The Rape of Europa (67 page)

Other luckier thieves were saved for a time by circumstances beyond Army control. About the same time American forces took Merkers and Grasleben they also moved into a small town on the edge of the Harz Mountains. Quedlinburg was a favorite SS site. In 1936 Himmler had wished to celebrate the thousandth anniversary of the death of King Henry I of Saxony, a forebear of the Holy Roman Emperors, whose successful and widespread conquests had earned him the title of “founder of Germany.” The King and his wife, Matilda, who had established several convents
and had been sainted by the Church, were supposedly buried in the church at Quedlinburg. Himmler envisioned a yearly festival, to be called the
Heinrichsfeier.
The first event was duly celebrated despite the fact that the King’s bones seemed to be missing. Later excavations by large squads of SS archaeologists produced some in time for the next year’s festival, which featured their reinterment. Heavy researches in the region continued to produce parallels between the lives of Heinrich I and Heinrich Himmler, who secretly considered himself to be the Saxon King’s reincarnation. The Quedlinburg church was secularized and turned into an SS shrine, decorated with all the suitable Nazi trappings and symbols, in which SS officers acted as tour guides.
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At some point in the war, to save them either from the SS, the Russians, or the Americans, the Quedlinburg clergy took the priceless treasures of their church—delicate reliquaries of rock crystal on gold stands, a silver casket set with ivory reliefs and precious stones, and the fabulous
Samuhel Gospels
, written entirely in gold ink and bound in a gold cover also set with jewels—to a mine shaft near the town. After the hiding place was accidentally discovered by a soldier of the American Eighty-seventh Field Artillery, a guard was posted who kept out Germans and refugees, but allowed his buddies free access to see the “Nazi loot.”

One of these was Lieutenant Joe Tom Meador, of Whitewright, Texas. Meador, who had won three Bronze Stars in combat since D-Day, was also, it seems, an art lover. Upon seeing the things in the mine he wrapped several in his coat and removed them. Getting rid of the treasures was simple: he packed them in small boxes and mailed them home. His fellow officers were perfectly aware of the theft, but, as one remarked much later, they had been in combat for nearly a year and nobody cared.

It would not be the last time Meador was tempted. After the war he took a job as a teacher at the American University of Biarritz, run by and for the Army. Classes were held in a requisitioned villa belonging to a French marquise, who was permitted to occupy one room. From her Meador stole a quantity of silver and china. For this he was court-martialled and reprimanded. The church authorities in Quedlinburg had meanwhile reported the theft of their treasures to the Army and an investigation was begun. Pursuit of the matter lapsed when Quedlinburg was sealed off in the Russian Zone. The case, one of hundreds, was dropped in 1949. Meador returned to Texas, where he showed his little collection to friends and family, who thought it was nice but did not question its origins. Meador never tried to sell anything, and as far as the world knew, the Quedlinburg treasures were gone forever.
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More difficult to judge was the Robin Hood type. In April 1945 an art-loving naval reserve officer named Maley, who was fluent in German,
asked to see the University of Würzburg’s famous collection of Greek vases. In the course of his visit the curators confided to Maley that the doorless rooms in which the vases were stored were not secure and that the collection was being raided by looters every night. The American officer was so upset that he contacted the harried local MFAA officer, Captain Giuli, and volunteered to organize a work party at his own expense to take the vases to safety. This offer was accepted and the work was done. Maley wrote a proper report and the MFAA officer inspected the new arrangements. What Giuli did not know, and Maley did not mention, was that the Naval officer had packed up one superb vase (and several small cups) in a crate, telling the surprised German curator in charge that another Würzburg University official had insisted on giving it to him as thanks for his help on condition Maley would lend it to the Art Institute of Chicago. Maley then left, having duly shipped the vase off to that city.

The German curator reported all to the U.S. authorities and by May 8 an investigation had begun. It took some months for the case to move through channels to Washington. In August the CAD asked the Roberts Commission to find out if the Art Institute had received such an object. Lo and behold, Chicago did have the vase. The director of the Art Institute, Daniel Catton Rich, did not explain on what grounds the object had been taken in but produced a letter from Lieutenant Maley “which clarifies the situation,” in which Maley repeated his earlier claim, but agreed that the vase should be returned immediately to Germany and “regretted that his effort seems to have miscarried.” The CAD sent the vase back, but made the Art Institute do the packing.
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No one was punished or reprimanded in this case or in many similar ones, the Army and the RC being more interested in recovery than in punishment and its inevitable negative publicity.

The things which were being properly guarded and reported were becoming a greater and greater problem. The one Collecting Point established at Marburg was already filling up with objects found in the north and was much too far from the major repositories in Austria and Bavaria. Munich, only a few hours from them, was the obvious place to set up a second center. James Rorimer in his first brief trip there had been impressed by the two recently looted Nazi party buildings, the Führerbau and the Verwaltungsbau, which stood side by side on the Königsplatz. Hitler’s offices and the grand room where Frau Dietrich had held her little art shows for the Führer had been ransacked, as had the vaults and studios in which his collection had been processed and stored. The floors were strewn with fancy framed photographs of Hitler, books, writing paper emblazoned with Nazi emblems, and reams of Party records.
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Much of what had been in the vaults had been stolen, including most of
the Schloss collection, which had arrived too late from France to be sent to the mines; but the fabric of the buildings was essentially intact and perfect for the MFAA’s needs. The problem now was how to keep such desirable space away from Patton’s Third Army, which was just about to set up its headquarters in Munich. Rumor had it that Patton himself had his eye on Hitler’s former offices. To counter this the lowly MFAA officers had only the SHAEF directive ordering the establishment of a Collecting Point. And formal authorization would have to come from Third Army, in whose territory Munich lay. Fortunately it was Robert Posey, Third Army’s own Monuments officer, who was technically in charge at Alt Aussee.

To run the new Collecting Point, Stout and LaFarge had chosen Lt. Craig Hugh Smyth, another officer stolen from the Navy through the efforts of Paul Sachs back in Washington. Smyth was superbly qualified: he had been one of the first curators hired at the brand-new National Gallery of Art, and had accompanied its evacuated pictures to the repository at Biltmore. He would now, virtually overnight, have to prepare an equivalent organization to handle a quantity of art which would dwarf that of his former place of work, and do so in far different conditions. He got off to a fast start. Two hours after he arrived in Munich on the evening of June 4, 1945, he was taken to see the future Collecting Point.

Earlier in the day Rorimer had toured the city with the Third Army Property Control Officer and persuaded him that another option, the Haus der Deutschen Kunst, still entirely draped with billowing dark green fishnet-like camouflage, was too small and would not do. They had gone on to the Nazi party buildings, where Rorimer intimidated the Property Officer by pointing out the “absurd security” which was being provided for the remaining valuables in the building by blocking certain access passages with grenade explosions, and stated that it was the best place for the Collecting Point and should be secured immediately. The Property Officer gave tentative permission, but warned that final authorization would be necessary. Smyth agreed on the suitability of the building. The next morning he moved into the vast complex. Rorimer, having started him off, left immediately for Neuschwanstein.
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The task facing Smyth was enormous. In a devastated city and nation where almost nothing functioned, where every scrap of building material that remained was coveted by hundreds of people, he had to set up, in a war-blasted building, a safe refuge for some ten thousand works of art, among them some of the most important in the world. It would have to be secure, and not only weatherproof but heated and humidified to suit its precious contents. And the objects would not come one by one in carefully
packed cases from which they would be gently lifted by white-gloved experts. They would come in endless truckloads, day after day and night after night.

Truckloads of art outside the Munich Collecting Point

Smyth could not wait for official Third Army authorization to start organizing. The Machiavellian maneuvering for this he left to Posey and his éminence grise, Private Lincoln Kirstein. The premises had to be cleared of units billeted there and cleaned up. What was left of value had to be inventoried. Shattered windows and shell holes in the roof had to be repaired. Bomb squads were called in to check for booby traps and leftover explosives, which were found in large numbers. Smyth soon discovered a maze of tunnels, connecting the buildings to each other and to various outbuildings, that would have to be blocked or guarded. The whole complex would have to be surrounded by a barbed-wire fence. On top of all this, living and eating areas complete with cooking facilities would have to be provided for staff, workers, guards, and truck drivers, who also had to be hired or requested through various bureaucracies. The mayor of Munich was called upon to provide manual labor. MPs were grudgingly assigned by Third Army. Smyth himself would have to assemble an expert staff from approved lists of supposed non-Nazis, who had to be cleared by Military Intelligence. Immediate help was forthcoming from another Naval officer, Hamilton Coulter, an architect who took over the physical repairs.

Things were going along smoothly by June 9, when the Third Army Accommodation Officer, a full colonel, suddenly appeared to see if the buildings “could be used otherwise by Third Army, and whether any other buildings would do as a repository.” Smyth and Co. pulled out all the stops. The enormous value of the incoming works was vulgarly emphasized; the perfection of the building for their purposes pointed out. The Third Army’s and Patton’s Images in History as Protectors of the World’s Greatest Treasures were suggested, and the impropriety of Patton occupying the same rooms as the hated Nazi dictator was mentioned. The colonel left without making a decision, but they had won: the building formally became the Collecting Point on June 14. Everyone was in fact happy. Pat-ton’s men took over the Haus der Deutschen Kunst, cradle of the Reich’s purified art, and turned it into a spiffy mess and officers’ club, decorated with huge Third Army symbols. Inside, a transformed German oompah band played the latest “degenerate” American hits during cocktails and dinner.

The next days were frenzied. Now that the Collecting Point was an “authorized” unit it could begin to draw supplies and services. The units occupying most of the rooms moved out, trying to take all the furniture with them; no sooner had they left than the Counter Intelligence Corps tried to move in, bringing along huge locked safes full of documents. Cleaners arrived, but could only work half days, as they had to spend the other halves in desperate searches for food for their families. Before Germans could be hired they had to fill out the dreaded
Fragebogen
(questionnaire) on which one was supposed to list any Nazi affiliations, and be cleared by Military Government investigators. This was a dilemma for Smyth, who was sure that a number of the essential engineering staff who kept the heating plant working were Nazis. For the time being they stayed. But the biggest problem was still Third Army, the source of Smyth’s security force. Guards were arbitrarily withdrawn, and no permanent force was assigned; thus each new squad had to be briefed on the complex floor plan and problems of the two buildings.

Meanwhile, Smyth knew that all around him were priceless things waiting for a secure refuge. On June 14, the very day on which the Collecting Point was authorized, he had gone to inspect the “art cache taken from Dr. Frank’s house and brought to … HQ…. Opening one case found among other things Leonardo’s
Lady with the Ermine.
In the same crate were a Dürer portrait, three Rembrandts including the Czartoryski landscape, six other paintings, and several drawings.” There was no sign of the Czartoryski Raphael. Smyth packed them away again until the Verwaltungsbau could be made secure. But there would be no way to pack up again the
eight truckloads of paintings which were due to arrive from Alt Aussee in just three days.