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Left to Right: Generals Bradley, Patton, and Eisenhower (Photo Courtesy of National Archives)

Their sense of disconnection was palpable:  billions of dollars (in today’s currency) of gold bars and bagged coins sat stacked in one chamber adjacent to some of the world’s greatest works of art. Chests filled with gold fillings pulled from the mouths of murdered victims of the Nazi genocide sat idle, not yet smelted into bars to sit atop the Reichsbank horde.  Suitcases of silverware, another reminder of property stolen along with the lives of the owners, lined several walls.

General Eisenhower at Ohrdruf Concentration Camp (Photo Courtesy of National Archives)

Later that afternoon, the generals visited Ohrdruf, the first Nazi work camp liberated by American forces. Strewn before them were the corpses of the dead and emaciated figures of those near death.  General Patton, old “Blood and Guts”, had to lean against the side of one of the bunkhouse sheds as he was sick to his stomach from the horrors and stench of what he was witnessing.

President Franklin Roosevelt attending Yalta Conference in February 1945, less than 2 months before he died. (Photo Courtesy of Wikipedia Commons)

After dinner, as the generals returned to their respective tents, General Patton overheard on the BBC the announcement of President Roosevelt’s death earlier that day.  At age 63, 12 years into his presidency, having led the nation through its most perilous fiscal crisis and a world war, Roosevelt was gone. He did not live to see the fruits of his leadership – victory – which would follow 26 days later in Europe, and 125 days later in Japan.

April 12, 1945:  a day that had momentous implications for our nation, the world, and the Monuments Men.

Prior to World War II, he was graduated from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1940 and then began working as a sculptor.  After completing his military service, Sponenburgh attended the Ecôle des Beaux Arts in Paris. He later received an AM from the University of Cairo in 1952 and his Master’s from the University of London in 1957. In 1970, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from the National Council of Arts.

Sponenburgh’s artistic career spanned many decades.  As a sculptor, Sponenburgh’s works focused on the relationships of nature to art, which in his eyes “glorify one another,” and particularly those of animals, the sea, and natural phenomena. Found objects and natural materials of the northwest also repeatedly appeared in his sculptures. One of his earliest works, Madonna in Walnut, received an award in 1941 at the annual exhibition of Michigan artists, and may now be seen at the Detroit Institute of Art.  Eternus, a bronze relief sculpture of waves, was installed in 1985 at the Yaquina Head Lighthouse in Oregon.

Sponenburgh also had a remarkable career as an educator. From 1946 to 1956 he was a professor at the University of Oregon and then spent the next year as a visiting professor at the Royal College of Arts in London. In 1958, Sponenburgh received a Fulbright research fellowship and taught in Egypt and Pakistan, then taught for two more years at the National College of Arts, Pakistan. While there, he redesigned the academic structure and gave new life to the then 75-year-old institution. It goes largely to Sponenburgh’s credit that today artists of international caliber are emerging from this institution.  He returned to Oregon in 1961 and embarked on a lengthy career at Oregon State University, where he was named Professor Emeritus in 1984. A colleague at OSU referred to him as a “superb lecturer and teacher, and most highly respected by undergraduate and graduate students alike.” He endowed the Sponenburgh Travel Award at the University which is awarded to an advanced graduate student every year. In 1990, Mark and Janeth Hogue Sponenburgh donated their art collection to the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. The collection consists of over 250 Ancient, European, Middle Eastern, and Asian art objects.

I had the pleasure of visiting with Mark at his seaside cottage on two occasions, the latter accompanied by a good friend of ours, John Olbrantz, director of the HFM.  Mark lived the fullest of lives right up to the moment of his passing.  Our conversations resembled travel tags of the world as we asked each other, “Have you been to ….?”  Wonderful stories always followed, his the more fascinating.  This soft-spoken World War II veteran and Monuments Man will be missed by the many lives he touched.  With his passing there are now just six living Monuments officers.

by Matt Goldberg Posted: October 29th, 2012

George Clooney has lined up an incredible cast for his next film, Monuments Men. As we previously reported, the story centers on a group of art experts selected by the U.S. Government to chase down the stolen art of Europe during World War II. Aside from the terrific premise, Clooney, who co-wrote the film with partner Grant Heslov, will star alongside a cast that includes Daniel Craig, Jean Dujardin, Bill Murray, and Cate Blanchett. Dujardin, Murray, and Blanchett had previously been mentioned in connection with the film, and Craig is a strong addition along with other new cast members John Goodman, Bob Balaban, and Downton Abbey‘s Hugh Bonneville.

	According to Deadline, filming is set to begin on March 1st, and Alexandre Desplat will be handling the score. The rest of the crew from Argowill be on board as well, because this movie wasn’t sounding awesome enough.
	Here’s the synopsis for the source material, Robert M. Edsel‘s non-fiction novel The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History
	At the same time Adolf Hitler was attempting to take over the western world, his armies were methodically seeking and hoarding the finest art treasures in Europe. The Fuehrer had begun cataloguing the art he planned to collect as well as the art he would destroy: “degenerate” works he despised.
	In a race against time, behind enemy lines, often unarmed, a special force of American and British museum directors, curators, art historians, and others, called the Monuments Men, risked their lives scouring Europe to prevent the destruction of thousands of years of culture

Focusing on the eleven-month period between D-Day and V-E Day, this fascinating account follows six Monuments Men and their impossible mission to save the world’s great art from the Nazis. [Amazon]

As reported by Matt Goldberg on Collider.com:http://collider.com/daniel-craig-george-clooney-monuments-men/206982/

(James Reeds, second from the left and standing up, and the Monuments Men being honored at the Congressional Resolution Ceremony on June 6, 2007)

Monuments Man Jim Reeds has passed away at the age of 91. Reeds began his service with the Monuments Fine Arts and Archives in France under the direction of Monuments officers Lt. Comdr. George Stout and Maj. Bancel LaFarge. He was one of the earliest members of the MFAA. Following the Allied victory, Reeds was stationed at Wiesbaden, Germany and at U.S. Forces European Theater Headquarters in Frankfurt-Hoechst. As chief clerk for the office, Sergeant Reeds responded to incoming messages regarding works of art that had been discovered in the field. After his discharge from the U.S. Army, he then accepted a position as a medical supply officer for Allied Military Government working as a civilian.

Prior to his military service, Reeds was a pre-medical student at the University of Iowa. His knowledge of the German language placed him in the Army Specialized Training Program as an interpreter. He resumed his college education upon returning home from Germany. In 1947 he graduated with a B.A. in German. He received his M.A. in German in 1949, and later his M.A. in linguistics and a Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Michigan, in 1959 and 1967, respectively.

From 1952 to 1958, Reeds taught at Penn State, and spent the 1956-57 school year as a Fulbright teacher in Detmold, Germany. He worked at the University of Michigan and the University of Detroit while studying for his Ph.D. From 1966 to 1969 he taught as an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee. Reeds began his long career at the University of Missouri –Kansas City in 1969, and was named associate professor emeritus upon his retirement in 1990. He traveled to Poland in 1984 to teach as a Fulbright Professor at the University of Lodz. Reeds later moved to Kansas City,Missouri with his wife Hedy, whom he met while serving in the MFAA.

(James Reeds,  second from the left, Robert Edsel, the Monuments Men and President George W. Bush at the 2007 National Humanities Medal Ceremony at the White House)

On June 6, 2007, the 63^rd anniversary of D-Day, Jim was one of four Monuments Men who attended the ceremony at the United States Senate to celebrate the unanimous passage of Resolutions by both Houses of Congress that for the first time honored the service of the Monuments Men. Later that year, Jim and three other Monuments Men returned to Washington on the occasion of the Monuments Men Foundation’s receipt of the National Humanities Medal from President Bush. Prior to the medal presentation, the Sergeant-at-Arms read aloud the citation: “For sustained efforts to recognize the contributions of the scholar-soldiers of the Second World War. Our civilization is forever indebted to a handful of men and women who, in an era of total war, rescued and preserved a precious portion of the world’s heritage.”

Seeing Jim and the other Monuments Men receive these long overdue tributes filled everyone in attendance with joy. A long held dream was realized. I will always treasure the memories of those days, especially the opportunity to befriend Jim and his lovely wife, Hedy.

With the passing of James Reeds, there are now just seven living Monuments officers.

George Clooney, Robert Edsel, and Grant Heslov

This summer marks the fifth anniversary of the founding of the Monuments Men Foundation for the Preservation of Art, an organization founded to preserve the historic legacy of the men and women who served in the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives section during World War II. The announcement of this organization took place on June 6, 2007, the 63rd anniversary of the D-Day landings, at the United States Senate on the occasion of Resolutions unanimously passed by both Houses of Congress that for the first time honored the service of these heroes of civilization: the Monuments Men. Four Monuments officers joined us for that special occasion and represented the other 345 officers of thirteen nations who served this great cause.

Since that time, the Foundation has been honored in numerous ways including its receipt of the National Humanities Medal, our nation’s highest honor for work in the humanities field, presented by the President of the United States during a ceremony at the White House.  The small staff of the Monuments Men Foundation has worked tirelessly to identify those who served as Monuments officers; facilitating the recovery and restitution of important cultural items; working with museums and collectors to help them continue historical research of items in their collections; creating an educational program to teach about the work of the Monuments Men; and sharing this story to help raise public awareness about their important contributions during World War II. The publishing of my two books on the Monuments Men – Rescuing Da Vinci, and The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History – have reached readers in more than eighteen languages.

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(George Clooney, Robert Edsel and Grant Heslov)

June 6 is the sixty-eighth anniversary of the D-Day landings that marked the beginning of the Western Allied invasion of German-occupied northwestern Europe. About 160,000 Allied soldiers came ashore that day, almost half Americans, many braving a hailstorm of bullets, artillery, and mines. The blood stained beaches of Normandy, France served as a testament of their heroism.  9,387 American men, many just teenagers, are buried at the American Cemetery located on the once German-held ridge above Omaha Beach where they fell.  Those that survived would carry the memory of their fallen comrades with them into Germany as they liberated the people of Europe – and those in the death camps – from the tyranny of Hitler and Nazism.

By July 4, the Allies had put ashore more than one million soldiers including a forty-six year-old art restorer named George Stout, the man who more than any other developed the idea that lead to the creation of the Monuments Men.  This handful of cultural preservation officers worked alongside troops to protect churches, museums and other historic structures from the destruction of war, in particular by Allied forces.  Soon their efforts would concentrate on locating some of the millions of cultural objects – paintings, sculpture, church bells, library books, and religious objects – stolen by the Nazis.  In the course of their journey two Monuments officers would be killed during combat.  Their mission would survive the war’s end by almost six years.  By 1951, the Monuments Men had returned more than five million stolen objects to the countries from which they’d been taken.

(Monuments Men Bernard Taper, James Reeds, Harry Ettlinger, and Horace Apgar remembered for their efforts for saving Europe's art during World War II at the Congressional Resolution Ceremony on June 6, 2007)

Today is the fifth anniversary of the founding of the Monuments Men Foundation for the Preservation of Art, an organization I founded to preserve the historic legacy of the men and women who served in the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives section during World War II.  The announcement of this organization took place at the United States Senate on the occasion of Resolutions unanimously passed by both Houses of Congress that for the first time honored the service of these heroes of civilization.  Four Monuments officers joined us for that special occasion and represented the other 345 officers of thirteen nations who served this great cause.

Since that time the Foundation has been honored in numerous ways including its receipt of the National Humanities Medal, our nation’s highest honor for work in the humanities, presented by the President of the United States at a ceremony in the White House.  The publishing of my two books on the Monuments Men – Rescuing Da Vinci, and The Monuments Men:  Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History – have reached readers in more than eighteen languages.

Many wonderful consequences that will further honor these heroes have since accrued.  My new book – Saving Italy – about the efforts of the Monuments Men in the cultural cradle of civilization, will be published next year.  Soon The National World War II Museum will construct a permanent exhibit about the Monuments Men as part of its Liberation Pavilion.  And work is underway by George Clooney and Grant Heslov on their film, based on my last book about the Monuments Men, which will reach a global audience.  These developments ensure that these heroes’ legacy will forever be known and honored.  Their service expands our understanding of the achievements of “The Greatest Generation.”  This day reminds all people who enjoy freedom, and the arts, of the debt we owe the men and women who struggled so mightily to defeat the greatest threat to civilization of the twentieth century.

Today marks the 67th anniversary of the announcement formally ending World War II in Europe, the most destructive war in history. With the announcement came the end of the Third Reich and the rule of Adolf Hitler. May 8 forever became known as “V-E Day”: Victory in Europe.

As we mark this anniversary, we have the opportunity afforded us by the passage of time to consider how different our world would be had it not been for  the historic orders issued by General Eisenhower which established, clearly and succinctly, the policy of the western Allies concerning the protection of cultural treasures during combat.  This was the first time an army attempted to fight a war while mitigating damage to monuments and other artistic treasures.

On December 29, 1943 during combat operations in Italy, and again prior to the D-Day landings in Normandy, General Eisenhower issued historic orders that stated, “We are bound to respect those monuments so far as war allows.” The primary instruments of that policy were a small group of men and women of the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives section, known as “Monuments Men”—museum directors, curators, artists, architects and librarians who volunteered for service to protect monuments from damage, and effect temporary repairs.  These “scholar soldiers” changed our world by preserving it.  Imagine: most every museum in Europe emptied of its contents, closed for almost six years. It was the greatest upheaval of cultural treasures in history! Near war’s end, the Monuments Men located millions of stolen paintings, books, tapestries, and other artistic treasures which had been hidden in salt mines, caves, castles and other Nazi hideouts.  By 1951, the Monuments Men had returned more than five million objects to the countries from which they had been stolen. In a break with thousands of years of history and with conquerors past, the policy of the western Allies was clear: “To the victors do NOT belong the spoils of war.”

We continue to live with the altered legacy of Hitler and the Nazis. Sixty million lives lost; destruction on a scale unknown to man before or since; irreplaceable parts of the civilization of our planet lost forever. But right and goodness prevailed; much of civilization did survive, all at an enormous cost. We honor the sacrifices of others by learning from these experiences and not repeating their mistakes. We honor them by remembering. I think of my father today, a World War II veteran of the Pacific, who died four years ago. Thank you to my Dad, and to the men and women who served alongside of him for saving our world.

(Generals of the German High Command signing the formal surrender documents which ended the war in Europe on May 7, 1945. From left to right: Major General Wilhelm Oxenius, an aide to General Jodl; Colonel General Gustav Jodl, Chief of Staff of the German Army; and General Admiral Hans Georg von Friedeburg, Commander in Chief of the German Navy)

Yesterday in a speech for Holocaust Remembrance Day, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta praised the work of the Monuments Men, and described Col. Seymour Pomrenze as a “hero.” Col. Pomrenze, who passed away last year, was the first Director of the Offenbach Archival Depot. He was instrumental in the restitution of thousands of looted archives. I agree with Secretary Panetta: Col. Seymour Pomrenze was a hero, as were all of the Monuments Men!

(The Monuments Men Foundation received the National Humanities Medal in 2007.
Col. Seymour Pomrenze is 3rd from the right)

Left to Right: Generals Bradley, Patton, and Eisenhower (Photo Courtesy of National Archives)

Having heard about the extraordinary discovery of most all of Nazi Germany’s gold reserves and paper currency, along with its vast cultural wealth from Berlin’s greatest museums and libraries, in a salt mine in Merkers, Germany, Generals Eisenhower, Patton and Bradley left SHAEF headquarters in Rheims, France and made a several day visit to see it firsthand. As the Monuments Men, led by George Stout, were urgently crating the works of art for removal from the mine, the generals descended in a rickety elevator manned by a lone German operator.

Their sense of disconnection was palpable: billions of dollars (in today’s currency) of gold bars and bagged coins sat stacked in one chamber adjacent to some of the world’s greatest works of art. Chests filled with gold fillings pulled from the mouths of murdered victims of the Nazi genocide sat idle, not yet smelted into bars to sit atop the Reichsbank horde. Suitcases of silverware, another reminder of property stolen along with the lives of the owners, lined several walls.

General Eisenhower at Ohrdruf Concentration Camp (Photo Courtesy of National Archives)

Later that afternoon, the generals visited Ohrdruf, the first Nazi work camp liberated by American forces. Strewn before them were the corpses of the dead and emancipated figures of those near death. General Patton, old “Blood and Guts”, had to lean against the side of one of the bunkhouse sheds as he was sick to his stomach from the horrors and stench of what he was witnessing.

President Franklin Roosevelt attending Yalta Conference in February 1945, less than 2 months before he died. (Photo Courtesy of Wikipedia Commons)

After dinner, as the generals returned to their respective tents, General Patton overheard on the BBC the announcement of President Roosevelt’s death earlier that day. At age 63, 12 years into his presidency, having led the nation through its most perilous fiscal crisis and a world war, Roosevelt was gone. He did not live to see the fruits of his leadership – victory – which would follow 26 days later in Europe, and 125 days later in Japan.

April 12: a day that had momentous implications for our nation, the world, and the Monuments Men. (For a more detailed account of this story, please read The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History).