The Rape of Europa (72 page)

The Allied Commission for Reparations had begun its deliberations on June 11 in Moscow. From the beginning Pauley realized that the Soviet Union intended to take anything it could move out of its zone of occupation. The United States, he felt therefore, should “claim all we can accept … we cannot use plants, machinery and labor. But we can take, and should assert to the fullest extent our demand for gold currencies, foreign assets, patents, processes, technical know-how of every type.”
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Works of art were not specifically mentioned in this message but were most definitely included in Pauley’s thinking, for on June 26 Eisenhower was informed “at the President’s request” that any removals of property under control of U.S. forces in Germany and Austria for the purpose of restitution “should first be submitted … for the approval of the United States Representative of the Reparations Commission.”

To make the process “more efficient,” a member of Pauley’s staff, who had no connection to any of the already established MFAA agencies, was assigned to Eisenhower “with authority to act promptly on matters submitted.” Works of art would only be returned to the government of an Allied nation when “evidence submitted to my representative conclusively establishes identity of particular works of art. Prior to each and every delivery of an art object to any Allied Nation a proper statement shall be sent… to the effect that the value of the art object returned may or may not be included in the final reparations accounting for each nation.”
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Since each Allied nation was to get a certain percentage of Germany’s remaining wealth, the more the other nations’ reparations slices could be reduced by works of art and other objects, the more assets would be left for the United States. Pauley was not referring to items such as the Bruges
Madonna.
He was thinking of the billions of reichsmarks’ worth of art which had been purchased by the Nazis. Somewhere along the line he had talked with Walter Andreas Hofer, who had stated to him that all Goering’s pictures had been “legitimately acquired” and revealed how much had been paid for them.
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To Pauley these were assets like any others which
might accrue to America. But by July 14, three days before the Potsdam Conference would convene, the Allied representatives in Moscow had not been able to define precisely who would get what shares of Germany’s assets, or even which nations would be included; nor could they agree on exact definitions of restitution, war booty, or trophies.
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It was becoming more and more certain that each power would do as it pleased in its own zone. Within the American administration itself, controversies raged over the inclusion of works of art and gold in the reparations pool. Thanks to British prodding, art was again removed from the reparations accounts in the final working papers prepared for discussions at the summit. The only thing that was definite was that “Mr. Pauley is of the view that the U.S. should assert as large a claim to reparations as possible and that we should seek payment in German gold and external assets.”
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At the same time, General Lucius Clay, the newly appointed Deputy Military Governor of Germany, had been involved in other, more frustrating negotiations in which the machinery of the Allied Control Council, the presumed governing body for all Germany, was to be determined, and in which the Soviet Union had so far outsmarted the Americans, who had wrongly assumed that the team spirit of the combat period would carry over into postwar arrangements. In various proclamations on June 5, Eisenhower and Soviet Marshal Zhukhov had formally dissolved the national government of Germany and given themselves supreme power. They had also stated that the occupying powers must agree unanimously on any matters affecting Germany as a whole, but that if such agreement could not be reached, each Zone Commander could decide matters for his own zone without reference to the others. Organization of the Control Council was postponed until after the Summit; thus there was no central authority which could limit or even criticize the actions of the Zone Commanders once the armies had withdrawn behind their assigned boundaries.

In retrospect the task facing Clay in July 1945 seems impossible. The numbers of refugees, freed forced laborers, displaced persons of every nationality, and homeless Germans roaming the countryside increased daily. Food and fuel supplies remained pathetically inadequate; transportation and communications were wrecked. Clay saw everywhere “human suffering beyond reason.” And there was the huge American combat force to be fed, supplied, and redeployed to the Asian theater of operations. The custody of millions of works of art was but one of Clay’s awesome responsibilities in this terrible limbo.

As soon as the Russians had grudgingly granted permission, the British and Americans began to converge on the wasteland that was Berlin to set
up their Military Governments and prepare for the Potsdam Conference. The heads of state assembled on July 15. Truman came without Morgenthau, who had resigned in protest after not being invited. As the Conference progressed, Clay conferred with Stimson, McCloy, Pauley, Hilldring, and others. He told Stimson that the United States was the custodian of “the greatest single collection of art in the world.”
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With him he had a proposal for dealing with this “collection” from which it is clear that Clay wished, as much as possible, to rid himself of the problem of caring for the mountains of art the Army had unwittingly acquired. The works were divided into three categories:

Class A
, consisting of works of art taken from the countries overrun by Germany readily identifiable as publicly owned, and works of art taken from private owners in the overrun countries by seizure and without compensation.

Class B
, consisting of works of art taken from private collectors in the overrun countries for which some compensation is alleged to have been made to the owners.

Class C
, consisting of works of art placed in the U.S. Zone by Germany for safekeeping which are bona fide property of the German nation.
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His suggestions for the disposition of these works were based both on the physical situation in Germany as of July 17 and on the recommendations of the Monuments men and reparations adviser Pauley. Since “neither expert personnel nor satisfactory facilities are available in the U.S. Zone to properly safeguard and handle these priceless works of art,” the memo stated, Class A and B works should be returned to the countries from which they were taken. For the Class B works “receipts may be taken so that the return of compensation made by the Germans may be settled at a later date, perhaps as a charge against reparations payments.” Then came the bombshell that suggested that Class C works “might well be returned to the U.S. to be inventoried, identified, and cared for by our leading museums.” Clay recommended that they “be placed on exhibit in the U.S., but that an announcement be made to the public, to include the German people, that these works of art will be held in trusteeship for return to the German nation when it has re-earned its right to be considered as a nation.”

On July 17 there was a general discussion at Stimson’s Potsdam lodgings which lasted for over an hour, “consisting mostly of the topic of captured art in US Army hands.”
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General Clay stated that he hoped to get approval for his plan. Stimson “agreed in general with this policy,” as did Secretary of State James Byrnes. They did not need much convincing. By now all those present at Potsdam had seen the hideous condition of
bombed-out Berlin; they had also seen trains on sidings with top-heavy loads of loot preparing to leave for the Soviet Union. Clay met with President Truman on July 18 and immediately received “informal approval” for his art-evacuation plan.

None of the MFAA people had seen Clay’s memo. John Nicholas Brown, theoretically Cultural Adviser to Eisenhower, only arrived in Berlin on the day Clay received Truman’s approval, where he “held himself available in case there should be a call from the Big Three Conference.”
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Meanwhile, he accompanied the local MFAA contingent on inspection tours of the city. The closest he ever got to Eisenhower in his tour of duty was as a member of the audience at the flag-raising ceremony at the new American headquarters in Berlin, performed in the presence of President Truman on July 22. On the twenty-sixth he wrote home that a Colonel Reid “had looked for me … on being summoned to the Conference Area. He hoped to take me with him.”
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But Brown, not notified in time, had gone off to look at a large statue of a lion claimed by the Danish government, and missed his chance.

The first news of the Clay memo came to the Monuments men at headquarters in Frankfurt on July 29. Mason Hammond wrote immediately to Calvin Hathaway in Berlin that he had heard that “General Clay talked to President Truman about restitution of works of art and persuaded him … to take German works to the United States to hold in custody and show to the U.S. populace.” Upon inquiry it appeared that “the thing had come from General Clay with the request that there be no circulation or release until after the conference.”
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Mason Hammond disobeyed this order and told Hathaway to try to find out discreetly “whose bright idea it is to ship German art out to the U.S.”
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He also made a secret copy of the memo and had it brought to the attention of Eisenhower’s Political Adviser Robert Murphy. Meanwhile, the document had reached Pauley and his colleague William Clayton, an Assistant Secretary of State concerned with Economic Affairs. They approved the idea, except for one thing: they did not wish to state that the Class C works of art would be returned to the German people, but rather that “their eventual disposition will be subject to future Allied decision.”
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This not only was apparently approved by the Secretary of State (who failed to consult Clay), but was transmitted verbatim in letters to Foreign Ministers Molotov of the USSR and Bevin of Britain.

John Nicholas Brown did not see the offending memo until his return to Frankfurt from Berlin on August 1. Furious, he wrote to Hathaway that it was “very upsetting, for so much of the document savoured of the language we had been using, but with a reverse English at the end…. Well,
we shall see…. My first reaction was that I should make this a cause and request my immediate return to the US.”
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Clay, for different reasons, was no less angry. On August 2 he cabled Washington that the lack of a

public statement of future intent with reference to German Art… is of course in conflict with informal approval of President. … I am apprehensive that removal of German Art without statement of future intent to return would not be acclaimed by public at large. … I am not sure that Clayton and Pauley’s letter gave cognizance to President’s informal approval of trustees holding of German Art… therefore request further instructions.
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Clay was quite right to say that this policy would not be “acclaimed.” But the negative reaction was to any removal of objects from Germany at all. Brown sent him a strong protest indicating his outrage at not being consulted and—in contrast to his earlier reports, written before the opening of the Collecting Points—asserted that there were now indeed satisfactory facilities and adequate personnel to care for the works of art. He pointed out that much of what the Americans held belonged to institutions in other zones and that transporting works of art across the Atlantic was as dangerous as leaving them in Germany. But his main objections were moral: taking Germany’s heritage “under the questionable legal fiction of ‘trusteeship’ seems to the writer, and to his associates in the MFAA Branch, not only immoral but hypocritical” and would be regarded with “distrust and disfavor by our Allies.” He felt that it would “indeed be humiliating” to have the German propaganda that portrayed MFAA activities as looting turn out to be true, and suggested that the cream of the German collections be sent to the United States and the formerly occupied countries in a series of loan exhibitions while the German museums were being reconstituted, and not “as taken by some quasi-legal act of war.”
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To his wife he fumed that:

I have been very much chagrined that there was decided while I was sitting in Berlin a policy which I have advised against ever since I came over here. There is obviously no need for an adviser if his advice is not even asked. … I must say that I leave this tour of duty with the feeling of failure in the accomplishment of my mission, a sad state of affairs and a depressing state of mind.
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His bitterness would be somewhat assuaged in a final meeting with Clay during which the general revealed to him in confidence that the promise to return the works to Germany in the future had the backing of President Truman himself.

Responding to Clay’s objections, Secretary of State Byrnes cabled Pauley that the United States “should set a high standard of conduct in this respect.” The works of art should be “safeguarded,” but it must be clear that they “will eventually be returned intact, except for such levies as may be made upon them to replace looted artistic or cultural property which has been destroyed or irreparably damaged.”
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This demi-retreat was too late. Stiff objections to the removals had been received from both Britain and, hypocritically, Molotov of the USSR. Byrnes and Pauley, forced to back down, softened their language in a letter notifying the Roberts Commission that “this government fully intends to return all art objects of bona fide ownership as soon as conditions ensuring their proper safekeeping have been restored.”
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This letter guaranteed the return of longtime state-owned treasures, but it left a large loophole in the matter of items legally acquired from individuals, or bought in the neutral nations by the Nazi collectors.