Robert Edsel's Blog

Today, The Monuments Men Year-End Newsletter for 2009 was released to the general public. Inside this newsletter, you can read about the various creative content we have produce, our ongoing engagement with the public through the media to bring much need attention to the Monuments Men, the various honors bestowed upon the Monuments Men Foundation, and all the incredible memories bringing this story to life.  Many thanks to all that have worked on this project through the years.

Please take a minute to read the The Monuments Men Year-End Newsletter.

If you would like to sign up for future newsletters, please click here (fill out form on the right side to submit).

With veteran John Pistone during our first visit

Today the Monuments Men Foundation announced the discovery of an album containing photographs of Hitler’s most beloved works of art by German painters destined for his Führermuseum in Linz, Austria.  This item, formally called the Gemaldegalerie Linz Album XIII, was taken by an American soldier from Hitler’s home in Berchtesgaden in early May, 1945.  The veteran, Mr. John Pistone, in a wonderful act of grace, has worked with the Monuments Men Foundation to identify what the album was and it’s return to Germany.

For the full story please click on the link to the Associated Press story. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_hitler_s_album)

Today’s news was extraordinarily well received.  In fact, it was the most popular, most viewed and most emailed news article on Yahoo! today.  I hope and believe that this news, and the example set by Mr. Pistone, will bring the much needed visibility to our efforts to finish the mission of the Monuments Men and assist others who may be in the possession of items “liberated” or stolen during the World War ll period.

Monuments Men Foundation Announces that Famous Murillo Paintings Stolen from Rothschild Family in Paris, later discovered by the Monuments Men during World War II, have been Identified at SMU’s Meadows Museum

Dallas, TX (October 22, 2009) — Based on new evidence about the systematic looting of art from Jewish owners in the course of hostilities in Europe during World War II, a pair of famous paintings on display at SMU’s Meadows Museum created by Spanish master Bartolome Esteban Murillo (1618-1682) of Seville’s Patron Saints Justa and Rufina, estimated to be worth more than $10 million, are believed to have been stolen from the Rothschild family in Paris in 1941. The Nazi ERR (Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg) code evidencing Rothschild ownership is still visible on the stretcher bar of one of the paintings; it appears to have been rubbed off the other. The Monuments Men Foundation, recipient of the 2007 National Humanities Medal for its work preserving the legacy of these unknown heroes, which it received from the President of the United States at a White House ceremony, is continuing its research to document conclusively whether both paintings were properly restituted to the rightful owners prior to donation to the Meadows Museum.

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German poet Heinrich Heine said: “Das war ein Vorspiel nur, dort wo man Bucher verbrennt, verbreent man auch am Ende Menschen.” (“This was only foreplay. Where books are being burned there will eventually be humans burned.”)  That was in 1821!!!!  How did he foretell the events that 110 years later would lead to the greatest war the world has ever known?

Of course, the gap between burning books out of fear and ideology and the taking of human lives is thinner than any of us want to consider.  Events in Nazi Germany proved that point in painful detail.  Heine could have also expanded his observation to include the burning of paintings because that, too, was part of Hitler’s determination to influence how people thought, what they believed in, and who they obeyed.

The importance of Heine’s observation is timeless:  they are words of warning to us all…to pay attention…to think for ourselves, and to speak up and act when the very freedoms all people of good will cherish are under attack.

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.

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.

Imagine for a moment the unimaginable:  your family, generations of loved ones who carried the same last name and with it the history of your lineage, killed during a horrific and lengthy war.  All their property was stolen.  You somehow survived.  Years later, while busy building a career, perhaps a family, struggling to make ends meet, you discover a painting that once belonged to your family hanging on someone else’s wall…perhaps a private collector, a museum, or an art gallery.  You may even have a photo of it hanging in your family’s living room before the war, perhaps some documents evidencing their ownership.

When you contact the current owner, you are stonewalled and eventually told – it’s too late.  The statute of limitations has run its course.  You should have filed a claim sooner.  “But I didn’t know where it was…I couldn’t afford an attorney…I didn’t have time to search these databases – I”m trying to raise a family and hold down a job”.  How does that scenario make you feel?

Some today believe, in fact argue strenuously, that enough time has passed.  “After all, the war has been over for almost 65 years”.  They comment that this “thing” can’t continue to drag on and on…it isn’t “fair”.

The truth is this debate is playing out today in this country and others.  Vocal opponents – very influential people – argue enough is enough….bring an end to these claims.

I want to know what you think, how you feel about this debate.  Please send me your comments.  I’ll share them with you in a future blog along with my thoughts on the debate.

Chief Archivist of the United States, Professor Allen Weinstein and Robert M. Edsel standing before one of the two "Hitler Albums" (Photo Courtesy of Robert M. Edsel Collection)

Hundreds of thousand of works of art and millions of cultural treasures, including library books, manuscripts, and religious objects, stolen by Hitler and the Nazis, or taken by others during World War ll, remain missing.  The collective value of these items is well into the billions of dollars! Does anyone really believe they were all destroyed during the war?

Two years ago we located the Hitler Albums, two albums filled with photographs of paintings stolen by the Nazis from French collectors, many of whom were Jewish, that were presented to Adolph Hitler for his enjoyment and selection of the best works for his Führermuseum in Linz.  These albums were found in his home – the Berghof – in Berchtesgaden by an American soldier and taken as war booty.  They had been sitting in the attic of his home ever since.

Years later they surfaced when a family member contacted us seeking assistance with determining what they were and their importance. In time they expressed a desire for us to put them to their best use.  We – me personally and the Monuments Men Foundation for the Preservation of Art – subsequently donated them to the National Archives at a ceremony in Washington in 2007.  Allen Weinstein, Chief Archivist of the United States, hailed their discovery as “the most significant find related to Hitler’s premeditated theft of art and other cultural treasures to be found since the Nuremberg trials.”

I believe there are many more such albums that will surface in the coming years along with missing paintings, drawings, books, and tens of thousands of other items displaced by the war or stolen during those years.  As the World War II generation passes, their belongings will be distributed to family members and, in many cases, sold.  During this sorting and identification process, many missing items from the war will surface.

The internet is also proving invaluable in helping both claimants and others seeking to find such stolen items recover their belongings.  Still, there is much to be done, by certain governments, museums, collectors, even the public at large.  It begins, however, with a far greater public awareness of the volume and importance of what is missing from World War II.

Everyone can participate!  Everyone can help us write the final chapter to this amazing story, the final chapter to this part of World War II, and in so doing, complete the mission of the Monuments Men.

To learn more about how you can help please contact me.

(The Rose Art Museum)

Times are tough. Many people and institutions considered “invulnerable” are struggling to survive. Most everyone is considering ways to adjust to our new economic times. But what the heck are the people at Brandeis University thinking to announce that they are closing their university art museum — the Rose Art Museum — and selling the more than 6,000 works of art in its collection to make ends meet? Have we so digressed as a society that we’re going to cannibalize culture? Rather, we should be doing everything possible to find ways to PROTECT culture in such times as it is one of the few things that sooths our souls amidst the all too often depressing news with which we are bombarded daily.

Last year I spoke to a very bright group of graduate students — both law and art majors — who asked excellent questions at the end of my lecture. One was predictable: “If you were in our position, finishing graduate school, what would you do differently than we’re doing? My reply: “Take a year off, travel around the world, learn a language, see how the world lives, visit museums and cathedrals and experience a world unfamiliar to you…in short, get a great real world liberal arts education.” I immediately heard several people say in unison: “But we’d be behind if we did that…”, to which I replied, “No, you’ll be ahead.” I was trying to make a point based on my life experiences which was this: no matter how rich, healthy or lucky you are, life finds all of us. By the time we’re 50 years old, half the marriages will have failed at least once; most of us will have lost at least one parent and perhaps both, maybe even a close friend or sibling; we’ll have personal setbacks of unknown types; perhaps we have a great job but we find ourselves correctly observing that there must be more to life than just work and making money; or perhaps we are dissatisfied with work and our career and it is misery leaving us asking ourselves about what to do with the remaining years of our lives. And the one thing from my vantage point that adds some sanity to all this, that sooths MY soul, that comforts me and inspires me and reminds me that the world is much bigger than me and my problems is art….a moving piece of music…a painting that sweeps me off my feet…reading something inspirational such as Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address or General Eisenhower’s Guild Hall speech in London after the end of the war. These and more help remind me that tomorrow won’t seem so bad; they help bring into focus that it is a big world out there with big ideas and people who have overcome odds that no one in their right mind would have taken. The Louvre isn’t just an art museum; the Duomo in Florence isn’t just a towering cathedral; the Grand Canyon isn’t just a gorge; and Beethoven’s 9th Symphony isn’t merely a piece of music. They all offer us a chance to escape on the one hand, and transcend what ails us on the other. They renew our spirit…without alcohol, drugs, or any negative stimulus. What’s that worth? Is it worth protecting? Preserving? Promoting?

I hope reason prevails at Brandeis. I haven’t visited that particular museum but I know the donors who made sacrifices of their time and hard earned financial rewards have every intention of giving back to others the “good medicine” that had nursed them and inspired them during their lives. Their generosity surely wasn’t intended as an “ace in the hole” for a rainy day. And once this type thing begins, where does it end? What cultural treasure will be next? Are we too busy as a nation to care? Are we too callous to see that it’s not always just about money…that the arts don’t have a price…like love and the other elements that give life meaning, they are priceless?

Not since 1966 have floodwaters battered this unique jewel of civilization so forcefully, but the city of Venice and its citizens are coping. The normal flood level is set at 40 inches, but high tides raised the water level to as high as 61 inches on Monday. They have since receded to 39 inches making it the fourth highest flood level in contemporary times. Normally local officials are able to erect wooden platforms to aid pedestrians in their movements and allow businesses to continue operations as much as possible. But on this occasion the flood waters rose so quickly that such preparations weren’t possible leaving memorable scenes of tables and chairs floating in the Piazza San Marco. These images, courtesy of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, show the day to day reality for those living in or visiting the beautiful city of Venice.

Construction began five years ago on the Moses Project, a series of offshore dams designed to mitigate and hopefully prevent such flooding. However, this $5.5 billion project won’t be complete before 2011—and by my experience living in Italy for five years, that date sounds very optimistic! Global warming is the explanation always offered by Italian officials when explaining the cause of this problematic reality of life in Venice. Of course, the construction of the city on this marshy lagoon perhaps wasn’t the greatest of ideas in the first place. Still, the beauty and romance of this one of a kind city is inarguable and represents one of man’s great creative achievements in city design. It is a magical place all people who enjoy travel should one day visit.

(A woman walks past the Doge’s Palace (on the right) towards St. Mark’s Basilica.

Photo courtesy of Andrea Pattaro/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images; WSJ.)

(A man wades past shops decorated for Christmas.

Photo courtesy of Andrea Pattaro/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images; NYT.)

(People walk on a flooded quay of the Grand Canal.

Photo Courtesy of Andrea Pattaro/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images; NYT.)

(Duncan Zuur, of the Netherlands, took full advantage of a flooded Venice Canal on Tuesday, December 2, 2008.

Photo Courtesy of Joerg Mitter/Euro-Newsroom.com via Reuters; WSJ.)