The Monuments Men (59 page)

BERLIN, MARCH 1945: Only weeks away from committing suicide, Adolf Hitler periodically escaped the depressing reality of Germany’s hopeless military situation by entering the dream world embodied in this scale model of his hometown of Linz, including the Führermuseum.
(Ullstein Bild, Frentz)

BERCHTESGADEN, GERMANY: During happier times, Hitler, Gauleiter August Eigruber (left), and architect professor Hermann Giesler studied plans for the redesign of Linz. This photo was taken at Hitler’s home in Berchtesgaden, known as the “Berghof.”
(Walter Frentz Collection, Berlin)

This Western Union telegram alerted prominent museum leaders to the urgent meeting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City held on December 20, 1941, less than three weeks after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
(National Gallery of Art, Gallery Archives)

MONTE CASSINO, ITALY, MAY 27, 1944: Monuments Man Lt. Col. Ernest T. Dewald (center) makes his way up to the ruins of Monte Cassino, the Benedictine abbey destroyed by controversial Allied bombing in February 1944.
(National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD)

SAINT-LO, FRANCE, JULY 1944: “Covered with the American flag, the body of Maj. Thomas D. Howie (upper center), commander of the Third Battalion, 116th Infantry, rests amid the ruins of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Saint- Lô, France. Howie had been killed outside of the city on July 17, by mortar fire, and the task force that entered the city the next day carried his body by ambulance and jeep as a symbol of their comradeship and will to win.” This scene of devastation was an all-too-common occurrence in many of the towns and villages of Normandy following the D-Day invasion.
(AP Images/ Harry Harris)

PARIS, AUTUMN 1944: Jacques Jaujard (far right, foreground), director of the National Museums of France, examines the world famous Bayeux Tapestry with W. Verrier, inspector general of French Historical Monuments and attaché of the Louvre (left) in conjunction with its exhibition at the Louvre in late 1944.
(Archives des Musées Nationaux)

A postcard sent July 1, 1944, from Monuments Man Capt. Bancel LaFarge to fellow Monuments officer Capt. Walker Hancock, advising him of LaFarge’s arrival in Bayeux, France.
(Walker Hancock Collection)

PARIS, DECEMBER 2, 1941: At the Jeu de Paume museum, Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, painting in his left hand and cigar in his right, sits gazing at two paintings by Henri Matisse being supported by Bruno Lohse. Standing to Göring’s left is his art advisor, Walter Andreas Hofer. Note the bottle of champagne on the table at center. Both paintings were stolen from the Paul Rosenberg collection by the Nazis and were recovered and returned after the war. The painting on the left, titled
Marguerites
, today hangs in the Art Institute of Chicago. The other, titled
Danseuse au Tambourin
, is at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California.
(Archives des Musées Nationaux)

PARIS: Göring departs the Jeu de Paume in Paris after one of his twenty visits to select works of art stolen from French collectors to add to his vast collection. Col. von Behr is in the foreground; Bruno Lohse is standing in the doorway on the left, next to Walter Andreas Hofer.
(Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)

MICHELANGELO,
BRUGES MADONNA
, 1503-04. Marble, H. 121.9 cm (48 in). Notre Dame Cathedral, Bruges, Belgium.
(Scala/Art Resource, NY)