Piano Guidance
Piano Guidance
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Leading the Europe-wide search for some of history's most significant artwork were 17 men from the Monuments, Fine Arts and Achieves section – a specialist team embedded with the Allies. This team was more commonly known as the Monuments Men. This is their story.
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Read More »Hitler's destruction through Europe ravaged whole populations of people deemed enemies of the Third Reich. This included Jews, Roma Gypsies, gay men, and those with disabilities. Millions were murdered, their belongings pillaged. Alongside the awful human cost to the Nazis' genocide through Europe, millions of individual pieces of artwork fell into the hands of Hitler's men, so much of which would be lost forever. But other items, including priceless pieces from Monet, Picasso and even Michelangelo, were eventually recovered, and their heritage status as crucial to European culture was saved from the destructive plans of a crumbling Third Reich. Leading the Europe-wide search for some of history's most significant artwork were 17 men from the Monuments, Fine Arts and Achieves section – a specialist team embedded with the Allies. This team was more commonly known as the Monuments Men. This is their story. Hitler in Paris, 1940. By the time he had invaded France and the Low Countries, Jewish families in other parts of Europe had already had their belongings looted. This included art, gold, currency and other objects deemed of value. Why Did The Nazis Steal So Much Art? The Nazi Plunder was a widespread scheme of stealing art via organised looting across the European continent during the years of the Third Reich. This including the seizure of Jewish property as part of the Holocaust. As well as artwork, Hitler ordered the robbery of gold, currency, and other cultural items of great significance. In 1937, Joseph Goebbels oversaw the Degenerate Art Exhibition. Two million German citizens were invited to view plundered artwork deemed worthy of public mockery. This exhibition included notable work by the likes of Jean Metzinger. Historians have keenly pointed out Hitler's status as a failed artist and denied admission to the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts as a younger man. In addition to the Degenerate Art Exhibition in 1937, confiscated art from German museums was sold by the Nazis, which included 16,000 paintings and sculptures. However, the sales process was hampered by an ongoing description of the works as "rubbish" by people like Goebbels and Hitler himself. So, it was decided that a mass burning of art would prompt buyers from elsewhere in Europe to step forward and rescue the remaining pieces. The plan worked, and buyers, including from neutral Switzerland, bought up a vast quantity of works that Goebbels had earlier removed from German museums. This led to "degenerate art" auctions in countries like Switzerland over the following few years, which later drew international scrutiny of the nation's role to help sell on other peoples' belongings. So, although part of the reason behind the looting was financial, much of it was Hitler's desire for cultural erasure. Art made by or collected by the Jewish community and works plundered from other territories invaded by Germany fitted into his overall aims to erase specific cultural identities across the continent. It was Hitler's way of re-writing history. Notwithstanding the intent to destroy work, the most valuable items, regardless of heritage or cultural genesis, were earmarked for Hitler's own private collection, which he intended to display in a purpose-built museum in his hometown of Linz, Austria. It was to be called the Führermuseum, and plans to build it were commissioned as early as 1938. Hitler's invasion of France led to renewed looting of Europe's priceless art heritage. Thankfully, much of the Louvre's collection had been moved to secret locations in the countryside beforehand. Credit: Alamy How Did The Allies Stop Hitler Stealing Art? By the time President Roosevelt sanctioned the establishment of the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Program, most of Europe's most valuable art had already fallen into Hitler's hands. And so, the mission was initially to be a task of detection. This priceless, culturally significant cache of works numbering the thousands was in 1943 in places secret to those outside the inner circle of Hitler and Goebbels. The stolen artwork needed to be found. Given that task were 17 historians, art-academics, architects, and archivists named the Monuments, Fine Art and Archives Section. Or, more famously known today as the Monuments Men. The section included a man called George Stout, a World War One veteran who had turned his professional work to academia in the 1920s and 30s. At the Second World War outbreak, Stout was a world leader in pioneering research into art conservation at Harvard University. More recently, Stout's character was portrayed by George Clooney in the 2014 film The Monuments Men, a performance that accurately characterised the man as frequently in forward positions, risking his own safety to save significant artwork. In the movie, the character is seen driving around France, Belgium and Germany looking for looted art in a battered and bruised old Volkswagen – another accurate representation of Stout's fascinating story, akin to Indiana Jones. Stout had captured the vehicle from a group of German soldiers early on in his days in Europe and used it to travel around locations suspected of hiding looted art. The story of the exploits of Stout and his colleagues in the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section were largely forgotten in the decades after World War Two. Perhaps there was just too much frightful history to keep track of. However, the story came to light after an obituary appeared in a French newspaper in 1980 of a woman who had spied on the Nazis and their looting operations for years throughout the war. Her name was Rose Valland, a French Art Historian, and she is credited with saving 60,000 works of art. A US soldier from the Third Army views stacks of jewish owned art looted by the Nazi hidden in a church April 24, 1945 in Ellingen, Germany. Credit: Alamy
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Read More »What Did The Monuments Men Find? As the Allies advanced through Europe, the tide of the war had turned in favour of the liberators. Hitler, fearing failure, issued the Nero Decree. The Nero Decree, signed off by the Nazi leader in March 1945, ordered the destruction of German infrastructure to prevent its use by the advancing Allies. Part of the Decree read: "All military transport and communication facilities, industrial establishments and supply depots, as well as anything else of value within Reich territory, which could in any way be used by the enemy immediately or within the foreseeable future for the prosecution of the war, will be destroyed." The decree included anything of value, which sent stakes sky-high for Monuments Men and their vital operation. It was suddenly a race against time to save Europe's priceless art from destruction. In the 2014 film, part of the story involved one of Stout's colleagues suffering a toothache which ultimately leads him to a dentist, who offers a seemingly innocent piece of intelligence about where some of the missing artwork might be held. On-screen, we see the men discovering a cache of art on the walls of a German man, the dentist's nephew, who claims it was gifted to him by others. Incredibly, this part of the film was accurate. It was a lucky chance meeting in the dentist's chair that led the team to the German man's house and then onwards to one of the team's most significant finds of the war. The discovery led the Monuments Men to an ancient salt mine at Altausee, Austria. An incredible find of materials, including 6,500 paintings, gave the section a colossal result. The items at the mine were those earmarked for inclusion in Hitler's doomed Furhermuseum. They had also miraculously survived Nazi attempts of destruction under the orders of the Nero Decree. Among the art discovered at Altausee was a 15th century works by Jon van Eyck called The Adoration of the Lamb. Comprised of eight panels, the moment it was found was later described by Monuments Men section member Lincoln Kirstein as "calm and beautiful." "The miraculous jewels of the Crowned Virgin seemed to attract the light from our flickering acetylene lamps." PFC Lincoln Kirstein, Monuments Man. An article in the Smithsonian Magazine published in 2014 detailed the Altausee find. It said: "Hitler claimed Altaussee as the perfect hideaway for loot intended for his Linz museum. The complex series of tunnels had been mined by the same families for 3,000 years, as Stout noted in his journal. Inside, the conditions were constant, between 40 and 47 degrees and about 65 percent humidity, ideal for storing the stolen art. The deepest tunnels were more than a mile inside the mountain, safe from enemy bombs even if the remote location was discovered. The Germans built floors, walls, and shelving as well as a workshop deep in the chambers. From 1943 through early 1945, a stream of trucks transported tons of treasures into the tunnels. "When Stout arrived there on May 21, 1945, shortly after hostilities ended, he chronicled the contents based on Nazi records: 6,577 paintings, 2,300 drawings or watercolors, 954 prints, 137 pieces of sculpture, 129 pieces of arms and armor, 79 baskets of objects, 484 cases of objects thought to be archives, 78 pieces of furniture, 122 tapestries, 1,200-1,700 cases apparently books or similar, and 283 cases contents completely unknown. The Nazis had built elaborate storage shelving and a conservation workshop deep within the mine, where the main chambers were more than a mile inside the mountain." – Jim Morrison, the Smithsonian Magazine, February 7, 2014. A painting by the French Impressionist Edouard Manet, titled "Dans la serre", discovered in a vault at Merkers mine, Germany, 25 April 1945. Credit: Alamy
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Read More »Is Nazi-Looted Artwork Still Missing? Sadly, yes. A lot of it is still missing. Sadder still, swathes of priceless works were destroyed in the Holocaust and the Nero Decree at the hands of the Germans. During the Clinton presidency in December 1998, 44 countries signed up to commit to identifying, publishing and ultimately restoring looted Nazi art. The scheme led by secretary of state on Holocaust-era issues Stuart E. Eizenstat was called the Washington Principles of Nazi-Confiscated Art. The principles led to major galleries, museums and dealers researching works passed through European hands from 1933 to 1945, looking for gaps in provenance and ownership. The process has seen some 30,000 pieces returned and 16,000 items restituted from German museums and libraries. Writing in a 2019 op-ed for the Washington Post, the man behind the 1998 Washington Principles called on people from all walks of life to continue righting the wrongs of Nazi-looted art and possessions. Eizenstat wrote: "No self-respecting government, art dealer, private collector, museum or auction house should trade in or possess art stolen by the Nazis. We must all recommit to faithfully implementing the Washington Principles before Holocaust survivors breathe their last breath. We owe it not only to those who lost so much in the Holocaust but also to our own sense of moral justice."
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