The Monuments Men (62 page)

Everett “Bill” Lesley:
Professor; Monuments Man for U.S. First Army with Walker Hancock and later U.S. Fifteenth Army

Lord Methuen:
British Monuments Man assigned to Comm Zone

Lamont Moore:
Curator of Education at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; assistant Monuments officer for U.S. Twelfth Army Group, U.S. First Army, and U.S. Ninth Army

Paul Sachs:
Founder of Harvard’s “Museum Course” and George Stout’s boss at the Fogg Museum; head of the Harvard Group that created monuments maps and guidebooks for use in the field; instrumental, as a member of the Roberts Commission, in recruiting the core of the Monuments officers in northern Europe

Francis Henry Taylor:
Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; president of the American Association of Museum Directors; prominent member of the Roberts Commission

John Bryan Ward-Perkins:
Archaeology scholar; British artillery officer in North Africa who assisted with conservation efforts; later deputy director of MFAA in Italy

Geoffrey Webb:
Architectural historian; British MFAA advisor at SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force) and the lead MFAA officer in northern Europe

Sir Eric Mortimer Wheeler:
British artillery officer and archeologist for the London Museum; his conservation of Roman and Greek ruins in North Africa in 1942 were the first such Allied efforts

Sir Charles Leonard Woolley:
British archeological advisor to the War Office and civilian leader of the MFAA; ran the MFAA under the motto “We protect the arts at the lowest possible cost,” often to its detriment

Germans and Nazis

Colonel Baron Kurt von Behr:
Head of the Dienststelle Westen in the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR); overseer of the Nazi looting operation in France headquarters at the Jeu de Paume museum

Martin Bormann:
Reichsminister; private secretary to Hitler

Dr. Hermann Bunjes:
Former employee of the Kunstschutz in France who became a key participant in the ERR in Paris; loyal to Von Behr and Reichsmarschall Göring

August Eigruber:
Fanatical Nazi and gauleiter (district leader) of Oberdonau, which included Hitler’s boyhood hometown of Linz, Austria, and the salt mine at Altaussee

Dr. Hans Frank:
Reichsleiter; governor-general of Poland

Hermann Giesler:
Architect for Linz

Hermann Göring:
Reichsmarschall of Nazi Germany; head of the Luftwaffe; the Nazis’ second in command and Hitler’s chief rival in the looting of Europe

Heinrich Himmler:
Reichsführer SS; head of Waffen-SS and Gestapo

Adolf Hitler:
Führer of the Reich; “purifier” of Germany who destroyed modern art; “glorifier” of Germany who thought the Reich should own Europe’s cultural treasures, many to be displayed at his Führermuseum at Linz

Walter Andreas Hofer:
Art dealer; director of Göring’s art collection and central figure in the looting operation at the Jeu de Paume in Paris

Dr. Helmut von Hummel:
Personal assistant of Martin Bormann, Hitler’s private secretary, and primary conduit for information to and from Berlin in the last days of the Reich

Ernst Kaltenbrunner:
High-ranking Nazi from Austria; chief of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA, or Reichssicherheitshauptamt); SS
Obergruppenführer
(senior group leader); chief of the Security Police (Gestapo) and the SD

Prof. Dr. Otto Kümmel:
Director of Berlin State Museums who compiled a list of all “Germanic” art in Europe and the justification for repatriating it to the Fatherland

Dr. Bruno Lohse:
Hermann Göring’s representative to the ERR looting operation at Jeu de Paume museum

Dr. Hans Posse:
original director of the Führermuseum in Linz; died of cancer in 1943

Alfred Rosenberg:
Head of the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR), a racist organization that became the primary “legal” avenue for Nazi looting in Western Europe

Prof. Dr. Albert Speer:
Hitler’s personal architect and close confidant; Reichsminister for Armaments and War Production

Prof. Dr. Count Franz von Wolff-Metternich
: Head of Kunstschutz in Paris, the German arts and monuments protection program

Key Figures at Altaussee

Max Eder:
Engineer

Glinz:
Gauinspektor
(district inspector) working for Eigruber

Otto Högler
: Engineer and mining counselor (
Oberbergrat
)

Eberhard Mayerhoffer:
Engineer; technical director of the salt mines (
Oberbergrat DI
)

Prof. Dr. Hermann Michel:
Ex-director of the Natural History Museum Vienna and head of the Mineralogical Department of the museum

Ralph E. Pearson:
U.S. Army colonel with the 318th Infantry; led “Task Force Pearson” to the salt mine at Altaussee

Dr. Emmerich Pöchmüller:
General director of the salt mines at Altaussee

Alois Raudaschl
: Miner and Nazi Party member

Dr. Herbert Seiberl:
Austrian official; Institute of Monuments Preservation, Vienna

Karl Sieber:
Restorer from Berlin who worked inside the salt mine

Abbreviations

Ad Sec
—Advance Section

CAO
—Civil Affairs officer

Comm Zone
—Communications Zone

CO
—Commanding officer

ERR
—Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg

HQ
—Headquarters

MFAA
—Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives

MP
—Military Police

ROTC
—Reserve Officers’ Training Corps

SHAEF
—Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force

NOTES

Abbreviations

AAA      Smithsonian Archives of American Art, Washington, DC

DÖW     Dokumentationsarchiv des Österreichischen Widerstandes, Wien, Austria

NHM     Naturhistorisches Museum, Wien

NARA   National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD

NGA      National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

RG         Record Group

The book’s epigraphs are drawn from: President Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Remarks made at the dedication ceremony of the National Gallery of Art, March 17, 1941,” Gallery Archives, NGA; and Robert Edwin Herzstein,
World War II: The Nazis
(Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1980), 107.

Section 1

The epigraphs to this section are drawn from Eisenhower,
At Ease
, 254; and Stout, “Our Early Years at the Fogg,” 13.

1
. Stout to Margie, June 16, 1994, roll 1421, Stout Papers.

Chapter 1: Out of Germany

1
. Ettlinger, “Ein Amerikaner,” 18.

2
. Ibid., 19.

Chapter 2: Hitler’s Dream

1
. Spotts,
Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics
, 323.

2
. Tutaev,
The Consul of Florence
, 11.

The document on p. 15 is reproduced from Aksenov,
FavoriteMuseum of the Führer
, photo pg. 3; the caption is drawn from Art Looting Investigation Unit, “Consolidated Interrogation Report #4: Linz,” attachment 1, NARA.

Chapter 3: The Call to Arms

1
. Godwin letter to Finley, December 5, 1940, RG 7, Box 77, Museum Correspondence, Conservation of Cultural Resources, Defense, Gallery Archives, NGA.

2
. “Minutes of a Special Meeting of the Association of Museum Directors on the Problems of Protection and Defense held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art,” pp. 134–135, RG 7, Box 77, Publications, Metropolitan Museum, Conservation of Cultural Resources, Defense, Gallery Archives, NGA.

3
. Stout to Taylor and Constable, “General Museum Conservation,” December 31, 1942, Section 6a, W. G. Constable Papers, Smithsonian AAA.

4
. Stout,
Protection of Monuments: A Proposal for Consideration During War and Rehabilitation
, 6a, Constable Papers.

The document on p. 24 is drawn from
Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression
, Vol. III, 186.

Chapter 4: A Dull and Empty World

1
. Stout, “Our Early Years at the Fogg,” 11.

2
. Ibid., 13.

3
. Hancock, “Experiences of a Monuments Officer in Germany,” 279.

4
. Stout to Warner, October 4, 1944, roll 1421, Stout Papers.

5
. Nicholas,
The Rape of Europa
, 214.

6
. Stout to Margie, March 20, 1943, roll 1420, Stout Papers.

7
. Stout to Margie, March 16, 1943, roll 1420, Stout Papers.

8
. Constable to Stout, June 1, 1943, 6a, Constable Papers.

9
. Stout to Constable, April 3, 1943, 6a, Constable Papers.

10
. Stout to Constable, March 28, 1943, 6a, Constable Papers.

11
. Stout to Margie, July 12, 1943, roll 1420, Stout Papers.

The document on p. 31 is drawn from
Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression
, Vol. III, 188–189.

Chapter 5: Leptis Magna

1
. The collection of the former London Museum is today part of the Museum of London.

2
. Woolley,
The Protection of the Treasures of Art and History in War Areas
, 14.

Chapter 6: The First Campaign

1
. Woolley,
The Protection of Treasures
, 18.

2
. Hammond letter to Reber, July 24, 1943, RG 165, NM-84, Entry 463, NARA.

3
. Smyth,
Repatriation of Art from the Collecting Point in Munich after World War II
, 77.

4
. Stout letter to Sachs, Sept 13, 1943, RG 239, M1944, roll 57, Frame 180, NARA.

The document on pp. 42–43 is drawn from
Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression
, Vol. III, 40–41.

Chapter 7: Monte Cassino

1
.
Report of the American Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historic Monuments in War Areas
, 68.

2
. Ibid., 48.

3
. Majdalany,
Cassino
, 122.

4
. Ibid., 121–122.

5
. Hapgood and Richardson,
Monte Cassino
, 227.

The document on p. 49 is drawn from
Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression
, Vol. III, 1.

Chapter 8: Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives

1
. Ambrose,
Eisenhower
, 177.

2
. Stout to Margie, October 31, 1943, roll 1420, Stout Papers.

3
. Stout to Margie, January 17, 1944, roll 1421, Stout Papers.

4
. Piña,
Louis Rorimer
, 123.

5
. Woolley,
The Protection of Treasures
, 6.

Chapter 9: The Task

1
.
Report of the American Commission
, 102.

2
. Ambrose,
Eisenhower
, 301.

Section II

The letter on p. 69 is from the James J. Rorimer Papers, New York, NY.

Chapter 10: Winning Respect

1
. D’Este,
Eisenhower
, 534.

2
. Ambrose,
Citizen Soldiers
, 43.

3
. Rorimer,
Survival
, 3–4.

4
. Skilton,
Defense de l’art Européen
, 19.

5
. Rorimer,
Survival
, 2.

6
. Rorimer letter, February 4, 1944, Rorimer Papers.

7
. Rorimer letter, March 10, 1944, Rorimer Papers.

8
. Rorimer letter, June 6, 1944, Rorimer Papers.

9
. Rorimer letter, April 30, 1944, Rorimer Papers.

10
. Ibid.

11
. Ibid.

12
. Rorimer letter, May 7, 1944, Rorimer Papers.

13
. Rorimer letter, April 6, 1944, Rorimer Papers.

14
. Rorimer,
Survival
, 4.

15
. Ibid., 8.

16
. Ibid., 14.

The letter on p. 82 is from roll 1421, Stout Papers.

Chapter 11: A Meeting in the Field

1
. Ambrose,
Citizen Soldiers
, 75.