland. Altogether -it promised to be a complicated expedition, but already -we had visions of a triumphal entry into Cracow.</p> - -<p>Our ambitious plans collapsed the following morning. While -Steve and I were at breakfast, I was called to the telephone. The -corporal in Captain Rae’s office was on the wire. I was to return -to Munich at once. Major La Farge was arriving from Frankfurt -and wanted to see me that night. Plans for the trip to Cracow -were indefinitely postponed. Internal conditions in Poland were -too unsettled to risk returning the altarpiece.</p> - -<p>Our plans had miscarried before, but this was our first major disappointment. -We had begun to look on the Polish venture as the -fitting climax of our work as a Special Evacuation Team. On the -way back to Munich, Steve said he had a feeling that the team was -going to be split up.</p> - -<p>Steve’s misgivings were prophetic. At Craig’s apartment after -dinner, Bancel La Farge outlined the plans he had for us. Colonel -Dalferes had acceded to Colonel Dewald’s request. Lamont, Steve -and a third officer—new to MFA&A work—were to resume the -evacuation of the salt mine at Alt Aussee. If the snows held off, it<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_255"></a>[255]</span> -would be possible to carry on operations there for another month -or six weeks.</p> - -<p>I was to return to USFET Headquarters at Frankfurt as Deputy -Chief of the MFA&A Section, replacing Charlie Kuhn who had -just received his orders to go home. I knew that Charlie would -soon be eligible for release from active duty, but had no idea that -his departure was so imminent.</p> - -<p>We didn’t have much to say to one another on the way to our -quarters that night. Steve had already made up his mind that he -wasn’t going to like the new man. Lamont said that he thought it -was going to be an awful anticlimax to reopen the mine. And for -me, the prospect of routine administrative work at USFET was uninviting. -After three months of strenuous and exciting field work, -it wouldn’t be easy to settle down in an office. All three of us felt -that the great days were over.</p> - -<p>During our last week together in Munich we had little time to -feel sorry for ourselves. Everyone was preoccupied with the restitution -program. We had our full share of the work. Another important -shipment was to be made to Belgium. It was to include the -Michelangelo Madonna, the eleven paintings stolen from the -church in Bruges when the statue was taken, and the four panels -by Dirk Bouts from the famous altarpiece in the church of St. -Pierre at Louvain. These panels, which formed the wings of the -altarpiece, had been removed by the Germans in August 1942. -Before the first World War one wing had been in the Berlin Gallery, -the other in the Alte Pinakothek at Munich. As in the case of -the Ghent altarpiece, they had been restored—unjustly, according -to the Germans—to Belgium by the Versailles Treaty.</p> - -<p>This shipment to Belgium represented the first practical application<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_256"></a>[256]</span> -of the “come and get it” theory of restitution, evolved by Major -La Farge. Belgium had already received the Ghent altarpiece as -token restitution. Now it was up to the Belgians to carry on at -their own expense. The special representatives who came down -from Brussels to supervise this initial shipment were Dr. Paul -Coremans, a great technical expert, and Lieutenant Pierre Longuy -of the Ministry of Fine Arts. They had their own truck but had -been unable to bring suitable packing materials. We had an ample -supply of pads and blankets which we had stored at the Collecting -Point after our evacuation of the Göring collection. We placed -them at the disposal of the Belgians. But it was Saturday and no -civilian packers were available. Dr. Coremans gratefully accepted -the offer of our services. Steve, Lamont and I loaded the truck. It -was the last operation of the Special Evacuation Team.</p> - -<p>The Belgians had no sooner departed than the French and -Dutch representatives arrived. Captain Hubert de Brye for France -looked more like a sportsman than a scholar; but he was a man of -wide cultivation and had a sense of humor which endeared him to -his associates in Munich. He and Ham Coulter were kindred spirits -and became great friends.</p> - -<p>Ham, who had been responsible for the rehabilitation of both -the Collecting Point and the Führerbau, now had two assistants—Captain -George Lacy and Dietrich Sattler, the latter a German -architect. Through this division of the work, Ham found time for -new duties: he took the foreign representatives in tow, arranged -for their billets, their mess cards, their PX rations and so on. It -was an irritating but not a thankless job, for the recipients of his -attentions were devoted to their “wet nurse.”</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 800px;" id="illus38"> -<img src="images/illus38.jpg" width="800" height="500" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">The Albrecht Dürer house at Nürnberg—before and after the German collapse. In an underground bunker across -the street were stored the crown jewels of the Holy Roman Empire and the famous Veit Stoss altarpiece.</p> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 800px;" id="illus39"> -<img src="images/illus39.jpg" width="800" height="500" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">The Veit Stoss altarpiece from the Church of Our Lady in Cracow, which was carried off by the Nazis at the -beginning of the war, has been returned to Poland. <i>Left</i>, open; <i>right</i>, closed.</p> -</div> - -<p>The Dutch representative was Lieutenant Colonel Alphonse -Vorenkamp. He was a little man with gray hair, shrewd gray<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_257"></a>[257]</span> -eyes and steel-rimmed spectacles. An eminent authority on Dutch -painting, he had been for several years a member of the faculty at -Smith College. He enjoyed the unusual distinction of having -served in both the American and Dutch Armies during the present -war.</p> - -<p>I had met him in San Francisco in 1944, shortly after his discharge -from the service. He had been a buck private; and I -gathered from the story of his experiences that our Army had released -him in self-defense. He told me that he often had difficulty -in understanding the drill sergeant. Once, without thinking he had -stepped out of formation and asked politely, “Sergeant, would you -mind repeating that last order!” Vorenkamp said that he had paid -dearly for his indiscretion, so dearly in fact that he had seriously -considered changing his name from Alphonse to Latrinus. Alphonse, -he said, was a ridiculous name for a Dutchman anyway. -He preferred to be called Phonse.</p> - -<p>Released from the Army, he had gone back to his teaching. Then, -only a few months ago, the Dutch Government had requested his -services in connection with the restitution of looted art. They had -offered him a lieutenant-colonelcy and he had accepted.</p> - -<p>The Dutch, as well as the British and French, had made a practice -of conferring upon qualified civilians ranks consistent with the -responsibilities of given jobs. Our government’s failure to do likewise—so -far as the art program was concerned—resulted in a disparity -in rank which frequently placed American MFA&A personnel -at a great disadvantage.</p> - -<p>Of all the foreign representatives, none served his country more -zealously than Phonse Vorenkamp. Throughout the fall and winter -months, his convoys shuttled back and forth between Munich -and Amsterdam. When I last heard from him—in the late spring—he<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_258"></a>[258]</span> -had restored to Holland more than nine hundred paintings, upward -of two thousand pieces of sculpture, porcelain and glass, along -with truckloads of tapestries, rugs and furniture.</p> - -<p>I left Munich on a rainy morning at the end of September. Lamont -and Steve were planning to depart for Alt Aussee at the same -time. The three of us had agreed to meet in front of the Collecting -Point at eight-thirty. I was a few minutes late and when I got there -the guard at the entrance said they had already gone. I hadn’t felt -so forlorn since the day Craig and I had parted in Bad Homburg -months before. As I started down the steps to the command car, -Phonse Vorenkamp called from the doorway. He had come to -work a little earlier than usual, just to see me off. He was full of -waspish good humor, joked about the magnificence of my new job -in Frankfurt, and promised to look me up when he came through -with his first convoy. The driver stepped on the starter and, as we -rounded the corner into the Brienner-Strasse, Phonse waved us on -our way.</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_259"></a>[259]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_10">(10)<br /> -<span class="smaller"><i>MISSION TO AMSTERDAM; THE WIESBADEN MANIFESTO</i></span></h2> - -</div> - -<p>I reported to Major La Farge upon arrival. Since my visit to -Frankfurt with Lamont and Steve six weeks before, there had -been several changes in the MFA&A Section. With the removal -to Berlin of the Monuments officers attached to the U. S. -Group Control Council, our office at USFET Headquarters in -Frankfurt had been transferred to Höchst. The move was logical -enough because we were part of the Restitution Control Branch -of the Economics Division, which was located there. For all practical -purposes, however, we would have been better off in Frankfurt, -since our work involved daily contacts with other divisions—all -located at the main headquarters.</p> - -<p>The Höchst office was a barnlike room, some thirty feet square, -on the second floor of the Exposition Building. It required considerable -ingenuity to find the room, for it was tucked in behind a -row of laboratories occupied by white-coated German civilians, former -employees of I. G. Farben, who were now working for the -American Military Government. At one end of the room were -desks for the Chief and Deputy Chief. The rest of the furniture -consisted of four long work tables and two small file cabinets. The -staff was equally meager—Major La Farge, Lieutenant Edith -Standen, Corporal James Reeds and a German civilian stenographer.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_260"></a>[260]</span></p> - -<p>The first few days were a period of intensive indoctrination. The -morning I arrived, Bancel defined the relationship between our -office and the one at Berlin; and between us and the two districts -of the American Zone—the Eastern District, which was under -Third Army, and the Western District, under Seventh Army. He -described the Berlin office as the final authority in determining -policy. In theory, if not always in fact, a given policy was adopted -only after an exchange of views between the Frankfurt-Höchst office -and the one in Berlin. The activation of policy was our function. -USFET—that is, our office—was an operational headquarters. -Berlin was not.</p> - -<p>And how did we activate policy? By means of directives. Directives -to whom? To Third Army at Munich and Seventh Army -at Heidelberg. That sounded simple enough, until Bancel explained -that a directive was not exactly an imperial decree. Just -as it was our prerogative to activate policies approved by Berlin, -so it was the prerogative of the Armies to implement our directives -as they deemed expedient. He reminded me that the two -Armies were independent and autonomous within their respective -areas. In other words, we could tell them <i>what</i> to do, but not -<i>how</i> to do it. Bancel was an old hand at writing directives, knowing -how to give each phrase just the right emphasis. At first the -longer ones seemed stilted and occasionally ambiguous. But I was -not accustomed to military jargon. Later I came to realize that -Army communications always sounded stilted; and what I had -mistaken for ambiguity was often deliberate circumlocution, calculated -to soften the force of an unpalatable order.</p> - -<p>Bancel said there were more important things to worry about -than the composition of directives. One was the problem of token -restitutions. He was sorry to postpone the one to Poland, but that<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_261"></a>[261]</span> -couldn’t be helped. Now that France and Belgium had received -theirs, Holland was next on the list. The ceremony in Brussels -had made a great hit. He thought a similar affair might be arranged -at The Hague. Vorenkamp was selecting a group of pictures -at the Collecting Point. We would provide a plane to fly -them to Amsterdam. Captain Rae was to notify our office as soon -as Vorenkamp was ready to leave—probably within the next two -days. In the meantime Bancel was having orders cut for me to go -to Holland. I was to see the American ambassador, explain the -idea of these token restitutions, and sound him out on the subject -of planning a ceremony similar to the one our ambassador had -arranged in Brussels. Colonel Anthony Biddle, Chief of the Allied -Contacts Section at USFET Headquarters, had promised Bancel -to write a letter of introduction for me to take to The Hague. -Bancel suggested that I make tentative arrangements with the -motor pool for a car and driver.</p> - -<p>It was almost noon and Bancel had an appointment in Frankfurt -at twelve-thirty. He just had time to catch the bus. After he -left, Reeds and the stenographer went out to lunch, so Edith Standen -and I had the office to ourselves. We had a lot to talk over, as I -had not seen her since June when we worked together on the inventory -of the Berlin Museum collections at the Reichsbank.</p> - -<p>In the meantime, she had been stationed at Höchst. When the -Group CC outfit—to which she was officially attached—moved to -Berlin, she had preferred to remain with the USFET office. On the -Organizational Chart of the MFA&A Section, Edith was listed as -the “Officer in Charge of Technical Files.” Actually she was in -charge of a great many other things as well. When the Chief and -Deputy Chief were away from headquarters at the same time—and -they often were—Edith took over the affairs of the Section. She<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_262"></a>[262]</span> -must have been born with these remarkable administrative gifts, -for she could have had little opportunity to develop them as the -cloistered curator of the Widener Collection where, as she said -herself, she was “accustomed to the silent padding of butlers and -the spontaneous appearance of orchids and gardenias among the -Rembrandts and the Raphaels.”</p> - -<p>I asked her if there had been any new developments regarding -the proposed removal of German-owned art to the United States. -Yes, there had been. But nothing conclusive. There was a cable -from General Clay to the War Department early in September.<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> -The cable spoke of “holding German objects of art in trust for -eventual return to the German people.” But it didn’t contain the -clause “if and when the German nation had earned the right to -their return” which had appeared in the original document. Besides -the cable, there had been a communication from Berlin asking -for an estimate of the cubic footage in art repositories of the -American Zone. It was a question impossible to answer accurately. -But Bancel and Charlie had figured out a reply, citing the approximate -size of one of the repositories and leaving it up to Berlin to -multiply the figures by the total number in the entire zone. Now -that John Nicholas Brown and Charlie Kuhn were back in the -United States, they might be able to discourage the projected -removal. I had only one piece of information to contribute on the -subject: a letter from George Stout saying that he had been asked -by the Roberts Commission to give an opinion, based on purely -technical grounds, of the risk involved in sending paintings to -America. He did so, stating that to remove them would <i>cube</i> the -risk of leaving them in Germany.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_263"></a>[263]</span></p> - -<p>When Corporal Reeds returned to the office, Edith and I went -across the street to the Officers’ Mess. While we were at lunch, -she told me that Jim Reeds had been a discovery of George’s. He -had been with George and Bancel at their office in Wiesbaden. -Jim was a tall, serious fellow with sandy hair and a turned-up nose. -Edith said that he had been a medical student before the war and -that he came from Missouri. There was so much paper work to do -in the office that he never got caught up. The German typist was -slow and inaccurate. Jim had to do over nearly half the letters he -gave her to copy. But his patience was inexhaustible and he never -complained.</p> - -<p>Bancel didn’t get back from Frankfurt until late in the afternoon. -The return of the Veit Stoss altarpiece had come up again -and he had had a long talk about it with the Polish liaison officer -at USFET, who was a nephew of the Archbishop of Cracow. After -that he had had a session with Colonel A. J. de la Bretesche, the -French liaison officer. And, for good measure, he had to take up -the problem of clearance for the two Czech representatives who -would be arriving in a few days. He said wearily that practically -all of his days were like that, now that restitution was going full -speed ahead. I told him that I had had an uneventful but profitable -afternoon, going through the correspondence which had accumulated -on his desk. There had been several telephone calls, among -them one from Colonel Walter Kluss. Bancel said he would answer -that one in person, as he wanted to introduce me to the colonel, who -was chief of the Restitution Control Branch. Restitution involved -settling the claims of the occupied countries for everything the -Germans had taken from them. These claims covered every conceivable -kind of property—factory equipment, vehicles, barges, -machinery, racehorses, livestock, household furniture, etc.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_264"></a>[264]</span></p> - -<p>The colonel’s office was at the end of the corridor. On our way -down the hall, Bancel said that the Army could do with a few -more officers like Colonel Kluss. This observation didn’t give me -a very clear picture of the colonel, but when I met him I knew -what Bancel meant. There was an unassuming friendliness and -simplicity about him that I didn’t usually associate with full -colonels. His interest in the activities of the MFA&A Section was -genuine and personal. He was particularly fond of Bancel and -Edith and, during our visit with him that afternoon, spoke admiringly -of the work which they and Charlie Kuhn had done. While -other sections of the Restitution Control Branch were still generalizing -about restitution, the MFA&A Section had tackled the problem -realistically. It wasn’t a question of mapping out a program -which might work. The program <i>did</i> work. The wisdom and foresight -of Bancel’s planning appealed to the practical side of Colonel -Kluss’ nature and, throughout the months of our association with -him, he was never too busy to help us when we went to him with -our troubles.</p> - -<p>Bancel and I took the seven o’clock bus over to Frankfurt that -evening. We had dinner at the Officers’ Mess in the Casino behind -USFET Headquarters. We were joined there by Lieutenant William -Lovegrove, the officer whom Bancel had selected as our representative -at Paris in connection with the restitution of looted art -works to the French. With the arrival of the French representative -in Munich, regular shipments would soon be departing for -France. Their destination in Paris was to be the Musée du Jeu de -Paume, which was now the headquarters of the <i>Commission de -Récupération Artistique</i>, the commission composed of officials from -the French museums charged with the task of sorting and distributing -the plundered treasures. Among the officials selected to assist<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_265"></a>[265]</span> -in this work was Captain Rose Valland, the courageous Frenchwoman -who, as I mentioned earlier, had spied on the Nazi thieves -in that same museum during the Occupation.</p> - -<p>We had roughly estimated that it would require from three to -six months to send back the main bulk of the French loot from -Germany. Mass evacuation, as I have mentioned before, had the -advantage of accelerating restitution. It had the disadvantage of -rendering difficult our procedure of evaluating and photographing -objects before they were returned. It was our intention that Lieutenant -Lovegrove should obtain the desired photographs and appraisals. -American military establishments in France were being -drastically reduced, but we planned to attach him to the USFET -Mission to France. We had been told that the Mission would be -withdrawn in the early spring. If Lovegrove’s work weren’t finished -by that time, Bancel thought it might be possible to attach him -to our Paris Embassy when the Mission folded.</p> - -<p>When Bancel introduced me to Lovegrove that evening at the -Casino, I thought he would be very much at home in an embassy. -He was of medium height, bald, had a pink and white complexion -and wore a small mustache. He was self-possessed without being -blasé. Lovegrove was a sculptor and had lived in Paris for many -years before the war. Bancel said that he spoke a more perfect -French than most Frenchmen.</p> - -<p>Subsequent developments proved the wisdom of Bancel’s choice. -Lovegrove was exceedingly popular with his French associates at -the Musée du Jeu de Paume. His extraordinary tact and his capacity -for hard work were equally remarkable.</p> - -<p>I particularly remember our last meeting. It was in February, -when I was stopping briefly in Paris on my way home from Germany. -By that time hundreds of carloads of stolen art had been<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_266"></a>[266]</span> -received at the Jeu de Paume. There were one or two final matters -which I wished to take up with M. Henraux and M. Dreyfus, -members of the <i>Commission de Récupération Artistique</i>. When -Lovegrove and I arrived at the museum, we found these two -charming, elderly gentlemen in their office. With them was M. -David-Weill. He was examining a fine gold snuffbox. The office -was littered with gold and silver objects. They were part of the -fabulous collection which Lamont, Steve and I had packed by -candlelight in the Castle of Neuschwanstein six months before.</p> - -<p>During the second week of October, I left for Amsterdam. It -was a three-hundred-mile drive from Frankfurt. Cassidy, the driver -of the jeep, was a New Jersey farm boy who, unlike most drivers, -preferred long trips to short local runs. The foothills of the Taunus -Mountains were bright with fall coloring along the back road to -Limburg. From there we turned west to the Rhine. Then, skirting -the east bank of the river, we crossed over into the British Zone -at Cologne. From Cologne—where we lunched at a British mess—our -road led through Duisburg, Wesel and the skeleton of Emerich.</p> - -<p>We crossed the Dutch frontier at five and continued through -battered Arnhem to Utrecht. Utrecht was full of exuberant Canadians. -I stopped at the headquarters of the local Town Major to -inquire about a mess for transient officers. A friendly lieutenant, -a blonde Dutch girl on his arm, was on his way to supper and suggested -that I join them. He said that Cassidy could eat at a Red -Cross Club.</p> - -<p>The dining room in the officers’ hotel was noisy and crowded. -Most of the officers, the lieutenant explained, were going home in -a few days. It was good to be in a city which, superficially at least, -showed no scars of battle.</p> - -<p>We reached Amsterdam about nine-thirty. At night the canals<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_267"></a>[267]</span> -were confusing. Cassidy and I looked in vain for the Town Major. -Finally we found a Canadian “leave hotel.” The enlisted man on -duty at the desk dispensed with the formality of the billet permit I -should have obtained from the Town Major, and assigned us -rooms on the same floor. Cassidy decided that the Canadians were -a democratic outfit.</p> - -<p>Bancel had instructed me to inform the Dutch Restitution Commission, -known as the “C.G.R.,” that Lieutenant Colonel Vorenkamp -was scheduled to reach Amsterdam at noon on the day following -my arrival, so the next morning I went to the headquarters -of the commission to deliver Major La Farge’s message. The commission -occupied the stately old Goudstikker house on the Heerengracht. -Before the war, Goudstikker had been a great Dutch art -dealer. In the galleries of this house had been held many fine -exhibitions of Dutch painting. During the German Occupation of -the Netherlands, an unscrupulous Nazi named Miedl had “acquired” -the entire Goudstikker stock from the dealer’s widow. We -had found many of the Goudstikker pictures at Alt Aussee and in -the Göring collection.</p> - -<p>Bancel had told me to ask for Captain Robert de Vries. I was -informed that the captain was in London. In his stead Nicolaes -Vroom, his scholarly young deputy, received me. He had had no -word of Colonel Vorenkamp’s impending arrival. Vroom transmitted -the message immediately to Jonkheer Roel, director of the -Rijksmuseum. Twenty minutes later, this distinguished gentleman -appeared in Vroom’s office. With him were Lieutenant Colonel H. -Polis and Captain ter Meer, both of whom were attached to the -C.G.R. They were delighted to know about the plane which I told -them was due at Schiphol Airport. Telephonic connections with -Munich had not yet been re-established. They had to depend on<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_268"></a>[268]</span> -the USFET Mission at The Hague for transmission of all messages -from the American Zone. It often took days for a telegram to get -through.</p> - -<p>There was barely time enough to telephone for a truck to meet -the plane. Also Mr. van Haagen, Permanent Secretary of Education -and Science, must be notified at once. I was told that he would -accompany us to the airport. In another hour we were all on our -way to Schiphol.</p> - -<p>We waited two hours at the field and still no sign of the plane -from Munich. The weather was fine at the airport, but there were -reports of heavy fog to the south. At two o’clock we returned to -Amsterdam and lunched at the Dutch officers’ mess. My hosts apologized -for the food. They said that they no longer received British -Army rations. The menu was prepared from civilian supplies. It -was a Spartan diet—cheese, bread and jam, and weak coffee. But -they shared it so hospitably that only a graceless guest would have -complained of the lack of variety. Captain ter Meer said that it was -more palatable than the tulip bulbs he had lived on the winter -before.</p> - -<p>After lunch, Cassidy and I drove to the USFET Mission at The -Hague. Colonel Ira W. Black, Chief of the Mission, arranged for -me to see the American ambassador. The temporary offices of our -embassy were located in a tall brick building on the edge of the city.</p> - -<p>I presented Colonel Biddle’s letter to Mr. Stanley Hornbeck, the -ambassador, who looked more like a successful businessman than a -diplomat. He frowned as he read, and when he had finished, said -gruffly, “Commander, Tony Biddle is a charming fellow and I am -very fond of him. I’d like to be obliging, but we’ve had too damn -many celebrations and ceremonies in this country already. We need -more hard work instead of more holidays. It’s very nice about the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_269"></a>[269]</span> -pictures coming back, but steel mills and machinery would be a lot -more welcome.”</p> - -<p>I hadn’t expected this reaction and, having had little experience -with ambassadors—irascible or otherwise—I hardly knew what to -say. After an embarrassing pause, I ventured the remark that a -very simple ceremony would be enough.</p> - -<p>After his first outburst, the ambassador relented to the extent of -saying he’d think it over. As I left his office, he called after me, -“My bark’s worse than my bite.”</p> - -<p>On my way back to Amsterdam, I concluded unhappily that as a -diplomatic errand boy I was a washout. I’d better go back to loading -trucks.</p> - -<p>When I reached the hotel I found a message that the plane with -Vorenkamp and the pictures had arrived. I met Phonse the following -morning at the Goudstikker house. He introduced me to Lieutenant -Hans Jaffé, a Dutch Monuments officer, who bore a striking -resemblance to Robert Louis Stevenson. Several weeks later -Jaffé was chosen as the Dutch representative for the Western District -of the American Zone. His work at Seventh Army Headquarters -in Heidelberg was comparable to that of Vorenkamp’s in -Munich. He was intelligent and industrious. During the next few -months he was as successful in his investigations of looted Dutch -art works as Phonse was in Bavaria. Jaffé didn’t reap so rich a harvest, -but that was only because there was less loot in his territory.</p> - -<p>He and Phonse took me to the Rijksmuseum where the twenty-six -paintings from Munich were being unpacked. They were a -hand-picked group consisting mainly of seventeenth century Dutch -masters, which included four Rembrandts. One of the Rembrandts -was the <i>Still Life with Dead Peacocks</i> which Lamont and I had -taken out of the mine at Alt Aussee. There was a twenty-seventh<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_270"></a>[270]</span> -picture: it was the fraudulent Vermeer of the Göring collection. -Phonse had brought it back to be used as evidence against its author, -the notorious Van Meegeren.</p> - -<p>The Rijksmuseum was holding a magnificent exhibition, appropriately -entitled “The Return of the Old Masters.” Among the -one hundred and forty masterpieces, which had been stored in -underground shelters for the past five years, were six Vermeers, -nine paintings by Frans Hals, and seventeen Rembrandts, including -the famous <i>Night Watch</i>.</p> - -<p>That evening Phonse took Cassidy and me to the country place -occupied by the officers of the C.G.R. It was called “Oud Bussum” -and was near Naarden, about fifteen miles from Amsterdam. The -luxurious house had been the property of a well known Dutch -collaborator. Many high-ranking Nazis had been entertained there. -As a mark of special favor I was given the suite which had been -used by Göring.</p> - -<p>At dinner I sat between Colonel W. C. Posthumus-Meyjes, Chief -of the Restitution Commission, and Phonse Vorenkamp. The -colonel, to the regret of his associates, was soon to relinquish his -duties in order to accept an important diplomatic post in Canada. -Toward the end of the meal, Phonse asked me how I had made out -with the ambassador. I gave a noncommittal reply. He looked at -me shrewdly through his steel-rimmed spectacles and said, “We -would not expect your ambassador to arrange a ceremony. That is -for us to do. It is for us to express our gratitude to General Eisenhower.”</p> - -<p>(Phonse was as good as his word. A few weeks later, officials of -the Netherlands Government arranged a luncheon in one of the -rooms of the Rijksmuseum. It was the first affair of its kind in the -history of the museum. Only the simplest food was served, but the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_271"></a>[271]</span> -table was set with rare old silver, porcelain and glass. Colonel -Kluss and Bancel represented USFET Headquarters. I was told -that no one enjoyed himself more than the American ambassador.)</p> - -<p>The next morning Phonse suggested that I return with him in -the plane. He had it entirely to himself except for the empty -packing cases which he was taking back to Munich. He said that -the slight detour to Frankfurt could be easily arranged. So I sent -Cassidy back in the jeep and at noon Phonse and I—sole occupants -of the C-47 which had been chartered in the name of General Eisenhower—took -off from Schiphol Airport. An hour and twenty minutes -later we landed at Frankfurt.</p> - -<p>Before the end of October, a token restitution was made to -Czechoslovakia. The objects chosen were the famous fourteenth -century Hohenfurth altarpiece and the collections of the Army -Museum at Prague. Both had been stolen by the Nazis. The altarpiece, -evacuated from the Alt Aussee mine, was now at the Central -Collecting Point in Munich. The Army Museum collections were -stored at Schloss Banz, near Bamberg. Lieutenant Colonel František -Vrečko and Captain Egon Suk, as representatives of the Czech -Government, were invited to USFET Headquarters. We arranged -for them to proceed from there to Schloss Banz, where they were -met by Lieutenant Walter Horn. I have mentioned Horn before as -the Monuments officer whose remarkable sleuthing resulted in recovery -of the five pieces of the coronation regalia at Nürnberg. -While the Czech officers were en route, we directed Captain Rae at -Third Army to arrange for the delivery of the Hohenfurth panels -to Schloss Banz. Captain Rae, in turn, designated Lieutenant Commander -Coulter to transport them from Munich. (Both Ham Coulter -and I had received our additional half-stripe earlier in the -month.) This joint operation was carried out successfully and, in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_272"></a>[272]</span> -succeeding months, restitution to Czechoslovakia became a matter -of routine shipments at regular intervals.</p> - -<p>Also before the end of October, we became involved again in -the complicated problem of the Veit Stoss altarpiece. Major Charles -Estreicher was selected as the Polish representative. The major -spent several days at our office in Höchst studying our files for additional -data on Polish loot in the American Zone before continuing -to Munich and Nürnberg. Because of the condition of the -roads, the actual return of the altarpiece as a token restitution to -Poland was delayed until the early spring.</p> - -<p>While we were in the midst of these negotiations Bancel conferred -with Colonel Hayden Smith at USFET headquarters in -Frankfurt on the subject of the proposed removal of German-owned -works of art to the United States. Colonel Smith was Chief -of Staff to Major General C. L. Adcock, Deputy Director of the -office of military government, U. S. Zone. Bancel impressed upon -the colonel the practical difficulties involved and stressed the <i>technical</i>, -not the moral objections to shipping valuable works of art to -America. As a result of this conference the colonel asked Bancel to -prepare a memorandum on the subject for submission to his chief.</p> - -<p>The finished memorandum which Edith and I helped Bancel -prepare followed the general pattern of a staff study—a statement -of the “problem” with specific suggestions relating to its solution. -It contained an eloquent plea for the importation of additional -MFA&A personnel to assume responsibility for the project and -called attention to acute shortages in packing materials and transportation -facilities. It also pointed out that the advisability of -moving fragile objects across the ocean would be balanced against -the advantages of leaving them in the Central Collecting Points,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_273"></a>[273]</span> -all three of which had been made weatherproof months before -and were now provided with sufficient coal to prevent deterioration -of the objects during the winter months.</p> - -<p>Nothing came of our recommendations. Within two weeks, -Colonel Harry McBride, administrator of the National Gallery in -Washington, arrived in Berlin to expedite the first shipment. He -flew down to Frankfurt two days later to discuss ways and means -with Major La Farge. We learned from him that General Clay’s -recommendation for immediate removal had been approved by the -highest national authority. The General was now in Washington. -The futility of protest was obvious. Bancel told the colonel -that our Monuments officers were strongly opposed to the project. -He said that some of them might request transfer rather than comply -with the order. The colonel replied that such requests would, in -all probability, be refused. The only other alternative—open defiance -of the order—could have but one consequence, a court-martial. -And, assuming that our officers elected to face court-martial, -what would be gained? Nothing, according to the colonel; -the order would still be carried out. If trained MFA&A personnel -were not available, then the work would have to be done by such -officers and men as might be obtainable, experienced or not. -Bancel realized that his primary duty was the “protection and salvage” -of art works. If he deliberately left them at the mercy of -whatever troops might be available to do the packing, then he -would be guilty of dereliction of duty. This interpretation afforded -him some consolation.</p> - -<p>As Bancel had predicted, our Monuments officers lost no time -in registering their disapproval. They expressed their sentiments -as follows:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_274"></a>[274]</span></p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p class="center">U. S. FORCES, EUROPEAN THEATER<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> -GERMANY</p> - -<p class="right">7 November 1945</p> - -<p>1. We, the undersigned Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives -Specialist Officers of the Armed Forces of the United States, wish -to make known our convictions regarding the transportation to the -United States of works of art, the property of German institutions -or nationals, for purposes of protective custody.</p> - -<p>2. a. We are unanimously agreed that the transportation of -those works of art, undertaken by the United States Army, upon -direction from the highest national authority, establishes a precedent -which is neither morally tenable nor trustworthy.</p> - -<p>b. Since the beginning of United States participation in the -war, it has been the declared policy of the Allied Forces, so far as -military necessity would permit, to protect and preserve from deterioration -consequent upon the processes of war, all monuments, -documents, or other objects of historic, artistic, cultural, or archaeological -value. The war is at an end and no doctrine of “military -necessity” can now be invoked for the further protection of the -objects to be moved, for the reason that depots and personnel, -both fully competent for their protection, have been inaugurated -and are functioning.</p> - -<p>c. The Allied nations are at present preparing to prosecute individuals -for the crime of sequestering, under pretext of “protective -custody,” the cultural treasures of German-occupied countries. A -major part of the indictment follows upon the reasoning that even -though these individuals were acting under military orders, the -dictates of a higher ethical law made it incumbent upon them to -refuse to take part in, or countenance, the fulfillment of these -orders. We, the undersigned, feel it our duty to point out that, -though as members of the armed forces, we will carry out the orders -we receive, we are thus put before any candid eyes as no less culpable -than those whose prosecution we affect to sanction.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_275"></a>[275]</span></p> - -<p>3. We wish to state that from our own knowledge, no historical -grievance will rankle so long, or be the cause of so much justified -bitterness, as the removal, for any reason, of a part of the heritage -of any nation, even if that heritage be interpreted as a prize of war. -And though this removal may be done with every intention of altruism, -we are none the less convinced that it is our duty, individually -and collectively, to protest against it, and that though our obligations -are to the nation to which we owe allegiance, there are yet -further obligations to common justice, decency, and the establishment -of the power of right, not might, among civilized nations.</p> - -</div> - -<p>This document was drafted and signed by a small group of -Monuments officers at the Central Collecting Point in Wiesbaden. -Before being submitted to Major La Farge for whatever action he -deemed appropriate, it was signed by twenty-four of the thirty-two -Monuments officers in the American Zone. The remaining eight -chose either to submit individual letters expressing similar views, -or orally to express like sentiments. The document came to be -known as the “Wiesbaden Manifesto.” Army regulations forbade -the publication of such a statement; hence its submission to Major -La Farge as Chief of the MFA&A Section.</p> - -<p>Further protests against the policy which prompted the Wiesbaden -Manifesto appeared in the United States a few months later. -The action of our Government was sharply criticized and vigorously -defended in the press. Letters to and from the State Department -and a petition submitted to the President concerning the issue -appear in the Appendix to this book.</p> - -<p>Preparations for the shipment—appropriately nicknamed “Westward -Ho”—took precedence over all other activities of the -MFA&A office during the next three weeks. Its size was determined -soon after Colonel McBride’s arrival. General Clay cabled -from Washington requesting this information and the shipping<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_276"></a>[276]</span> -date. After hastily consulting us, our Berlin office replied that two -hundred paintings could be made ready for removal within ten -days.</p> - -<p>The next problem was to decide how the selection was to be -made. Should the pictures be chosen from the three Central Collecting -Points—Munich, Wiesbaden and Marburg? Time was -short. It would be preferable to take them from one depot. Wiesbaden -was decided upon. Quality had been stressed. The best -of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum pictures were at Wiesbaden.</p> - -<p>The decision to confine the selection to the one Central Collecting -Point had the additional advantage of avoiding the disruption -of MFA&A work at the other two depots, Munich and Marburg. -Craig Smyth had long been apprehensive about “Westward Ho,” -feeling that any incursion on the Bavarian State Collections would -be disastrous to his organization at the Munich Collecting Point. -He said that his entire staff of non-Nazi museum specialists would -walk out. This would seriously impede the restitution program in -the Eastern Military District.</p> - -<p>So far as Marburg was concerned, I had been in the office the -day Bancel told Walker Hancock of the decision to take German-owned -works of art to America. Walker looked at Bancel as -though he hadn’t understood him. Then he said simply, “In that -case I can’t go back to Marburg. Everything that we were able -to accomplish was possible because I had the confidence of certain -people. I can’t go back and tell them that I have betrayed them.”</p> - -<p>And he hadn’t gone back to Marburg. Instead he went to Heidelberg -for two days without telling anyone where he was going. -When he finally returned, it was only to close up his work at -Marburg, in the course of which he undertook to explain as best he -could to Professor Hamann, the distinguished old German scholar<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_277"></a>[277]</span> -with whom he had been associated, the decision concerning the -removal of the pictures. “I quoted the official statement,” Walker -said, “about the paintings being held in trust for the German people -and added that there was no reason to doubt it. Very slowly he -said, ‘If they take our old art, we must try to create a fine new art.’ -Then, after a long pause, he added,’I never thought they would -take them.’”</p> - -<p>Once it had been decided to limit selection of the paintings to -the Wiesbaden Collecting Point, there arose the question of appointing -an officer properly qualified to handle the job. It called for -speed, discrimination and an expert knowledge of packing. There -was a ten-day deadline to be met. Two hundred pictures had to be -chosen. And the packing would have to be done with meticulous -care. We considered the possibilities. Captain Walter Farmer -couldn’t be spared from his duties as director of the Collecting -Point. Lieutenant Samuel Ratensky, Monuments officer for Greater -Hesse, was an architect, not a museum man. Captain Joseph -Kelleher was one of our ablest officers; but he was just out of -the hospital where he had been laid up for three months with a -broken hip. The doctor had released him on condition that he be -given easy assignments for the next few weeks.</p> - -<p>At this critical juncture, Lamont Moore telephoned from Munich. -He and Steve had just completed the evacuation of the mine at Alt -Aussee. Lamont said that they were coming up to Frankfurt. Steve -had enough points to go home—enough and to spare. Lamont -thought he’d take some leave. Bancel signaled from the opposite -desk. I told Lamont to forget about the leave; that we had a job -for him. Bancel sighed with relief. Lamont’s was a different kind -of sigh.</p> - -<p>Lamont’s arrival was providential. Aside from his obvious qualifications<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_278"></a>[278]</span> -for the Wiesbaden assignment, he and Colonel McBride -were old friends from the National Gallery where, as I have -mentioned before, Lamont had been director of the educational -program. The colonel was content to leave everything in his -hands. Lamont and I spent an evening together studying a list of -the pictures stored at Wiesbaden. He typed out a tentative selection. -The next day he and the colonel went over to the Collecting -Point for a preliminary inspection.</p> - -<p>Steve was momentarily tempted by the prospect of having a part -in the undertaking. But when I told him there was a chance of his -being included in a draft of officers scheduled for immediate redeployment, -he decided that he’d had his share of packing. Maybe -he’d come back in the spring, if there was work still to be done. -His parting gift was the Mercedes-Benz, a temporary legacy, as it -turned out: two weeks later the car was stolen from the motor -pool where I had left it for minor repairs. Steve didn’t like the -idea of having to wait at a processing center before proceeding to -his port of embarkation. He cheered up when he learned that he -was headed for one near Marburg. He went off in high spirits at -the prospect of seeing his old friend Walker Hancock again.</p> - -<p>Under Lamont’s skillful supervision, preparations for the shipment -proceeded according to schedule. Lamont chose Captain -Kelleher as his assistant. Together they located the cases from -Captain Farmer’s records. Only a few of the Kaiser Friedrich -pictures had been taken out of the cases in which they had been -originally packed for removal from Berlin to the Merkers mine. -The larger cases contained as many as a dozen pictures. It was -slow work opening the cases and withdrawing a particular canvas -for repacking. Seldom were any two of the specified two hundred -paintings in a single case. When they were all finally assembled, -each one was photographed. In the midst of the proceedings, the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_279"></a>[279]</span> -supply of film and paper ran out. The nearest replacements were -at Mannheim. A day was lost in obtaining the necessary authorization -to requisition fresh supplies. It took the better part of another -day to make the trip to Mannheim and back. Thanks to Lamont’s -careful calculations, maximum use was made of the original cases -in repacking the two hundred paintings after a photographic record -had been made of their condition.</p> - -<p>While these operations were in progress, detailed plans for the -actual shipment of the paintings had to be worked out. Colonel -McBride and Bancel took up the matter of shipping space with -General Ross, Chief of Transportation. Sailing schedules were -consulted. An Army transport, the <i>James Parker</i>, was selected. As -an alternative, temporary consideration was given to the idea of -trucking the pictures to Bremen and sending them by a Naval vessel -from there. But the Bremen sailing schedules were unsatisfactory. -A special metal car was requisitioned to transport the cases from -Frankfurt, by way of Paris, to Le Havre. A twenty-four-hour guard -detail was appointed to accompany the car from Frankfurt to the -ship. Trucks and escort vehicles were procured for the twenty-five-mile -trip from Wiesbaden to the Frankfurt rail yards.</p> - -<p>It was decided that Lamont should be responsible for delivering -the pictures to the National Gallery in Washington where they -were to be placed in storage. Bancel drafted the orders. He -worked on them a full day. It took two more days to have them -cut. They were unique in one respect: Lamont, a second lieutenant, -was appointed officer-in-charge. His designated assistant was -a commander in the Navy. This was Commander Keith Merrill, an -old friend of Colonel McBride’s, who happened to be in Frankfurt. -He offered his services to the colonel and subsequently crossed on -the <i>James Parker</i> with Lamont and the pictures.</p> - -<p>Lamont and Joe Kelleher finished the packing one day ahead of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_280"></a>[280]</span> -schedule. The forty-five cases, lined with waterproof paper, were -delivered to the Frankfurt rail yards and loaded onto the car. From -there the car was switched to the station and attached to the night -train for Paris.</p> - -<p>Bancel and I returned to the office to take up where we had left -off. As usual, Edith Standen had taken care of everything while we -had been preoccupied with the “Westward Ho” shipment. There -had been no major crises. Judging from the weekly field reports, -restitution to the Dutch and the French was proceeding without -interruption. Edith produced a stack of miscellaneous notations: -The Belgian representative had arrived in Munich. The Stockholm -Museum had offered a supply of lumber to be used in repairing -war-damaged German buildings of cultural importance. There -had been two inquiries concerning a modification of Law 52 (the -Military Government regulation which forbade trafficking in works -of art). A report from Würzburg indicated that emergency repairs -to the roof of the Residenz were nearing completion. Lieutenant -Rorimer had called from Heidelberg about the books at -Offenbach.</p> - -<p>Of all the problems which confronted the MFA&A Section, none -was more baffling than that of the books at Offenbach. There were -more than two million of them. They had been assembled from -Jewish libraries throughout Europe by the <i>Institut zur Erforschung -der Judenfrage</i>—Institute for the Investigation of the Jewish Question—at -Frankfurt. At the close of the war, a small part of the -collection was found in a large private house in Frankfurt. The -rest was discovered in a repository to the north of the city, at Hungen. -The house in Frankfurt had been bombed, leaving undamaged -only the books stored in the cellar. One hundred and twenty -thousand volumes were removed from the damp cellar to the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_281"></a>[281]</span> -Rothschild Library, which, though damaged, was still intact. Examination -of this portion of the collection revealed that it contained -more than sixty libraries looted from occupied countries. -Subsequently, the rest of the collection was transferred from Hungen -to an enormous warehouse at Offenbach, across the river from -Frankfurt. The ultimate disposition of this library—probably the -greatest of its kind in the world—was the subject of heated discussions, -both written and oral. Several leading Jewish scholars had -expressed the hope that it could be kept together and eventually -established in some center of international study. Our immediate -responsibility was the care of the books in their two present locations. -That alone was exceedingly difficult. It would take months, -perhaps years, to make an inventory.</p> - -<p>Judge Samuel Rifkind, General Clay’s Adviser on Jewish Affairs, -had requested that twenty-five thousand volumes be made available -for distribution among the DP camps. I referred the request -to the two archivists who had recently joined our staff, Paul Vanderbilt -and Edgar Breitenbach. While I sympathized with the -tragic plight of the Jewish DPs, there were the unidentified legal -owners of the books to be taken into account. One of our archivists -felt that we should accede to the judge’s request; the other disagreed. -The matter was referred to Berlin for a decision. After -several weeks, we received word from Berlin that no books were -to be released. The judge persisted. Ten days later, Berlin reconsidered. -The books could be released—that is, twenty-five thousand -of them—on condition that no rare or irreplaceable volumes were -included in the selection. Also, the volumes chosen were to be -listed on a custody receipt. Up to the time of my departure from -Frankfurt, no books had been released.</p> - -<p>During the latter part of November, we concentrated on future<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_282"></a>[282]</span> -personnel requirements for the MFA&A program in the American -Zone. Current directives indicated that drastic reductions in Military -Government installations throughout the Zone could be expected -in the course of the next six or eight months. Already we -had begun to feel the impact of the Army’s accelerated redeployment -program. Bancel and I took stock of our present resources. -We had lost four officers and three enlisted men since the first of -the month. To offset them, we had gained two civilians; but they -were archivists, urgently needed in a specialized field of our work. -We couldn’t count on them as replacements.</p> - -<p>We drew up a chart showing the principal MFA&A offices and -depots in each of the three <i>Länder</i>. In Bavaria, for example, there -were at Munich the <i>Land</i> office and the Central Collecting Point; -a newly-established Archival Collecting Point at Oberammergau -and the auxiliary collecting point at Bamberg; and two secondary -offices, one in Upper Bavaria, another in Lower Bavaria. In Greater -Hesse, there were the <i>Land</i> office and the Central Collecting Point -at Wiesbaden; the offices at Frankfurt and Kassel; and the Collecting -Points at Offenbach and Marburg. In Württemberg-Baden, -the smallest of the three <i>Länder</i>, the <i>Land</i> office was at Stuttgart. -There was a secondary one at Karlsruhe. The principal repositories, -requiring MFA&A supervision, were the great mines at -Heilbronn and Kochendorf.</p> - -<p>We hoped that certain of these establishments could be closed -out in a few months; others would continue to operate for an indefinite -period. We regarded the <i>Land</i> offices as permanent; likewise -the Collecting Points, with the exception of Marburg. And -Marburg would have to be maintained until it had been thoroughly -sifted for loot, or until we received authorization to effect interzonal -transfers. Most of the Rhineland museums were in the British<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_283"></a>[283]</span> -Zone, but the collections were at Marburg. The British had requested -their return. Until our Berlin office approved the request, -we could do nothing.</p> - -<p>It was impossible to make an accurate forecast of our personnel -needs. Nevertheless we entered on the chart tentative reductions -with accompanying dates. The chart would serve as a basic guide -in the allocation of civilian positions when the conversion program -got seriously under way. A number of our officers had already -signified their intentions of converting to civilian status, if the -promised program ever materialized.</p> - -<p>Early in December, Bancel went home on thirty-days’ leave. -Allowing two weeks for transportation each way, he would be -gone about two months. In his absence, I was Acting Chief of the -Section. Under the Navy’s new point system, I had been eligible -for release on the first of November, but had requested an extension -of active duty in anticipation of Bancel’s departure. I was -not looking forward with enthusiasm to the period of his absence, -because of the personnel problems which lay ahead.</p> - -<p>My apprehensions were justified. Our chart, based on a realistic -concept of the work yet to be done, was rejected by the Personnel -Section. I was told that each <i>Land</i> would draw up its own T.O. -(Table of Organization). Perhaps there could be some co-ordination -at a later date. Even the T.O. of our own office at USFET -was thrown back at us with the discouraging comment that the -proposed civil service ratings would have to be downgraded. During -the next eight weeks there must have been a dozen personnel -conferences between the top brass of USFET and the Military -Governors of the three <i>Länder</i>, and between them and the moguls -of the Group Control Council. Not once, to my knowledge, was -the MFA&A Section consulted. For a while I exhorted applicants<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_284"></a>[284]</span> -for civilian MFA&A jobs to be patient; but as the weeks went by -and the job allocations failed to materialize, applications were -withdrawn. <i>Stars and Stripes</i> contributed to my discomfort with -glittering forecasts of Military Government jobs paying from seven -to ten thousand dollars a year. There were positions which paid -such salaries, but <i>Stars and Stripes</i> might have stressed the fact -that there were many more which paid less. I remember one mousy -little sergeant who applied for a job with us. In civilian life he -had received a salary of twelve hundred dollars a year. On his -application blank he stipulated, as the minimum he would accept, -the sum of six thousand dollars.</p> - -<p>Fortunately there were diversions from these endless personnel -problems. Edith and I fell into the habit of going over to Wiesbaden -on Saturday afternoons. It was a relief to escape from the -impersonal life at our headquarters to the friendly country atmosphere -of the <i>Land</i> and City Detachments. We were particularly -fond of our Monuments officers there.</p> - -<p>They were a dissimilar trio—Captain Farmer, Lieutenant Ratensky -and Captain Kelleher. Walter Farmer presided over the Collecting -Point. Walter seldom relaxed. He was an intense fellow, -jumpy in his movements, and unconsciously brusque in conversation. -He was an excellent host, loved showing us about the Collecting -Point—particularly his “Treasure Room” with its wonderful -medieval objects—and, at the end of a tour, invariably produced -a bottle of Tokay in his office.</p> - -<p>Sam Ratensky, MFA&A officer for the <i>Land</i>, was short, slender -and had red hair. In civilian life he had been associated with -Frank Lloyd Wright and was deeply interested in city-planning. -Sam usually looked harassed, but his patience and understanding -were inexhaustible. He was accurate in his appraisals of people -and had a quiet sense of humor.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_285"></a>[285]</span></p> - -<p>Joe Kelleher, Sam’s deputy, was a “black Irishman.” The war -had temporarily interrupted his brilliant career in the Fine Arts -department at Princeton. At twenty-eight, Joe had the poise, balance -and tolerance of a man twice that age. With wit and charm -added to these soberer qualities, he was a dangerously persuasive -character. On one occasion, during Bancel’s absence, he all but -succeeded in hypnotizing our office into assigning a disproportionate -number of our best officers to the MFA&A activities of -Greater Hesse. When Sam Ratensky went home in February, Joe -succeeded him as MFA&A officer for the <i>Land</i>. He held this post -until his own release several months later. His intelligent supervision -of the work was a significant contribution to the success of -the American fine arts program in Germany.</p> - -<p>Another Monuments officer whose visits to Wiesbaden rivaled -Edith’s and mine in frequency was Captain Everett Parker Lesley, -Jr. He disliked his given name and preferred to be called “Bill.” -Lesley had been in Europe since the invasion. He was known as -the “stormy petrel” of MFA&A. And with good reason. He was -brilliant and unpredictable. A master of oral and written invective, -he was terrible in his denunciation of stupidity and incompetence. -During the fall months, Bill was attached to the Fifteenth Army -with headquarters at Bad Nauheim. This was the “paper” army, -so called because its function was the compilation of a history of -the war. Bill was writing a report of MFA&A activities during -combat. He was a virtuoso of the limerick. I was proud of my own -repertoire, but Bill knew all of mine and fifty more of his own -composing. He usually telephoned me at the office when he had -turned out a particularly good one.</p> - -<p>Upon the completion of his report for Fifteenth Army, Lesley -was appointed MFA&A Officer at Frankfurt. As a part of his duties, -he assumed responsibility for the two million books at Offenbach<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_286"></a>[286]</span> -and the Rothschild Library. Within a week he had submitted a -report on the two depots and drafted practical plans for their effective -reorganization.</p> - -<p>While Walter Farmer was on leave in England before Christmas, -Joe Kelleher took charge of the Wiesbaden Collecting Point. The -Dutch and French restitution representatives had gone home for -the holidays. Joe had the spare time to examine some of the unopened -cases. He asked Edith and me to come over one evening. -He said that he might have a surprise for us. I said we’d come and -asked if I might bring Colonel Kluss, Chief of the Restitution Control -Branch. The colonel had never seen the Collecting Point.</p> - -<p>We drove over in the colonel’s car. After early dinner with Joe -at the City Detachment, we went down to the Collecting Point. -Joe unlocked the “Treasure Room” and switched on the lights. The -colonel whistled when he looked around the room.</p> - -<p>“Those are the Polish church treasures which the Nazis swiped,” -said Joe, pointing casually to the gold and silver objects stacked on -shelves and tables. “There’s something a lot more exciting in that -box.”</p> - -<p>He walked over to a packing case about five feet square which -stood in the center of the room. The lid had been unscrewed but -was still in place. It was marked in black letters: “Kiste 28, Aegypt. -Abteilung—Bunte Königin—Tel-el-Amarna—<span class="allsmcap">NICHT KIPPEN!</span>”—Case -28, Egyptian Department—Painted Queen—Tel-el-Amarna—<span class="allsmcap">DON’T -TILT!</span> Joe grinned with satisfaction as I read the markings. -The Painted Queen—Queen Nefertete. This celebrated head, the -most beautiful piece of Egyptian sculpture in the world, had been -one of the great treasures of the Berlin Museum. It was a momentous -occasion. There was every reason to believe that the German -museum authorities had packed the head with proper care. Even so,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_287"></a>[287]</span> -the case had been moved around a good deal in the meantime, first -from the Merkers mine to the vaults of the Reichsbank in Frankfurt, -and then from Frankfurt to Wiesbaden. There was not much -point in speculating about that now. We’d know the worst in a -few minutes.</p> - -<p>Joe and I laid the lid aside. The box was filled with a white -packing material. At first I thought it was cotton, but it wasn’t. -It was glass wool. In the very center of the box lay the head, -swathed in silk paper. Gingerly we lifted her from the case and -placed her on a table. We unwound the silk paper. Nefertete was -unharmed, and as bewitching as ever. She was well named: “The -beautiful one is here.”</p> - -<p>While we studied her from every angle, Joe recounted the story -of the Nefertete, her discovery and subsequent abduction to Berlin. -She was the wife of Akhnaton, enlightened Pharaoh of the fourteenth -century <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span> This portrait of her was excavated in the winter -of 1912 by Dr. Ludwig Borchardt, famous German Egyptologist, on -the site of Tel-el-Amarna, Akhnaton’s capital. In compliance with -the regulations of the Egyptian Government, Borchardt submitted -a list of his finds at Tel-el-Amarna to M. Maspero of the Cairo -Museum. According to the story, Maspero merely glanced at the -list, to make certain that a fifty-fifty division had been made, and -did not actually examine the items. The head was taken to Berlin -and placed in storage until after the first World War. When it -was placed on exhibition in 1920, the Egyptian Government protested -loudly that Dr. Borchardt had deceived the authorities of the -Cairo Museum and demanded the immediate return of the head. -(The Egyptian Government was again pressing its claim in March -1946.)</p> - -<p>After replacing Nefertete in her case, Joe showed the colonel<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_288"></a>[288]</span> -the collection of rare medieval treasures, including those of the -Guelph Family—patens, chalices and reliquaries of exquisite workmanship -dating from the eleventh and twelfth centuries. With a -fine sense of showmanship he saved the most spectacular piece till -the last: the famous Crown of St. Stephen, the first Christian king -of Hungary, crowned by the Pope in the year 1000. It was adorned -with enamel plaques, bordered with pearls and studded with great -uncut gems. Joe said there was a difference of opinion among -scholars as to the exact date and provenance of the enamels. The -crown was surmounted by a bent gold cross. According to Joe, the -cross had been bent for four hundred years and would never be -straightened. During the sixteenth century, the safety of the -crown was endangered. It was entrusted to the care of a Hungarian -noblewoman, who concealed it in a compartment under the -seat of her carriage. The space was small and when the lid was -closed and weighted down by the occupant of the carriage, the cross -got bent. The Hungarian coronation regalia included three other -pieces: a sword, an orb, and a scepter. The scepter was extremely -beautiful. The stalk was of rich gold filigree and terminated in a -spherical ornament of carved rock crystal. The regalia was kept -in a specially constructed iron trunk with three locks, the keys to -which were entrusted to three different nobles. At the close of the -present war, American troops apprehended a Hungarian officer -with the trunk. Perhaps he was trying to safeguard the regalia as -his predecessor in the sixteenth century had done. In any case, the -American authorities thought they’d better relieve him of that -grave responsibility.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 800px;" id="illus40"> -<img src="images/illus40.jpg" width="800" height="500" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">The Hungarian Crown Jewels. <i>Left</i>, the scepter. <i>Center</i>, the celebrated Crown of St. Stephen. <i>Right</i>, -the sword. These priceless treasures fell into the hands of the American authorities in Germany at -the war’s close.</p> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;" id="illus41"> -<img src="images/illus41.jpg" width="550" height="500" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">View of the Treasure Room at the Central Collecting Point, Wiesbaden, showing -treasures stolen from Polish churches.</p> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;" id="illus42"> -<img src="images/illus42.jpg" width="300" height="500" alt="" /> -<p class="caption">The celebrated Egyptian sculpture, Queen -Nefertete, formerly in the Berlin Museum, -discovered in the Merkers salt mine.</p> -</div> - -<p>A few days after our visit to Wiesbaden with Colonel Kluss, I -received a letter from home enclosing a clipping from the December -7 edition of the New York <i>Times</i>. The clipping read as follows:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_289"></a>[289]</span></p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p class="center">$80,000,000 PAINTINGS ARRIVE FROM EUROPE ON -ARMY TRANSPORT</p> - -<p>A valuable store of art, said to consist entirely of paintings worth -upward of $80,000,000, arrived here last night from Europe in the -holds of the Army transport <i>James Parker</i>.</p> - -<p>Where the paintings came from and where they are going was a -mystery, and no Army officer on the pier at Forty-fourth Street and -North River, where the <i>Parker</i> docked with 2,483 service passengers, -would discuss the shipment, or even admit it was on board. -It was learned elsewhere that a special detail of Army officers was -on the ship during the night to take charge of the consignment, -which will be unloaded today.</p> - -<p>Unusual precautions were taken to keep the arrival of the paintings -secret. The canvases were included in more than forty crates -and were left untouched during the night under lock and key.</p> - -<p>Presumably the shipment was gathered at sites in Europe where -priceless stores of paintings and art objects stolen by the Nazis from -the countries they overran were discovered when Allied forces -broke through into Germany and the dominated countries.</p> - -<p>The White House announced in Washington two months ago -that shipments of art would be brought here for safekeeping, to -be kept in “trust” for the rightful owners, and the National Gallery -of Art, through its chairman, Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone, was -asked to provide storage and protection for the works while they -are in this country. The gallery is equipped with controlled ventilation -and expert personnel for the storage and handling of such -works.</p> - -<p>The White House announcement gave no listing of the paintings, -but it is known that among the vast stores seized, including caches -in Italy as well as Germany, and Hermann Goering’s famous $200,000,000 -art collection, [were] included many of the world’s art -treasures and works of the masters.</p> - -</div> - -<p>By coincidence, I received that same day a copy of the New York -<i>Times Overseas Weekly</i> edition of December 9, which carried substantially -the same story, except for the fact that it stated unequivocally<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_290"></a>[290]</span> -that the paintings shipped to America were Nazi loot.</p> - -<p>Edith and I were gravely disturbed by the inaccuracy of the -statements in these articles. Our concern was increased by the fact -that the articles had appeared in so reliable a publication as the -<i>Times</i>. What could have happened to the official press release on -the subject issued on the twenty-fourth of November when the -<i>James Parker</i> was ready to sail?<a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> And why all the mystery? I -reread the December 7 clipping. To me there was the implication -that we were shipping loot in wholesale lots to the United States. -That would be alarming news to the countries whose stolen art -works we were already returning as rapidly as possible.</p> - -<p>The <i>Times</i> story most emphatically called for a correction. But -if a statement from our office were sent through channels, it probably -wouldn’t reach New York before Easter. Edith looked up -from her work. There was a glint in her eye. She asked, “Will -you do me a favor? I’d like to write the letter of correction.”</p> - -<p>I told her to go ahead. Ten minutes later she showed me the -rough draft. It covered all the points. I reworked a phrase here -and there but made no important changes and, as soon as it was -typed and cleared, I signed and mailed it. As published in the -New York <i>Times</i> two weeks later, on January 2, 1946, the letter -read as follows:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p class="center">TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEW YORK TIMES</p> - -<p>On Dec. 7 <i>The Times</i> printed a report to the effect that $80,000,000 -worth of paintings, presumably from the stores of art -objects stolen by the Nazis, had arrived from Europe in the Army -transport James Parker. Your Overseas Weekly edition of Dec. 9<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_291"></a>[291]</span> -repeated this information but stated categorically that the paintings -were Nazi loot.</p> - -<p>It is true that the James Parker brought to America some 200 -paintings of inestimable value, but none of them is loot or of -dubious ownership. They are the property of the Kaiser Friedrich -Museum in Berlin. A press release from the Office of Military -Government for Germany (U.S.), dated Nov. 24, states that these -“priceless German-owned paintings, which might suffer irreparable -damage if left in Germany through the winter, have been selected -for temporary storage in the United States. These paintings have -been gathered from various wartime repositories in the United -States Zone of Germany and are being shipped to Washington to -insure their safety and to hold them in trust for the people of -Germany. The United States Government has promised their -return to the German people.”</p> - -<p>It cannot be stated too emphatically that the policy of the American -Military Government is to return all looted works of art to -their owner nations with the greatest possible speed. Since the -restitution in August of the famous van Eyck altarpiece, “The -Mystic Lamb,” to Belgium, a steady stream of paintings, sculpture, -fine furniture and other art objects has poured from the highly -organized collecting points of the United States Zone to the liberated -countries. Few, if any, looted works of art of any importance -are of unknown origin; and though, among the vast masses of -material taken from the Jews and other “enemies of the state” for -what was always described as “safekeeping” there will undoubtedly -be many pieces whose ownership will be difficult to determine, it -appears unlikely that these will be found to be of great value.</p> - -<p>The shipment of German-owned paintings to the United States -is thus a project entirely separate from the main objectives of the -Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section of the Office of Military -Government—namely, the restitution of loot and the re-establishment -of the German museums and other cultural organizations. -To confuse this shipment, which was directed by the -highest national authority, with what is now the routine work of -preservation, identification and restitution performed by trained<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_292"></a>[292]</span> -specialist personnel is to mislead our Allies and to underrate the accomplishments -of a small group of disinterested and hard-working -Americans.</p> - -<p class="right">Thomas C. Howe Jr.</p> - -<p class="right">Lieut. Comdr., USNR, Deputy Chief; Director<br /> -on Leave, California Palace of the<br /> -Legion of Honor, San Francisco.</p> - -<p class="right">European Theatre, Dec. 18, 1945.</p> - -</div> - -<p>The main objectives of the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives -Section of American Military Government in Germany were defined -in my letter to the New York <i>Times</i> as “the restitution of -loot and the re-establishment of the German museums and other -cultural institutions.” Honorable and constructive objectives. And, -as expressed in that letter, unequivocal and reassuring both to the -liberated countries of Europe and to the Germans. Yet how difficult -of attainment! How difficult even to keep those objectives -clearly in mind when confronted simultaneously—as our officers -often were—with a dozen problems of equal urgency!</p> - -<p>At close range it was impossible to look objectively at the overall -record of our accomplishments. But homeward bound in February -I had that opportunity. The pieces of the puzzle began to fit -together and the picture took shape. It was possible to determine -to what extent we have realized our objectives.</p> - -<p>So far as restitution is concerned, the record has been a success. -During the summer months our energies were devoted to obvious -preliminary preparations. They included the establishment of -Central Collecting Points at Munich, Marburg and Wiesbaden. Immediately -thereafter, the contents of art repositories in the American -Zone were removed to those central depots. The Central Collecting -Points, organized and directed by Monuments officers with<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_293"></a>[293]</span> -museum experience, were staffed with trained personnel from -German museums. The one at Munich was primarily reserved for -looted art, since the majority of the cultural booty was found in -Bavaria. The Collecting Points at Wiesbaden and Marburg, on -the other hand, housed German-owned collections brought from -repositories in which storage conditions were unsatisfactory.</p> - -<p>The process of actual restitution was inaugurated by token restitutions -in the name of General Eisenhower to Belgium, Holland, -France and Czechoslovakia. Circumstances beyond our control -postponed similar gestures of good will to Poland and Greece. -Representatives of the liberated countries were invited to the -American Zone to identify and remove the loot from the collecting -points. According to late reports, the restitution of loot was continuing -without interruption.</p> - -<p>Shortly after my return, there were disquieting rumors of drastic -reductions in American personnel connected with cultural restitution -in Germany. I earnestly hope that these rumors are without -foundation. Such reductions would be disastrous to the completion -of a program which has reflected so creditably on our government.</p> - -<p>The re-establishment of German museums and other cultural -institutions—our second main objective—has been, to a large extent, -sacrificed in the interests of restitution. This brings up again -the urgent need for the immediate replenishment of our dwindling -Fine Arts personnel in Germany. Our moral responsibility for the -continuation of this phase of the MFA&A program is a grave one. -It was understandably neglected during the first six months of our -occupation in Germany. And it would be unfair to argue that the -British have far outdistanced us in this field. That they have done -so is undeniably true. However, the British found but little loot in -their zone. Consequently, they have been able to make rapid strides<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_294"></a>[294]</span> -in the reconstitution of German collections and cultural institutions, -while we have been preoccupied with restitution.</p> - -<p>Notwithstanding that preoccupation, our Monuments officers -were instrumental in arranging a series of impressive exhibitions -of German-owned masterpieces. The first of these was held at -Marburg in November 1945. A second and more ambitious show, -which included many of the finest treasures of the Bavarian State -Galleries, opened at Munich in January 1946. A third, comprising -paintings and sculptures from the museums of Berlin and Frankfurt, -was presented at Wiesbaden in February.</p> - -<p>All these exhibitions were accompanied by catalogues with German -and English texts. Those of Munich and Wiesbaden were -lavishly illustrated. The Munich catalogue contained several plates -showing the rooms in which the exhibition was held—lofty, spacious -galleries recalling the marble halls of our own National -Gallery at Washington.</p> - -<p>At the time of my departure from Germany, little was known of -French and Russian procedures with regard to cultural rehabilitation -in their respective zones of occupation. Their Military Governments -have made provisions for personnel capable of carrying -on work similar to ours and that of the British.</p> - -<p>The caliber of the men drawn into the project from all branches -of our Armed Forces has been cited as an important factor in the -success of the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives program. I -would like to cite another factor which I consider equally important: -There was no arbitrary drafting of personnel; participation -was voluntary. The resulting spontaneity and its value to the spirit -of the work cannot be exaggerated.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_295"></a>[295]</span></p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_296"></a>[296]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="APPENDIX">APPENDIX</h2> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_297"></a>[297]</span></p> - -<h3>APPENDIX</h3> - -</div> - -<p>The following is the complete list of the paintings transferred -from Germany and now stored at the National Gallery, according -to its News Release of December 14, 1945:</p> - -<p>Albrecht Altdorfer: <i>Rest on the Flight into Egypt</i></p> - -<p>Albrecht Altdorfer: <i>Landscape with Satyr Family</i></p> - -<p>Albrecht Altdorfer: <i>Nativity</i></p> - -<p>Albrecht Altdorfer: <i>Christ’s Farewell to His Apostles</i></p> - -<p>Christoph Amberger: <i>Cosmographer Sebastian Münster</i></p> - -<p>Jacopo Amigioni: <i>Lady as Diana</i></p> - -<p>Fra Angelico: <i>Last Judgment</i></p> - -<p>Austrian Master (ca. 1400): <i>Christ, Madonna, St. John</i></p> - -<p>Austrian Master (ca. 1410): <i>Crucifixion</i></p> - -<p>Hans Baldung Grien: <i>Altar of Halle</i></p> - -<p>Hans Baldung Grien: <i>Graf von Löwenstein</i></p> - -<p>Hans Baldung Grien: <i>Pietà</i></p> - -<p>Hans Baldung Grien: <i>Pyramus and Thisbe</i></p> - -<p>Giovanni Bellini: <i>The Resurrection</i></p> - -<p>Bohemian (ca. 1350): <i>Glatyer Madonna</i></p> - -<p>Hieronymus Bosch: <i>St. John on Patmos</i></p> - -<p>Botticelli: <i>Giuliano de Medici</i>, and frame</p> - -<p>Botticelli: <i>Madonna of the Lilies</i></p> - -<p>Botticelli: <i>St. Sebastian</i></p> - -<p>Botticelli: <i>Simonetta Vespucci</i></p> - -<p>Botticelli: <i>Venus</i></p> - -<p>Dirk Bouts: <i>Madonna and Child</i></p> - -<p>Dirk Bouts: <i>Virgin in Adoration</i></p> - -<p>Peter Breughel: <i>Dutch Proverbs</i></p> - -<p>Peter Breughel: <i>Two Monkeys</i></p> - -<p>Angelo Bronzino: <i>Portrait of a Young Man</i></p> - -<p>Angelo Bronzino: <i>Portrait of a Young Man</i></p> - -<p>Angelo Bronzino: <i>Ugolino Martelli</i></p> - -<p>Hans Burgkmair: <i>Holy Family</i></p> - -<p>Giovanni Battista Caracciolo: <i>Cosmos and Damian</i></p> - -<p>Caravaggio: <i>Cupid as Victor</i></p> - -<p>Vittore Carpaccio: <i>Entombment of Christ</i></p> - -<p>Andrea del Castagno: <i>Assumption of the Virgin</i></p> - -<p>Chardin: <i>The Draughtsman</i></p> - -<p>Chardin: <i>Still Life</i></p> - -<p>Petrus Christus: <i>Portrait of a Girl</i></p> - -<p>Petrus Christus: <i>St. Barbara and a Carthusian Monk</i></p> - -<p>Joos van Cleve: <i>Young Man</i></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_298"></a>[298]</span></p> - -<p>Cologne Master (ca. 1400): <i>Life of Christ</i></p> - -<p>Cologne Master (ca. 1350): <i>Madonna Enthroned, Crucifixion</i></p> - -<p>Correggio: <i>Leda and the Swan</i></p> - -<p>Francesco Cossa: <i>Allegory of Autumn</i></p> - -<p>Lucas Cranach, the Elder: <i>Frau Reuss</i></p> - -<p>Lucas Cranach, the Elder: <i>Lucretia</i></p> - -<p>Lucas Cranach, the Elder: <i>Rest on the Flight into Egypt</i></p> - -<p>Daumier: <i>Don Quixote</i></p> - -<p>Piero di Cosimo: <i>Mars, Venus and Cupid</i></p> - -<p>Lorenzo di Credi: <i>Young Girl</i></p> - -<p>Albrecht Dürer: <i>Madonna</i></p> - -<p>Albrecht Dürer: <i>Madonna with the Goldfinch</i></p> - -<p>Albrecht Dürer: <i>Young Woman</i></p> - -<p>Albrecht Dürer: <i>Hieronymus Holzschuher</i></p> - -<p>Albrecht Dürer: <i>Cover for Portrait of Hieronymus Holzschuher</i></p> - -<p>Adam Elsheimer: <i>The Drunkenness of Noah</i></p> - -<p>Adam Elsheimer: <i>Holy Family</i></p> - -<p>Adam Elsheimer: <i>Landscape with the Weeping Magdalene</i></p> - -<p>Adam Elsheimer: <i>St. Christopher</i></p> - -<p>Jean Fouquet: <i>Etienne Chevalier with St. Stephen</i></p> - -<p>French (ca. 1400): <i>Coronation of the Virgin</i></p> - -<p>French Master (ca. 1400): <i>Triptych</i></p> - -<p>Geertgen tot Sint Jans: <i>John the Baptist</i></p> - -<p>Geertgen tot Sint Jans: <i>Madonna</i></p> - -<p>Giorgione: <i>Portrait of a Young Man</i></p> - -<p>Giotto: <i>Death of the Virgin</i></p> - -<p>Jan Gossaert: <i>Baudouin de Bourbon</i></p> - -<p>Jan Gossaert: <i>Christ on the Mount of Olives</i></p> - -<p>Francesco Guardi: <i>The Balloon Ascension</i></p> - -<p>Francesco Guardi: <i>St. Mark’s Piazza in Venice</i></p> - -<p>Francesco Guardi: <i>Piazzetta in Venice</i></p> - -<p>Frans Hals: <i>Hille Bobbe</i></p> - -<p>Frans Hals: <i>Nurse and Child</i></p> - -<p>Frans Hals: <i>Portrait of a Young Man</i></p> - -<p>Frans Hals: <i>Portrait of a Young Woman</i></p> - -<p>Frans Hals: <i>Singing Boy</i></p> - -<p>Frans Hals: <i>Tyman Oosdorp</i></p> - -<p>Meindert Hobbema: <i>Landscape</i></p> - -<p>Hans Holbein: <i>George Giesze</i></p> - -<p>Hans Holbein: <i>Old Man</i></p> - -<p>Hans Holbein: <i>Portrait of a Man</i></p> - -<p>Pieter de Hooch: <i>The Mother</i></p> - -<p>Pieter de Hooch: <i>Party of Officers and Ladies</i></p> - -<p>Willem Kalf: <i>Still Life</i></p> - -<p>Willem Kalf: <i>Still Life</i></p> - -<p>Philips Konninck: <i>Dutch Landscape</i></p> - -<p>Georges de la Tour: <i>St. Sebastian</i></p> - -<p>Filippino Lippi: <i>Allegory of Music</i></p> - -<p>Fra Filippo Lippi: <i>Adoration of the Child</i></p> - -<p>Pietro Lorenzetti: <i>St. Humilitas Raises a Nun</i></p> - -<p>Pietro Lorenzetti: <i>Death of St. Humilitas</i></p> - -<p>Claude Lorrain: <i>Italian Coast Scene</i></p> - -<p>Lorenzo Lotto: <i>Christ’s Farewell to His Mother</i></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_299"></a>[299]</span></p> - -<p>Bastiano Mainardi: <i>Portrait of a Man</i></p> - -<p>Manet: <i>In the Winter Garden</i></p> - -<p>Andrea Mantegna: <i>Cardinal Mezzarota</i></p> - -<p>Andrea Mantegna: <i>Presentation in the Temple</i></p> - -<p>Simon Mannion: <i>Altar of St. Omer</i> (two panels)</p> - -<p>Simone Martini: <i>Burial of Christ</i></p> - -<p>Masaccio: <i>Birth Platter</i></p> - -<p>Masaccio: <i>Three Predelle</i></p> - -<p>Masaccio: <i>Four Saints</i></p> - -<p>Quentin Massys: <i>The Magdalene</i></p> - -<p>Master of the Darmstadt Passion: <i>Altar Wings</i></p> - -<p>Master of Flémalle: <i>Crucifixion</i></p> - -<p>Master of Flémalle: <i>Portrait of a Man</i></p> - -<p>Master of the Virgo inter Virgines: <i>Adoration of the Kings</i></p> - -<p>Hans Memling: <i>Madonna Enthroned with Angels</i></p> - -<p>Hans Memling: <i>Madonna Enthroned</i></p> - -<p>Hans Memling: <i>Madonna and Child</i></p> - -<p>Lippo Memmi: <i>Madonna and Child</i></p> - -<p>Antonello da Messina: <i>Portrait of a Man</i></p> - -<p>Jan Mostaert: <i>Portrait of a Man</i></p> - -<p>Aelbert Ouwater: <i>Raising of Lazarus</i></p> - -<p>Palma Vecchio: <i>Portrait of a Man</i></p> - -<p>Palma Vecchio: <i>Young Woman</i></p> - -<p>Giovanni Paolo Pannini: <i>Colosseum</i>.</p> - -<p>Giovanni di Paolo: <i>Christ on the Cross</i></p> - -<p>Giovanni di Paolo: <i>Legend of St. Clara</i></p> - -<p>Joachim Patinir: <i>Rest on the Flight into Egypt</i></p> - -<p>Sebastiano del Piombo: <i>Roman Matron</i></p> - -<p>Sebastiano del Piombo: <i>Knight of the Order of St. James</i></p> - -<p>Antonio Pollaiuolo: <i>David</i></p> - -<p>Nicolas Poussin: <i>St. Matthew</i></p> - -<p>Nicolas Poussin: <i>Amaltea</i></p> - -<p>Raphael: <i>Madonna Diotalevi</i></p> - -<p>Raphael: <i>Madonna Terranova</i></p> - -<p>Raphael: <i>Solly Madonna</i></p> - -<p>Rembrandt: <i>Landscape with Bridge</i></p> - -<p>Rembrandt: <i>John the Baptist</i></p> - -<p>Rembrandt: <i>Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife</i></p> - -<p>Rembrandt: <i>Vision of Daniel</i></p> - -<p>Rembrandt: <i>Moses Breaking the Tablets of the Law</i></p> - -<p>Rembrandt: <i>Susanna and the Elders</i></p> - -<p>Rembrandt: <i>Tobias and the Angel</i></p> - -<p>Rembrandt: <i>Minerva</i></p> - -<p>Rembrandt: <i>Rape of Proserpina</i></p> - -<p>Rembrandt: <i>Self Portrait</i></p> - -<p>Rembrandt: <i>Hendrickje Stoffels</i></p> - -<p>Rembrandt: <i>Man with Gold Helmet</i></p> - -<p>Rembrandt: <i>Old Man with Red Hat</i></p> - -<p>Rembrandt: <i>Rabbi</i></p> - -<p>Rembrandt: <i>Saskia</i></p> - -<p>Rubens: <i>Landscape (shipwreck of Aeneas)</i></p> - -<p>Rubens: <i>St. Cecilia</i></p> - -<p>Rubens: <i>Madonna Enthroned with Saints</i></p> - -<p>Rubens: <i>Andromeda</i></p> - -<p>Rubens: <i>Perseus and Andromeda</i></p> - -<p>Rubens: <i>Isabella Brandt</i></p> - -<p>Jacob van Ruysdael: <i>View of Haarlem</i></p> - -<p>Andrea Sacchi(?): <i>Allesandro del Boro</i></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_300"></a>[300]</span></p> - -<p>Sassetta: <i>Legend of St. Francis</i></p> - -<p>Sassetta: <i>Mass of St. Francis</i></p> - -<p>Martin Schongauer: <i>Nativity</i></p> - -<p>Seghers: <i>Landscape</i></p> - -<p>Luca Signorelli: <i>Three Saints</i> (altar wing)</p> - -<p>Luca Signorelli: <i>Three Saints</i> (altar wing)</p> - -<p>Luca Signorelli: <i>Portrait of a Man</i></p> - -<p>Francesco Squarcione: <i>Madonna and Child</i></p> - -<p>Jan Steen: <i>Inn Garden</i></p> - -<p>Jan Steen: <i>The Christening</i></p> - -<p>Bernardo Strozzi: <i>Judith</i></p> - -<p>Gerard Terborch: <i>The Concert</i></p> - -<p>Gerard Terborch: <i>Paternal Advice</i></p> - -<p>Giovanni Battista Tiepolo: <i>Carrying of the Cross</i></p> - -<p>Giovanni Battista Tiepolo: <i>St. Agatha</i></p> - -<p>Giovanni Battista Tiepolo: <i>Rinaldo and Armida</i></p> - -<p>Tintoretto: <i>Doge Mocenigo</i></p> - -<p>Tintoretto: <i>Old Man</i></p> - -<p>Titian: <i>Venus with Organ Player</i></p> - -<p>Titian: <i>Self Portrait</i></p> - -<p>Titian: <i>Lavinia</i></p> - -<p>Titian: <i>Portrait of a Young Man</i></p> - -<p>Titian: <i>Child of the Strozzi Family</i></p> - -<p>Cosma Tura: <i>St. Christopher</i></p> - -<p>Cosma Tura: <i>St. Sebastian</i></p> - -<p>Adriaen van der Velde: <i>The Farm</i></p> - -<p>Roger Van der Weyden: <i>Altar with Scenes from the Life of Mary</i></p> - -<p>Roger Van der Weyden: <i>Johannes-alter Altar with Scenes from the Life of John the Baptist</i></p> - -<p>Roger Van der Weyden: <i>Bladelin Altar</i></p> - -<p>Roger Van der Weyden: <i>Portrait of a Woman</i></p> - -<p>Roger Van der Weyden: <i>Charles the Bold</i></p> - -<p>Jan Van Eyck: <i>Crucifixion</i></p> - -<p>Jan Van Eyck: <i>Madonna in the Church</i></p> - -<p>Jan Van Eyck: <i>Giovanni Arnolfini</i></p> - -<p>Jan Van Eyck: <i>Man with a Pink</i></p> - -<p>Jan Van Eyck: <i>Knight of the Golden Fleece</i></p> - -<p>Lucas van Leyden: <i>Chess Players</i></p> - -<p>Lucas van Leyden: <i>Madonna and Child</i></p> - -<p>Velásquez: <i>Countess Olivares</i></p> - -<p>Domenico Veneziano: <i>Adoration of the Kings</i></p> - -<p>Domenico Veneziano: <i>Martyrdom of St. Lucy</i></p> - -<p>Domenico Veneziano: <i>Portrait of a Young Woman</i></p> - -<p>Vermeer: <i>Young Woman with a Pearl Necklace</i></p> - -<p>Vermeer: <i>Man and Woman Drinking Wine</i></p> - -<p>Andrea del Verrocchio: <i>Madonna and Child</i></p> - -<p>Andrea del Verrocchio: <i>Madonna and Child</i></p> - -<p>Watteau: <i>Fête Champêtre</i></p> - -<p>Watteau: <i>French Comedians</i></p> - -<p>Watteau: <i>Italian Comedians</i></p> - -<p>Westphalian Master (ca. 1250): <i>Triptych</i></p> - -<p>Konrad Witz: <i>Crucifixion</i></p> - -<p>Konrad Witz: <i>Allegory of Redemption</i></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_301"></a>[301]</span></p> - -<p>On January 15, 1946, Mr. Rensselaer W. Lee, President of the -College Art Association of America, sent the following letter to the -Secretary of State:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p class="noindent">My dear Mr. Secretary:</p> - -<p>The members of the College Art Association of America, a constituent -member of the American Council of Learned Societies, -have been disturbed by the removal to this country of works of art -from Berlin museums.</p> - -<p>Information that we have received from abroad leads us to believe -that the integrity of United States policy has been questioned -as a result of this action. We have also been informed that adequate -facilities and American personnel now exist in the American zone -in Germany to assure the proper care of art treasures in that area.</p> - -<p>We would therefore urge that the department of State clarify -this action, and would strongly recommend that assurances be given -that no further shipments are contemplated.</p> - -</div> - -<p>Copies of this letter were sent to members of the American -Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historic -Monuments in War Areas.</p> - -<p>The State Department replied on January 25:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p class="noindent">My Dear Mr. Lee:</p> - -<p>Your letter of January 15, urging the Department to clarify the -action taken in removing to the United States certain works of art -from German museums, has been received. In the absence of the -Secretary, I am replying to your letter and am glad to give you additional -information on this question.</p> - -<p>The decision to remove these works of art to this country was -made on the basis of a statement by General Clay that he did not -have adequate facilities and personnel to safeguard German art<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_302"></a>[302]</span> -treasures and that he could not undertake the responsibility of their -proper care.</p> - -<p>You indicated in your letter that you have been informed that -adequate facilities and personnel now exist in the American zone -for the protection of these art treasures. I must inform you that our -information, based upon three separate investigations, is precisely -to the contrary. The redeployment program has, as you no doubt -realize, reduced American personnel in Germany and this reduction -is applied to arts and monuments and this personnel as well as -to other branches.</p> - -<p>The coal situation in Germany is critical and has made it impossible -to provide heat for the museums. General Clay cannot be -expected to provide heat for the museums if that means taking it -away from American forces, from hospitals, or from essential utility -needs.</p> - -<p>We are furthermore advised that the security situation was not -such as to ensure adequate protection in Germany. In short, the -Department’s information is such that it cannot agree with your -premise.</p> - -<p>It was realized that the “integrity of United States policy” might -be questioned by some if these works of art were removed to this -country. After a careful review of the facts, it was decided that -the most important aspect was to safeguard these priceless treasures -by bringing them to this country where they could be properly -cared for. It was hoped that the President’s pledge that they would -be returned to Germany would satisfy those who might be critical -of this Government’s motives.</p> - -<p class="right">Sincerely yours,</p> - -<p class="right">For the Acting Secretary of State:</p> - -<p class="right">James W. Riddleberger<br /> -Chief, Division of Central European Affairs<a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_303"></a>[303]</span></p> - -<p>In April the author of this book received from Frederick Mortimer -Clapp, director of the Frick Collection, New York, the following -letter regarding the removal of German-owned works of -art to this country. A copy of the resolution which accompanied -this letter and a list of those who subsequently signed the resolution -are also printed below.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p class="right">1 East 70th Street<br /> -New York 21, New York<br /> -April 24, 1946</p> - -<p class="noindent">Dear</p> - -<p>Since we believe that it is impossible to defend on technical, -political or moral grounds the decision to ship to this country two -hundred internationally known and extremely valuable pictures belonging -indisputably, by prewar gift or purchase, to German institutions, -notably the Kaiser Friedrich Museum of Berlin, we propose -to memorialize the President in a resolution to be signed by a -group of like-minded people interested in or associated with the -arts.</p> - -<p>We also intend to point out that no reason can be found for -even temporarily alienating these works of art from the country -to which legally they belong.</p> - -<p>We represent no organized movement or institution. We merely -wish as American citizens to go on record by appealing to our -government to set right an ill considered action arising from an -error of judgment which, however disinterested in intention, has -already done much to weaken our national condemnation of German -sequestrations of the artistic heritage or possessions of other -nations under the subterfuge of “protective custody,” or openly -as loot.</p> - -<p>The moral foundations of our war effort and final victories will -be subtly undermined if we, who understand the implications, pass -over in silence an action taken by our own officials that, in outward -appearance at least cannot be distinguished from those, detestable -to all right thinking people, which the Nazis’ policy of pillage -inspired and condoned.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_304"></a>[304]</span></p> - -<p>The Monuments Officers attached to our armed forces with -their specialized knowledge of the practical risks involved unanimously -condemned the decision. Those Americans whose profession -it is to study and preserve old paintings deplore it. On ethical -grounds it is disapproved by the opinion of enlightened laymen.</p> - -<p>We therefore consider the protest we will make to be our plain -and simple duty, for it is our considered judgment that no explanation -or excuse acceptable to the public conscience can be found for -sending fragile old masters across the sea to this country. The -physical hazards, the momentous responsibilities and the intellectual -ambiguities inherent in such an act are only too grossly evident. -The historical repercussions that will follow it can be -imagined in the light of past situations of a similar kind. It is -well known that the Nazis inculcated in the German mind a fanatical -belief that we are destructive barbarians. All future deterioration -of these pictures will now, rightly or wrongly, be laid at our -door.</p> - -<p>We should be glad if you would care to join us and others, -who have already expressed to us their sense of the unjustified impropriety -of the action to which we refer in demanding the immediate -return to Germany of these panels and canvasses, the -cancellation of all plans to exhibit them in this country and the -countermanding at once of any contemplated further shipments.</p> - -<p>The text of the proposed resolution is enclosed. As one of the -principal reasons for submitting it to our government is to forestall -further action of a similar kind with reference to pictures or -objects of art belonging to German museums, as well as to rectify -the existing situation, may I earnestly request you to signify your -approval, if you are so minded, by signing the resolution and -returning it to me before May 6.</p> - -<p class="center">Sincerely yours,</p> - -<p class="right">Signed: <span class="smcap">Frederick Mortimer Clapp</span>.</p> - -</div> - -<p>On May 9, 1946, Dr. Clapp and Mrs. Juliana Force, director of -the Whitney Museum, sent President Truman the following resolution, -a copy of which was enclosed with the above letter:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_305"></a>[305]</span></p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p class="center">RESOLUTION</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Whereas</span> in all civilized countries one of the most significant -public reactions during the recent war was the horrified indignation -caused by the surreptitious or brazen looting of works of art by -German officials in countries they had conquered;</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">And Whereas</span> that indignation and abhorrence on the part of -free peoples was a powerful ingredient in the ardor and unanimity -of their support of the war effort of democratically governed states -in which the private opinions of citizens are the source and controlling -directive of official action;</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">And Whereas</span> two hundred important and valuable pictures belonging -to the Kaiser Friedrich and other Berlin museums have -been removed from Germany and sent to this country on the still -unestablished ground of ensuring their safety;</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">And Whereas</span> it is apparent that disinterested and intelligent -people believe that this action cannot be justified on technical, political -or moral grounds and that many, including the Germans themselves, -may find it hard to distinguish between the resultant situation -and the “protective custody” used by the Nazis as a camouflage -for the sequestration of the artistic treasures of other countries;</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Be It Therefore Resolved</span> that we, the undersigned, respectfully -request the President to order the immediate safe return to -Germany of the aforesaid paintings, the cancellation of any plans -that may have been made to exhibit them in this country and the -countermanding without delay of any further shipments of the -kind that may have been contemplated.</p> - -<p>This resolution was signed by:</p> - -<ul> - -<li class="indx">Abbott, Jere</li> -<li class="isub1">Director</li> -<li class="isub1">Smith College Museum of Art</li> -<li class="isub1">Northampton, Mass.</li> - -<li class="indx">Abbott, John E.</li> -<li class="isub1">Executive Vice-President</li> -<li class="isub1">The Museum of Modern Art</li> -<li class="isub1">New York, N.Y.</li> - -<li class="indx">Adams, Philip R.</li> -<li class="isub1">Director</li> -<li class="isub1">Cincinnati Museum</li> -<li class="isub1">Cincinnati, Ohio</li> - -<li class="indx">Barber, Professor Leila</li> -<li class="isub1">Vassar College</li> -<li class="isub1">Poughkeepsie, N. Y.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_306"></a>[306]</span></li> - -<li class="indx">Baker, C. H. Collins</li> -<li class="isub1">Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery</li> -<li class="isub1">San Marino, Calif.</li> - -<li class="indx">Barr, Alfred H.</li> -<li class="isub1">The Museum of Modern Art</li> -<li class="isub1">New York, N. Y.</li> - -<li class="indx">Barzun, Jacques</li> -<li class="isub1">History Department</li> -<li class="isub1">Columbia University</li> -<li class="isub1">New York, N. Y.</li> - -<li class="indx">Baur, John I. H.</li> -<li class="isub1">Curator of Painting</li> -<li class="isub1">Brooklyn Museum</li> -<li class="isub1">Brooklyn, N. Y.</li> - -<li class="indx">Biebel, Franklin</li> -<li class="isub1">Assistant to Director</li> -<li class="isub1">Frick Collection</li> -<li class="isub1">New York, N.Y.</li> - -<li class="indx">Breeskin, Mrs. Adelyn</li> -<li class="isub1">Acting Director</li> -<li class="isub1">Baltimore Museum of Art</li> -<li class="isub1">Baltimore, Md.</li> - -<li class="indx">Burdell, Dr. Edwin S.</li> -<li class="isub1">Director</li> -<li class="isub1">The Cooper Union</li> -<li class="isub1">New York, N. Y.</li> - -<li class="indx">Chase, Elizabeth</li> -<li class="isub1">Editor “Bulletin”</li> -<li class="isub1">Yale University Art Gallery</li> -<li class="isub1">New Haven, Conn.</li> - -<li class="indx">Claflin, Professor Agnes Rindge</li> -<li class="isub1">Vassar College</li> -<li class="isub1">Poughkeepsie, N. Y.</li> - -<li class="indx">Clapp, Frederick Mortimer</li> -<li class="isub1">Director</li> -<li class="isub1">Frick Collection</li> -<li class="isub1">New York, N. Y.</li> - -<li class="indx">Cole, Grover</li> -<li class="isub1">Instructor in Ceramics</li> -<li class="isub1">University of Michigan</li> -<li class="isub1">Ann Arbor, Mich.</li> - -<li class="indx">Cook, Walter W. S.</li> -<li class="isub1">Chairman</li> -<li class="isub1">Institute of Fine Arts</li> -<li class="isub1">New York University, N. Y.</li> - -<li class="indx">Courier, Miss Elodie</li> -<li class="isub1">Dir. of Circulating Exhibitions</li> -<li class="isub1">The Museum of Modern Art</li> -<li class="isub1">New York, N. Y.</li> - -<li class="indx">Crosby, Dr. Sumner</li> -<li class="isub1">Assistant Professor, History of Art</li> -<li class="isub1">Yale University</li> -<li class="isub1">New Haven, Conn.</li> - -<li class="indx">Cunningham, Charles C.</li> -<li class="isub1">Director</li> -<li class="isub1">Wadsworth Atheneum</li> -<li class="isub1">Hartford, Conn.</li> - -<li class="indx">Dawson, John P.</li> -<li class="isub1">Professor of Law</li> -<li class="isub1">University of Michigan</li> -<li class="isub1">Ann Arbor, Mich.</li> - -<li class="indx">Faisan, Professor Lane, Jr.</li> -<li class="isub1">Williams College</li> -<li class="isub1">Williamstown, Mass.</li> - -<li class="indx">Faunce, Wayne M.</li> -<li class="isub1">Vice-Director</li> -<li class="isub1">American Museum of Natural History</li> -<li class="isub1">New York, N. Y.</li> - -<li class="indx">Fisher, H. H.</li> -<li class="isub1">Hoover Library</li> -<li class="isub1">Stanford University</li> -<li class="isub1">Palo Alto, Calif.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_307"></a>[307]</span></li> - -<li class="indx">Force, Mrs. Juliana</li> -<li class="isub1">Director</li> -<li class="isub1">Whitney Museum of American Art</li> -<li class="isub1">New York, N. Y.</li> - -<li class="indx">Goodrich, Lloyd</li> -<li class="isub1">Research Curator</li> -<li class="isub1">Whitney Museum of American Art</li> -<li class="isub1">New York, N. Y.</li> - -<li class="indx">Gores, Walter J.</li> -<li class="isub1">Professor and Chairman of Design</li> -<li class="isub1">University of Michigan</li> -<li class="isub1">Ann Arbor, Mich.</li> - -<li class="indx">Haight, Mary N.</li> -<li class="isub1">Assistant Curator of Ancient Art</li> -<li class="isub1">Yale University Art Gallery</li> -<li class="isub1">New Haven, Conn.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hamilton, George Heard</li> -<li class="isub1">Curator of Paintings</li> -<li class="isub1">Yale University Art Gallery</li> -<li class="isub1">New Haven, Conn.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hamlin, Talbot F.</li> -<li class="isub1">Librarian, Avery Architectural Library</li> -<li class="isub1">Columbia University</li> -<li class="isub1">New York, N.Y.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hammett, Ralph W.</li> -<li class="isub1">Professor of Architecture</li> -<li class="isub1">University of Michigan</li> -<li class="isub1">Ann Arbor, Mich.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hancock, Walter</li> -<li class="isub1">Director of Sculpture</li> -<li class="isub1">Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts</li> -<li class="isub1">Philadelphia, Pa.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hayes, Bartlett H., Jr.</li> -<li class="isub1">Director</li> -<li class="isub1">Addison Gallery of American Art</li> -<li class="isub1">Andover, Mass.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hebran, Jean</li> -<li class="isub1">Professor of Architecture</li> -<li class="isub1">University of Michigan</li> -<li class="isub1">Ann Arbor, Mich.</li> - -<li class="indx">Helm, Miss Florence</li> -<li class="isub1">Old Merchant’s House</li> -<li class="isub1">New York, N. Y.</li> - -<li class="indx">Howe, Thomas Carr, Jr.</li> -<li class="isub1">Director</li> -<li class="isub1">California Palace of the Legion of Honor</li> -<li class="isub1">San Francisco, Calif.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hudnut, Joseph</li> -<li class="isub1">Dean</li> -<li class="isub1">Graduate School of Architecture</li> -<li class="isub1">Harvard University</li> -<li class="isub1">Cambridge, Mass.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hume, Samuel J.</li> -<li class="isub1">Director</li> -<li class="isub1">Berkeley Art Association</li> -<li class="isub1">Berkeley, Calif.</li> - -<li class="indx">Ivins, William M., Jr.</li> -<li class="isub1">Counselor and Curator of Prints</li> -<li class="isub1">The Metropolitan Museum of Art</li> -<li class="isub1">New York, N.Y.</li> - -<li class="indx">Janson, H. W.</li> -<li class="isub1">Assistant Professor</li> -<li class="isub1">Department of Art and Archaeology</li> -<li class="isub1">Washington University</li> -<li class="isub1">St. Louis, Mo.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_308"></a>[308]</span></li> - -<li class="indx">Jewell, Henry A.</li> -<li class="isub1">Department of Art and Archaeology</li> -<li class="isub1">Princeton University</li> -<li class="isub1">Princeton, N. J.</li> - -<li class="indx">Kaufmann, Edgar</li> -<li class="isub1">Curator of Industrial Art</li> -<li class="isub1">The Museum of Modern Art</li> -<li class="isub1">New York, N.Y.</li> - -<li class="indx">Keck, Sheldon</li> -<li class="isub1">Restorer</li> -<li class="isub1">The Brooklyn Museum</li> -<li class="isub1">Brooklyn, N. Y.</li> - -<li class="indx">Kirby, John C.</li> -<li class="isub1">Assistant Administrator</li> -<li class="isub1">Walters Gallery</li> -<li class="isub1">Baltimore, Md.</li> - -<li class="indx">Kirstein, Lincoln</li> -<li class="isub1">New York, N. Y.</li> - -<li class="indx">Kubler, Professor George</li> -<li class="isub1">Yale University</li> -<li class="isub1">New Haven, Conn.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lee, Rensselaer W.</li> -<li class="isub1">Princeton, N. J.</li> - -<li class="indx">Marceau, Henri</li> -<li class="isub1">Assistant Director</li> -<li class="isub1">Philadelphia Museum of Art</li> -<li class="isub1">Philadelphia, Pa.</li> - -<li class="indx">Mcllhenny, Henry</li> -<li class="isub1">Curator of Decorative Arts</li> -<li class="isub1">Philadelphia Museum of Art</li> -<li class="isub1">Philadelphia, Pa.</li> - -<li class="indx">McMahon, A. Philip</li> -<li class="isub1">Chairman</li> -<li class="isub1">Fine Arts Department</li> -<li class="isub1">Washington Square College</li> -<li class="isub1">New York University</li> -<li class="isub1">New York, N. Y.</li> - -<li class="indx">Meeks, Everett V.</li> -<li class="isub1">Dean</li> -<li class="isub1">Yale School of the Fine Arts</li> -<li class="isub1">New Haven, Conn.</li> - -<li class="indx">Meiss, Millard</li> -<li class="isub1">Professor</li> -<li class="isub1">Columbia University</li> -<li class="isub1">New York, N. Y.</li> - -<li class="indx">Miner, Miss Dorothy E.</li> -<li class="isub1">Librarian</li> -<li class="isub1">Walters Gallery</li> -<li class="isub1">Baltimore, Md.</li> - -<li class="indx">More, Hermon</li> -<li class="isub1">Curator</li> -<li class="isub1">Whitney Museum of American Art</li> -<li class="isub1">New York, N. Y.</li> - -<li class="indx">Morley, Dr. Grace McCann</li> -<li class="isub1">Director</li> -<li class="isub1">San Francisco Museum of Art</li> -<li class="isub1">San Francisco, Calif.</li> - -<li class="indx">Morse, John D.</li> -<li class="isub1">Editor</li> -<li class="isub1">Magazine of Art</li> -<li class="isub1">New York, N. Y.</li> - -<li class="indx">Myer, John Walden</li> -<li class="isub1">Assistant Director</li> -<li class="isub1">Museum of the City of New York</li> -<li class="isub1">New York, N. Y.</li> - -<li class="indx">Myers, George Hewitt</li> -<li class="isub1">President</li> -<li class="isub1">Textile Museum of the District of Columbia</li> -<li class="isub1">Washington, D. C.</li> - -<li class="indx">Nagel, Charles, Jr.</li> -<li class="isub1">Director</li> -<li class="isub1">The Brooklyn Museum</li> -<li class="isub1">Brooklyn, N. Y.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_309"></a>[309]</span></li> - -<li class="indx">O’Connor, John, Jr.</li> -<li class="isub1">Assistant Director</li> -<li class="isub1">Carnegie Institute</li> -<li class="isub1">Pittsburgh, Pa.</li> - -<li class="indx">Packard, Miss Elizabeth G.</li> -<li class="isub1">Walters Gallery</li> -<li class="isub1">Baltimore, Md.</li> - -<li class="indx">Parker, Thomas C.</li> -<li class="isub1">Director</li> -<li class="isub1">American Federation of Arts</li> -<li class="isub1">Washington, D. C.</li> - -<li class="indx">Peat, Wilbur D.</li> -<li class="isub1">Director</li> -<li class="isub1">John Herron Art Institute</li> -<li class="isub1">Indianapolis, Ind.</li> - -<li class="indx">Phillips, John Marshall</li> -<li class="isub1">Assistant Director and Curator of the Garvan Collections</li> -<li class="isub1">Yale University Art Gallery</li> -<li class="isub1">New Haven, Conn.</li> - -<li class="indx">Poland, Reginald</li> -<li class="isub1">Director</li> -<li class="isub1">Fine Arts Society of San Diego</li> -<li class="isub1">San Diego, Calif.</li> - -<li class="indx">Porter, Allen</li> -<li class="isub1">Secretary</li> -<li class="isub1">The Museum of Modern Art</li> -<li class="isub1">New York, N. Y.</li> - -<li class="indx">Porter, Vernon</li> -<li class="isub1">Director</li> -<li class="isub1">Riverside Museum</li> -<li class="isub1">New York, N. Y.</li> - -<li class="indx">Post, Chandler</li> -<li class="isub1">Fogg Museum of Art</li> -<li class="isub1">Harvard University</li> -<li class="isub1">Cambridge, Mass.</li> - -<li class="indx">Rathbone, Perry T.</li> -<li class="isub1">Director</li> -<li class="isub1">City Art Museum of St. Louis</li> -<li class="isub1">St. Louis, Mo.</li> - -<li class="indx">Reed, Henry Hope</li> -<li class="isub1">New York, N. Y.</li> - -<li class="indx">Rich, Daniel Catton</li> -<li class="isub1">Director</li> -<li class="isub1">The Art Institute of Chicago</li> -<li class="isub1">Chicago, Ill.</li> - -<li class="indx">Riefstahl, Mrs. Elizabeth</li> -<li class="isub1">Librarian</li> -<li class="isub1">Wilbour Egyptological Library</li> -<li class="isub1">The Brooklyn Museum</li> -<li class="isub1">Brooklyn, N. Y.</li> - -<li class="indx">Ritchie, Andrew C.</li> -<li class="isub1">Director</li> -<li class="isub1">Albright Art Gallery</li> -<li class="isub1">Buffalo, N. Y.</li> - -<li class="indx">Robinson, Professor David M.</li> -<li class="isub1">Department of Art and Archaeology</li> -<li class="isub1">Johns Hopkins University</li> -<li class="isub1">Baltimore, Md.</li> - -<li class="indx">Ross, Marvin Chauncey</li> -<li class="isub1">Curator of Medieval Art</li> -<li class="isub1">Walters Gallery</li> -<li class="isub1">Baltimore, Md.</li> - -<li class="indx">Rowe, Margaret T. J.</li> -<li class="isub1">Curator</li> -<li class="isub1">Hobart Moore Memorial Collection</li> -<li class="isub1">Yale University Art Gallery</li> -<li class="isub1">New Haven, Conn.</li> - -<li class="indx">Saint-Gaudens, Homer</li> -<li class="isub1">Director</li> -<li class="isub1">Carnegie Institute</li> -<li class="isub1">Pittsburgh, Pa.</li> - -<li class="indx">Scholle, Hardinge</li> -<li class="isub1">Director</li> -<li class="isub1">Museum of the City of New York</li> -<li class="isub1">New York, N.Y.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_310"></a>[310]</span></li> - -<li class="indx">Setze, Josephine</li> -<li class="isub1">Assistant Curator of American Art</li> -<li class="isub1">Yale University Art Gallery</li> -<li class="isub1">New Haven, Conn.</li> - -<li class="indx">Sexton, Eric</li> -<li class="isub1">Camden, Me.</li> - -<li class="indx">Shelley, Donald A.</li> -<li class="isub1">Curator of Paintings</li> -<li class="isub1">New York Historical Society</li> -<li class="isub1">New York, N. Y.</li> - -<li class="indx">Sizer, Theodore</li> -<li class="isub1">Director</li> -<li class="isub1">Yale University Art Gallery</li> -<li class="isub1">New Haven, Conn.</li> - -<li class="indx">Slusser, Jean Paul</li> -<li class="isub1">Professor of Painting and Drawing</li> -<li class="isub1">University of Michigan</li> -<li class="isub1">Ann Arbor, Mich.</li> - -<li class="indx">Smith, Professor E. Baldwin</li> -<li class="isub1">Department of Art and Archaeology</li> -<li class="isub1">Princeton University</li> -<li class="isub1">Princeton, N. J.</li> - -<li class="indx">Soby, James Thrall</li> -<li class="isub1">New York, N. Y.</li> - -<li class="indx">Spinden, Dr. Herbert J.</li> -<li class="isub1">Curator</li> -<li class="isub1">Indian Art and Primitive Cultures</li> -<li class="isub1">The Brooklyn Museum</li> -<li class="isub1">Brooklyn, N. Y.</li> - -<li class="indx">Sweeney, James Johnson</li> -<li class="isub1">Director</li> -<li class="isub1">Department of Painting and Sculpture</li> -<li class="isub1">The Museum of Modern Art</li> -<li class="isub1">New York, N. Y.</li> - -<li class="indx">Sweet, Frederick</li> -<li class="isub1">Associate Curator, Painting and Sculpture</li> -<li class="isub1">The Art Institute of Chicago</li> -<li class="isub1">Chicago, Ill.</li> - -<li class="indx">Tee Van, John</li> -<li class="isub1">Department of Tropical Research and Special Events</li> -<li class="isub1">New York Zoological Park</li> -<li class="isub1">Bronx, N. Y.</li> - -<li class="indx">Vail, R. W. G.</li> -<li class="isub1">Director</li> -<li class="isub1">New York Historical Society</li> -<li class="isub1">New York, N. Y.</li> - -<li class="indx">Walker, Hudson D.</li> -<li class="isub1">President</li> -<li class="isub1">American Federation of Arts</li> -<li class="isub1">New York, N.Y.</li> - -<li class="indx">Wall, Alexander J.</li> -<li class="isub1">New York Historical Society</li> -<li class="isub1">New York, N. Y.</li> - -<li class="indx">Washburn, Gordon</li> -<li class="isub1">Director</li> -<li class="isub1">Museum of Art</li> -<li class="isub1">Rhode Island School of Design</li> -<li class="isub1">Providence, R. I.</li> - -<li class="indx">Weissman, Miss Polaire</li> -<li class="isub1">Museum of Costume Art</li> -<li class="isub1">New York, N. Y.</li> - -<li class="indx">Wissler, Dr. Clark</li> -<li class="isub1">American Museum of Natural History</li> -<li class="isub1">New York, N. Y.</li> - -<li class="indx">Wind, Edgar</li> -<li class="isub1">Smith College</li> -<li class="isub1">Northampton, Mass.</li> - -<li class="indx">York, Lewis E.</li> -<li class="isub1">Chairman</li> -<li class="isub1">Department of Painting</li> -<li class="isub1">Yale University Art Gallery</li> -<li class="isub1">New Haven, Conn.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_311"></a>[311]</span></li> - -<li class="indx">Zigrosser, Carl</li> -<li class="isub1">Curator of Prints and Drawings</li> -<li class="isub1">Philadelphia Museum of Art</li> -<li class="isub1">Philadelphia, Pa.</li> - -<li class="indx">Stoddard, Whitney S.</li> -<li class="isub1">Assistant Professor of History and Art</li> -<li class="isub1">Williams College</li> -<li class="isub1">Williamstown, Mass.</li> - -</ul> - -</div> - -<p>Dr. Clapp and Mrs. Force subsequently announced that they had -received eight additional signatures which arrived too late to be affixed -to the original copy of the resolution. They included: Frances -A. Comstock, Donald Drew Egbert, Henry A. Judd, Sherley W. -Morgan, Richard Stillwell—all of Princeton University; Robert -Tyler Davis, Portland Museum, Portland, Maine; Frederick Hartt, -Acting Director, Smith College Museum of Art; and George Rowley, -Princeton Museum of Historic Art.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Statement by the American Commission for the Protection -and Salvage of Artistic and Historic Monuments in War -Areas, Owen J. Roberts, Chairman.</span></p> - -<p class="center">National Gallery of Art, Washington 25, D. C.</p> - -<p><span class="smcap">Washington</span>, May 14, 1946: The members of the Commission -have received copies of a resolution signed by Dr. Frederick M. -Clapp, Director of the Frick Collection; Mrs. Juliana Force, -Director of the Whitney Museum of American Art, and others who -criticize the action of the United States Government, taken at the -Direction of the President and the United States Army Command -in Germany, in bringing to this country certain paintings from German -museums for safekeeping until conditions in Germany warrant -their return. The Clapp resolution compares the action taken by -the United States Government to looting operations carried on by -the Nazis during the war.</p> - -<p>The Commission has also noted the statements issued by the -White House on September 26, 1945, and by the War Department -on December 6, 1945, that the works of art of bona fide German -ownership, which may be brought to this country for safekeeping,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_312"></a>[312]</span> -will be kept in trust for the German people and will be returned -to Germany when conditions there warrant.</p> - -<p>The Commission has also noted the statement issued by the late -Chief Justice Stone, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the National -Gallery of Art, on December 14, 1945, that the Trustees of -the National Gallery, at the request of the Secretary of State, had -agreed to arrange for the storage space for such paintings as might -be brought to this country by the United States Army for safekeeping, -and that he felt the Army “deserved the highest praise for the -care exercised in salvaging these great works of art and in making -provisions for their safety until they can be returned to Germany.”</p> - -<p>The Commission accepts without reservation the promise of the -United States Government, as voiced by its highest officials, that the -works of art belonging to German museums and brought to this -country for safekeeping, will be returned to Germany when conditions -there warrant.</p> - -<p>The Commission is strongly of the opinion that the resolution -sponsored by Dr. Clapp, Mrs. Force, and others is without justification -and is to be deplored.</p> - -<ul> - -<li class="indx">Hon. Owen J. Roberts, Chairman</li> -<li class="isub1">Philadelphia, Pennsylvania</li> - -<li class="indx">David E. Finley, Vice Chairman</li> -<li class="isub1">Director, National Gallery of Art</li> -<li class="isub1">Washington, D.C.</li> - -<li class="indx">Huntington Cairns, Secretary</li> -<li class="isub1">Secretary, National Gallery of Art</li> -<li class="isub1">Washington, D.C.</li> - -<li class="indx">Dr. William Bell Dinsmoor</li> -<li class="isub1"> Columbia University, New York</li> - -<li class="indx">Hon. Herbert H. Lehman</li> -<li class="isub1">New York</li> - -<li class="indx">Paul J. Sachs</li> -<li class="isub1">Professor of Fine Arts, Harvard University</li> -<li class="isub1">Cambridge, Massachusetts</li> - -<li class="indx">Francis Cardinal Spellman</li> -<li class="isub1">Archbishop of New York</li> - -<li class="indx">Francis Henry Taylor</li> -<li class="isub1">Director, Metropolitan Museum of Art</li> -<li class="isub1">New York</li> - -</ul> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_313"></a>[313]</span></p> - -<p>The following letters were released on June 10, 1946:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p class="center">THE WHITE HOUSE</p> - -<p class="right">Washington<br /> -May 22, 1946</p> - -<p class="noindent">Dear Mrs. Force:</p> - -<p>This is in acknowledgment of the letter to the President, signed -by yourself and Dr. Frederick M. Clapp, Director, The Frick Collection, -with which you enclosed a resolution signed by ninety-five -of your colleagues in connection with the two hundred valuable -paintings removed from Germany to this country for safekeeping.</p> - -<p>These paintings were removed to this country last year on the -basis of information to the effect that adequate facilities and personnel -to ensure their safekeeping did not exist in Germany. Our -military authorities did not feel that they could take the responsibility -of safeguarding them under such conditions and it was therefore -decided that they would have to be shipped to this country -until such time as they could safely be returned to Germany. It was -realized at the time that this action might lead to criticism but it -was taken, nevertheless, because it was considered that the most -important aspect was to safeguard these priceless treasures. It was -hoped that the President’s pledge that they would be returned to -Germany, contained in a White House press release on September -26, 1945, would satisfy those who might be critical of this Government’s -motives.</p> - -<p>I know of no plans to make any further shipments of art objects -from Germany to the United States nor of any plans for the exhibition -of the two hundred paintings now in this country. While a -definite date for the return of these pictures has not as yet been set, -I can assure you that this Government will honor its pledge to effect -their return as soon as conditions warrant.</p> - -<p class="center">Very sincerely yours,</p> - -<p class="right">(signed) William D. Hassett<br /> -Secretary to the President.</p> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_314"></a>[314]</span></p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p class="center">DEPARTMENT OF STATE</p> - -<p class="right">Washington<br /> -May 22, 1946</p> - -<p class="noindent">My dear Mrs. Force and Dr. Clapp:</p> - -<p>I have received your letter of May 9, 1946, and its enclosed resolution, -signed by 95 of your colleagues, urging the President to -order the immediate safe return to Germany of the 200 paintings -which were brought to this country last year.</p> - -<p>When these paintings were found by our forces in southern -Germany every effort was made to assure their preservation. It soon -became evident that adequate facilities and personnel to ensure -their safe keeping could not be guaranteed. Consequently our military -authorities, realizing the magnitude of their responsibility in -preserving these priceless treasures, requested that they be relieved -of this heavy responsibility and that the paintings be shipped to this -country where they could be properly cared for. This Government -reluctantly gave its approval to this request, knowing that such -action would lead to criticism of its motives. The decision was taken -because there seemed no other way to ensure preservation of these -unique works of art. In order to dispel doubts as to the reasons for -this action the White House released a statement to the press on -September 26, 1945, which explained the situation and included a -pledge that the paintings would be returned to their rightful owners. -That pledge still holds good and while a definite date for the return -of the paintings to Germany has not as yet been set, you may -rest assured that this will be done as soon as conditions warrant.</p> - -<p>The resolution also recommended that plans to exhibit these -paintings in this country be cancelled and that further shipments of -German works of art to this country be countermanded. I have -never heard of any plans to make additional shipments of works -of art from Germany to the United States nor do I know of any -plans to exhibit the paintings which are now in this country.</p> - -<p class="center">Sincerely yours,</p> - -<p class="right">For the Secretary of State:</p> - -<p class="right">(signed) Dean Acheson<br /> -Under Secretary.</p> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_315"></a>[315]</span></p> - -<p>Following are Dr. Clapp’s and Mrs. Force’s replies, also released -on June 10:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p class="right">June 3, 1946</p> - -<p class="noindent">My dear Mr. President:</p> - -<p>Permit us to thank you for your kind attention to the resolution, -signed by us and ninety-five of our colleagues prominent on the -staffs of museums or experts in the history and preservation of art, -relative to the shipment to this country of two hundred famous -paintings formerly in the Kaiser Friedrich and other museums of -Berlin.</p> - -<p>In addressing the resolution in question to you we felt that we -were following the time-honored American custom of bringing to -our government’s attention a consensus of opinion on the part of -those who have special practical familiarity with old pictures and -personal, sometimes long, acquaintance with European history and -culture in its emotional and intellectual aspects.</p> - -<p>Should you, in the course of events, undertake further inquiries -into the problem created by the shipment referred to in our resolution, -we shall be happy to be so informed.</p> - -<p class="center">Respectfully yours,</p> - -</div> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p class="right">June 3, 1946</p> - -<p class="noindent">Dear Mr. Hassett:</p> - -<p>In reply to your letter of the twenty-second permit us to say that -should the President make further inquiries into the subject covered -by our resolution with reference to two hundred pictures selected -chiefly from the collections of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum and -brought to this country, we should be pleased to be kept informed.</p> - -<p>We, and our ninety-five colleagues in museums and universities -who have had long experience with old paintings and are interested -in the history and preservation of works of art, would also be glad -to know when the pictures referred to are returned to Germany -since we are as yet uninformed whether the conditions which are -held not to warrant their return are of a practical or a political -nature.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_316"></a>[316]</span></p> - -<p>This question obviously cannot but be uppermost in our minds -in view of the fact that present conditions in Germany are apparently -such as to warrant leaving there thousands of German-owned -works of art of great moment which belong not only to the -Kaiser Friedrich Museum but to the museums of other cities in the -American zone, including the great collection of the Alte Pinakothek -in Munich, where under satisfactory conditions and auspices -an exhibition of early German art, including masterpieces by Dürer, -Grünewald and others, is now being held.</p> - -<p>It is in fact one of our perplexities that we have never been told -why our officials discriminated against important pictures and art -objects (many times the number of those urgently transported to -this country for safekeeping) which were also formerly in the -Kaiser Friedrich and other museums, not forgetting those which -were in South German churches. Were they just left to their fate?</p> - -<p>If it were convenient at any time to pass on to the President our -continued anxieties on these important points we should be happy -to have you do so.</p> - -<p class="center">Sincerely yours,</p> - -</div> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p class="right">June 3, 1946</p> - -<p class="noindent">Dear Mr. Acheson:</p> - -<p>In reply to your letter of the twenty-second with reference to our -resolution supported by the signatures of ninety-five of our colleagues -prominent in museums or experts in the history and preservation -of old masters and other works of art, permit us to say that, -in the absence of Secretary Byrnes, we took the liberty of sending -you the resolution.</p> - -<p>We are aware of the statement released by the White House on -September 26, 1945 explaining the situation and promising to return -the pictures to Germany when conditions there should warrant -such action. We are, however, still uninformed why the unanimous -advice of the monuments officers, who had special training and -technical knowledge not only of the conditions required for the -preservation of old masters but of the certain dangers to which -journeys subject them, was disregarded.</p> - -<p>We have also never been told whether the conditions believed to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_317"></a>[317]</span> -jeopardize the safety of these important pictures were of a practical -or of a political nature. Neither do we know why, out of the great -and extensive collections of the Kaiser Friedrich only two hundred -pictures were selected nor by whom the selection was made. More -serious still no official mention has ever been made of the fact that -there were in the possession of the other museums of Berlin and -other cities, including the famous collection of the Alte Pinakothek -in Munich, as well as in the churches of the American Zone, art objects -and pictures many times more numerous than the paintings -actually brought to this country for safekeeping. One cannot but -ask: Were satisfactory conditions found for them or were they -merely left to their fate?</p> - -<p>These are questions that have given and still give rise to rumors, -unhappy conjectures and ambiguous interpretations which we deplore. -Unreasonably or otherwise the whole situation is confused -by implications that we feel will not be laid until the pictures deposited -in Washington have been sent back with the least possible -delay to their rightful owners on whom devolves an unequivocable -responsibility for their care and preservation.</p> - -<p class="center">Sincerely yours,</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="footnotes"> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_318"></a>[318]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="FOOTNOTES">FOOTNOTES</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> E(insatzstab) R(eichsleiter) R(osenberg)—Reichsleiter meaning realm leader. -The Rosenberg Task Force was commonly referred to by these initials.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> See article “German Paintings in the National Gallery: A Protest,” by Charles L. -Kuhn, in <i>College Art Journal</i>, January 1946. This and subsequent references printed -by permission.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a> See article “German Paintings in the National Gallery: A Protest,” by Charles L. -Kuhn, in <i>College Art Journal</i>, January 1946.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">[4]</a> As printed by Kuhn in <i>College Art Journal</i>, January 1946, p. 81; also in <i>Magazine -of Art</i>, February 1946, and New York <i>Times</i>, February 7, 1946.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="label">[5]</a> See in this connection the statements released to the press by the White House -on September 26, 1945, and by the War Department on December 6, 1945. They are -printed in <i>Magazine of Art</i> for February, 1946.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="label">[6]</a> These letters are printed on pages 83 and 84 of <i>College Art Journal</i> for January -1946; in <i>Magazine of Art</i> for February 1946, and in the New York <i>Times</i> of February -7, 1946.</p> - -</div> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_319"></a>[319]</span></p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_320"></a>[320]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="INDEX">INDEX</h2> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_321"></a>[321]</span></p> - -<h3>INDEX</h3> - -</div> - -<ul> - -<li class="ifrst">Aachen crown jewels, <a href="#Page_119">119</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Abbey of Monte Cassino, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Adams, Capt. Edward, <a href="#Page_240">240</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Adcock, Maj. Gen. C. L, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Administration Building, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Adoration of the Magi</i>, Master of the Holy Kinship, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> - -<li class="indx" id="Lamb"><i>Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, The</i>, van Eyck, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>.</li> -<li class="isub1"><i>See also</i> <a href="#Ghent_altarpiece">Ghent altarpiece</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Adulteress, The</i>, <i>see</i> <a href="#Vermeer_fake">“Vermeer” fake</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Akhnaton, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Allen, Maj., <a href="#Page_125">125</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Allied air attacks over Germany, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Allied Forces, <a href="#Page_274">274</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Allied Group Control Council for Germany, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Almanach de Gotha, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Almelo, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Alpine Specials,” <a href="#Page_161">161</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Alt Aussee, evacuation of pictures at, <a href="#Page_130">130-170</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">last ten days at, <a href="#Page_171">171<i>ff.</i></a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">other trips to, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Goudstikker pictures, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">mentioned, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Alt Aussee mine, evacuation of pictures, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130-170</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">team arrives, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">mentioned, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Altdorfer, Albrecht, <a href="#Page_161">161</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Altdorfer panels, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Alte Pinakothek, <a href="#Page_255">255</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Alte Post, <a href="#Page_237">237</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Amalienburg, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></li> - -<li class="indx">American Embassy, London, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li> - -<li class="indx">American Embassy, Paris, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li> - -<li class="indx">American Fine Arts program, <a href="#Page_235">235</a></li> - -<li class="indx">American Military Government (AMG), <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a></li> - -<li class="indx" id="American_Zone">American Occupied Zone, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Amsterdam, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Anderson, Lt. George, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Anderson, Maj. Harry, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Angerer, ⸺, <a href="#Page_219">219</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Annunciation</i>, Lippi, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Annunzio, Gabriele d’, <a href="#Page_64">64</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Arabian Nights, The</i>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Archival Collecting Point, Oberammergau, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Army Engineers, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Army Museum at Prague, <a href="#Page_271">271</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Army redeployment program, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Arnhem, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Arnold, Gen. H. H., <a href="#Page_191">191</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Artist’s Sister</i>, Rembrandt, <a href="#Page_194">194</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Art Objects in the U. S. Zone,” <a href="#Page_230">230</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Aschaffenburg, Germany, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li> - -<li class="indx">ATC, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Austria, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Austrian collections, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Austrian Government, <a href="#Page_253">253</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Autobahn, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Azores, <a href="#Page_16">16</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Bad Aussee, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bad Brückenau, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Baden-Baden, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bad Homburg, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bad Ischl, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bad Nauheim, <a href="#Page_285">285</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bad Reichenhall, <a href="#Page_81">81</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bad Tölz, <a href="#Page_214">214</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Baillie-Grohman, Vice-Adm., <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bamberg, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Barbarossa, Frederick, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Barbizon, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_322"></a>[322]</span>Barboza, Lt., <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Barrett, Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Battle of Jutland, <a href="#Page_120">120</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bauhaus, Dessau, <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bavaria, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Bavarian Bible,” <a href="#Page_214">214</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bavarian State Collections, <a href="#Page_276">276</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bavarian State Galleries, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bavarian State Museums, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Bearded Old Man</i>, Rembrandt, <a href="#Page_194">194</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Belgium, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bellegambe, Jean, <a href="#Page_207">207</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bellotto, ⸺, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Berchtesgaden, Frau Hofer at, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">transfer to, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">operations at, <a href="#Page_187">187-226</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">mentioned, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Berchtesgadener Hof, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Berghof, Berchtesgaden, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Berlin, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Berlin Gallery, <a href="#Page_255">255</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Berlin Museum, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Berlin Patent Office, <a href="#Page_50">50</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Berlin Print Room, <a href="#Page_50">50</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Berlin Reichsbank, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Berlin state museums, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Berlitz School, <a href="#Page_74">74</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bernterode, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Beuningen, Van, Rotterdam collector, <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Biblioteca Herziana, <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Biddle, Col. Anthony, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Big 3 Conference, 1945, <a href="#Page_230">230</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Birdcage Walk, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Black, Col. Ira W., <a href="#Page_268">268</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Blind Leading the Blind</i>, Breughel, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Blyth, Capt., <a href="#Page_61">61</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bohemia, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bois, the, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bomb Disposal Unit, <a href="#Page_216">216</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bonaparte, Pauline, <a href="#Page_93">93</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bonn, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bonnard, M., <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bonney, Miss ⸺, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Borchardt, Dr. Ludwig, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bordone, Paris, <a href="#Page_166">166</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bormann, Martin, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Boucher, François, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Boucher panels, <a href="#Page_197">197</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bouillon, Godefroy de, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bouts, Dirk, <a href="#Page_255">255</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bovingdon, England, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Boymans Museum, Rotterdam, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Braun Haus, <a href="#Page_64">64</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Brecker, Maj., <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bredius, Dr., <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Breitenbach, Edgar, <a href="#Page_281">281</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bremen, <a href="#Page_279">279</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Brenner Pass, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Breslau, <a href="#Page_254">254</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Brest, France, <a href="#Page_17">17</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Breughel, Pieter, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Brienner-Strasse, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Brigade Headquarters, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a></li> - -<li class="indx">British Zone, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Brixlegg, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Brooklyn Museum, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Brown, John Nicholas, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Browning, Robert, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bruges, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bruges, Bishop of, <a href="#Page_143">143</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Brussels, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Brye, Capt. Hubert de, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Buchman, Lt. Julius, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Büchner, Dr. Ernst, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Buckingham Palace, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Budapest Museum, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Budweis, <a href="#Page_113">113</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Buffalo Museum, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Buxheim, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Cairo Museum, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li> - -<li class="indx">California Palace of the Legion of Honor, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Calvados, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Cambridge, Mass., <a href="#Page_50">50</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Cambridge University, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Canada, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Canadians, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Canova, <a href="#Page_93">93</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Caravaggio, <a href="#Page_143">143</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Carolinen Platz, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Carthusian Monastery, Buxheim, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_323"></a>[323]</span>Casino at Frankfurt, <a href="#Page_235">235</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Cassidy, ⸺, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Castle at Posen, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Castle of Neuschwanstein, <i>see</i> <a href="#Schloss_Neuschwanstein">Schloss Neuschwanstein</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Cathedral at Cologne, <a href="#Page_119">119</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Cathedral of Metz, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Cathedral of St. Bavon, Ghent, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Central Collecting Point, Frankfurt, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Central Collecting Point, Marburg, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Central Collecting Point, Munich, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Central Collecting Point, Wiesbaden, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“C.G.R.,” <i>see</i> <a href="#CGR">Dutch Restitution Commission</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Chamberlain, Neville, <a href="#Page_65">65</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Champs Élysées, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Channel Islands, <a href="#Page_16">16</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, <a href="#Page_143">143</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Chardin, Jean Baptiste Siméon, <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Château of Pau, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Chicken,” <a href="#Page_57">57-58</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Chiemsee, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Chiemsee Lake, Bavaria, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Chinesisches Kabinett from Schönbrunn, <a href="#Page_144">144</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery</i>, Vermeer, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Christ Appearing to Mary</i>, Master of the Holy Kinship, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Christ at Emmaus</i>, Vermeer, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Church of Notre Dame, <a href="#Page_143">143</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Church of St. Mary, Cracow, <a href="#Page_252">252</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Church of St. Pierre, <a href="#Page_255">255</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Church of Santa Maria im Kapitol, <a href="#Page_119">119</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“CIC boys,” <a href="#Page_221">221</a></li> - -<li class="indx">City Detachment, Wiesbaden, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li> - -<li class="indx">City Detachments, <a href="#Page_284">284</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Clark, Gen. Mark, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Class C” works of art, <a href="#Page_230">230</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Clay, Gen. Lucius D., <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Coburg, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Coburg Detachment, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Coin Room, <i>see</i> <a href="#Munz_Kabinett">Münz Kabinett</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>College Art Journal</i>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274<i>n.</i></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Cologne, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Cologne school, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Commission de Récupération Artistique</i>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Commission de Récupération Générale</i>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Conrad, Emperor, <a href="#Page_252">252</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Cook, The</i>, Chardin, <a href="#Page_234">234</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Copper mine, Westphalia, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Coremans, Dr. Paul, <a href="#Page_256">256</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Coulter, Hamilton, rehabilitation of Verwaltungsbau, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">described, <a href="#Page_66">66-67</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Rothschild jewels, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">“Bavarian Bible,” <a href="#Page_214">214</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">accompanies token restitution to Paris, <a href="#Page_245">245-246</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">rehabilitation of Führerbau, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">transports panels from Munich, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">mentioned, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Courbet landscapes, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Coypel painting, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Cracow, <a href="#Page_254">254</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Cracow, Archbishop of, <a href="#Page_263">263</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Cracow, altarpiece, <a href="#Page_252">252</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Cracow, tapestries, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Cranach, Lucas, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Cranachs, the, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li> - -<li class="indx">C rations, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Crosby, Sumner, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Crown of Charlemagne,” <a href="#Page_252">252</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Crown of St. Stephen, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Crucifixion</i>, Bellegambe, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Crucifixion</i>, Van Dyck, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Crusaders’ Hall, <a href="#Page_115">115</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Csanky, Dr., <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Csanky, (son of Dr.), <a href="#Page_74">74</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Czech government, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Czechoslovakia, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Czechs, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Czernin, Count, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Czernin family, the, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Czernin Vermeer,” <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Dachau, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Dalferes, Col. Roy, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_324"></a>[324]</span><i>Danaë</i>, Titian, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Danube River, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Darmstadt, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Daumier, Honoré, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li> - -<li class="indx">David, Gerard, <a href="#Page_143">143</a></li> - -<li class="indx">David-Weill, M., <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> - -<li class="indx">David-Weill Collection, <a href="#Page_239">239</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Davitt, Lt. Col. Harold S., <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a></li> - -<li class="indx">del Garbo, Raffaellino, <a href="#Page_208">208</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Della Robbia plaques, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a></li> - -<li class="indx">del Robbia, Luca, <a href="#Page_92">92</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Dérain, André, <a href="#Page_241">241</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Dessau, <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Dewald, Col., <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Displaced Persons, <i>see</i> <a href="#DPs">DPs</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Döbler, Herr, <a href="#Page_127">127</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Dollfuss, Chancellor of Austria, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Double Roger,” <i>see</i> <a href="#Roger">Roget, Roger</a></li> - -<li class="indx">DP camps, <a href="#Page_281">281</a></li> - -<li class="indx" id="DPs">DPs (Displaced Persons), <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Dresden, <a href="#Page_254">254</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Dresden Gallery, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Dreyfus, M., <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Duisburg, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Dunn, Capt., <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Dürer, Albrecht, <a href="#Page_252">252</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Dutch Government, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Dutch Interior</i>, Pieter de Hooch, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li> - -<li class="indx" id="CGR">Dutch Restitution Commission (CGR), <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Eagle’s Nest, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Eastern Military District (of American Zone), <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a></li> - -<li class="indx">ECAD Headquarters, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Eder, Max, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Edinburgh, Duke of, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Edward VII, <a href="#Page_29">29</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Eggebrecht, Dr. William, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Egyptian tomb figures, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ehrenbreitstein, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ehrentempel, <a href="#Page_64">64</a></li> - -<li class="indx">80th Infantry Division, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Eigruber, Gauleiter, <a href="#Page_155">155</a></li> - -<li class="indx" id="ERR"><i>Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg</i> (E.R.R.), <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23<i>n.</i></a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Eisenhower, Gen. Dwight D., <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a></li> - -<li class="indx">11th Armored Division, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Elkins Park, <a href="#Page_51">51</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ellenlittay, Madame, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Embankment, the, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Emerich, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Erhardt, Gregor, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li> - -<li class="indx">E.R.R., <i>see</i> <a href="#ERR">Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Essen, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Essen pictures, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Estreicher, Maj. Charles, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Étoile, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li> - -<li class="indx">European Civil Affairs Division, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Excelsior, the, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Exposition Building, <a href="#Page_259">259</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Eyck, Hubert van, <a href="#Page_144">144</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Eyck, Jan van, <a href="#Page_144">144</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Faison, Lt. Lane, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Farben, I. G., <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Farmer, Capt. Walter, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Featherstone, Col. W. B., <a href="#Page_176">176</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Feldherren-Halle, <a href="#Page_56">56</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ferdinand, Archduke Franz, <a href="#Page_164">164</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Feste Coburg, <a href="#Page_248">248</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Fest-Saal, <a href="#Page_238">238</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Fifteen Army (U. S.), <a href="#Page_285">285</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Fifth Army (U. S.), <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Fine Arts Commission, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li> - -<li class="indx">First Army (U. S.), <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Fogg Museum, Harvard University, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Forchheim, <a href="#Page_253">253</a></li> - -<li class="indx">44th AAA Brigade, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Fourth of July, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Fragonard, Jean Honoré, <a href="#Page_240">240</a></li> - -<li class="indx">France, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Franconia, <a href="#Page_46">46</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Frank (Nazi Governor of Poland), <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Frankfurt, Howe assigned to, <a href="#Page_35">35-53</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">trips to, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Naval Headquarters, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Reichsbank at, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Collecting Point, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">USFET Headquarters, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1"><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_325"></a>[325]</span><i>Land</i> office in, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">mentioned, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Franklin, James, <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Franz Josef, Emperor, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Frauenkirche, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Frederick the Great, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a></li> - -<li class="indx" id="Frederick_William">Frederick William, <a href="#Page_119">119</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Freedberg, ⸺, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a></li> - -<li class="indx">French collections, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li> - -<li class="indx">French Committee for Fine Arts, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li> - -<li class="indx">French Military Government, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> - -<li class="indx">French National Museums, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li> - -<li class="indx">French Resistance Movement, <a href="#Page_69">69</a></li> - -<li class="indx">French Zone, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Führerbau, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Führer-museum, Linz, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Füssen, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Fuschl See, Lake, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Gablerbräu, <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Gasthaus Sonne, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Gelder, Dr. van, <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Gelnhausen, Germany, <a href="#Page_40">40</a></li> - -<li class="indx">German Occupation of Netherlands, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Gersaint, M., <a href="#Page_234">234</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Gersaint’s Signboard</i>, Watteau, <a href="#Page_234">234</a></li> - -<li class="indx">G-5, <a href="#Page_58">58</a></li> - -<li class="indx" id="Ghent_altarpiece">Ghent altarpiece, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144-146</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>.</li> -<li class="isub1"><i>See also</i> <a href="#Lamb"><i>Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, The</i></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Giessen, <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Gipsmühle, <a href="#Page_241">241</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Glinz, ⸺, <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Glyptothek (museum), <a href="#Page_64">64</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Göring, Frau Emmy, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Göring, Hermann, supports Rosenberg, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">choice of treasures, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and Hofer, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">search for Ghent altarpiece, <a href="#Page_146">146-147</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Italian works of art, <a href="#Page_152">152-153</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">“Vermeer,” <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198-201</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">taste in pictures, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">special train, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Renders Collection, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">pictures from Karinhall, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">swords, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">plans for museum, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and Görnnert, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">search at Berchtesgaden, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">negotiates with Louvre, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and Rochlitz, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Göring Collection, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Görnnert, Frau, <a href="#Page_219">219</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Görnnert, Fritz, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Gogh, Vincent van, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Goisern, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Golden Madonna, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Gold Room,” <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Golowine, Princess, <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Goudstikker, ⸺, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Goudstikker house, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Goyen, Jan van, <a href="#Page_235">235</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Grandes Écuries, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Grand Parc Hotel, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Grassau, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Greater Hesse, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Greece, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Greek government, <a href="#Page_144">144</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Greek sarcophagus from Salonika, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Grosvenor Square, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Group CC, <i>see</i> <a href="#USGCC">U. S. Group Control Council</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Group Control Council, <i>see</i> <a href="#USGCC">U. S. Group Control Council</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Gründlsee, <a href="#Page_139">139</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Grundmann, Dr., <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li> - -<li class="indx">G-2, <a href="#Page_219">219</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Guelph family, <a href="#Page_288">288</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Guiscard, Robert, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Gutmann Collection, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Haagen, van, <a href="#Page_268">268</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hague, The, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hals, Frans, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hamann, Prof. Richard, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hamilton, Lt. Col. William, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hammond, Maj. Mason, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hanau, Germany, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hancock, Walter, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Harvard University, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Haus der Deutschen Kunst, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Havre, Le, <a href="#Page_279">279</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hearst Collection (at Gimbel’s), <a href="#Page_91">91</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_326"></a>[326]</span>Heerengracht, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Heidelberg, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Heilbronn mine, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Heller, Lt. Col. Homer K., <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Henraux, ⸺, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Herculaneum, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hermann Göring Division, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Herrenchiemsee, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hess, Rudolf, <a href="#Page_91">91</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hesse, Province of, <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hesse family, <a href="#Page_40">40</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hesse-Nassau, <a href="#Page_55">55</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hindenburg, Paul von, <a href="#Page_119">119</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hintersee, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a></li> - -<li class="indx" id="Hitler">Hitler, Adolf, choice of treasure, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Götterdämmerung idea, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Haus der Deutschen Kunst, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">taste, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">D’Annunzio’s villa, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">offices, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Lanckoroncki Collection, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">love for Linz, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Weinzinger, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">presents <i>Ungaria</i> to Horthy, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Hohenfurth monastery, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Canova statue, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Czernin Vermeer, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">approves destruction of Alt Aussee mine, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">approves pictures for museums, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Robert <i>Landscape</i>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Eagle’s Nest, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">cognac from Berghof stock, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">pictures at St. Agatha, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Höchst, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hoechst, Germany, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hofer, Frau, <a href="#Page_133">133</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hofer, Walter Andreas, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hohenfurth, arrangements for evacuation, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Howe’s first trip to, <a href="#Page_87">87-100</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">second trip to, <a href="#Page_104">104-129</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">mentioned, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hohenfurth altarpiece, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hohenfurth monastery, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87-100</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104-129</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hohenschwangau, <a href="#Page_241">241</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hohenzollerns, the, <a href="#Page_235">235</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Holbein, Hans, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Holland, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Holy Roman Empire, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Holzinger, Dr., <a href="#Page_44">44</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Holzinger, Frau, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Horn, Lt. Walter, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hornbeck, Stanley, <a href="#Page_268">268</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Horthy, Adm., <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li> - -<li class="indx">House, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Houses of Parliament, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Howe, Francesca, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hümmel, Dr. Helmut von, <a href="#Page_163">163</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hungen, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Imperial Treasure Room, <i>see</i> <a href="#Schatzkammer">Schatzkammer</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Iname, Baron von, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Iname, Fräulein von, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Innsbruck, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Innsbruck Museum, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Institute for the Investigation of the Jewish Question, <i>see</i> <a href="#IEJ">Institut zur Erforschung der Judenfrage</a></li> - -<li class="indx" id="IEJ"><i>Institut zur Erforschung der Judenfrage</i>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Isar River, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Italy, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Jaffé, Lt. Hans, <a href="#Page_269">269</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>James Parker</i>, the, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Japan, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Jesus Confounding the Doctors</i>, Van Meegeren, <a href="#Page_201">201</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Jeu de Paume, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Jewish art collections, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Jewish libraries, <a href="#Page_280">280</a></li> - -<li class="indx" id="Jubilee">Jubiläumsbau (Jubilee Building), <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Jubilee Building, <i>see</i> <a href="#Jubilee">Jubiläumsbau</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Kaiser Friedrich Museum, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Kaiser Josef chamber, <a href="#Page_159">159</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Kaiser Josef mine, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Kaiser Saal, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Kammergrafen, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Kapelle, the, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Karinhall, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Karlsruhe, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Karlstadt-on-the-Main, <a href="#Page_46">46</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Kassel, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Kassel Museum, <a href="#Page_137">137</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Katz, Dutch dealer, <a href="#Page_194">194</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Katz Collection, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Keck, Sheldon, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Keegan, Col. Charles, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_327"></a>[327]</span>Keitel, Gen., <a href="#Page_203">203</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Kelleher, Capt. Joseph, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Kirstein, Lincoln, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Kloster</i>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Kluss, Col. Walter, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Knights of Christ</i>, van Eyck, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Kochendorf, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Königsplatz, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Königssee, <a href="#Page_180">180</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Konopischt Collection, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Kopernikus-Strasse, <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Kovalyak, Lt. Steve, identified, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">introduced, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137-138</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Alt Aussee operations, <a href="#Page_139">139-140</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Rothschild jewels, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Steyr truck, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224-225</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and Kress, <a href="#Page_210">210-211</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">loading at Berchtesgaden, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Görnnert house, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">trip to Frankfurt, <a href="#Page_227">227-229</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">to Marburg, <a href="#Page_231">231-232</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Neuschwanstein operations, <a href="#Page_239">239-242</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Belgian restitution, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Stoss altarpiece, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Team split, <a href="#Page_254">254-255</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">back to Alt Aussee, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">redeployment, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">mentioned, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a></li> - -<li class="indx">K rations, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Kress, ⸺, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Krummau, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Kufstein, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Kuhn, Lt. Charles, USNR, Webb’s deputy, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">meeting with Howe, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Frankfurt, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">mission to Bad Brückenau and Schloss Rossbach, <a href="#Page_40">40-45</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and Merkers mine, <a href="#Page_48">48-51</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">sends Howe to Munich, <a href="#Page_52">52-53</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and removal of art works to the United States, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">helps form Special Evacuation Team, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">transfer of Berlin collections to Wiesbaden, <a href="#Page_246">246-247</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">to Frankfurt, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">released from active duty, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">mentioned, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Kurhaus, Frankfurt, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Kurhaus, Wiesbaden, <a href="#Page_31">31</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">La Bretesche, Col. A. J. de, <a href="#Page_263">263</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Lacy, Capt. George, <a href="#Page_256">256</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Länder</i>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a></li> - -<li class="indx">La Farge, Maj. Bancel, advance office of MFA&A, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Howe meets, <a href="#Page_32">32-33</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Berchtesgaden, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">restitutions, <a href="#Page_195">195-196</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">problem of removal of art works to the United States, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272-285</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Special Evacuation Team, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">new assignments, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Höchst, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">MFA&A policies, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and Lovegrove, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">mentioned, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Lambach, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Lanckoroncki Collection, <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Lancret, Nicolas, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Landesmuseum, <a href="#Page_246">246</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Land</i> offices, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Landscape</i>, Lorraine, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Landscape</i>, Robert, <a href="#Page_184">184</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Lanz Collection, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Last Supper, <a href="#Page_253">253</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Laufen, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Laufen salt mine, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Law, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Leclancher, ⸺, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Lederhosen</i>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Léhar, Franz, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Lenbach, <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Leonfelden, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Leopold, King of Belgium, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Lesley, Capt. Everett Parker, Jr., <a href="#Page_285">285</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Limburg, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Lindbergh, Charles, <a href="#Page_14">14</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Linz, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Linz Collections, <a href="#Page_163">163</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Linz Museum, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a></li> - -<li class="indx">List of Protected Monuments, <a href="#Page_248">248</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Loggia dei Lanzi, <a href="#Page_56">56</a></li> - -<li class="indx">London, England, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> - -<li class="indx">London Naval Headquarters, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Longchamps, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Longuy, Lt. Pierre, <a href="#Page_256">256</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_328"></a>[328]</span>Loser, Mt., <a href="#Page_138">138</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Louvain, <a href="#Page_255">255</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Louvre, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Lovegrove, Lt. William, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Lower Bavaria, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Lucienne, <a href="#Page_36">36</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Lucky Rear,” <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ludwig, Prince of Hesse, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ludwig bridge, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ludwig I, <a href="#Page_56">56</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ludwigsburg, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li> - -<li class="indx" id="Ludwig_II">Ludwig II, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Ludwigs of Bavaria, The</i>, Channon, <a href="#Page_214">214</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ludwig-Strasse, <a href="#Page_56">56</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Luftwaffe, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Luithlen, Dr. Victor, <a href="#Page_167">167</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Luxembourg, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">McBride, Col. Harry, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Macmillan Committee, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Mad King” of Bavaria, <i>see</i> <a href="#Ludwig_II">Ludwig II</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Madonna and Child</i>, Florentine sculpture, <a href="#Page_92">92</a></li> - -<li class="indx" id="Madonna_and_Child"><i>Madonna and Child</i> (Madonna from Bruges), Michelangelo, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Madonna of Bürgermeister Meyer</i>, Holbein, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Madonna of the Divine Love</i>, Raphael, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Magdalene, statue, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Main River, <a href="#Page_46">46</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Mainzer Landstrasse, <a href="#Page_29">29</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Manet, Édouard, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Mannheim, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Mannheimer Collection, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Man with a Turban</i>, Rembrandt, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Marburg, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Margarethe, Landgräfin of Hesse, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Maria, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Maria-Elisa, Princess of Lucca, <a href="#Page_93">93</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Marienberg fortress, <a href="#Page_46">46</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Marseilles, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Maspero, M., <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Master of the Holy Kinship, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Mathilde-Strasse, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Matisse, Henri, <a href="#Page_241">241</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Mauritshuis (museum), <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Medical Office, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Mediterranean Sea, <a href="#Page_42">42</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Meegeren, Henrik Van, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Meer, Capt. ter, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Mein Kampf</i>, Hitler, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Mellon, Andrew, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Mercury and Venus</i>, Boucher, <a href="#Page_234">234</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Merkers, Germany, <a href="#Page_16">16</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Merkers mine, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Merrill, Comm. Keith, <a href="#Page_279">279</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Merry Widow Waltz,” <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li> - -<li class="indx">MFA&A, <i>see</i> <a href="#MFAaA">Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section of U. S. Forces, European Theater</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Michel, Dr. Hermann, <a href="#Page_183">183</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Michelangelo, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>.</li> -<li class="isub1"><i>See also</i> <a href="#Madonna_and_Child"><i>Madonna and Child</i></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Miedl, ⸺, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Military Government Detachments, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Miller, Maj. Luther, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Miller, Maj. Paul, <a href="#Page_189">189</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Millionen Zimmer, <a href="#Page_144">144</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Mineral Kabinett, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ministry of Education, Arts and Sciences (Holland), <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ministry of Fine Arts (Belgium), <a href="#Page_256">256</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Moldau River, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Monastery of St. Florian, <a href="#Page_161">161</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Mondsberg chamber, <a href="#Page_166">166</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Monte Cassino, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Mont St. Martin, church of, <a href="#Page_58">58</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Mont St. Michel, <a href="#Page_17">17</a></li> - -<li class="indx" id="MFAaA">Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section of U. S. Forces, European Theater, Howe assigned to, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Webb heads at SHAEF, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">offices at Versailles, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Kuhn in, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and SHAEF, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">La Farge with, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Munich, <a href="#Page_58">58-59</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">work of, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Walker inspects, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">official position, <a href="#Page_195">195-196</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Ritchie joins, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Howe as Deputy Chief, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">personnel problems, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283-284</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">headquarters transferred, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">restitution, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1"><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_329"></a>[329]</span>removal of art works to United States, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_275">275-292</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">mentioned, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Monuments of Middle Ages, <a href="#Page_61">61</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Moore, Lt. Lamont, described, <a href="#Page_105">105-106</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Howe meets, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">previous work, <a href="#Page_118">118-120</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Canova Muse, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">to Linz, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">to Munich, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">to Alt Aussee, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">operations at Alt Aussee, <a href="#Page_131">131-171</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173-177</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and Kirstein, <a href="#Page_177">177-178</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">to Berchtesgaden, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and Hofer, <a href="#Page_181">181-182</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and Dr. Michel, <a href="#Page_183">183-184</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and Göring Collection, <a href="#Page_189">189-213</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">trip to Munich, <a href="#Page_213">213-214</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">to St. Agatha, <a href="#Page_224">224-225</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">to Frankfurt, <a href="#Page_227">227-229</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Special Team, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and Walker Hancock, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Neuschwanstein, <a href="#Page_239">239-240</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Rochlitz, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Belgian restitution, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">trip to Coburg, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">resumes evacuation at Alt Aussee, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">assigned to Wiesbaden, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">mentioned, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Mouscron brothers of Bruges, <a href="#Page_143">143</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Mozartplatz, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li> - -<li class="indx" id="Munz_Kabinett">Münz Kabinett, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Munich, Smyth assigned to, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Howe to fly to, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">field work begins, <a href="#Page_54">54-79</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">back to, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Stout visits, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">exhibitions, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">convoy to, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">trips to, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Haus de Deutschen Kunst in, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Rothschild jewels, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Central Collecting Point, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">museums of, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">to Paris, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Third Army Headquarters, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">return to, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">last operations in, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">convoys from Amsterdam, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">French representative in, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">plane from, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Vorenkamp’s work, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Belgium representative in, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1"><i>et passim</i></li> - -<li class="indx">Munich Pact of 1938, <a href="#Page_65">65</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Muse</i>, Canova, <a href="#Page_121">121</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Musée du Jeu de Paume, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Mussolini, Benito, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Mutter, Dr., <a href="#Page_89">89-99</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121-124</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Mutter family, <a href="#Page_124">124</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Myers, Capt., <a href="#Page_125">125</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine, The</i>, David, <a href="#Page_197">197</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Naarden, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Naples Museum, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Napoleon, <a href="#Page_93">93</a></li> - -<li class="indx">National Gallery, Edinburgh, <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li> - -<li class="indx">National Gallery of Art, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Nattier, ⸺, <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Netherlands Government, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Neue Residenz</i>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Neue Staatsgalerie, <a href="#Page_64">64</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Neumann, Johann Balthasar, <a href="#Page_47">47</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Neuschwanstein, <i>see</i> <a href="#Schloss_Neuschwanstein">Schloss Neuschwanstein</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Newark Museum, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li> - -<li class="indx">New York <i>Times</i>, <a href="#Page_274">274<i>n.</i></a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a></li> - -<li class="indx">New York <i>Times Overseas Weekly</i>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Night Watch</i>, Rembrandt, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li> - -<li class="indx">1923 beer-hall “putsch,” <a href="#Page_64">64</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ninth Army Headquarters, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li> - -<li class="indx">North Sea, <a href="#Page_42">42</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Nürnberg, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243-258</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Nunnery on the Mathilde-Strasse, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Oberammergau, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ober-Donau, <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Obersalzberg, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Offenbach, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Office of Military Government for Germany (U. S.), <a href="#Page_291">291</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Olympus and the Four Continents, <a href="#Page_47">47</a></li> - -<li class="indx">101st Airborne Division, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ooley, Capt. Wyman, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Opera House, Frankfurt, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Opera House, Wiesbaden, <a href="#Page_31">31</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Oppenheim, E. Phillips, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Orly field, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_330"></a>[330]</span>Ortenburg, Countess of, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li> - -<li class="indx">OSS, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ottobeuren, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Oud Bussum, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Pacher, Michael, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Painted Queen, The, see</i> <a href="#Queen_Nefertete">Queen Nefertete</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Palace at Darmstadt, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Palace of Versailles, <a href="#Page_115">115</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Palais Edinburgh, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Pannini, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Pannwitz, Mme. Catalina van, <a href="#Page_194">194</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Pannwitz, Van, Collection, <a href="#Page_194">194</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Paris, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Paris Naval Headquarters, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Parkhurst, Lt. (jg) Charles, <a href="#Page_240">240</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Passau, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Passion of Christ</i>, altarpiece, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Patton, Gen. George, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Patuxent airport, <a href="#Page_13">13</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Pau Museum, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Peck, Sgt. Edward, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Pelz, Lt. Milton A., <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Petites Écuries, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Philip of Hesse, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Photo Marburg,” <a href="#Page_234">234</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Picasso, Pablo, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Pilsen, <a href="#Page_254">254</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Place de la Concorde, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Place Vendôme, <a href="#Page_17">17</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Platter Hof, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Plaut, Lt. Jim, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Pötschen Pass, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Poland, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Poland, King of, <a href="#Page_252">252</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Polis, Lt. Col. H., <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Polnische Grausamkeit, Die</i> (<i>The Polish Atrocity</i>), <a href="#Page_224">224</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Polyhymnia, statue by Canova, <a href="#Page_93">93</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Pompeii, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Portrait of a Lady Sealing a Letter</i>, Chardin, <a href="#Page_234">234</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Portrait of a Young Woman</i>, Bordone, <a href="#Page_166">166</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Portrait of Pope Clement VII</i>, Sebastiano del Piombo, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Portrait of the Artist in His Studio</i>, Vermeer, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Portrait of the Artist’s Mother</i>, Whistler, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Posey, Capt. Robert, Third Army Monuments Officer, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">described, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">sends Howe to Grassau, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Hohenfurth evacuation, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Howe to Alt Aussee, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and Ghent altarpiece, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Bormann letter, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Rothschild jewels, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">instructions to Howe, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and Michel, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">plans, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">St. Agatha pictures, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">sends team to Hohenfurth, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Belgian restitution, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">demobilized, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">mentioned, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Posse, Dr. Hans, <a href="#Page_163">163</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Posthumus-Meyjes, Col. W. C., <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Poulard, Mère, <a href="#Page_17">17</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Prague, <a href="#Page_254">254</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Presentation in the Temple</i>, Master of the Holy Kinship, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Prien, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Prince-Bishops of Würzburg, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Prince Regent of Belgium, <a href="#Page_244">244</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Prinz Karl Palais, <a href="#Page_55">55</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Prinz Regenten-Strasse, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Prinz-Regenten Theater, <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Property Control, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Prussia, King of, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Punxsutawney, Pa., <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Putnam, Capt., <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li> - -<li class="indx">PX rations, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst" id="Queen_Nefertete">Queen Nefertete, statue, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Rackham, Arthur, <a href="#Page_80">80</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Rae, Capt. Edwin, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Raphael, <a href="#Page_262">262</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ratensky, Lt. Samuel, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Raven, The,” Poe, <a href="#Page_167">167</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Red Cross Club, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Reeds, Cpl. James, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Regional Military Government office, Munich, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_331"></a>[331]</span>Regnitz River, <a href="#Page_248">248</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Reichsbank, Frankfurt, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Reichskanzlei, Berlin, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Reichszeugmeisterei (Quartermaster Corps buildings), <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Rembrandt, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Renders, M., <a href="#Page_191">191</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Renders Collection at Brussels, <a href="#Page_191">191</a></li> - -<li class="indx">René, <a href="#Page_36">36</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Reparations, Deliveries and Restitution Division of the U. S. Group Control Council, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>.</li> -<li class="isub1"><i>See also</i> <a href="#USGCC">Group Control Council</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Residenz, at Würzburg, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Restitution Commission, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Restitution Control Branch of the Economics Division, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Return of the Old Masters, The,” Exhibition, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Reynolds, Sir Joshua, <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Rhineland museums, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Rhine River, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ribbentrop, von, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ribera, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Richmond, Duke of</i>, Van Dyck, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Rifkind, Judge Samuel, <a href="#Page_281">281</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Rijksmuseum, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Ring of the Nibelung</i>, Wagner, <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ritchie, Andrew, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Robert, Hubert, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Roberts, Justice, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Roberts Commission, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Rochlitz, Gustav, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Roel, Jonkheer, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> - -<li class="indx" id="Roger">Roget, Roger, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Rollin, Armand, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Rorimer, Lt. James, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Rosenberg, Alfred, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Rosenberg, castle of, <a href="#Page_114">114</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Rosenberg, Dukes of, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Rosenberg Task Force, <i>see</i> <a href="#ERR">Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Rosenheim, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Rosenheimer-Strasse, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ross, Gen., <a href="#Page_279">279</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Rothschild, Baron Édouard de, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Rothschild Collection, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Rothschild jewels, <a href="#Page_174">174-175</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Rothschild Library, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Rothschild treasures, <a href="#Page_239">239</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Rothschilds, of Paris, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Rothschilds, of Vienna, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Rousseau, Lt. Ted, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Royal Monceau (hotel), <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Rubens, Peter Paul, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Rudolf, of Mayerling, <a href="#Page_93">93</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Rue Berthier, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Rue Castiglione, <a href="#Page_17">17</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Rue de Rivoli, <a href="#Page_17">17</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Rue Presbourg, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Russian Ballet, <a href="#Page_167">167</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Russian Military Government, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Russian Zone of Occupied Germany, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ruysdael, Jacob, <a href="#Page_235">235</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Sachs, Prof., <a href="#Page_50">50</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Sacra Conversazione</i>, Vecchio, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li> - -<li class="indx">St. Agatha, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a></li> - -<li class="indx">St. Barbara, statues, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a></li> - -<li class="indx">St. George and the Dragon statues, <a href="#Page_207">207</a></li> - -<li class="indx">St. Gilgen, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li> - -<li class="indx">St. John, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a></li> - -<li class="indx">St. John Nepomuk, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>St. John the Baptist</i>, panel, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li> - -<li class="indx">St. Paul, <a href="#Page_253">253</a></li> - -<li class="indx">St. Paul’s, London, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li> - -<li class="indx">St. Peter, <a href="#Page_253">253</a></li> - -<li class="indx">St. Wolfgang, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li> - -<li class="indx">St. Wolfgang See, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Salonika, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Salzburg, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Sammlung Berta,” <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li> - -<li class="indx">San Francisco, Calif., <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Saskia</i>, Rembrandt, <a href="#Page_194">194</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Sattler, Dietrich, <a href="#Page_256">256</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Saxony, <a href="#Page_55">55</a></li> - -<li class="indx" id="Schatzkammer">Schatzkammer, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Schiller, von, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Schiphol airport, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_332"></a>[332]</span>Schloss Banz, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Schloss Friedrichshof, <a href="#Page_40">40</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Schloss Konopischt, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Schloss Kronberg, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Schloss Lichtwert, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Schloss Linderhof, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Schloss Marzoll, <a href="#Page_225">225</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Schloss Matzen, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li> - -<li class="indx" id="Schloss_Neuschwanstein">Schloss Neuschwanstein, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237-242</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Schloss Rossbach, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Schloss Stauffeneck-Tiereck, <a href="#Page_225">225</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Schloss Tambach, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Schloss Wiesenthau, <a href="#Page_253">253</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Schmedes, von, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Schönborn family, the, <a href="#Page_47">47</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Schuvalov, Prince, <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Schwannenstadt, <a href="#Page_125">125</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Seduction</i>, Boucher, <a href="#Page_197">197</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Self-Portrait</i>, Rembrandt, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Seligmann, Paris art dealer, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Seventh Army (U. S.), <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Seven Wonders of Bavaria,” <a href="#Page_215">215</a></li> - -<li class="indx">SHAEF, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a></li> - -<li class="indx">SHAEF Headquarters, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Sheehan, Lt. Col. John R., <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Shrady, Lt. Frederick, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Siberechts, Jan, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Sieber, Karl, German restorer, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">and mine train, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Ghent altarpiece, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">evacuation of Alt Aussee, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">described, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Hitler’s plans for destruction of mine, <a href="#Page_155">155-156</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">in the Kammergrafen, <a href="#Page_162">162-163</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173-174</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">mentioned, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Siegen, Westphalia, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Siegen mine, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Sigismund, Emperor, <a href="#Page_252">252</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Silesia, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Sinn River, <a href="#Page_42">42</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Sisley portrait, Renoir, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“<i>Sittenbilder</i>,” <a href="#Page_163">163</a></li> - -<li class="indx">65th Infantry Division, <a href="#Page_82">82</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Slade Professor of Art, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Smith, Col. Hayden, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Smith College, <a href="#Page_257">257</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Smyth, Lt. Craig, to France, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Versailles, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">assigned to Munich, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">need for guards, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">at Verwaltungsbau, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Howe stays with, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">inspects pictures, <a href="#Page_77">77-78</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">lends packers to Howe, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Rothschild jewels, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">visits Berchtesgaden, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">Belgian restitution, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">“Westward Ho” shipment, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">mentioned, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Soldier King, <i>see</i> <a href="#Frederick_William">Frederick William</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Solly, Edward, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Special Evacuation Team, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Speisesaal (of Prinz Regenten Theater), <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Spitzweg, <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Springerwerke, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Staatsarchiv, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Staedelsches Kunstinstitut, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Standen, Lt. Edith, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Stars and Stripes</i>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Staedel, the, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Steinbergwerke, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Stettin Museum, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Stevenson, Robert Louis, <a href="#Page_269">269</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Stevensville, Newfoundland, <a href="#Page_16">16</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Still Life with Dead Peacocks</i>, Rembrandt, <a href="#Page_269">269</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Stockholm Museum, <a href="#Page_280">280</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Stokowski, Leopold, <a href="#Page_182">182</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Stone, Chief Justice Harlan Fiske, <a href="#Page_289">289</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Stoss, Veit, <a href="#Page_252">252</a></li> - -<li class="indx" id="Stoss_altarpiece">Stoss altarpiece, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Stout, Lt. George, USNR, described, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">plans for repositories, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">visits to Munich, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61-62</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106-107</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">advises Siegen evacuation, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">as part of team, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">introduces Howe and Moore to Alt Aussee mine, <a href="#Page_134">134-144</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">opinion of Sieber, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">loading techniques, <a href="#Page_156">156-161</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">leaves for Pacific, <a href="#Page_167">167-170</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">on the “old masters,” <a href="#Page_208">208</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">on removal of art works to the United States, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>;</li> -<li class="isub1">mentioned, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_333"></a>[333]</span>Stradivarius violins at Innsbruck, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Strasbourg Cathedral, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Strigel, Bernhard, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Strobl, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Stuttgart, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Sudetenland, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Suk, Capt. Egon, <a href="#Page_271">271</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Sverdlik, Dr., <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Swan country,” <a href="#Page_237">237</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Switzerland, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst" id="TO">Table of Organization, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Taunus Anlage, <a href="#Page_29">29</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Taunus mountains, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Tel-el-Amarna, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ten Cate Collection, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Teppich-Beisser, Der,” <i>see</i> <a href="#Hitler">Hitler, Adolf</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Terceira, <a href="#Page_16">16</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Thacher, Major Coleman W., <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Theatinerkirche, <a href="#Page_56">56</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Third Army (U. S.), <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Third Army Headquarters, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Thoma, <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Throne Room, <a href="#Page_238">238</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Thüngen, Baron and Baroness, <a href="#Page_43">43</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Thuringia, <a href="#Page_32">32</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Tiepolo, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Tiffany’s, <a href="#Page_238">238</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Tintoretto, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Tiny,” <a href="#Page_217">217</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Titian, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Titus</i>, Rembrandt, <a href="#Page_194">194</a></li> - -<li class="indx">T.O., <i>see</i> <a href="#TO">Table of Organization</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Transient Officers’ Mess, <a href="#Page_126">126</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Transportation Office, <a href="#Page_32">32</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Traunstein, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Treasure Room” of Walter Farmer, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Treppenhaus, the, <a href="#Page_47">47</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Trianon Palace Hotel, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Trier, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li> - -<li class="indx">True Cross, <a href="#Page_253">253</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Truman, Pres. Harry S., <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Tuileries Gardens, <a href="#Page_23">23</a></li> - -<li class="indx">12th Army Group Headquarters, <a href="#Page_31">31</a></li> - -<li class="indx" id="Twenty-Sixth">26th Division (Yankee), <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a></li> - -<li class="indx">263rd Field Artillery Battalion, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Tyrol, the, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Ulm, <a href="#Page_228">228</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Ungaria</i>, the, <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li> - -<li class="indx">UNRRA, <a href="#Page_248">248</a></li> - -<li class="indx">United States Forces, Austria (USFA), <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li> - -<li class="indx" id="USFET">United States Forces, European Theater (USFET), <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a></li> - -<li class="indx" id="USGCC">U. S. Group Control Council, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a></li> - -<li class="indx">United States Zone of Germany, <i>see</i> <a href="#American_Zone">American Zone</a></li> - -<li class="indx">University of California, <a href="#Page_253">253</a></li> - -<li class="indx">University of Frankfurt, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li> - -<li class="indx">University of Munich, <a href="#Page_225">225</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Unterstein, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Upper Bavaria, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Upper Franconia, <a href="#Page_247">247</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Urfahr, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a></li> - -<li class="indx">USFET, <i>see</i> <a href="#USFET">United States Forces, European Theater</a></li> - -<li class="indx">USFET Mission at The Hague, <a href="#Page_268">268</a></li> - -<li class="indx">USFET Mission to France, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Utrecht, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Valland, Rose, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Vanderbilt, Paul, <a href="#Page_281">281</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Van Dyck, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Van Meegeren, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Van Meegeren fake, <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Van Pannwitz collection, <a href="#Page_194">194</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Vassalle, Capt. Rudolph, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Vatican, the, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li> - -<li class="indx">VE-Day, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Veitschöchheim, Germany, <a href="#Page_46">46</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Veit Stoss altarpiece, <i>see</i> <a href="#Stoss_altarpiece">Stoss altarpiece</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Velásquez, Diego Rodríguez, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Vermeer, Jan, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li> - -<li class="indx" id="Vermeer_fake">“Vermeer” fake, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198-201</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Verona, <a href="#Page_176">176</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Veronese, Paul, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Versailles, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_334"></a>[334]</span>Versailles Treaty, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Verwaltungsbau, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Vichy Ministry of Fine Arts, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Vienna, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Vienna Museum, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Vierzehnheiligen, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>View of the Piazza San Marco</i>, Canaletto, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Vigée-Lebrun, Mme., <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Villacoublay, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li> - -<li class="indx">VJ-Day, <a href="#Page_235">235</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Volkwang Museum, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Voltaire, portrait of, Houdon, <a href="#Page_246">246</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Vorenkamp, Lt. Col. Alphonse, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Voss, Dr. Hermann, <a href="#Page_163">163</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Vrečko, Lt. Col. František, <a href="#Page_271">271</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Vries, Capt. Robert de, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Vroom, Nicolaes, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Vysi Brod, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Waffenraum, Schloss Kronberg, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Wagner, Richard, <a href="#Page_237">237</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Walker, John, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Wallraf-Richartz Museum of Cologne, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Warsaw, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Washington, D. C., <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Webb, Lt. Col. Geoffrey, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Wehrmacht, the, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Weimar, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Weinzinger,” <a href="#Page_84">84</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Weisser Saal, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Weltenburg, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Wendland, Swiss art dealer, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Wesel, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Western Military District (of American Zone), <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Western Sea Frontier Headquarters, <a href="#Page_14">14</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Westminster Abbey, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Westphalia, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Westward Ho” shipment, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Whistler’s <i>Mother</i>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li> - -<li class="indx">White House, the, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290<i>n.</i></a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>White Roses</i>, Van Gogh, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Whittemore, Maj. Lewis W., <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Widener Collection, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Widener house, <a href="#Page_51">51</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Wies, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Wiesbaden, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Wiesbaden Manifesto, <a href="#Page_275">275</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Wiesbaden Museum, <a href="#Page_247">247</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Wilhelm Tell</i>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Williams College, <a href="#Page_177">177</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Wimpole Street, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Windischgrätz, Princess, <a href="#Page_93">93</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Windsor, Duke, of, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Wolfsgarten, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Woolley, Col. Sir Leonard, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li> - -<li class="indx">World War I, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Wright, Frank Lloyd, <a href="#Page_284">284</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Württemberg, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Württemberg-Baden, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Würzburg, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Würzburg Residenz, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">“Yankee Division,” <i>see</i> <a href="#Twenty-Sixth">26th Division</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Zell am See, <a href="#Page_191">191</a></li> - -</ul> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SALT MINES AND CASTLES ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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