When they conquered most of Europe, the Nazis made it a point to steal or destroy some of the greatest cultural and artistic pieces from the countries that they occupied. When Adolf Hitler was a young man, his application to the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, Austria had been rejected. In 1939 and 1940, he suddenly found himself in the perfect position to plunder the finest works of art the Western World had ever created. It was one rejected art student's perfect moment of supreme vengeance.
The world watched in the late '30s as German tanks rolled through the streets of Vienna, then Prague, then Warsaw, and then Paris. They cringed as the skies over London filled with German planes. No one knew for sure when the tide of Nazi domination would be stopped, but some in the arts community in the unconquered world were forming plans to protect their masterpieces from the bombs and artillery shells that had torn through museums the length and breadth of Europe.
Once it became clear that protecting their own works of art would no longer be necessary since they would be bringing the fight to the Nazis and not the other way around, the Allied Armed Forces created a small group of experts in the field of art conservation, architecture, and art history. They were officially called the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives section (MFAA), but they came to be known as Monuments Men. At first there were only a handful of them, and none of them were the stereotypical young men from most WWII books, but by the end of the war their numbers had swelled to 350. These Monuments Men were tasked with the novel mission of protecting the priceless and irreplaceable pieces of cultural history during the Allied invasion of Western Europe (Edsel has another book about their efforts in Italy). Many of these irreplaceable monuments formed the actual battlefields of the greatest war in history. The charming church the Germans might place a sniper in often proved to be hundreds of years old, the newest Allied supply dump might contain a priceless sculpture. The Monuments Men's first priority was to protect these from needless damage. They would re-route truck convoys to go around, rather than through, some sensitive areas. They would remind commanders of the importance of certain buildings when planning artillery strikes. They had orders from General Eisenhower himself to allow them to declare certain areas "Off Limits" to any military personnel.
In most WWII books, you've become accustomed to that moment where the characters, real or fictional, realize that they are part of a much bigger story. They have a sort of epiphany where they realize that they are walking in the footsteps of history, but few of them are very well acquainted with that history. The Monuments Men were. They were experts in their fields and influential in the world of art and culture back in the States.
These men moved around the European Theater with a freedom that must have been the envy of every other soldier on the continent. One man, the quintessential Monuments Man, George Stout, had put 50,000 miles on his captured VW by the end of the war by zig-zagging back and forth along the front as it moved across Europe. Stout's enthusiasm was not unique. It was vital to their jobs that these men possess the energy and enthusiasm needed to keep up with the pace of the Allied advance in order to protect the things that could never be replaced. They saw more of the war than most who fought in it, but instead of being in it to kill and destroy, they were the few who were tasked with preserving and protecting.
You found it interesting to get to see the invasion of the Normandy beaches not through the eyes of terrified soldiers trying to take out machine gun nests or pillboxes, but instead through the eyes of worried men who were concerned about the safety of the 500 year old church at the top of the bluffs. Instead of seeing the war through the eyes of warriors looking to take advantage of the local terrain, this book gave you the opportunity to see the war through the eyes of conservationists taking advantage of local pride and personal perspicacity to protect unique works of historical importance.
"Monuments Men" changes in tone dramatically once Paris is liberated. The mission shifts from just frantically protecting historical sites to something more extraordinary. The books becomes a story of the greatest treasure hunt in the history of the world. When the Nazis had the chance, they took whatever they wanted. Hitler himself stole priceless pieces of art from some of his favorite artists to adorn his walls, and Goring was even worse. The order had gone out and made it official: the Third Reich was building a new museum and cultural Mecca in Hitler's hometown of Linz, Austria. The Fuhrer dreamed of creating a new center for art and culture, one that could rival Florence and Vienna. His soldiers were ordered to make sure his new museum would be stocked with the finest art the world had to offer.
In Paris, the Monuments Men found two people who had risked their lives to keep the theft to a minimum, and what they couldn't prevent, they were determined to record. Jean Jaujard was the head of the Louvre and ensured that every bureaucratic roadblock and every inch of red tape was used to keep the art under his protection where it belonged. But he knew he couldn't save it all, so he enlisted some help from the most unlikely of sources. Her name was Rose Valland, and she became Jaujard's spy in the Nazi machinery, the fly on the wall. Her stentorian personality and her forgettably bland looks made her the perfect spy. Who would suspect the middle aged librarian in the corner was writing down the destination of every pilfered piece that made it into the back of a swastika-emblazoned truck?
When Rose Valland met Monuments Man James Rorimer, his dedication to his duty, his passion for the art, and his love of everything French convinced her that she could trust him with her information. Madame Valland gave him what would prove to be the most extraordinary treasure map in the world. While others in the MFAA relied on battlefield interrogations and the evil-devouring-evil backstabbing that the Nazis eventually devolved into to find their own incredible stashes of stolen goods, Rorimer knew just where he was going. He was going here:
That's not a painting, it's a photo of Neuschwanstein castle in Germany. Some of the greatest artistic pieces France had ever known were stacked into piles in the rooms and halls of this enormous castle on a rocky outcropping high in the Bavarian Alps.
As the war was winding down, the men saw their ranks increase as more experts were brought into the field to assist them. They found caves filled with unimaginable treasures, castles stuffed with gold and jewels, and salt mines packed with unbelievable works of art. The men had to disarm explosives that were intended to destroy anything the Nazis couldn't defend. They had to preserve some of the world's most sensitive cultural works from the corrosive elements the Germans had left it in to rot. Some of the miners who were forced to dig the holes these treasures were buried in managed to protected them too, ensuring that the explosives would merely seal the entrances to the troves, rather than destroy their contents. The men of the MFAA worked to retrieve and catalogue every piece of art and every cultural treasure. They sometimes measured it by the ton.
The remarkable thing was that the Monuments Men were searching for all this treasure and saving all of this art for one reason. Not wealth, or greed, or personal gain. For once, there was a conquering army that wasn't interested in keeping the loot they found. They were doing it all to give it back to the people it had been taken from in the first place.
It is easy to roll your eyes and be jaded at phrases like the "Greatest Generation" or the notion that there is any kind of "Good War," to cringe at the concept of American Exceptionalism. Stories like this remind you that sometimes those phrases are true, sometimes those title are earned. The efforts of the Monuments Men not only reflected and revealed American morality, it displayed it for the world to see.
You were struck by one passage in the book. As one of the Monuments Men entered Germany and saw the devastation Allied bombers had wrought there, his enthusiasm for his task was redoubled, "To save the culture of your allies is a small thing," he remarks. "To cherish the culture of your enemy, to risk your life to save it, to give it all back to them as soon as the battle is won... it was unheard of." The Monuments Men eventually saved the bodies of Frederick the Great and his wife and father from destruction at the hands of Nazi fanatics.
Sadly, this lesson has been lost, and the old adage is false. In this case, those who don't know their history were doomed to not repeat it. Shortly after the American military occupied Baghdad in April of 2003, in the vacuum of any authority, the Baghdad Museum was looted by thugs and criminals and some of humanity's oldest archeological and cultural artifacts were stolen, many never to be found again. This was not only a cultural tragedy for the world, civilization began in Iraq after all, but it was a public relations nightmare for the US. Our lack of response to quickly secure the area and prevent the loss of some of the great art and artifacts there made the American military appear to be indifferent to the culture of the nation they had invaded, even though we were claiming to be there to liberate them. Reading "Monuments Men," you could imagine how different recent history might have been if the first looters had been met by armed Humvees sporting American flags, if the US forces had enlisted some of the local population to help them protect the museum. Might the ensuing insurgency in the years to come have been a little less violent, might the warring factions have had fewer disillusioned young men to use for their awful purposes?
Ultimately, however, "Monuments Men" is a rare thing. It is a war story told through the perspective of optimists. No matter the devastation, no matter the destruction, these men found hope in saving what they could. In the rubble of war, they were able to remember human nobility and to save the evidence of that nobility. As millions suffered and died, these men were able to preserve the works of art that bring joy and wonder to millions even today. Where cultures clashed and struggled for domination, these men were able to preserve the proof that the human spirit yearns to express itself through beauty and art and creation. Hope is not a naive idea. There is always reason to hope. Sometimes you just have to know where to look.
On to the next book!
P.S. Here is an NPR story on the Ghent Altarpiece, which was tracked down, rescued, and returned to Belgium (for which Mouments Man, Robert Posey was awarded the Order of Leopold, one of Belgium's highest honors). Click the link for a very clear closeup photo of the piece. It really is exquisite. It has been called "the single most influential painting ever made."
http://www.npr.org/2010/12/25/132283848/is-this-the-worlds-most-coveted-painting
P.P.S. Here is a trailer for the upcoming George Clooney, Matt Damon, John Goodman, Bill Murray movie, because they really are going to make every damn book you have ever read into a movie, aren't they? (And you will go see every one, won't you, you sucker!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CreneTs7sGs
P.P.P.S About a month after you posted this review, news reports started coming out about a treasure trove of art stolen by the Nazis being discovered in an apartment in Munich. It is estimated at being worth over $1 billion. The culprit is the son of a German art dealer who was authorized by Goebbels himself to sell some of the works of art the Nazis had stolen to try to finance the war. Yet another reminder that history didn't happen so very long ago.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/05/arts/design/trove-of-apparently-nazi-looted-art-found-in-munich-apartment.html?_r=0
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/06/arts/design/german-officials-provide-details-on-looted-art-trove.html?_r=0&adxnnl=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1383660336-dZTX7rnP+Il1VTXfvDinFg
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