The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, And The Greatest Treasure Hunt In History

by Robert M. Edsel

On the afternoon of the first day, as the overhead lights dimmed and Sachs’s slide show flickered to life on the wall before them, the directors of America’s great museums were subjected to a series of horrible reminders of the artistic toll of the Nazi advance. England’s National Gallery in London deserted, its great works buried at Manod. The Tate Gallery filled with shattered glass. The nave of Canterbury Cathedral filled with dirt to absorb the shock of explosions.

That they will continue to keep open their doors to all who seek refreshment of spirit 3) That they will, with the sustained financial help of their communities, broaden the scope and variety of their work 4) That they will be sources of inspiration illuminating the past and vivifying the present; that they will fortify the spirit on which victory depends.

The men had all realized that they really were on their own in the field. There were no set procedures to follow; no proper chain of command; no right way of dealing with combat officers.

As a Monuments Man, his job was to find out where they had gone. So he had pulled a dusty chair and begun searching through the battered files still standing in the bomb-cratered offices. There was no electricity, and the hulking piles of debris threw odd shadows in the beam of his flashlight.

Flemish. Sixteenth century. Was it by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, the great Belgian master, or someone who worked closely with him? He had seen works of comparable quality at Maastricht, but none had taken his breath away like this one. To see a painting of this quality leaning against the wall of a command post amid the bullets and the grime was to understand that great works of art were part of the world. They were objects. They were fragile. They were lonely, small, unprotected. A child on a playground looks strong, but a child wandering alone down Madison Avenue in New York City—that’s terrifying.