In the US Army they came to be known as the Monuments Men – a squad of thirteen different nationalities, most of whom were in their tranquil forties and well past combat, if indeed they had ever been fit for it. Yet they were proud individuals with a keen sense of responsibility, and great lovers of the arts. Most were archivists, historians or museum curators, setting out on a mission to protect Europe’s precious artworks from the ravages of war – much to the mirth of the regular troops. They piled sandbags in front of Leonardo da Vinci’s fresco in the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, and strove to safeguard archives and historical sites or prevent access to museums. These were their acts of resistance against the Nazi armies ravaging Europe. They had neither trucks nor jeeps, and little support from the higher-ups. They were free agents; lone warriors living on their feet, sustained by moral obligation.
When the Allies entered Germany in 1945, the work of the Monuments Men would finally gain recognition. Their mission became official, and their job was to recover all the works of art stolen by the Germans over the course of the past four years. The Third Reich had fallen, Russian troops were entering Berlin, and the final American bombardments were being visited upon the rest of Germany. Infrastructures were destroyed, with railways and roads battered, warehouses blown up, and German towns and cities being bombed night and day. The Monuments Men navigated this chaos to track down treasures from the Italian Renaissance or the Dutch School in the museums of Bavaria, stolen from the collections of powerful French Jews such as the Rothschilds or Rosenbergs. Five million works of art were unaccounted for, all in all. There was Michelangelo’s Madonna, which the Nazis snatched up from Brussels in September 1944, along with priceless works by Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer, and a thousand pieces of silverware from the David Weil collection. The list was long, and when the Allies saw the scale of the looting their hearts were panicked at how close they had come to ruin. The Nazis had hidden their plunder with care, and the task facing the Monuments Men was a stiff one.
They decided to search in the famous castle of Neuschwanstein, secluded deep in the German countryside, far from the front lines and out of the path of bombing raids. Indeed, Neuschwanstein castle had escaped bombardment in both the First and Second World Wars. In April 1945, the Nazis planned to destroy the castle in order to ensure that the stronghold, and the precious artworks it housed, would not fall into enemy hands. Fortunately, the SS-Gruppenführer who received the order would refuse to carry it out. So it was that the Monuments Men took back the castle, trembling with excitement – for they were only moments away from laying their hands on some of the greatest artworks humanity had ever produced. Their hearts pounded as they set out the list of artworks to be recovered, and it ran long. Three of the Monuments Men were tasked with searching under the bed of the vast bedroom of the castle’s resident. They broke down the door with hammers and crowbars. Andrew entered first, followed by Charles and Michael. Andrew and Charles were both British, while Michael was an American. Together they formed an intrepid team in search of these lost artworks. Andrew took out a knife and began to cut carefully through the mattress. Charles pulled out the feathers and lifted the mattress. To their pride and amazement they found themselves looking at Chardin’s Cat and Mirror, a Brouver painting from the Weissman collection, and Portrait of a Lady, belonging to the Rothschild family.
It would take them a full year to empty Neuschwanstein castle of its treasures. The Rothschild and Weissman collections were both found within. Without the Monuments Men, a great number of the most precious treasures of European culture would have been lost. The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, also known as The Ghent Altar, by Jan van Eyck, was one of the most remarkable works they would recover.
Alan Alfredo Geday
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