Saving Italy: The Race to Rescue a Nation's Treasures from the Nazis (40 page)

50
On October 1, 1943
Sir Leonard Woolley,
The Protection of the Treasures of Art and History in War Areas
(London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1947), 7.

50
“The first ships left”
Ibid.

Chapter 5: Growing Pains

51
On September 25, Deane Keller
“Status of Officer,” 4 January 1945, Keller Papers, Box 21, Folder 33.

53
“is a big sacrifice for you”
Letter from Mother, 7 October 1943, Keller Papers, Box 5, Folder 30.

53
“prisoner rations & tight quarters” . . . . “The convoy arrived”
Letter to Kathy, 2 November 1944, Keller Papers, Box 7, Folder 50.

53
open barracks with a dirt floor
Letter to Kathy, 22 November 1944, Keller Papers, Box 7, Folder 50.

53
“we are in North Africa”
Letter to Kathy, 25 November 1943, Keller Papers, Box 7, Folder 42.

53
Keller spent the first week
“Status of Officer,” 4 January 1945, Keller Papers, Box 21, Folder 33.

53
train to Algiers . . . card marked
SECRET
Letter to Kathy, 22 November 1944, Keller Papers, Box 7, Folder 50.

53
two-month course focused on
Thomas B. Turner, “Chapter II: Selection and Training of Civil Public Health Personnel,”
Preventative Medicine in World War II, Volume III: Civil Affairs/Military Government Public Health Activities
, ed. John Lada (Office of the Surgeon General, Department of the Army: Washington, DC, 1976), 29.

54
“From the beginning of the conquest”
Dwight D. Eisenhower,
Crusade in Europe
(Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1948), 191–92, 434.

54
bow tie and flowing cape . . . survived at least one fall
“Theodore Sizer, Art Teacher and Heraldist, Dies,”
New York Times
, June 22, 1967.

54
“misconceptions of my military prowess”
Elise Kenney, “From the Archives: Theodore Sizer, 1892–1967: ‘A Teacher, an author, and a craftsman of infinite perfection,’ ”
Yale Art Gallery Bulletin
, 2006, 155–60.

55
“extremely restive”
Sizer to Emerson Tuttle, 11 October 1943, Theodore Sizer Papers, MS 453, Manuscripts & Archives, Yale University Library, Box 11, Folder 167.

55
“You would laugh”
Ibid.

55
British Monuments officer. . . . “What on Earth”. . . . Neither man. . . . “Deplorable lack”. . . . As the reality. . . . “Priority I”
Lionel Fielden,
The Natural Bent
(London: Andre Deutsch Limited, 1960), 258–60.

56
After explaining. . . . “Well, well, we know”
Ibid., 260.

56
Days later, Fielden. . . . “were filled”
Ibid., 262–64.

57
He also kept up his drawing
Letter from Everett Meeks, 29 January 1944, Keller Papers, Box 9, Folder 63.

57
“I have fired a carbine”
Letter to Parents, 21 December 1943, Keller Papers, Box 5, Folder 24.

57
“feel a little less like a lost sheep”
Letter to Parents, 28 December 1943, Keller Papers, Box 5, Folder 24.

57
“Dearest Kathy. . . . As I write”
Letter to Kathy, 25 December 1943, Keller Papers, Box 7, Folder 42.

57
“Still, I talked to a British GI”
Ibid.

57
“Toozy Woozy”
“Dear Deane: This Is Daddy’s History,” Keller Papers, Box 6, Folder 33.

57
“I hear there is a lot to do in Italy”
Letter to Kathy, 23 January 1944, Keller Papers, Box 7, Folder 43.

Chapter 6: A New Order

59
“Military channels are like”
Hammond Letter to Finley, NARA, RG 239, M1944, Roll 14.

59
“It’s a curious city of poverty”
Sizer to Tuttle, 24 November 1943, Sizer Papers, Box 11, Folder 157.

60
“Everything worthwhile has been”
Letter to Emerson Tuttle Esq., 10 November 1943, Sizer Papers, Box 11, Folder 157.

60
“No Keller as yet.”
Ibid.

60
“M.H. [Hammond] literally worked”
Letter to Paul J. Sachs, 2 December 1943, NARA, M1944, R-57.

60
Besides exhaustion, Hammond also
Mason Hammond, “Copy of Report of Professor Mason Hammond on his Work in Italy,” NARA, RG 239, M1944, Roll 22, Frames 88–115, 24.

60
“the mess at Syracuse”
Ibid.

60
“He ran into a WAC”. . . . “Mason Hammond has done”
Letter to Paul J. Sachs, 11 January 1944, NARA, M1944, R-57.

60
A new organization
Hammond, “Copy of Report of Professor Mason Hammond on his Work in Italy,” NARA, RG 239, M1944, Roll 22, Frames 88–115, 22.

61
“I was told in Sicily”
Hammond, “Remembrance of Things Past,” 88.

61
British Professor Solomon “Solly” Zuckerman
“Air Mission,” NARA, RG 331, 10000/145/259.

61
156 bombs
“Final Report: Campania,” Keller Papers, Box 23, Folder 51, 4.

62
“half demolished”. . . “serious losses to the collection.”
Ibid., 26.

62
August 24
Louise Zarmati, “Amedeo Maiuri: In Search of the ‘Dark Side,’ ”
Teaching History: Journal of the History Teachers’ Association of NSW
, vol. 40, December 2006.

62
“If the whole of Italy”
“Air Mission,” NARA, RG 331, 10000/145/259.

62
the revised list, containing the names of forty-six
Ibid.

62
he accepted a position
Today the museum is known as the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.

63
Gardner received orders to report to Ischia
“Final Report General,” Headquarters Allied Commission, Subcommission for Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives, 1 January 1946, Keller Papers, Box 23, Folder 52, 3.

63
Gardner didn’t reach Naples
Ibid.

63
The city lay in ruins
Atkinson,
The Day of Battle
, 241–42.

63
“Some German patrolmen”
“Translation of a speech delivered by Dr. Adolfo Omodeo, Rector of the University of Naples on 14 October, 1943 at a Convocation for the reopening of the University after the burning by the Germans on 12 September, 1943,” NARA, RG 239, M1944, Roll 62, AMG-4.

64
“personal immortality”
“Preservation of Ancient Monuments,” 23 September 1943, RG 331, 10000/145/199.

64
inscribing their names
Theodore Sizer, “A Walpolean at War,”
The Walpole Society Notebook
(1946), 77.

64
“a locked door is an irresistible challenge”
Ibid., 76.

64
“The continued requisitioning and pillage”
Memorandum to Hume, 18 November 1943, NARA, RG 331, 10000/145/31.

65
“Protection of artistic and historic monuments”
George C. Marshall, “Protection—Artistic Historic Monuments in Italy, 14 October 1943, Dwight D. Eisenhower Papers, Pre-Presidential, 1916–52, Eisenhower Presidential Library, Box 132, CABLES OFF. (GCM/DDE July 29, 1943–February 19, 1944) (3).

65
made an inspection of Palermo and Naples
“The Commandeering of the Naples Museum for Military Purpose,” 7 December 1943, Woolley Memo, NARA, RG 239, M1944, Roll 62; Woolley letter to Dinsmoor, March 2, 1944, NARA RG 239, M1944, Roll 60; First Monthly Report for November 1943, December 4, 1943, NARA, RG 239, M1944, Roll 62, AMG-5.

65
since 1941 he had also. . . . On three separate occasions
H. V. F. Winstone,
Woolley of Ur: The Life of Sir Leonard Woolley
(London: Secker & Warburg, 1990), 228.

66
He returned to Allied Force Headquarters
Woolley,
The Protection of the Treasures of Art and History in War Areas,
27.

66
“I suggest . . . a General Order”
“The Commandeering of the Naples Museum for Military Purpose,” 7 December 1943, Woolley Memo, NARA, RG 239, M1944, Roll 62.

66
“Crimes are being committed”
“Memorandum for General Eisenhower,” 13 December 1943, Eisenhower Presidential Library, Eisenhower Pre-Presidential, Box 75, Folder 3.

67
“To: All Commanders”
Woolley,
The Protection of the Treasures of Art and History in War Areas
, 22.

67
“made it clear that the responsibility”
Ibid.

67
“The weakness of the Monuments and Fine Arts organization”
Ibid., 24.

Chapter 7: A Troubled Bunch

69
On August 25, 1914
Paul Clemen and Gerhard Bersu, “Kunstdenkmäler und Kunstpflege in Belgien,” 
Kunstschutz im Krieg
e,
Bericht über den Zustand der Kunstdenkmäler auf den verschiedenen Kriegsschauplätzen und über die deutschen und österreichischen Massnahmen zu ihrer Erhaltung, Rettung, Erforschung, Erster Band,
ed. Paul Clemen (Leipzig: Verlag von E. A. Seemann, 1919), 18.

69
248 citizens
Alan Kramer,
Dynamic of Destruction: Culture and Mass Killing in the First World War
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 11.

69
The blaze destroyed
Paul Clemen und Gerhard Bersu, “Kunstdenkmäler und Kunstpflege in Belgien,”
Kunstschutz im Kriege
, 20.

70
Otto von Falke
Otto von Falke, “Die Einrichtung des Kunstschutzes auf den deutschen Kriegsschauplätzen,” 
Kunstschutz im Kriege
, 11–16.

70
Clemen’s role as Provincial Conservator
Landschaftsverband Rheinland, ed.,“
Der Rhein ist mein Schicksal geworden,” Paul Clemen. 1866–1947. Erster Provinzialkonservator der Rheinprovinz
(Cologne: Rheinisches Amt für Denkmalpflege in Verbindung mit dem Rheinischen Landesmuseum Bonn, 1991), 19.

70
On January 1, 1915
Otto von Falke, “Die Einrichtung des Kunstschutzes auf den deutschen Kriegsschauplätzen,”
Kunstschutz im Kriege
, 12.

70
“Cultural goods and art”
Paul Clemen, “Die Denkmalpflege im Urteil des Auslands” (refers to article in
Berliner Lokal Anzeiger,
8.X.1914),
Kunstschutz im Kriege,
121.

70
the University of Louvain Library
E. Lousse,
The University of Louvain During the Second World War
(Bruges: Desclée, de Brouwer, 1946).

70
Sedes Sapientiae non Evertetur
Phillip A. Metzger, “Catholic University of Louvain,”
Journal of Library History
15, no. 3 (Summer 1980): 329.

71
The appointment, less than a week earlier
Franz Graf Wolff-Metternich, “Concerning my activities as Adviser on the Protection of Works of Art to O.K.H. from 1940–1942 (Kunstschutz),” NARA, RG 239, M1944, Roll 89, Frames 352–72, 3.

71
Beginning in May 1938
Birgit Schwarz,
Geniewahn: Hitler und die Kunst
(Vienna/Cologne/Weimar: Böhlau Verlag, 2009), 221–28.

71
Hitler was infuriated
Ibid., 208.

72
“Certain people’s eyes”
Ibid. For entire speech see: http://www.kunstzitate.de/bildendekunst/manifeste/nationalsozialismus/hitler_haus_der_kunst_37.htm.

72
Hitler’s taste ran toward
Ibid., 35, 53, 102, 152.

72
collectors in France, including David-Weill, Rothschild
Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, 14 November 1945–1 October 1946
, Volume XXV, Documents and other material in evidence, Numbers 001-PS to 400-PS, Document 014-PS (Nuremberg, Germany, 1947), 48–49.

72
ERR staff then created elaborate, brown leather-bound albums. . . . allowed Hitler to select
Birgit Schwarz,
Geniewahn,
26.

73
“Perhaps one of my weaknesses”
Leon Goldensohn,
Nuremberg Interviews: An American Psychiatrist’s Conversations with the Defendants and Witnesses
(New York: Knopf, 2004), 128.

73
But his collecting became indiscriminate
Nancy H. Yeide,
Beyond the Dreams of Avarice: The Hermann Goering Collection
(Dallas: Laurel Publishing, 2009), 17.

74
From November 1940 through 1942
“Report No. 1, Activity of The Einsatzstab Rosenberg in France,” August 1945, O.S.S. Art Looting Investigation Unit Consolidated Interrogation Reports, NARA, M1782, 6.

74
“It used to be called plundering”
Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal
, Volume IX (Nuremberg: 1947), 633.

74
“not since the time of Napolean Bonaparte”
Francis Henry Taylor, “Memorandum for Submission to the President of the United States: Protection and Conservation of Artistic Monuments in Europe and Establishment of Machinery to Salvage and Return to Lawful Owners Works of Art and Historic Documents Looted by the Enemy,” November 24, 1942, NARA, RG 239, M1944, Roll 56.

74
first official state visit
Hitler arrived in Rome but traveled from there to Naples. Then he returned to Rome for his tour, followed by his trip to Florence.

74
“the jewel of Europe,”
Jodl letter, 12 May 1944, Archivio Storico delle Gallerie di Firenze, Giovanni Poggi Archive. SERIE VIII. 154; Nicolas Petrescu Comnène,
Firenze “città aperta”
(Florence: Vallecchi Editore, 1945), 32–33.

74
open-top Lancia Astura Cabriolet limousine
Photo no. 37.158,
Giostra del Saracino
in “Archivio Storico Fotografico—Foto Club ‘La Chimera’” (1938), http://www.fotoantiquaria.it/.

75
some 4,340 in all
Archivio Storico del Comune di Firenze, ed.
Firenze. 9 Maggio 1938
. Small collection of essays on occasion of the exhibition “Il ritorno all’ordine. 1938—L’immagine di Firenze per la visita del Fuhrer,” 25 September–31 October 2012, Archivio Storico del Comune di Firenze, Florence (Florence: P.O. Archivi e Collezioni Librarie Storiche, 2012), 38.