Civil Affairs and Military Government Sections of the Allied armies
The Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Section Unit (MFAA) was a program established by the Allies in 1943 to help protect cultural property in war areas during and after World War II. The group of about 400 service members and civilians worked with military forces to protect historic and cultural monuments from war damage, and as the conflict came to a close, to find and return works of art and other items of cultural importance that had been stolen by the Nazis or hidden for safekeeping. Spurred by the Roberts Commission, MFAA branches were established within the Civil Affairs and Military Government Sections of Allied armies.
Some of them are portrayed and honored in the 2014 film The Monuments Men.
Many of the men and women of the MFAA, also known as "Monuments Men", went on to have prolific careers. Largely art historians and museum personnel, many of the American members of the group had formative roles in the growth of the United States’ most prominent cultural institutions, including the National Gallery of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the New York City Ballet. Members from other allied powers, such as the United Kingdom and France, also found post-war success in museums and other institutions across the world.
Monuments Men Foundation for the Preservation of Art, a US non-profit founded by American author and philanthropist Robert M. Edsel was created with the stated mission of preserving the legacy of those who served in the MFAA.[1] The Foundation seeks to further the mission of the MFAA by recovering Nazi looted artworks, documents, and other cultural objects and returning them to their rightful owners.[2] Monuments men and women have worked directly with the Foundation, including Harry L. Ettlinger and Motoko Fujishiro Huthwaite.
Formation
Even before the U.S. entered World War II, art professionals and organizations such as the American Defense Harvard Group and the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) were working to identify and protect European art and monuments in harm’s way or in danger of Nazi plundering. The groups sought a national organization affiliated with the military which would have the same goal. Francis Henry Taylor, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, took their concerns to Washington, D.C. Their efforts ultimately led to the establishment by U.S. PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt of the "American Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historic Monuments in War Areas" on June 23, 1943.
What began as a brain trust of the art world’s finest during the war became a group of 345 men and women from 13 countries that comprised the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section unit. They spent 1945 seeking out more than 1,000 troves containing an estimated 5 million pieces of artwork and cultural items stolen from wealthy Jews, museums, universities, and religious institutions. For six years after the surrender, a smaller group of about 60 Monuments Men continued scouring Europe as art detectives.[3]
Commonly referred to as the Roberts Commission after its chairman, Supreme Court Justice Owen J. Roberts, the group was charged with promoting the preservation of cultural properties in war areas, including the European, Mediterranean, and Far Eastern Theaters of Operations, providing that this mission did not interfere with military operations. Headquartered at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., the Commission drew up lists of and reports on European cultural treasures and provided them to military units, in hopes that these monuments would be protected whenever possible.
The Commission helped establish the MFAA branch within the Civil Affairs and Military Government Sections of the Allied armies, led by Major L. Bancel LaFarge. After the war, the Roberts Commission helped the MFAA and Allied Forces return Nazi-confiscated artworks to rightful owners. It also promoted public awareness of looted cultural works. The group was dissolved in June 1946, when the State Department took over its duties and functions.
GeneralDwight D. Eisenhower facilitated the work of the MFAA by forbidding looting, destruction, and billeting in structures of cultural significance. He also repeatedly ordered his forces to assist the MFAA as much as possible. This was the first time in history an army attempted to fight a war and at the same time reduce damage to cultural monuments and property:
Prior to this war, no army had thought of protecting the monuments of the country in which and with which it was at war, and there were no precedents to follow.... All this was changed by a general order issued by Supreme Commander-in-Chief [General Eisenhower] just before he left Algiers, an order accompanied by a personal letter to all Commanders...the good name of the Army depended in great measure on the respect which it showed to the art heritage of the modern world.
—Lt. Col. Sir Leonard Woolley, Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Officer[4]
War operations
As Allied Forces made their way through Europe, liberating Nazi-occupied territories, Monuments Men were present in very small numbers at the front lines. Lacking handbooks, resources, or supervision – even precedent for their work – this initial handful of officers relied on their museum training and overall resourcefulness to perform their tasks. They worked in the field under the Operations Branch of SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force, Europe, commanded by Eisenhower), and were actively involved in battle preparations. In preparing to take Florence, which was used by the Nazis as a supply distribution center due to its central location in Italy, Allied troops relied on aerial photographs provided by the MFAA which were marked with monuments of cultural importance so that pilots could avoid damaging such sites during bombings.
When damage to monuments did occur, MFAA personnel worked to assess it and buy time for the eventual restoration work that would follow. Monuments officer Deane Keller had a prominent role in saving the Campo Santo in Pisa after a mortar round started a fire that melted the lead roof, which then bled down the iconic 14th century fresco-covered walls. Keller led a team of Italian and American troops and restorers in recovering the remaining fragments of the frescoes and in building a temporary roof to protect the structure from further damage. Restoration of the frescoes continues even today.
Countless other monuments, churches, and works of art were saved or protected by personnel of the MFAA section, whose dedication to their work would frequently draw them ahead of battle lines. Entering liberated towns and cities ahead of ground troops, Monuments Men worked quickly to assess damage and make temporary repairs before moving on with Allied Armies as they conquered Nazi territory.
Two monuments officers were killed in Europe, both near the front lines of the Allied advance into Germany. Captain Walter Huchthausen, an American scholar and architect attached to the U.S. 9th Army, fell to small arms fire in April 1945 somewhere north of Essen and east of Aachen, Germany.[5]MajorRonald Edmond Balfour, a British scholar attached to the Canadian First Army, died from a shell-burst in March 1945 while operating beyond the Allied front line in Cleves, Germany.[6]
Art repositories
American and allied forces in Europe discovered hidden caches of priceless treasures. While many were the product of looting by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, others had been legitimately evacuated from museums, churches, public buildings, and elsewhere for safekeeping. Monuments Men oversaw the safeguarding, cataloguing, removal and packing of all works from all these repositories.
In Italy, museum officials had sent their holdings to various countryside locations such as the Tuscan villa of Montegufoni, which housed some of the Florentine collections.[7] As Allied forces advanced through Italy, the German army retreated north, stealing paintings and sculptures from these repositories as they fled.[8] As German forces neared the Austrian border, they were forced to store most of their loot in various hiding places, such as a castle at Sand in Taufers and a jail cell in San Leonardo.
Beginning in late March 1945, Allied forces began discovering these hidden repositories in what became the "greatest treasure hunt in history". In Germany alone, U.S. forces found about 1,500 repositories of art and cultural objects looted from institutions and individuals across Europe, as well as German and Austrian museum collections that had been evacuated for safekeeping. Soviet forces also made discoveries, such as treasures from the extraordinary Dresden Transport Museum. Hundreds of the artifacts were surrendered by, or had their locations reported by, SS General Karl Wolff as part of Operation Sunrise, his secret negotiation with the Office of Strategic Services. These included the contents of the Uffizi and Pitti palaces and paintings by Titian and Botticelli.[9][8]
Some of the repositories discovered by Monuments Men in Germany, Austria, and Italy were:
Bernterode, Germany: Americans found four coffins containing the remains of Germany’s greatest leaders, including those of Frederick the Great (Frederick II of Prussia) and field marshalPaul Von Hindenburg. Also found in the mine were 271 paintings, including court portraits from the PrussianSanssouci palace in Potsdam, Germany, which had been hidden behind a locked door and a brick wall nearly five feet thick. The site was originally used as an ammunition and military supply complex manned by hundreds of slave laborers.
Merkers, Germany: The Kaiserode mine at Merkers was discovered by the U.S. 3rd Army under General George S. Patton in April 1945. Reichsbank gold, along with 400 paintings from the Berlin museums and numerous other crates of treasures were also discovered. Discoveries also included gold and personal belongings from Nazi concentration camp victims.
San Leonardo, Italy: In the jail cell of this far northern town, Allied officials discovered paintings from the Uffizi that had been hurriedly unloaded by retreating German troops. Among the masterpieces were paintings by Sandro Botticelli, Filippo Lippi and Giovanni Bellini.
Restitution
In addition to preserving and cataloguing stolen and displaced treasures, MFAA efforts established pathways for restitution; initially, this took place in the form of return to a rightful owner, when identified.
Central Collecting Points
Centralized collection depots began being established in the immediate aftermath of the war. In early May 1945, Lt. Col. Geoffrey Webb, British MFAA chief at Eisenhower’s headquarters, proposed that U.S. forces quickly prepare buildings in Germany so that they might receive large shipments of artworks and other cultural property found in the numerous repositories. Eisenhower directed his subordinates to immediately begin preparing such buildings, ordering that art objects were to be handled only by MFAA personnel. Suitable locations with little damage and adequate storage space were difficult to find.
In summer 1945, Capt. Walter Farmer became the Wiesbaden Collecting Point's first director. When his superiors ordered that he send to the U.S. 202 German-owned paintings in his custody, Farmer and 35 others who were in charge of the Wiesbaden collection point gathered to draw up what has become known as the Wiesbaden manifesto on 7 November 1945, declaring "We wish to state that, from our own knowledge, no historical grievance will rankle so long or be the cause of so much justified bitterness as the removal for any reason of a part of the heritage of any nation even if that heritage may be interpreted as a prize of war." Among the co-signers was Lt.Charles Percy Parkhurst of the U.S. Navy.[11][12]
Once an object arrived at a collecting point, it was recorded, photographed, studied, and sometimes conserved so that it could be returned to its country of origin as soon as possible. Some objects were easily identifiable and could be quickly returned, such as the Veit StossAltar of Veit Stoss from St. Mary's Basilica in Kraków, which had been discovered in the Nuremberg Castle. Others, such as unmarked paintings or library collections, were much more difficult to process. Among the facilities were:
Marburg Central Collecting Point: Monuments officer Walker Hancock established at the end of World War II the first Collecting Point for art depots in central Germany with the help of German institutions. After one year, in the middle of August 1946, the institution was dissolved and the remaining objects were moved to Wiesbaden.
Munich Central Collecting Point: Monuments officer Lt. Craig Hugh Smyth established the Munich CCP in July 1945. He converted the former Führerbau, which housed Hitler’s office, into a functional art depot complete with photography studios and conservation labs. This facility primarily housed art stolen by the ERR from private collections and Hitler’s collection found at Altaussee.
Wiesbaden Central Collecting Point: Monuments officer Capt. Walter Farmer helped establish this facility in July 1945. Art from the Berlin museums and other items found in the mines at Merkers were processed here. Museum collections stored at Siegen and Grasleben also were sent to Wiesbaden.
Offenbach Archival Depot: Established in July 1945 in the I.G. Farben building on the Main River just outside Frankfurt, Offenbach primarily served as an archival depot. Because the OCP housed the largest collection of Jewish cultural property in the world, including the entire holdings of the Rothschild Library in Frankfurt and cultural objects from Masonic lodges, restitutions were complicated. Identification of the millions of books, religious objects and other materials was tedious. Many of the owners had become victims of the Holocaust leaving no one alive to pursue claims. The facility was closed in 1948 and its remaining unclaimed items were transferred to Wiesbaden.
Occupation of Japan
As the war neared its end in Japan in 1945, Monuments Men George Stout and MajorLaurence Sickman recommended creating an MFAA division there. Consequently, the Arts and Monuments Division of the Civil Information and Education Section of GHQ of the Supreme Command of the Allied Powers in Tokyo was established. Stout was the Chief of the Division from about August 1945 until the middle of 1946.[13]
Many other Monuments Men were or became professors at esteemed universities such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, New York University, Williams College, and Columbia University, among others. Paul J. Sachs’ famous "Museum Course" at Harvard had educated dozens of future museum personnel in the decades preceding World War II. S. Lane Faison's passion for art history was passed on to hundreds of students and future museum leaders at Williams College in the 1960s and 1970s, some of whom are currently directors at major United States museums.[16]
2009 honorary Doctor of Fine Arts, by MassArt [17]
On May 19, 2014, the United States House of Representatives voted to pass the Monuments Men Recognition Act of 2013, a bill that would award the Monuments Men a Congressional Gold Medal"in recognition of their heroic role in the preservation, protection, and restitution of monuments, works of art, and artifacts of cultural importance during and following" World War II.[18] Representatives praised the Monuments Men for preserving cultural heritage.[19] The award was given after several years of tireless work on the part of the Monuments Men Foundation for the Preservation of Art, and its founder Robert M. Edsel.[20]
Nazi plunder was organized stealing of art and other items which occurred as a result of the organized looting of European countries during the time of the Nazi Party in Germany.
Rose Antonia Maria Valland was a French art historian, member of the French Resistance, captain in the French military, and one of the most decorated women in French history. She secretly recorded details of the Nazi plundering of National French and private Jewish-owned art from France; and, working with the French Resistance, she saved thousands of works of art.
Looted art has been a consequence of looting during war, natural disaster and riot for centuries. Looting of art, archaeology and other cultural property may be an opportunistic criminal act or may be a more organized case of unlawful or unethical pillage by the victor of a conflict. The term "looted art" reflects bias, and whether particular art has been taken legally or illegally is often the subject of conflicting laws and subjective interpretations of governments and people; use of the term "looted art" in reference to a particular art object implies that the art was taken illegally.
James Joseph Rorimer, was an American museum curator and former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he was a primary force behind the creation of the Cloisters, a branch of the museum dedicated to the art and architecture of Medieval Europe. During World War II, Rorimer served in the U.S. Army's Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section, a.k.a. the "Monuments Men," protecting cultural sites and recovering stolen art work.
Rescuing Da Vinci is a largely photographic, historical book about art reclamation and preservation during and after World War II, written by American author Robert M. Edsel, published in 2006 by Laurel Publishing.
The Führermuseum or Fuhrer-Museum, also referred to as the Linz art gallery, was an unrealized art museum within a cultural complex planned by Adolf Hitler for his hometown, the Austrian city of Linz, near his birthplace of Braunau. Its purpose was to display a selection of the art bought, confiscated or stolen by the Nazis from throughout Europe during World War II. The cultural district was to be part of an overall plan to recreate Linz, turning it into a cultural capital of Nazi Germany and one of the greatest art centers of Europe, overshadowing Vienna, for which Hitler had a personal distaste. He wanted to make the city more beautiful than Budapest, so it would be the most beautiful on the Danube River, as well as an industrial powerhouse and a hub of trade; the museum was planned to be one of the greatest in Europe.
The Monuments Men and Women Foundation, formerly known as the Monuments Men Foundation for the Preservation of Art, is an American IRS-approved 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization, which honors the legacy of those who served in the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program during and after World War II, more commonly known as the Monuments Men and Women. Today, the foundation continues their mission by recovering Nazi looted artworks, documents, and other cultural objects and returning them to their rightful owners. Raising public awareness is essential to the foundation's mission of "Restitution, Education and Preservation".
Robert Morse Edsel is an American businessman and author. He has written three non-fiction books - Rescuing Da Vinci (2006), Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History (2007); and Saving Italy (2013) - chronicling the recovery of artwork stolen by Nazi Germany during World War II. A film based on his book, The Monuments Men, directed by and starring George Clooney, was released in February 2014.
The Wiesbaden manifesto is a document written and signed by members of the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives (MFAA) organization rejecting the plundering and removal of cultural items as spoils of war. The Allies created special commissions, such as the MFAA, to help protect famous European monuments from destruction, and after the war, to travel to territories previously occupied by the Germans to find Nazi art repositories. The allies found these plundered artworks in over 1,050 repositories in Germany and Austria at the end of World War II. The book The Safekeepers: Memoir of the Arts at the End of World War II by former Capt. Walter I. Farmer of the United States Army Corps of Engineers during World War II, chronicles the recovery of and restitution of discovered hidden loot of the Nazi plunder, that were stolen from museums, private collections and libraries and individual Jewish emigrants and death camp prisoners.
Art theft and looting occurred on a massive scale during World War II. It originated with the policies of the Axis countries, primarily Nazi Germany and Japan, which systematically looted occupied territories. Near the end of the war the Soviet Union, in turn, began looting reclaimed and occupied territories. "The grand scale of looted artwork by the Nazis has resulted in the loss of many pieces being scattered across the world."
The Munich Central Collecting Point was a depot used by the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program after the end of the Second World War to process, photograph and redistribute artwork and cultural artifacts that had been confiscated by the Nazis and hidden throughout Germany and Austria. Other Central Collecting Points were located at Marburg, Wiesbaden and Offenbach, with the overall aim of giving restitution for the artifacts to their countries of origin.
The Monuments Men is a 2014 war film directed by George Clooney and written and produced by Clooney and Grant Heslov. The film stars an ensemble cast including Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin, Bob Balaban, Hugh Bonneville and Cate Blanchett.
George Leslie Stout was an American art conservation specialist and museum director who founded the first laboratory in the United States to study art conservation, as well as the first journal on the subject of art conservation. During World War II, he was a member of the U.S. Army unit devoted to recovering art, the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives section (MFAA), a.k.a. "The Monuments Men."
Dr. Hans Otto Carl Wendland was a German art dealer who was implicated in the trade in art looted by the Nazi regime during the Second World War. Among his key contacts were the French industrialist and collaborator Achille Boitel, Hugo Engel, Allen Loebl, Yves Perdoux and others in Paris and Charles Montag, Théodore Fischer, Alexander von Frey and Albert Skira in Switzerland.
"The Spoils of War—World War II and Its Aftermath: The Loss, Reappearance, and Recovery of Cultural Property" was an international symposium held in New York City in 1995 to discuss the artworks, cultural property, and historic sites damaged, lost, and plundered as a result of World War II. The three-day event was sponsored by the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the end of the war. The conference was organized by Elizabeth Simpson, an archaeologist and professor at the Bard Graduate Center.
Evelyn Tucker was one of a handful of women who were employed as "Monuments Men" after World War II. According to Bryce McWhinnie, a researcher with the Monuments Men Foundation, several "unsung female American MFA&A officers"—Rose Valland, Capt. Edith A. Standen, Evelyn Tucker, and Capt. Mary J. Regan, "put their personal interests in jeopardy in order to protect priceless art." All under the age of 40 when they entered their respective service positions, "each of these women left her own mark on postwar cultural heritage restitution policy."
The German Nazi Party protected art, gold and other objects that had been either plundered or moved for safekeeping at various storage sites during World War II. These sites included salt mines at Altaussee and Merkers and a copper mine at Siegen.
Adolf Hitler's art collection was a large accumulation of paintings which he gained before and during the events of WWII. These paintings were often taken from existing art galleries in Germany and Europe as Nazi forces invaded. Hitler planned to create a large museum in Linz called the Führermuseum to showcase the greatest of the art that he acquired. While this museum was never built, that did not stop Hitler and many other Nazi officials from seizing artwork across Europe. The paintings that the Nazis acquired were often stored in salt mines and castles in Germany during World War II. Eventually, many of these works of art would be rescued by a group called the Monuments Men. While this task force of art dealers and museum specialists were able to retrieve many of the stolen works of art, there are still many paintings that have yet to be found. In 2013, Cornelius Gurlitt, a son of one of Hitler's art dealers, was found with an apartment full of paintings which his father had kept from both the Nazis and the Monuments Men. This discovery of paintings has brought to light once more many paintings that were considered lost.
Hermann Voss was a German art historian and museum director appointed by Hitler to acquire art, much of it looted by Nazis, for Hitler's planned Führermuseum in Linz, Austria.
The Marburg Central Collecting Point, also known as the Marburg Central Art Collecting Point, was the first art depot in Post-World War II Germany. It was established by the U.S. Office of Military Government in the university town of Marburg to collect art looted or evacuated from museums, libraries, archives, castles, etc. before and during World War II and return them to their rightful owners. The Collecting Point existed between May 1945 and mid-August 1946.
↑ Rasch, Marco (2021). Das Marburger Staatsarchiv als Central Collecting Point. Mit Beiträgen von Tanja Bernsau, Susanne Dörler, Sonja Feßel, Iris Lauterbach und Katrin Marx-Jaskulski. Begleitband zur gleichnamigen Ausstellung im Hessischen Staatsarchiv, Marburg, Schriften des Hessischen Staatsarchivs 39, pp. 53-56. ISBN978-3-88964-224-0
↑ Farmer, Walter I. (2000). The Safekeepers: A Memoir of the Arts at the End of World War II. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter. ISBN978-3-11-016897-6.
↑ Howe Jr., Thomas C. (1946). Salt mines and castles: The discovery and restitution of looted European art. Indiana: Bobbs-Merrill Co.
Albergoni, Attilio. La Guerra dell'Arte Edited by Navarra editore - Soprintendenza ai Beni Culturali e Ambientali Regione Siciliana Palermo - Palermo 2017
Bell, H. E. and Jenkinson, Hilary. Italian Archives During the War and at Its Close. Edited by the British Committee on the Preservation and Restitution of Works of Art, Archives and Other Material in Enemy Hands. London: HMSO 1947.
Boi, Marta M. Guerra e beni culturali, Giardini editore (Pisa,1986)
Coccoli, Carlotta. "'First Aid and Repairs' il ruolo degli Alleati nella salvaguardia dei monumenti italiani", in ‘ANATKH n. 62/2011, pp.13–23.
Coccoli, Carlotta. "Danni bellici e restauro dei monumenti italiani: orientamenti di lettura", in Coccoli, Carlotta and Venezia, Marsilio (eds.) Guerra, monumenti, ricostruzione. Architetture e centri storici italiani nel secondo conflitto mondiale, a cura di Lorenzo de Stefani(2011_, pp.685–688
Edsel, Robert M. Rescuing Da Vinci: Hitler and the Nazis Stole Europe’s Great Art, America and her Allies Recovered It (Dallas, 2006)
Kurtz, Michael J. America and the Return of Nazi Contraband (Cambridge, 2006)
O'Connor, Anne-Marie. (2012). The Lady in Gold, The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt's Masterpiece, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, ISBN0-307-26564-1.
Paolucci, Stefano. I Monuments Men ai Colli Albani. La protezione dei beni culturali in tempo di guerra. Vicende e documenti (1943-1948). Passamonti Editore, 2020. ISBN978-1657013162.
Rasch, Marco (2021). Das Marburger Staatsarchiv als Central Collecting Point. Mit Beiträgen von Tanja Bernsau, Susanne Dörler, Sonja Feßel, Iris Lauterbach und Katrin Marx-Jaskulski. Begleitband zur gleichnamigen Ausstellung im Hessischen Staatsarchiv, Marburg, Schriften des Hessischen Staatsarchivs 39. ISBN978-3-88964-224-0
Roberts Commission, Report on the American Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historic Monuments in War Areas (Washington, 1946)
Simpson, Elizabeth (ed.) The Spoils of War. World War II and its Aftermath: The Loss, Reappearance, and Recovery of Cultural Property (New York, 1997).
United States War Department. "Civil Affairs Information Guide: Field Protection of Objects of Art and Archives". War Department Pamphlet Nr. 31-103.
United States War Department. "Preservation and Use of Key Records in Germany". War Department Pamphlet Nr. 31-123.
Further reading
Coccoli, Carlotta (2017) Monumenti violati. Danni bellici e riparazioni in Italia nel 1943-1945: il ruolo degli Alleati, Nardini ISBN978-88-404-4453-6
Dagnini Brey, Ilaria (2010) The Venus Fixers: The Remarkable Story of the Allied Soldiers Who Saved Italy's Art During World War II, Picador ISBN9780312429904
Eckert, Astrid M. (2012). The Struggle for the Files: The Western Allies and the Return of German Archives after the Second World War. New York, Cambridge University Press, ch. I. ISBN978-0521880183
Flanner, Janet (1947) Men and Monuments. New York: Harper. (Reissued as paperback 1990: ISBN978-0306804175).;
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