a small room adjoining the library. He was a lanky, studious individual
with a shock of snow-white hair, prominent teeth and a gentle manner
which just missed being fawning. Hohenfurth’s Uriah Heep, I thought
unkindly. The moment he began to speak in halting English, I revised my
estimate of him. He was neither crafty nor vicious. On the contrary, he
was just a timid, and, at the moment, frightened victim of circumstance.
What German I know has an Austrian flavor, and when I trotted this out
he was so embarrassingly happy that I wished I had kept my tongue in
my head. But it served to establish an _entente cordiale_ which proved
valuable during the next few days. They were to be more hectic than I had
even faintly imagined.
After a little introductory palaver, I explained that I had come to
remove the collections which had been brought to the monastery by the
Germans, and that I would like to make a preliminary tour of inspection.
I suggested that we look first at the paintings.
“Paintings?” he asked doubtfully. “You mean the modern pictures? They
are not very good—just the work of some of the Nazi artists. They were
brought here—and quite a lot of sculpture too—when it was announced that
Hitler was coming to Hohenfurth to see the really important things.”
Then I learned what he meant by the “really important things”—room after
room, corridor after corridor, all crammed with furniture and sculpture,
methodically looted from two fabulous collections, the Rothschild of
Vienna and the Mannheimer of Amsterdam. By comparison, the Hearst
collection at Gimbel’s was trifling. The things I had seen in the library
were only a small part of this mélange. In an adjoining chamber—a vaulted
gallery, fifty feet long—there were a dozen pieces of French and Dutch
marquetry. And stacked against the walls were entire paneled rooms,
coffered ceilings and innumerable marble busts. Next to that was a room
crowded with more of the same sort of thing, except that the pieces were
small and more delicate. In one corner I saw an extraordinary table made
entirely of tortoise shell and mounted with exquisite ormolu.
It was an antique-hunter’s paradise, but for me quite the reverse. How
was I going to move all of this stuff? Dr. Mutter could see that I was
perplexed, and apologetically added that I had seen only a part of the
collections. Remembering that I had asked to see the pictures, he took
me to a corner room containing approximately a hundred canvases. As he
had said, they were a thoroughly dull lot—portraits of Hitler, Hess
and some of the other Nazi leaders, tiresome allegorical scenes, a few
battle subjects and a group of landscapes. The labels pasted on the
backs indicated that they had all been shown at one time or another
in exhibitions at the Haus der Deutschen Kunst in Munich. While I was
looking at them, Dr. Mutter shyly confessed that he was a painter but
that he didn’t admire this kind of work.
On the floor below, there was a forest of contemporary German
sculpture—plaster casts, for the most part, all patinated to resemble
bronze. In addition there were a few portrait busts in bronze and one
or two pieces in glazed terra cotta. The terra-cotta pieces had some
merit. The sculpture occupied one entire side of a broad corridor which
ran around the four sides of a charming inner garden. The corridor had
originally been open but the archways were now glassed in. Turning a
corner, we came upon a jumble of architectural fragments—carved Gothic
pinnacles, sections of delicately chiseled moldings, colonnettes,
Florentine well-heads and wall fountains. At one end was a pair of
elaborate gilded wrought-iron doors and at either side were handsome wall
lanterns, also of wrought iron. These too were Mannheimer, Dr. Mutter
replied, when I hopefully asked if they were not a part of the monastery
fittings.
As final proof of the looters’ thorough methods, I was shown a vaulted
reception hall, into the walls of which had been set a large and
magnificent relief by Luca della Robbia, a smaller but also very
beautiful relief of the Madonna and Child by some Florentine sculptor
of the fifteenth century, and an enormous carved stone fireplace of
Renaissance workmanship. The hall was stacked with huge cases as yet
unpacked, and from the ceiling were suspended two marvelous Venetian
glass chandeliers—exotic accents against a background of chaste plaster
walls.
This partial tour of inspection ended with a smaller room across from the
reception hall where Dr. Mutter proudly exhibited what he considered the
finest thing of all—a life-sized, seated marble portrait by Canova. It
was indeed a distinguished piece of work. Hitler had bought the statue in
Vienna, so Dr. Mutter said, from the Princess Windischgrätz. It had been
destined for the Führer Museum at Linz.
I learned afterward that the statue had belonged at one time to the
Austrian emperor, Franz Josef. Canova began the statue in 1812 as a
portrait of Maria-Elisa, Princess of Lucca—a sister of Napoleon. The
sculptor’s more celebrated portrait of Napoleon’s sister Pauline had been
carved a few years earlier. When Maria-Elisa lost her throne and fortune,
she was unable to pay for the portrait. But Canova was resourceful: he
changed the portrait into a statue of Polyhymnia, the Muse of poetry
and song. He accomplished this metamorphosis by idealizing the head and
adding the appropriate attributes of the Muse. Later the statue was
given to Franz Josef. Eventually it passed into the collection of his
granddaughter—the daughter of Rudolf, who died at Mayerling—the Princess
Windischgrätz.
The statue was one of the most delicate and graceful examples of the
great neoclassic master’s style, and I marveled both at its cold
perfection and the fact that it had come through its travels completely
unscathed. For all her airy elegance, the Muse must weigh at least a
ton and a half, I calculated—suddenly coming down to earth with the
realization that I would be expected to take her back to Munich!
Over Dr. Mutter’s protest that I had not yet seen everything, I said
that I should get my men started. There was no time to be lost. Colonel
Sheehan provided eight men and, after cautioning them about the value and
fragility of the objects, I detailed Dr. Mutter to supervise their work.
The first job was to bring some of the furniture down to the ground
floor. As yet we had no packing materials, so we could do no actual
loading. The next step was to show the packers what we were up against.
At first they went from room to room shaking their heads and muttering,
but after I had explained that we would only select certain things, they
cheered up and set to work. Luckily, some of the furniture had a fair
amount of protective padding—paper stuffed with excelsior—and that could
be used until we were able to get more. We had enough, they agreed, to
figure on perhaps two truckloads. Leaving them to mull over that, I went
off to round up a couple of the trucks. Here was another problem. Not
only did the furniture have to be brought down a long flight of stone
stairs, but to reach the stairs in the first place it had to be carried a
distance of two hundred yards. Once down the stairs it had to be carried
another two hundred yards down a long sloping ramp to the only doorway
opening onto the courtyard. I told Leclancher to bring one of the trucks
around to that doorway and then took off in search of paper, excelsior,
rope and blankets. In one of the near-by sheds I found only a small
supply of paper and some twine. We would need much more.
Major Whittemore came to the rescue and drove me to a lumber and paper
mill several kilometers away. As we drove along he told me that he had
been having trouble with the German managers of the mill, but they knew
now that he meant business, so I was not to _ask_ for what I wanted,
I was to _tell_ them. At the mill I got a generous supply of paper,
excelsior and rope and, on my return to the monastery, sent one of the
trucks back to pick it up. But there wasn’t a spare blanket to be had in
all of Hohenfurth.
When I got back, it looked like moving day. The ramp was already lined
with tables, chairs and chests. Dr. Mutter was running back and forth,
cautioning one GI not to drop a delicate cabinet, helping another with an
overambitious armful of equal rarity and all the while trying in vain to
check the numbers marked on the pieces as they flowed down the stairs in
a steady stream. Meanwhile, my two packers trudged up and down the ramp,
lugging heavy chests and monstrous panels which looked more than a match
for men twice their size.
In spite of their concerted efforts, we didn’t have anything like enough
help, so I appealed to Leclancher. With discouraging independence, he
indicated that his men were drivers, not furniture movers, and that he
couldn’t order them to help. But he would put it up to them. After a
serious conference with them, Leclancher reported that they had agreed
to join the work party. Now, with a crew of twenty, things moved along
at a faster pace. With a couple of the GIs, the two packers and I set
to work loading the first truck. Here was where the little Rackhamites
shone. In half an hour the first truck was packed and ready to be driven
back to its place beside the chapel wall. The second truck was brought up
and before long joined its groaning companion, snugly parked against a
buttress.
Presently, the eight GIs trooped out into the courtyard. It was half
past five and time for chow. The Frenchmen knocked off too, leaving
Dr. Mutter, the two packers and me to take stock of the afternoon’s
accomplishment. While we were thus engaged, Leclancher came to tell me
that my driver, the one I called “Double Roger,” was feeling sick and
wanted to see a doctor. In the confusion of the afternoon’s work I hadn’t
noticed that he was not about. We found him curled up in the back of the
truck and feeling thoroughly miserable. I drove him down to the Medical
Office in the village and there Dr. Sverdlik, the Battalion Surgeon,
examined him. Roger’s complaint was a severe pain in the midriff and the
doctor suggested heat treatments. He said that the German surgeon up at
the monastery hospital had the necessary equipment.
That seemed simple enough, since the drivers were billeted in rooms
adjoining the hospital wing. But I reckoned without Roger. What? Be
treated by a German doctor? He was terrified at the prospect, and it
required all my powers of persuasion to talk him into it. Finally he
agreed, but only after Dr. Sverdlik had telephoned to the hospital doctor
and given explicit instructions. I also had to promise to stand by while
the doctor ministered to him.
The German, Major Brecker, was methodical and thorough. He found
that Roger had a kidney infection and recommended that he be taken
to a hospital as soon as possible. I explained that we would not be
returning to Munich for at least two days and asked if the delay would
be dangerous. He said that he thought not. In the meantime he would
keep Roger under a “heat basket.” Roger eyed this device with suspicion
but truculently allowed it to be applied. When I went off to my supper,
twenty minutes later, he was sleeping peacefully—but not alone. Three of
his fellow drivers were sprawled on cots near by, just in case that Boche
had any intentions of playing tricks on their comrade. Maybe not, but
they were taking no chances! What a lot of children they were, I thought,
as I walked wearily down to supper.
That evening I asked the colonel if I could get hold of some PWs to help
out with the work the following day. He said that there was a large camp
between Hohenfurth and Krummau and that I could have as many as I wanted.
So I put in a bid for sixteen. After arranging for them to be at the
monastery at eight the next morning, I went to my own quarters which were
in a house just across the way.
[Illustration: At the Rest House at Unterstein near Berchtesgaden, Major
Harry Anderson supervises the removal of the Göring Collection, brought
from Karinhall, near Berlin. _International News Photo_]
[Illustration: One of the forty rooms in the Rest House in which the
Göring pictures, 1,100 in all, were exhibited before their removal to
Munich for subsequent restitution. _International News Photo_]
[Illustration: The GI Work Party which assisted the Special Evacuation
Team (Lieutenants Howe, Moore and Kovalyak) pack the Göring Collection
for removal from Berchtesgaden to Munich.]
[Illustration: Truck loaded with sculpture from the Göring Collection at
Berchtesgaden. Statues were packed upright in excelsior for removal to
the Central Collecting Point in Munich.]
I had one little errand of mercy to take care of before I turned in.
There was a recreation room on the first floor and adjoining it a
makeshift bar. Most of the officers had gone to the movies, so I managed
to slip in unobserved and pilfer two bottles of beer. Tucking them inside
my blouse, I made off for the monastery. There, after some difficulty
in finding my way around the dark passageways, I located the rooms
occupied by my two little packers. They were making ready for bed, but
when they saw what I had for them, their leathery old faces lighted
up with ecstatic smiles. If I had been a messenger from heaven, they
couldn’t have been happier. Leaving them clucking over their unexpected
refreshments, I went back to my own billet and fell into bed. I hadn’t
had exactly what one would call a restful day myself.
That beer worked wonders I hadn’t anticipated. When I arrived at the
monastery a little before eight the next morning I found that my two
packers, together with Dr. Mutter, had been at work since seven. As
yet there was no sign of the Frenchmen, but I thought that they would
probably show up before long. At eight my gang of PWs appeared and the
sergeant who brought them explained that I wouldn’t be having the crew
of GIs who had helped out the day before. When I protested that I needed
them more urgently than ever, he informed me that the combination of GI
and PW labor simply wouldn’t work out; that I certainly couldn’t expect
to have them both doing the same kind of work together. I said that I
most certainly could and did expect it. Well, my protest was completely
unavailing, and if I had to make a choice I was probably better off with
the sixteen PWs. Perhaps my two packers could get enough work out of
them to compensate for the loss of the GIs.
I had just finished assigning various jobs to the PWs when Leclancher
turned up. “May I have a word with you?” he asked. “It is about Roger.”
“What about Roger? Is he any worse?” I asked.
“No, but he is not any better either,” he said. “Is it possible that we
shall be returning to Munich tomorrow morning?”
“Not the ghost of a chance,” I said. “We shan’t be through loading before
tomorrow night. We’re too shorthanded.”
“But if we all pitched in and worked, even after supper?” he asked.
“It would make a big difference,” I said. “But it’s entirely up to you.
It’s certainly worth a try if the drivers are willing.”
I’ll never forget that day. I never saw Frenchmen move with such rapidity
or with such singleness of purpose. When five o’clock came, we had
finished loading the fifth truck. Taking into account the two from the
preceding day, that left only three more trucks to fill. Leclancher came
to me again. The drivers wanted to work until it got dark. That meant
until nine o’clock. Knowing that the two packers were equally eager to
get back to Munich, I agreed. I hurried off to call the sergeant about
the PWs. Special arrangements would have to be made to feed them if we
were keeping on the job after supper. Also, I had to make sure that
someone at Battalion Headquarters would be able to provide a vehicle to
take them back to their camp.
While the drivers went off to chow and the PWs were being fed in the
hospital kitchen, I joined Dr. Mutter and the packers to discuss these
new developments. I felt sure that I would be returning to Hohenfurth in
another few days with additional trucks to complete the evacuation. That
being the case, some preliminary planning was necessary. I instructed
Dr. Mutter to call in a stonemason to remove the Della Robbia relief and
the other pieces which had been set into the walls, so that they would
be ready for packing when we came back. I gave him a written order which
would enable him to lay in a supply of lumber for packing cases which
would have to be built for some of the more fragile pieces. Lastly, the
four of us surveyed the storage rooms and made an estimate of the number
of trucks we would need for the things still on hand.
To save time I had a couple of chocolate bars for my supper and was ready
to resume work when our combined forces reappeared. The next two hours
and a half went by like a whirlwind and by eight o’clock we knotted down
the tarpaulin on the last truck. Everybody was content. Even the PWs
seemed less glum than usual, but that was probably because they had been
so well fed in the hospital kitchen.
If we were to make it through to Munich in the one day, we would have
to start off early the next morning. Accordingly I left word that the
trucks were to be lined up outside the monastery entrance at seven-thirty
sharp. Then I went down to the colonel’s quarters to see about an armed
escort for the convoy. I found Colonel Sheehan and Major Thacher making
preparations to “go out on the town.” They looked very spruce in their
pinks and were in high spirits.
“We missed you at supper,” said the colonel. “How’s the work coming
along?”
“My trucks are loaded and ready to roll first thing in the morning if I
can have an escort,” I said.
“That calls for a celebration,” he said. “Pour yourself a drink. I’ll
make a bargain with you. You can have the escort on one condition—that
you join our party tonight.”
I didn’t protest. I thought it was a swell idea. A few minutes later, the
captain with whom I was billeted arrived and the four of us set out for
an evening of fun.
In the short space of two days I had grown very fond of these
three officers, although we had met only at mealtime. They were,
in fact, characteristic of all the officers I had encountered at
Hohenfurth—friendly, good-natured and ready to do anything they could
to help. That they were all going home soon may have had something
to do with their contented outlook on life, and they deserved their
contentment. As members of the 26th Division, the famous “Yankee
Division,” they had seen plenty of action, and as we drove along that
night in the colonel’s car, my three companions did a lot of reminiscing.
While they exchanged stories, I had a chance to enjoy the romantic
countryside through which we were passing. We were, the colonel had said,
headed for Krummau, an old town about fifteen miles away.
The road followed along the winding Moldau River, which had an almost
supernatural beauty in the glow of the late evening light. The bright
green banks were mirrored, crystal clear, on its unrippled surface, as
were the rose-gold colors of the evening clouds.
We crossed the river at Rosenberg, and as we went over the bridge I
noticed that it bore—as do all bridges in that region—the figure of St.
John Nepomuk, patron saint of Bohemia. The castle, perched high above the
river, was the ancestral seat of the Dukes of Rosenberg who ruled this
part of Bohemia for hundreds of years. One of them murdered his wife and,
according to the legend, she still haunted the castle. Robed in white,
she was said to walk the battlements each night between eleven-thirty
and twelve. Major Thacher thought that we should test the legend by
paying a visit to the castle on our return from Krummau later that
evening.
When we arrived in Krummau it was too dark to see much of the old town
except the outline of the gray buildings which lined the narrow streets.
Our objective was a night club operated by members of an underground
movement which was said to have flourished there throughout the years
of Nazi oppression. There was nothing in any way remarkable about
the establishment, but it provided a little variety for the officers
stationed thereabouts. My companions were popular patrons of the place.
They were royally welcomed by the proprietor, who found a good table for
us, not too near the small noisy orchestra. Two pretty Czech girls joined
us and we all took turns dancing. There were so many more men than girls
that we had to be content with one dance each. Then the girls moved on to
another table.
We whiled away a couple of hours at the club before the colonel said that
we should be starting back. I hoped that we would be in time to pay our
respects to the phantom duchess, but the clock in the square was striking
twelve when we rumbled through the empty streets of Rosenberg. It had
begun to rain again.
At six the next morning, I looked sleepily out the window. It was still
raining. We would have a slow trip unless the weather cleared, and
I thought apprehensively of the steep road leading into Linz. Fresh
eggs—instead of the usual French toast—and two cups of black coffee
brightened my outlook on the soggy morning and I was further cheered to
find the convoy smartly lined up like a row of circus elephants when I
reached the monastery at seven-thirty. Leclancher had taken the lead
truck and the ailing Roger was bundled up in the cab of one of the
others.
Dr. Mutter waved agitated farewells from beneath the ribs of a tattered
umbrella as we slid slowly down the monastery drive. At the corner of
the main street of the village we picked up our escort, two armed jeeps.
They conducted us to the border where we gathered in two similar vehicles
which would set the pace for us into Linz. The bad weather was in one
respect an advantage: there was practically no traffic on the road.
At Linz I stopped long enough to thank Anderson and his colonel for the
escort vehicles they had produced on a moment’s notice that morning
in response to a call from Colonel Sheehan. This third pair of jeeps
were very conscientious about their escort duties. The one in the
vanguard kept well in the lead and would signal us whenever he came to a
depression in the road. This got on Leclancher’s nerves, for I heard him
muttering under his breath every time it happened. But I was so glad to
have an escort of any kind that I pretended not to notice his irritation.
When we reached Lambach, midway between Linz and Salzburg, we lost this
pair of guardians but acquired two sent on from the latter city. While
waiting for them to appear, I scrounged lunch for myself and the drivers
at a local battery. As soon as the new escorts arrived we started on
again and pulled into Salzburg at two-thirty. This time there were no
delays and we threaded our way through the dripping streets and out on to
the Autobahn without mishap.
I now had only one remaining worry—the bad detour near Rosenheim. Again,
perhaps thanks to the weather, we were in luck and found this treacherous
by-pass free of traffic. As we rolled into Munich, the rain let up and by
the time we turned into the Königsplatz, the sun had broken through the
clearing skies.
My first major evacuation job was finished. As soon as I got my drivers
fixed up with transportation back to their camp and the members of our
escort party fed and billeted I could relax with a clear conscience. It
was a little after five-thirty, and Third Army’s inflexible habits about
the hour at which all enlisted men should eat didn’t make this problem
such an easy one. Third Army Headquarters was a good twenty minutes
away, so I took the men to the Military Government Detachment where the
meal schedule was more elastic. Afterward I shepherded them to their
billets and went off to my own. I would have to write up a report of the
expedition for Captain Posey, but that could wait.
(5)
_SECOND TRIP TO HOHENFURTH_