The Monuments Men by Robert M. Edsel
Hancock received the National Medal of Arts (bestowed by the first President Bush) in 1989, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1990. His precious Saima died in 1984; Walker Hancock outlived her by fourteen years, dying in 1998 at the age of ninety-seven, beloved to his last day by all who knew him. He maintained his positive attitude until the end, writing in 1997 at the age of ninety-six, “Although I have lived an exceptionally happy life, continually accompanied by good fortune, I possess, of course, my share of painful memories—some of these tragic ones, indeed. However I have clung to the prerogative—perhaps, in old age, the necessity—of dwelling as little as possible on such subjects.” 29
James Rorimer stayed in Europe until early 1946 as the chief of U.S. Seventh Army/Western Military District MFAA. He then returned to the Metropolitan Museum in New York City, becoming director of the Cloisters, home of the Met’s medieval art collection which as a young curator he had helped establish and build, in 1949. His letters home during the war indicated he was interested in writing a book; after many false starts, Survival, a memoir of his MFAA experiences, was published in 1950. By then the country had been flooded with war memoirs, and the book did not prove popular with the public. It was one of the few disappointments in a life of almost constant achievement. In 1955, James Rorimer, tenacious and hardworking as ever, succeeded Roberts Commission member Francis Henry Taylor to one of the highest positions in the American museum world: director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
In many ways James Rorimer was the right man at the right time—although this was hardly an accident, as men with the energy, ambition, and intelligence of James Rorimer usually find their place in the world. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the United States was transformed from a cultural backwater to the center stage of world culture and the arts. World War II had exposed millions of young American men and women to the art and architecture of Europe and Asia and almost overnight created an interest in and appreciation for the arts that would normally require generations to nurture. The “new” nation of America for the first time—and suddenly—had a broad audience that wanted to learn, to be exposed and thrilled, and to simply enjoy painting, music, and sculpture. The Monuments Men, themselves enlightened by their experiences overseas, were at the forefront of providing their fellow citizens that opportunity. Using the same farsighted vision and diplomatic skills he had showcased during the war, James Rorimer harnessed the nation’s enthusiasm to build on the Met’s world-class reputation, developing its Watson Library into one of the largest art libraries in the country and acquiring some of the most famous pieces in the museum’s collection, such as Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer by Rembrandt and the Annunciation (also known as the Mérode Altarpiece) by the early Netherlandish master Robert Campin. During his tenure, the Met saw an extraordinary surge in attendance from two million to six million annual visitors.
Extremely proud of his service in the MFAA, Rorimer wore his army combat boots almost every day, even to work, and even with tuxedos and suits. It was a terrible loss both to the memory of the Monuments Men and to the art world when he died unexpectedly of a heart attack in his sleep in 1966. He was only sixty years old.
Appropriately, his memorial service was held at his beloved Cloisters, the first such service ever held there. It was attended by more than a thousand of his many friends and admirers, for James Rorimer was renowned around the world. “Steeped in history,” eulogized his friend and fellow Monuments Man Sherman Lee, “he cultivated the virtues of patience and direction. Possessed by the grasp of quality and connoisseurship, he knew and measured the worth of man’s visible heritage and determined, in the midst of constant change, to preserve and enhance that heritage so that it might be visible to anyone with eyes to see.” 30
Rorimer’s own words, however, may summarize his life best. When asked his formula for success, he replied, “A good start, a willingness—even eagerness—to work beyond the call of duty, a sense of fair play, and a recognition of opportunities before and when they arrive. In other words, it is important to find a course and steer it.” 31 He might as well have been describing the MFAA and his role within it.
By the summer of 1946, only two of the original group of Monuments Men remained on the continent: the two who had died there.
Walter “Hutch” Huchthausen, killed in western Germany, was buried in the U.S. military cemetery at Margraten, Holland. In October of 1945, his alma mater of Harvard received a letter from Frieda van Schaïk, who had befriended Hutch while he was stationed with U.S. Ninth Army in Maastricht and was tending to his grave. “After we first met him, several times he visited our home and so he became a very good friend of ours… we have been deeply saddened by the message of his sudden death…. I’d be very pleased if I could come in touch with his family. He is buried at the large U.S. military cemetery at Margraten, Holland (a place 6 miles from where I live) and I have been taking care for his grave…. If you know the address of Walter Huchthausen’s mother, I’ll be much obliged to you if you’d let me know.” 32 One of his bosses at SHAEF wrote his mother saying, “He was so happy in his work when I visited him at Maastricht last February and so proud of what he was able to do. You—as well as the rest of us—can be proud of him. He is a great loss.” 33 Walker Hancock’s observation that “the few people who saw him at his job—friend and enemy—must think more of the human race because of him” had proved true. 34
Ronald Balfour was buried in the British cemetery outside Cleves, Germany. In 1954, his photograph was placed in the city’s restored archives building beside a plaque reading, “Major Ronald E. Balfour, Lector in King’s College of the University of Cambridge, died in action March 1945 near Kloster Spyck. This gentleman saved as British Monument Officer precious medieval archives and items of lower Rhine towns. Honor to his memory.” 35 When Balfour’s mother visited Cleves a year later on the tenth anniversary of his death, the town leaders assured her they kept “the memory of such a man in high esteem” 36 and promised to “do our utmost to take permanent special care of his grave.” 37 It was, no doubt, small comfort for the loss of her son.
The last of the original Monuments Men on active duty in a combat theater was, of course, George Stout. He left Europe for the United States in late July 1945, but only for a two-month leave. He had requested and received a transfer to the Pacific theater. He arrived in Japan in October 1945, where he served as chief of the Arts and Monuments Division at Headquarters of the Supreme Command for the Allied Powers, Tokyo. He left Japan in mid-1946. For his years of service, Stout received the Bronze Star and Army Commendation Medal.
After his tour in Japan, Stout returned briefly to Harvard’s Fogg Museum. In 1947, he became director of the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts, where he served until becoming director of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. The Gardner Museum, which had a static collection, was the ideal job for George Stout.
By the time Stout retired in 1970, he was considered one of the giants in the field of art conservation. He published an article on his early years at the Fogg—heralded by then as “America’s first department of art conservation”—in 1977. In 1978, he was hailed in the trade journals, along with his friend the chemist John Gettens, as one of the “two significant Fogg Founding Fathers” who had ushered in the modern era of conservation. 38 His legacy, another journal proclaimed, was his reconciliation of new technologies with “the aesthetic sensibilities of traditional art restoration and historical scholarship.” 39 He was a modernizer, in other words, who never forgot the importance of the individual people behind the machines.
His service in World War II, meanwhile, remained almost completely unknown. One major reason was that Stout rarely discussed it. When the Smithsonian came to interview him in early 1978 for its Archives of American Art interview collection, Stout simply told the interviewer, in typical understated fashion, that he was drafted for Monuments work and fulfilled his duty like any soldier. He made no mention of the fac
Those who knew him, though, were unequivocal about the significance of his contribution to the MFAA and the preservation of European culture. The military, in its official report, noted that “motivated by the urgency of his task, he spent almost all of his time alone in the field, disregarding comfort and personal convenience… his relationship with the many tactical units with whom he worked were managed with unfailing tact and skillful staff work.” 41 It’s also worth repeating the assessment of Monuments Man Craig Hugh Smyth, who worked with Stout near the end of his tour of duty in Europe: “Stout was a leader—quiet, unselfish, modest, yet very strong, very thoughtful and remarkably innovative. Whether speaking or writing, he was economical with words, precise, vivid. One believed what he said; one wanted to do what he proposed.”
Neither really gets to the truth of Stout’s contributions, or to the esteem and love his fellow Monuments Men felt for him. Their letters and memoirs were full of praise for this tireless, efficient, and likable officer, but Lincoln Kirstein put it best because he put it most bluntly. “[George Stout] was the greatest war hero of all time—he actually saved all the art that everybody else talked about.” 42
Nonetheless, it is not surprising that George Stout’s contribution to the MFAA was never truly appreciated because, in the decades following the war, the MFAA section and its work was itself lost in the fog of history. Part of this was circumstance. The Monuments Men were typical of “the Greatest Generation” and tended to downplay their roles in the war. Since they did not serve as a unit, there was no official history. A few of the men developed and maintained strong ties, but most didn’t know each other well or at all. There turned out to be no single leader who would become emblematic of these self-effacing cultural experts, much less speak of their accomplishments.
Perhaps because of this, the army essentially forgot about the monuments conservation effort. In 1957, Robert Posey volunteered to reenter the army so that he could serve as a Monuments Man in the Korean War. It’s not surprising the army turned him down since he was fifty-three years old and retired from the reserves. But the fact remained that, even if he had been accepted, there was no place for him. There was no dedicated unit equivalent to the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives section in the Korean War, and there hasn’t been one in any war since.
The Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives legacy was immortalized by the words of Monuments officer Edith Standen, who stated that “it is not enough to be virtuous, we must also appear to be so.” 43 Standen understood, just as President Roosevelt and General Eisenhower before her, that first impressions carry lasting significance. All countries ignore the Monuments Men’s legacy at their own peril. For example, several years ago I spoke with one of the key officers in charge of tracking down some of the 15,000 works of art looted from the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad during and following the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. He acknowledged that he had never heard of the Monuments Men.
Today, dedicated Civil Affairs officers and soldiers along with civilian experts, including Colonel Matthew Bogdanos (ret.), Major Corine Wegener (ret.), and Professor John Russell, have gallantly and tirelessly attempted to repair the damage to this great museum, including finding and returning about half of the missing items to date. They also conduct training seminars for troops serving in the Civil Affairs section. But despite their efforts the first impressions of the United States’ experience with handling the aftermath of the looting of the National Museum of Iraq remain indelibly etched in the minds of the public worldwide.
More remarkable, perhaps, even the art community has for decades overlooked the achievements of these extraordinary men and women. After the war, the Monuments Men returned to their home countries and assumed leading roles in major cultural institutions. In the United States, these included the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA, National Gallery of Art, Toledo Museum of Art, Cleveland Museum of Art, Frick Collection, Fogg Art Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco, Yale University Art Gallery, Worcester Art Museum, Baltimore Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Dallas Museum of Art, Amon Carter Museum, and Library of Congress, among others. Monuments Men and their wartime advisors were integral to the creation of two of the most powerful cultural organizations in the nation: the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts. In fact, search the leadership rolls of any major U.S. cultural institution during the 1950s and 1960s and you are almost sure to find a former member of the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives section of the U.S. Army. And yet when I speak to these organizations, few of them are aware that one of their former directors or curators helped to preserve the world’s cultural heritage during and after the Second World War.
Even when the quest to discover and repatriate Nazi-stolen works of art began anew in the 1990s, the Monuments Men and their incredible achievements were mostly overlooked. Occasionally, one was asked to attend a conference, but only if their specific experience was sought. To paraphrase a major player in the restitution movement who attended these conferences, even his dedicated and knowledgeable colleagues failed to notice the treasures standing before them: not the billions of dollars of unrecovered works of art, not the hundreds of thousands of still missing items, but the 350 or so stoop-shouldered veterans of the MFAA section. Even today, news accounts about the recovery or restitution of major works of art almost without exception focus on the dollar value and include the token line “returned after the war by Allied Forces.” In fact, it was the work of the Monuments Men that, time and time again, enabled these restitutions to occur.
In 2007, the Monuments Men finally began to receive a small portion of the recognition they deserve. On June 6, 2007, the sixty-third anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, resolutions in both houses of the United States Congress officially acknowledged for the first time the contributions of the Monuments Men and women of thirteen nations. The resolutions, sponsored by both conservative and liberal members of the House and Senate, passed unanimously.
Soon after, the Monuments Men and their primary advocacy group, the Monuments Men Foundation for the Preservation of Art, were awarded the 2007 National Humanities Medal, which some say is the United States’ equivalent of “knighthood.” Four of the twelve living Monuments Men were able to travel to Washington, D.C., to attend the ceremony, including a spry, eighty-one-year-old Harry Ettlinger. As an enlisted private just out of high school, Harry was twenty years younger than most of the other Monuments Men who served in the war zone.
Unlike almost all the other Monuments Men, Harry Ettlinger did not pursue a career in the arts after the war. He was discharged in August 1946, and upon returning to New Jersey attended college on the GI Bill. He received a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and took a job overseeing the manufacture of Singer sewing machine motors. In the mid-1950s, he switched to the defense industry, eventually working on flight indicators, portable radar systems, sonars, and finally as a deputy program director in the development and production of the guidance system for the submarine-launched Triton missile.
He was also active in veterans groups and Jewish causes. It was from fellow members of the Jewish War Veterans of the USA, in fact, that Harry learned about the work of Raoul Wallenberg, the wealthy Swedish diplomat of Lutheran faith. In 1944, Wallenberg inspired others to help him save the lives of 100,000 Hungarian Jews. In January 1945, he and his chauffeur were taken by the Soviets and were never seen again. After retiring in 1992, Harry co-led a committe
The lower levels of the mine, Harry knew, had been used as factories. The sixty-foot-wide by forty-foot-high chambers had been lined with concrete floors and electric lines to power the machinery. In the Kochendorf mine, one or more chambers had been designed as secret manufacturing centers for the mass production of a crucial Nazi invention: the jet engine. If the Nazis could have gotten the factory at Heilbronn running—they were supposedly just weeks away when the Americans arrived—it might have radically changed the war. This may have been the reason for the defiant stand of the Wehrmacht in the hills above Heilbronn.
In 2001, Harry learned what took place in that Kochendorf mine from two of the few survivors of those terrible days. The physical work at the mine, such as the expansion of the underground chambers, had been performed by fifteen hundred Hungarian Jewish slave laborers sent from Auschwitz to Germany. In September 1944, the British bombed Heilbronn to smithereens, knocking out the power plant and plunging the region into silence and darkness. As the roar of the planes retreated, a chant rose mysteriously from the black belly of the mine. First, it was barely audible. Then it was repeated louder, then a third time louder still, clearly audible this time in the surface world beyond the mine. It was Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, and the Hungarian Jews were chanting the prayer of Kol Nidre. For almost all of them, it was the last time. In March 1945, less than a month before the arrival of the Americans, the slave laborers were shipped to Dachau. Most froze to death during the five-day journey. The others were sent directly to the gas chamber.