The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History by Robert M. Edsel (PDF)

Description

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 Momuments 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.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐I knew the basics of the MFAA group but this book took me deep into the history of these people who saved most of the greatest pieces of art in the world from the Ghent Alter Screen and the Mona Lisa to millions of other works looted by the Nazis. To say they preserved the culture of Europe is not an exaggeration. It is a shame that the US wasn’t as wise when the antiquities and art of Iraq was looted. In speaking of forging a post-war relationship as victors, monuments officer Edith Standing said, “It is not enough to be virtuous, one must also appear to be so.” Appearing to be so may well have kept some of the wholesale hatred toward the conquerors from fomenting in the Middle East as Americans stood by while museums were looted. We watched it on TV. General Eisenhower took steps to save European art and culture even as the final months of WWII raged. In this he was wise.

⭐This book clearly could have been another 200 pages and it still would have kept me interested. I was a little weary at first of reading this book when I considered how many reviews had been completed ahead of me. Ironically, on my old spreadsheet/workbook I used to keep – this book was placed there on the “old list” in 2010. It would seem now it has notoriety as a result of the movie that is currently in movie theatre’s around the country. Lieutenant George Stout was a U.S. Navy Officer assigned to the U.S. First and Twelfth Army; a simple annotation to his rank and photo in the beginning of the book would have been appreciated – I kept looking at the “rail road tracks” on his helmet and couldn’t understand why he was being called “Lieutenant” when I believed him to be “Captain”. Blame this small find on my USMC mentality for military detail; it really is no big deal to the story line nor the book overall.The first thing I personally thought of before I opened up a page to this book was the Battle for Monte Cassino. This battle within the Gustav Line to this day (as with all other parts of the battle for the Gustav Line) simply is a great battle to study and from both the Allied and Axis perspective. Immediately as I dove into the book; and, within the Author’s Note, Edsel discusses the need for a book to be written by him on this topic specifically for the Italian Campaign. Happily for me he at least discusses the Battle of Monte Cassino early on (and to no great depth)which was well versed and accountable at least from my personal level. What he failed to mention within these few pages was how the Abbey was destroyed twice before the Second World War, and I speculate he will save that detail for the book on Italy and Italian Art. A small reference of two or three sentences could have been worthy, but I don’t want to be too critical of a book that was simply terrific!As with good books on the Second World War one must be critical of the maps that are included. The maps in this book and given this topic are highly appropriate. The maps provide the reader a chance to see from a higher level what the difficulties were geographically with no less than a mere one dozen people doing a job while more than 1 million service members were confronted in combat operations across Europe.The truly fascinating part of this book and historical account of course are the people involved, the art they attempted to locate and save, and the many locations they had to travel into while destruction was occurring in around them at the time of discoveries. The author included relevant photo’s of both art and personnel, and provided the historical flash backs where appropriate to the history of the location where the art piece was made, ended up into, and stolen away from by the Nazi Regime. The additional part for me that was interesting was reading of the First Canadian Army as they treked across Belgium under Montgomery’s 21st Army Group – my 11 year old Father at the time was about to be rescued with his family, his town, and their lives – some of the things I have heard from Dad are literally unbelievable; I myself am a decorated US Marine Veteran.Edsel provided me with clarity of purpose, poise in prose, and sadness in death while feeling relief in “discovery” of the many faceted art pieces for mankind. He has promised to write a book on Italy and I will accept his word – I hope he would consider one for the Pacific Theatre of Operations as well in the future. The book ends with a follow up to the lives of the Allied players and Axis thieves – it was a terrific ending to a book well worth the read.*** Movie – entertaining – historically off – points of major works and gold captured likely will make interest in some to read more about the stolen treasures; that’s my hope anyway. Movie “based on a true story” as indicated in the beginning. ***

⭐This book has taken some time for me to read, but for no other reason than it has been somewhat painful to consider in such detail how ruthless Hitler and his minions were during the World War II. I first learned about the book during a public lecture by Robert M. Edsel at the McNay Museum in San Antonio in May, 2013.On a personal note, I secured a Master’s Degree in art history several years ago. But admittedly, I missed this critical chapter in museum and art conservation history. I had not been made aware that such an organized, impressive, and inspiring effort had been undertaken to save the cultural treasures of Europe.By way of background, the Monuments Men were men and women from several nations who served in the “Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives” section of the Allied effort. They were museum directors, curators, art scholars and educators, artists, architects, and archivists, who supported the war effort in their own specialized ways.Robert M. Edsel suggests one of the Monuments Men – Walker Hancock – must have been thinking while viewing Rembrandt’s “The Night Watch” rolled-up and in storage, “war is strange.” This sums my feelings up as well.Robert quotes a statement by General Eisenhower in May, 1944, shortly before the invasion of northern Europe. It sheds light on why Americans and others in the Allied Forces should care about the art and architecture of Europe:”Shortly we will be fighting our way across the Continent of Europe in battles designed to preserve our civilization. Inevitably, in the path of our advance will be found historical monuments and cultural centers which symbolize to the world all that we are fighting to preserve. It is the responsibility of every commander to protect and respect these symbols whenever possible.”Certainly the damage inflicted by bombing raids is clear in my mind from historical footage shown on television over the years. But I was shocked to learn of the actions of those ignorant of the importance of art and cultural treasures – whether they be German or American. For instance, the “four lovestruck Americans” who gave important paintings to “young women from a local village” in France. Or the Germans in Dampierre who used the library’s renowned Bossuet letters for toilet paper (the latter thankfully saved and restored). One does hear more often about the lamentable and devious means Hitler and his legions used to abscond with works of art owned by Jewish families, but there is also the looting of museums and cathedrals to be considered. The book details each of these activities in meticulous detail.A poignant description I enjoyed particularly follows:”Inside, two Monuments Men bent over a four-hundred-year-old painting in the faint light of a newly arrived lamp. The first was kneeling to the ground, studying its surface like an archeologist in an Egyptian tomb or a medic with a wounded man. The second hunched behind him, concentrating on his notes. The soldiers, tired and dirty, huddled around them like the shepherds at the manger, staring silently at a painting of expressive faces and peasant villagers and at the two adult men in soldiers’ garb fussing over every square centimeter of its surface.””The Monuments Men” should be required reading for anyone seeking a college degree in art history, museum studies, art conservation and the like. And I also give my own shout of appreciation, “God bless the Monuments Men!”P.S. – For more interesting discussion, you might enjoy this YouTube channel: youtube.com/user/MonumentsMenFndt.

⭐This should have been a great book. The men who searched out the lost works of art that were looted and hidden by the Nazis were dedicated and inventive and they achieved surprising success. The people in occupied territories who kept good records and tried to prevent the wholesale destruction or disappearance of valuable items risked their lives. The whole issue of the looted art works, how they were secreted away, and the issues surrounding them as the fabric of Europe changed after WWII is full of fascinating moments. Sadly this book which seeks to explore all of these elements was not an easy read.The book darts around the cast of characters and I wasn’t always able to keep them straight but there was a good list at the beginning which should have helped. I did find, however, that the author seemed to want to tell me a lot of detail and all in the same tone. It seemed almost like reading a shopping list. I really didn’t get any tension and there was no variable pacing so even though I really wanted to know what happened I actually found myself bored reading what should have been a gripping story.My rating relates to the actually telling of this story. The research and subject matter were worthy of a more exciting and readable presentation.

⭐If you want to know about how the WW2 allies tried to protect artworks and antiquities from the nazis then this book gives a good idea of what happened and there are probably few other books on the subject. However the writing feels a bit amateurish and uneven. The subject matter feels as though it is insufficiently unified and so comes out episodically as a series of unconnected anecdotes.The emphasis is on the US contribution (most war books seem to reflect their author’s nationality) but probably inevitable given that the US contribution was greatest and most of the recovery was done in the US-liberated areas. But it fails to come up to the even-handedness of such books as The Longest Day and the author admits as much in his skating over the allied preservation of Roman cities of North Africa.Overall – not a bad read. Reasonably informative but not specially well written.

⭐I was apprehensive about reading this book due to a lot of the bad reviews it has received here on Amazon.If you liked the film (which I did) you will find the book very different and thus I can understand some of the poorer reviews.Hollywood needs a continuous thread through the film otherwise, the film will be panned and noone will make any money.This book on the other hand makes a very good effort at handling and explaining a very complex subject matter that has nothing to do with the film whatsoever (except for perhaps the principles and the locations involved)All the men worked separately and had their own areas of operation, thus their stories are separate ones, if you wish to interpret this as leading the book to seeming “boring” “disjointed” or badly written then that is your opinion.I personally found it an enjoyable read and well written.4 Stars as I feel the end of the book was rather rushed but overall a good book.

⭐I read this book in record time because it was so fascinating and well written. Having read the excellent book, The Rape of Europa by Lynn H Nicholas, which tells the story of the merciless Nazi plunder and theft of art during the 1930s and WW2, I knew about the staggering quantities of art which were looted both from private Jewish and other collections, and from museums. Hitler and Goring were the worst culprits, and with Nazi efficiency train loads and truck loads of art were hidden to await the time of Nazi victory.This book is the story of the recovery of that art. The Monuments Men were given the huge task of finding these hidden treasures, sometimes in the nick of time before they were destroyed. Few in number, they heroically went into places where sometimes fighting was still going on in order to save treasures.Another reviewer has already noted that British Monuments Men were hardly mentioned, and another slight shortfall was that the original owners of the art and the methods used by the Nazis to loot it were barely mentioned. However, that is all in Lynn Nicholas’ book, which I would say complements this book wonderfully.I recommend this book wholeheartedly to anyone interested in art, and how it has been saved for us to view today.

⭐This is a story that demands a major audience. Hitler’s war placed in jeopardy much of the world’s greatest artwork, and this tells the story of what happened to parts of that art and how efforts were made by the Allies to avoid damaging it and to reclaim stolen art for its true owners.If it were for the subject matter alone, this book would get five stars. Unluckily the story has been told from an almost exclusively American perspective, as if auditioning for a Hollywood screenplay. Americans’ actions are described in an irritatingly folksy way, including many comments from their papers showing their national bigotry (e.g. saying that Roosevelt stood almost alone against the Nazis), while their British colleagues are almost ignored. This may be down to the facts that the author is American and that his admittedly extensive research relies heavily on Americans’ memoirs. Perhaps equivalent British sources don’t exist?Read it for the incredible events contained within and for the passion for art that the author convincingly conveys to the reader, but forgive the style and remember that the Americans weren’t the only people involved.

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