The Monuments Men (60 page)

JAN VERMEER,
THE ASTRONOMER
, 1668. Oil on Canvas, 51 x 45 cm (20 x 17
³
/
₄
in). Louvre, Paris, France.
(Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Art Resource, NY)

PARIS, SEPTEMBER 12, 1944: Monuments Man James Rorimer (right) and Ecole du Louvre director Robert Rey stand before the empty wall where the
Mona Lisa
(
La Joconde
) once hung before its precautionary evacuation from the Louvre in 1939.
(National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD)

PARIS, 1945: The
Mona Lisa
was moved on six separate occasions from 1939 to 1945 before being uncrated upon its return home to the Louvre.
(Roger-Viollet)

JAN VAN EYCK, GHENT ALTARPIECE (interior), 1432. Oil on Panel, 3.5 x 4.6 m (11 ft 6 in x 15 ft 1 in). Saint Bavo Cathedral, Ghent, Belgium.
(Reproductiefonds/photo Hugo Maertens)

AACHEN, GERMANY, OCTOBER 1944: This was the scene of devastation that greeted Monuments Man Walker Hancock and other troops of U.S. First Army upon their arrival at the Aachen Cathedral on October 25, 1944.
(National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD)

LA GLEIZE, BELGIUM, FEBRUARY 1, 1945: During the Battle of the Bulge, the church in La Gleize was severely damaged. This statue, known as the
Madonna of La Gleize
, was fully exposed to one of the harshest winters on record. Note the gaping hole in the roof overhead.
(Walker Hancock Collection)

LA GLEIZE, BELGIUM, FEBRUARY 1, 1945: Monuments Man Walker Hancock (front left, in U.S. Army helmet) assisted residents of the town of La Gleize with the relocation of the
Madonna of La Gleize
to a more secure site.
(Walker Hancock Collection)

MERKERS, GERMANY, APRIL 1945: Hidden inside the Merkers salt mine was the majority of Nazi Germany’s gold reserves and paper currency. All but the largest paintings from the Kaiser-Friedrich Museum in Berlin were also placed there for safekeeping. In today’s dollars the value of the gold found in Merkers would be almost $5 billion.
(National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD)

MERKERS, GERMANY, APRIL 12, 1945: Lt. Gen. Omar N. Bradley, Lt. Gen. George S. Patton Jr., and Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower inspect the German museum treasures stored in the Merkers mine. Also pictured in the center is Maj. Irving Leonard Moskowitz.
(National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD)

NEUSCHWANSTEIN, GERMANY: The castle of Neuschwanstein was the key Nazi repository for the greatest works of art stolen from France. Built by “Mad Ludwig” of Bavaria in the nineteenth century, it contained so many stolen works of art that it took the Monuments Men six weeks to empty it. The extreme vertical height and absence of elevators required most of the works to be carried down the innumerable flights of stairs.
(National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD)

NEUSCHWANSTEIN, GERMANY, MAY 1945: Monuments Man James Rorimer (left) and Sgt. Antonio T. Valim examine valuable art objects stolen from the Rothschild collection in France by the ERR and found in the castle.
(National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD)