Thomas Carr Howe

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 [143] played over the soft folds of the Madonna’s robe, the delicate modeling of the face. ”

“ 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. [168] 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! ”

“ Even before the war, German agents had [23] 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 [200] 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. ”

“ 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 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, 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. ”

“ 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 [56] 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”