The Monuments Men

As Hitler was attempting to conquer the western world, his armies were methodically pillaging the finest art in Europe, from Michelangelo and Da Vinci to Van Eycks and Vermeers, all stolen for the Führer.

The Monuments Men had a mandate from President Roosevelt and the support of General Eisenhower, but no vehicles, gasoline, typewriters, or authority. In a race against time to save the world’s greatest cultural treasures from destruction at the hands of Nazi fanatics, each man gathered scraps and hints to construct his own treasure map using records recovered from bombed cathedrals and museums, the secret notes and journals of Rose Valland, a French museum employee who secretly tracked Nazi plunder through the rail yards of Paris, and even a tip from a dentist during a root canal.

These unlikely heroes, mostly middle-aged family men, walked away from successful careers into the epicenter of the war, risking—and some losing—their lives. Like other members of the Greatest Generation, they embodied the courageous spirit that enabled the best of humanity to defeat the worst.

This is their story.

The Monuments Men will be published in sixteen countries, and is also available as an audio book.