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

by Robert M. Edsel

On September 10, 1943, a week after the Allied landing in mainland Italy, a jubilant Paul Sachs wrote to George Stout: “I should have written to you some time ago to tell you that your ‘brain child’ has finally taken shape in an official kind of way and, as you know, the President has appointed an American Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historic Monuments in Europe with Mr. [Supreme Court] Justice Roberts as Chairman, and I have been asked to be a member of that Commission and I have accepted.… It seemed to me… that I ought to post you at once because not only is this commission the result of your great thinking and clear statements at the time of the Metropolitan meeting just after Pearl Harbor, but in a very true sense you seem to me the real father of the whole show… it is my deliberate opinion that the appointment of this Commission is due to your initiative, imagination and energy.”