Csanky produced several long lists of what the cases contained. He asked
me to sign them. This I refused to do but explained to him through
the general’s wife that if he cared to have the lists translated from
Hungarian and forwarded to Third Army Headquarters, they could be checked
against the contents and eventually returned to him with a notation to
that effect.
Our little convoy rolled out of Grassau at six o’clock, leaving the group
of Hungarians waving forlornly from the corner. Just before we turned
onto the Autobahn, Leclancher signaled from the rear truck for us to
stop. He came panting up to the lead truck with a bottle in his hand.
With a gallant wave of the arm he said that we must drink to the success
of the expedition. It was a bottle of Calvados—fiery and wonderful. We
each took a generous swig and then—with a rowdy “en voiture!”—we were on
our way again. It was a nice gesture.
The trip back to Munich was uneventful except for the extraordinary
beauty of the long summer evening. The sunset had all the extravagance
of the tropics. The sky blazed with opalescent clouds. As we drove into
Munich, the whole city was suffused with a coral light which produced
a more authentic atmosphere of Götterdämmerung than the most ingenious
stage Merlin could have contrived.
It was nearly nine when we rolled into the parking area behind the
Führerbau—too late to think about unloading and also, I was afraid, too
late to get any supper. We had pieced out with K rations and candy bars,
but were still hungry. A mess sergeant, lolling on the steps of the
building, reluctantly produced some lukewarm stew. After we had eaten, I
prevailed on one of the building guards to take my five drivers out to
their billets south of town. It was Saturday night. I told Leclancher we
would probably be making a longer trip on Monday and that I would need
ten drivers. He promised to select five more good men, and we arranged to
meet in the square as we had that morning. But Monday, he promised, they
would be on time.
After checking the tarpaulins on my five trucks, I sauntered over to the
Central Collecting Point on the off-chance that Craig might be working
late. I found him looking at some of the pictures which George had sent
in that day from the mine. The German packers whom Craig had been able to
hire from one of the old established firms in Munich—one which had worked
exclusively for the museums there—had finished unloading the trucks only
a couple of hours earlier. Most of the things in this shipment had
been found at the mine, so now the pictures were stacked according to
size in neat rows about the room. In one of them we found two brilliant
portraits by Mme. Vigée-Lebrun. Labels on the front identified them as
the likenesses of Prince Schuvalov and of the Princess Golowine. Marks
on the back indicated that they were from the Lanckoroncki Collection
in Vienna, one of the most famous art collections in Europe. Hitler was
rumored to have acquired it en bloc—through forced sale, it was said—for
the great museum he planned to build at Linz. In another stack we came
upon a superb Rubens landscape, a fine portrait by Hals and two sparkling
allegorical scenes by Tiepolo. These had no identifying labels other
than the numbers which referred to lists we didn’t have at the moment.
However, Craig said that the documentation on the pictures, as a whole,
was surprisingly complete. Then we ran into a lot of nineteenth century
German masters—Lenbach, Spitzweg, Thoma and the like. These Hitler had
particularly admired, but they didn’t thrill me. I was getting sleepy and
suggested that we had had enough art for one day. I still had a report of
the day’s doings to write up for Captain Posey before I could turn in, so
we padlocked the room and took off.
Even though the next day was Sunday, it was not a day of rest for me.
The trek to Hohenfurth, scheduled for Monday, involved infinitely more
complicated preliminary arrangements than the easy run of yesterday.
Captain Posey got out maps of the area into which the convoy would be
traveling; gave me the names of specific outfits from whom I would have
to obtain clearance as well as escorts along the way; and, most important
of all, supplied information concerning the material to be transported.
None of it, I learned, was cased. He thought it consisted mainly of
paintings, but there was probably also some furniture. This wasn’t too
definite. Nor did we have a very clear idea as to the exact number of
trucks we would need. I had spoken for ten on the theory that a larger
number would make too cumbersome a convoy. At least I didn’t want to be
responsible for more at that stage of the game, inexperienced as I was.
In the circumstances, two seasoned packers might, I thought, come in
handy, so I was to see if I could borrow a couple of Craig’s men. There
was the problem of rations for the trip up and back. Posey procured a big
supply of C rations, not so good as the K’s, but they would do. While at
Hohenfurth we would be fed by the American outfit stationed there. It was
a good thing that there was so much to be arranged, because it kept me
from worrying about a lot of things that could and many that did happen
on that amazing expedition.
In the afternoon I went out to make sure of my trucks and on the way back
put in a bid for the two packers. My request wasn’t very popular, because
Craig was shorthanded, but he thought he could spare two since it was to
be only a three-day trip—one day to go up, one day at Hohenfurth, and
then back the third day. Craig gloomily predicted that I’d never get ten
trucks loaded in one day, but I airily tossed that off with the argument
that we had loaded five trucks at Grassau in less than four hours. “But
that stuff was all in cases,” he said. “You’ll find it slow going with
loose pictures.” Of course he was right, but I didn’t believe it at the
time.
(4)
_MASTERPIECES IN A MONASTERY_
We woke up to faultless weather the following morning, and on the way
down to the Königsplatz with Craig I was in an offensively optimistic
frame of mind. All ten of my trucks were there. This was more like it—no
tiresome mechanical delays. We were all set to go. Leclancher had even
had the foresight to bring along an extra driver, just in case anything
happened to one of the ten. That was a smart idea and I congratulated him
for having thought of it.
It wasn’t till I started distributing the rations that I discovered our
two packers were missing. But that shouldn’t take long to straighten
out. Craig’s office was just across the way. I found them cooling their
heels in the anteroom. They looked as though they had come right out of
an Arthur Rackham illustration—stocky little fellows with gnarled hands
and wizened faces as leathery as the _Lederhosen_ they were wearing. Each
wore a coal-scuttle hat with a jaunty feather, and each had a bulging
bandanna attached to the end of a stick. There was much bowing and
scraping. The hats were doffed and there was the familiar “Grüss Gott,
Herr Kapitän,” when I walked in.
Craig appeared and explained the difficulty. Until the last minute, no
one had thought to ask whether the men had obtained a Military Government
permit to leave the area—and of course they hadn’t. With all due respect
to the workings of Military Government, I knew that it would take hours,
even days, to obtain the permits. So, what to do? I asked Craig what
would happen if they went without them. He didn’t know. But if anyone
found out about it, there would be trouble. I didn’t see any reason why
anyone should find out about it. The men would be in my charge and I said
I’d assume all responsibility.
Meanwhile the two Rackham characters were shifting uneasily from one foot
to the other, looking first at Craig and then at me, without the faintest
idea what the fuss was all about. Craig reluctantly left it up to me. Not
wanting to waste any more time, I told the little fellows that everything
was “in Ordnung” and bundled them off to the waiting trucks.
Again our way led out to the east, the same road we had taken two days
before; and again I was perched up in the lead truck with Double Roger.
The country was more beautiful than ever in the morning sunlight.
We skirted the edge of Chiemsee and sped on through Traunstein. The
mountains loomed closer, their crests gleaming with snow. Roger commented
that it was “_la neige éternelle_,” and I was struck by the unconscious
poetry of the phrase.
To save time we ate our midday rations en route, pulling off to one side
of the Autobahn in the neighborhood of Bad Reichenhall. Farther on we
came to a fork in the highway. A sign to the right pointed temptingly
to Berchtesgaden, only thirty kilometers away. But our road was the one
to the left—to Salzburg. In another few minutes we saw its picturesque
fortress, outlined against the sky, high above the town.
I had to make some inquiries in Salzburg. Not knowing the exact location
of the headquarters where I could obtain the information I needed, I
thought it prudent to park the convoy on the outskirts and go on ahead
with a single truck. It probably wasn’t going to be any too easy, even
with exact directions, to get all ten of them through the narrow
streets, across the river and out the other side. This was where a jeep
would have come in handy. I had been a fool not to insist on having one
for this trip.
Leclancher asked if he might go along with Roger and me. The three of
us drove off, leaving the other nine drivers and the two little packers
to take their ease in the warm meadow beside which we had halted. It
was about three miles into the center of town and the road was full
of confusing turns. But on the whole it was well marked with Army
signs. Before the end of the summer I became reasonably proficient in
translating the cabalistic symbols on these markers, but at that time
I was hopelessly untutored and neither of my companions was any help.
After driving through endless gray archways and being soundly rebuked
by the MPs for going the wrong direction on several one-way streets, we
found ourselves in a broad square paved with cobblestones. It was the
Mozartplatz.
The lieutenant colonel I was supposed to see had his office in one of the
dove-colored buildings facing the square. It was a big, high-ceilinged
room with graceful rococo decorations along the walls and a delicate
prism chandelier in the center. I asked the colonel for clearance to
proceed to Linz with my convoy. After I had explained the purpose of my
trip to Hohenfurth, he offered to expedite the additional clearance I
would need beyond Linz.
He rang up the headquarters of the 65th Infantry Division which was
stationed there. In a few minutes everything had been arranged. The
colonel at the other end of the line said that he would send one of his
officers to the outskirts of the city to conduct us to his headquarters
on our arrival. There would be no difficulty about billets. He would
also take care of our clearance across the Czechoslovakian border
the following day. I thanked the colonel and hurried down to rejoin
Leclancher and Roger.
Since the proposed Autobahn to Linz had never been finished, we had to
take a secondary highway east of Salzburg. Our road led through gently
rolling country with mountains in the distance. I was grateful for the
succession of villages along the way. They were a relief after the
monotony of the Autobahn and also served to control the speed of the
convoy. We wound through streets so narrow that one could have reached
out and touched the potted geraniums which lined the balconies of the
cottages on either side. Laughing, towheaded children waved from the
doorways as we passed by. Roger, intent on his driving, didn’t respond to
the exuberance of the youngsters, and I wondered if he might be thinking
of the villages of his own country, where the invaders had left a bitter
legacy of wan faces.
It was after seven when we reached the battered outskirts of Linz, the
city of Hitler’s special adoration. He had lavished his attention on the
provincial old town, his mother’s birthplace, hoping to make it a serious
rival of Vienna as an art center. To this end, plans for a magnificent
museum had been drawn up, and already an impressive collection of
pictures had been assembled against the day when a suitable building
would be ready to receive them.
We approached the city from the west—its most damaged sector. It was
rough going, as the streets were full of chuckholes and narrowed by piles
of rubble heaped high on both sides. There was no sign of an escort,
so we drew up beside an information post at a main intersection. Our
cavalcade was too large to miss, as long as we stayed in one place.
We waited nearly an hour before a jeep came along. A jaunty young
lieutenant came over, introduced himself as the colonel’s “emissary”
and said that he had been combing the town for us. The confusion of
the debris-filled streets had caused us to take a wrong turn and,
consequently, we had missed the main thoroughfare into town. The
lieutenant, whose name was George Anderson, led us by a devious route
to a large, barrackslike building with a forecourt which afforded
ample parking space for the trucks. Billets had already been arranged,
as promised, but to get food at such a late hour was another matter.
However, by dint of coaxing in the right quarter, Anderson even contrived
to do that.
As we drove off in his jeep to the hotel where the officers were
billeted, he remarked with a laugh that he wouldn’t be able to do as
well by me but thought he could dig up something. The hotel was called
the “Weinzinger,” and Anderson said that Hitler had often stayed there.
Leaving me to get settled, he went off on a foraging expedition. He
returned shortly with an armful of rations, a bottle of cognac and a
small contraption that looked like a tin case for playing cards. This
ingenious little device, with a turn of the wrist, opened out into a
miniature stove. Fuel for it came in the form of white lozenges that
resembled moth balls. Two of these, lighted simultaneously, produced a
flame of such intensity that one could boil water in less than a quarter
of an hour. I got out my mess kit while Anderson opened the rations, and
in ten minutes we whipped up a hot supper of lamb stew. With a generous
slug of cognac for appetizer, the lack of variety in the menu was
completely forgotten.
While we topped off with chocolate bars, I asked him about conditions up
the line in the direction of Hohenfurth.
“You won’t have any trouble once you reach Hohenfurth, because it’s
occupied by our troops,” he said, “but before swinging north into
Czechoslovakia you’ll have to pass through Russian-held Austrian
territory.”
This was bad news, for I had no clearance from the Russians. I hadn’t
foreseen the need of it. Captain Posey couldn’t have known about it
either because he was punctilious and would never have let me start off
without the necessary papers.
I had heard stories of the attitude of the Russians toward anyone
entering their territory without proper authorization. An officer in
Munich told me that his convoy had been stopped. He had been subjected to
a series of interrogations and not allowed to proceed for a week.
“Could your colonel obtain clearance for me from the Russians?” I asked.
“He could try, but it would probably take weeks,” Anderson said. “If
you’re in a hurry, your best bet is to take a chance and go on through
without clearance. You never can tell about the Russians. They might stop
you and again they might not.”
Then I mentioned my problem children—my German packers. Anderson didn’t
think the Russians would look on them with much favor, if my trucks were
stopped and inspected. I asked about another road to Hohenfurth. Perhaps
there was one to the west of the Russian lines. He didn’t know about any
other route but said that we could take a look at the big map in the
O.D.’s office on the next floor.
To my great relief, it appeared that there was another road—one which ran
parallel with the main road, four or five miles to the west of it. But
Anderson tempered enthusiasm with the remark that it might not be wide
enough for my two-and-a-half-ton trucks. There was nothing on the map to
indicate whether it was much more than a cow path and the duty officer
didn’t know. One of the other officers might be able to tell me. I could
ask in the morning.
That night I worried a good deal about the hazards that seemed to lie
ahead, and woke up feeling depressed. Things, I reflected, had been going
too well. I should have guessed that there would be rough spots here and
there. After early breakfast I called to thank the colonel, Anderson’s
chief, for his kindness, and while in his office had a chance to inquire
about the alternate route.
“The back road is all right,” he said without hesitation. “Take it by
all means. You will cross the Czech frontier just north of Leonfelden.
A telephone call to our officer at the border control will fix that up.
You should be able to make Hohenfurth in about two hours. The C.O. at
Hohenfurth is Lieutenant Colonel Sheehan of the 263rd Field Artillery
Battalion.”
On my way through the outer office I stopped for a word with Lieutenant
Anderson, and while there the colonel gave instructions about the call
to the border control post. That done, Anderson said, “If you’ve got a
minute, there’s something I want to show you.” I followed him down the
stairs and through the back entrance of the hotel to the broad esplanade
beside the Danube. The river was beautiful that morning. Its swiftly
flowing waters were really blue.
We walked over to the river where a white yacht tugged at her moorings.
She was the _Ungaria_, presented by Hitler to Admiral Horthy, the
Hungarian Regent. Anderson took me aboard and we made a tour of her
luxurious cabins. She was about a hundred twenty feet over all and her
fittings were lavish to the last detail. The vessel was now in the
custody of the American authorities, but her original crew was still
aboard.
After this unexpected nautical adventure, Anderson took me to my trucks
and saw us off on the last lap of the journey. Beyond Urfahr, the town
across the Danube from Linz, we turned north. It was slow going for
the convoy because the road was steep and winding. Our progress was
further impeded by an endless line of horse-drawn carts and wagons, all
moving in the direction of Linz. Most of them were filled with household
furnishings. Presently the road straightened out and we entered a region
of rolling, upland meadows and deep pine forests. After an hour and a
half’s drive we reached Leonfelden, a pretty village with a seventeenth
century church nestling in a shallow valley. Just beyond it was the
frontier. We identified ourselves to the two officers—one American, the
other Czech—and continued on our way. Our entry into Czechoslovakia had
been singularly undramatic. In another twenty minutes we pulled into
Hohenfurth.
It was not a particularly prepossessing village on first sight. Drab,
one-story houses lined the one main street. The headquarters of the 263rd
Field Artillery Battalion occupied an unpretentious corner building.
Lieutenant Colonel John R. Sheehan, the C.O., was a big, amiable fellow,
with a Boston-Irish accent.
“If you’ve come for that stuff in the monastery,” he said, “just tell
me what you need and I’ll see that you get it. I’m anxious to get the
place cleared out because we’re not going to be here much longer. When we
leave, the Czechs are going to take over.” The colonel called for Major
Coleman W. Thacher, his “Exec,” a pleasant young Bostonian, and told him
to see that I was properly taken care of. The major, in turn, instructed
his sergeant to show me the way to the monastery and to provide billets
for my men.
It was after eleven, but the sergeant said we’d have time to take a look
at the monastery before chow. He suggested that we take the trucks to
the monastery, which was not more than three-quarters of a mile from
headquarters. We drove down a narrow side street to the outskirts of
town. The small villas on either side were being used for officers’
billets. The street ended abruptly, and up ahead to the left, on a slight
eminence, I saw the cream-colored walls of the monastery.
A curving dirt road wound around to the entrance on the west side.
The monastery consisted of a series of rambling buildings forming two
courtyards. In the center of the larger of these stood a chapel of
impressive proportions. An arched passageway, leading through one of the
buildings on the rim of the enclosure, provided the only means of access
to the main courtyard. It had plenty of “Old World charm” but looked
awfully small in comparison with our trucks.
Leclancher pooh-poohed my fears and said he’d take his truck through. He
did—that is, part way through. With a hideous scraping sound the truck
came to a sudden stop. The bows supporting the tarpaulin had not cleared
the sloping sides of the pointed arch. This was a fine mess, for it was
a good two hundred yards from the entrance to the building, behind the
chapel, in which the things were stored. It would prolong the operation
beyond all reason if we had to carry them all that way to the trucks.
And what if it rained? As if in answer to my apprehension, it suddenly
did rain, a hard drenching downpour. I should have had more faith in the
resourcefulness of my Frenchmen; at that critical juncture Leclancher
announced that he had found the solution. The bows of the trucks could be
forced down just enough to clear the archway.
As soon as this had been done, nine of the trucks filed through and lined
up alongside the buttresses of the chapel. The tenth remained outside to
take the drivers and the two packers to chow. After seeing to it that
they were properly cared for, the sergeant deposited me at the officers’
mess.
At lunch, Colonel Sheehan introduced me to the military Government
Officer of his outfit, Major Lewis W. Whittemore, a bluff Irishman, who
gave me considerable useful information about the setup at the monastery.
“Mutter, an elderly Austrian, is in charge of the collections stored
there—a custodian appointed by the Nazis. He is a dependable fellow
so we’ve allowed him to stay on the job. You’ll find him thoroughly
co-operative,” said the major. “One of the buildings of the monastery is
being used as a hospital for German wounded.”
“Are there any monks about the place?” I asked.
“Hitler ran them all out, but a few have returned. When Hohenfurth
is turned over to the Czechs, it will make quite a change in this
Sudetenland community. Even the name is going to be changed—to its Czech
equivalent, Vysi Brod. All the signs in town will be printed in Czech,
too. It will be the official language. Except for a few families, the
entire population is German.”
“How will that work?” I asked.
The major apparently interpreted my question as an expression
of disapproval of the impending change-over, for he said rather
belligerently, “The Czechs in this region have had a mighty raw deal from
the Germans during the past few years.” I rallied weakly with the pious
observation that two wrongs had never made a right and that I hoped some
satisfactory solution to the knotty problem could be reached.
By the time we had finished lunch the rain had dwindled to a light
drizzle. I started out on foot to the monastery, leaving word at the
colonel’s quarters for the sergeant to meet me in the courtyard of the
_Kloster_. He got there about the same time I did, and together we
started looking for Dr. Mutter, the Austrian custodian. We went first
to the library of the monastery—a beautiful baroque room lined with
sumptuous bookcases of burled walnut surmounted with elaborate carved and
gilded scroll-shaped decorations. The room was beautifully proportioned,
some seventy feet long and about forty feet wide. Tall French windows
looked out on the peaceful monastery garden, which, for lack of care, was
now overgrown with tangled vines and brambles. Along the opposite side
of the handsome room stood a row of massive sixteenth century Italian
refectory tables piled high with miscellaneous bric-a-brac: Empire
candelabra, Moorish plates, Venetian glass, Della Robbia plaques and
Persian ceramics. Across one end, an assortment of Louis Quinze sofas
and chairs seemed equally out of place. What, I wondered, were these
incongruous objects doing in this religious establishment?