Robert Edsel's Blog

Leningrad, 1942

On this day 68 years ago, the Siege of Leningrad, now known as St. Petersburg, began. Hitler’s plans for the Soviet Union were as simple as the orders he issued: erase it from the face of the Earth.

Leningrad, 1942

As early as September 12, 1941, city officials estimated that the supply of grain, flour and meat for BOTH ARMY AND CIVILIANS alike was a pitiful 40 some days. Rationing began immediately. Compounding the lack of food and other supplies was an exceptionally cold winter. In January and February, 1942, there were 200,000 or so deaths from starvation and freezing temperatures. I have been to St. Petersburg on two occasions and have personally experienced one of their February winters. It is cold unlike anything I have ever known – and I had a full stomach and was dressed for the occasion!

Visitors remembering those who died in the Siege of Leningrad at the Piskariovskoye Cemetery

The Siege, or Blokada as it is known in Russia, would last until January 18, 1944. By that time there would be almost 1 million victims – nearly a third of the population. Not surprisingly, the painful memories of the loss of that many people have left scars on the city and its citizens that are still acutely visible today. One need only visit the local cemetery, Piskariovskoye, to gain a sense of the 900 day nightmare that claimed family members among most everyone living in St. Petersburg today. The cemetery is always populated, often by families with grandparents and grandchildren. It is a deeply moving experience to witness.

A somber moment in the Piskariovskoye Cemetery

Anyone truly interested in understanding the Russian attitude towards returning to Germany works of art taken by Red Army soldiers at the end of World War II must spend time at Piskariovskoye cemetery. Any resolution of that lingering dispute must begin with an understanding of this catastrophic event.

It seems incredible to imagine the Nazis weren’t more concerned with saving themselves in the face of the Western Allied advances that followed the successful landings at Normandy than adding to the vast quantities of stolen works of art they had assembled after more than 5 years of theft.  But in fact, the Bruges Madonna, Michelangelo’s only sculpture to leave Italy during his lifetime, was only the latest in a high profile string of thefts.

The Bruges Madonna, was stolen by Nazi officials on this date 65 years ago from the Notre Dame Cathedral in Bruges, Belgium.  It was no doubt destined to join the other masterpieces stolen by the Nazis for Hitler’s planned Führermuseum in Linz, Austria.  The two ton marble statue, almost life-like in size, was no easy work of art to maneuver.  But out it left, in the middle of the night, for places east, back in the Fatherland.

By the time the Monuments Men arrived in Bruges, just days later, they were astonished to discover it was gone, doubly so that they had missed saving it by a sliver of time.

Find out what happened to the Bruges Madonna, and thousands of other priceless works of art, in my new book, The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History.

I am Harry Ettlinger, the youngest and one of the very, very few WWII Monuments Men still alive.

As we go through life, we keep learning and bring to our minds a great variety of experiences.  Recently I saw a film about the destruction of Buddhist figures by the Taliban in Afghanistan.  It ended with a showing of a banner over the entrance of the Art Museum in the Capital of that country.  Its message: “No nation can exist without culture and history.”

I realize today that as Monuments Men, we started the work to restore the culture taken away by Nazis from hundreds of millions of human beings. Today, we must distribute that important part of history to the billions of men and women in this world.

In a tiny way, I, having been given the privilege of working as a Monuments Man, feel now compelled to aid in spreading the message, so eloquently stated on that banner.

You can start by reading Robert Edsel’s new book The Monuments Men.

Monuments Men Bernard Taper, Harry Ettlinger and Horace Apgar and myself at the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. This preceded the Senate Ceremony honoring these men and women on June 6, 2007. (Photo Courtesy of Robert M. Edsel Collection.)

The outpouring of support and words of encouragement for the launch of The Monuments Men is tremendously gratifying. Thanks go to the hundreds of friends and well-wishers who have contacted me beginning last evening.  No calls and emails have meant more than those I’ve received from the Monuments Men themselves and their kids.  I hasten to add that my publisher, Center Street, a division of Hachette, and our team led by my editor Michelle Rapkin, have thrown their full resources behind this book.  The full force of their effort will be known to all in the coming weeks.

Interviewing my father, a World War II veteran of the Pacific, at the World War II Memorial. (Photo Courtesy of Robert M. Edsel Collection.)

An undertaking such as the epic telling of these heroes’ story and, to a degree, the illumination of a critical seam to a distinct but major new understanding of World War II and the role of art does not cause an overnight result.  A friend wisely commented to me yesterday, it is a marathon race, not a sprint.  Endurance and steadfastness are critical components of the endeavor.

It continues to be my honor to represent these heroes and their families and to share their stories with people around the world.  I hope you will tell others about their story….that word of mouth recommendation is where the battle will be won!

Tomorrow begins the realization of more than 7 years of work:  publication of my new book entitled The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History. This is the narrative telling of these heroes’ stories through the experiences of just 8 men and 1 woman–the unlikeliest of spies–who are in a race with time to save the greatest cultural treasures from Nazi fanatics.  The book can be ordered online and will be in bookstores nationwide.  It is being published in more than 16 languages, and will also be available as an audio book.  I hope you will read the amazing stories of the men and women which I have told using their letters home to loved ones written during combat.

Harry Ettlinger speaking at the Hope for Humanities Dinner in Dallas, November 2008. (Photo Courtesy of Robert M. Edsel Collection.)

This Friday we will have the first of many Guest Blogs…appropriately, the first guest blogger will be Monuments Man Harry Ettlinger.  Harry figures prominently in The Monuments Men.  He provides a fresh insight into these events and speaks eloquently as to why this part of history is so vitally important.

Please check it out this Friday!

In the course of research for my new book, The Monuments Men, and while filming The Rape of Europa, I had a chance to get to know the country of Poland and its remarkable people. During the period we were filming in both Cracow and Warsaw, I took a couple of days off to visit some other sites, in particular Auschwitz…the ghastly site of the concentration camps where millions of Jews and other victims of Hitler’s “final solution” were murdered.

When visiting such places, I go with a mind full of images and stories I have seen and heard, eager to merge them with the physical experience of being there. No matter how many images a person sees of Warsaw and the devastation it experienced as a consequence of World War II, it doesn’t really take hold until you walk the streets of the city, look into people’s eyes (especially those of the children), and see the great attractions which illuminate so well the history of the city and its citizens. This was my experience in Warsaw, a beautiful city today but one that looked like the pock-marked surface of the moon after the Nazis lade waste to it as they fled. You can’t believe the city is the same place.

One image that spoke volumes about how determined the Nazis were to destroy not just the Polish people’s lives and property but also the very soul of the nation and its values concerns the statue of the great music composer Frederic Chopin. This remarkable sculpture was unveiled in Lazienki Park in 1926. During summer, piano recitals are held at the foot of the monument. Note its scale by focusing on the people sitting on the bench to the left in the photo below. This is how it appears to visitors today.

The bronze monument to Poland's greatest musician, Frederic Chopin, was designed by Waclaw Symanowski and erected in Warsaw in 1910.

However, in 1941, a little more than a year after the Nazi invasion of Poland, the statue was dissected by the Nazis and placed on a flatbed railcar for transport to a smelter. This was but just one of enumerable acts by Hitler and the Nazis to destroy the most treasured cultural icons of each conquered city. In Russia notable such examples were the homes of the great poet Pushkin, and the remarkable composer Peter Tchaikovsky

Fryderck Chopin Monument cut up on rail car. (Photo Courtesy of National Archives and Records Administratiion.)

When I boarded the plane to depart Poland, I couldn’t help but admire so deeply the courage and fortitude of the Polish people. The Poles were the first victims of the Nazi invasion on this day 70 years ago. By war’s end more than 6 million Poles had died. Nazi Concentration camps had been built throughout the country at which millions of innocent people were murdered. The list of horrifying events that took place during World War II seems endless. Yet through it all, the Polish people found the will not just to survive, but to flourish. Their determination to rebuild their great cities and society as it was before the war is a living testament to the pride they have for the great history of Poland, and their courage and determination to triumph.