Captain Posey. I gave him a complete account of the Hohenfurth trip and
presented my recommendations for a second and final visit to complete
the evacuation. It was my suggestion that I return to the monastery with
the same trucks—as soon as they could be unloaded and serviced—and that
he send up another officer with at least eight additional trucks, the
second convoy to arrive by the time I had completed the loading of my
own. I proposed taking four packers this time instead of two, the idea
being that two of the packers could help me with the loading while the
others were building cases for the fragile objects which would have to
be crated. I mentioned also the impending withdrawal of our troops from
Hohenfurth, which would make later operations of such nature impossible.
This was of course no news to Captain Posey as, presumably, it had been
the determining factor in the removal of the Hohenfurth things in the
first place. He approved my plan and advised me to get my trucks lined
up, and said he would see what he could do about sending an additional
officer. I didn’t like the sound of that. Too often I had used those
same words myself when confronted with a difficult request. Furthermore,
it had been my experience with the Army in general thus far—and with
Third Army in particular—that “out of sight, out of mind” was a favorite
motto. I had no intention of going back to Hohenfurth until I had a
definite promise that reinforcements would be forthcoming. I think
that my insistence piqued the captain a bit. But at that point I was
feeling exceedingly brisk and businesslike—a mood which I found new and
stimulating. It would be better to have a clear understanding now as to
who would join me in Hohenfurth; as I explained to Captain Posey, I would
like to give the officer some detailed instructions, preferably oral
ones, before I started off.
I spent the rest of that day and most of the following one at the
Verwaltungsbau supervising the unloading of the ten trucks from
Hohenfurth and making trips out to the trucking company headquarters to
conclude arrangements for continued use of the vehicles. Also, I had to
put in a request for eight others. It was gratifying to find that every
piece we had packed at Hohenfurth came through without a scratch. My two
packers, to whom all credit for this belonged, were equally elated. My
request for the services of four packers was met with black looks, but
when I promised that we’d not be gone more than four or five days, Craig
acquiesced.
Late in the afternoon of the second day, I went again to Posey’s office.
He was not there but I found Lincoln, as usual hunched morosely over his
typewriter. He said he had good news for me. Captain Posey had pulled a
fast one and snatched a wonderful guy away from Jim Rorimer, Monuments
Officer at Seventh Army—a fellow named Lamont Moore. Moore was already,
he thought, on his way down to Munich to make the trip to Hohenfurth.
When I said I didn’t know Moore, Lincoln proceeded to tell me about him.
“Lamont was director of the educational program at the National Gallery
in Washington before he went into the Army. Before that he had a
brilliant record at the Newark Museum. The two of you ought to get along
famously. Lamont’s got a wonderful sense of humor. He’s exceedingly
intelligent and he’s had a lot of experience in evacuation work.”
“Where did you know him?” I asked.
“We were in France last winter. That was before he was commissioned. He’s
a lieutenant now,” Lincoln said.
“That sounds perfect. But I want to ask you a question about something
else and I want a truthful answer. I have a sneaking notion that you knew
all the time what was in that monastery at Hohenfurth. How about it?”
“Furniture and sculpture, you mean, instead of paintings?” he asked. “Of
course I didn’t.”
“Well, maybe you didn’t, but perhaps you can imagine how I felt when
I found that the Mannheimer collection alone contained more than two
thousand items, and that the Rothschild pieces totaled up to a similar
figure.”
Lincoln’s chuckle belied his protestations. “I’ve got another piece
of news for you,” he said. “John Nicholas Brown and Mason Hammond are
arriving tomorrow. I thought you might like to see them before you return
to Hohenfurth.”
“You told me once that Captain Posey, like many another officer, doesn’t
relish visitors from higher headquarters,” I said. “Am I to infer a
connection between his absence from the office and the impending arrival
of these two distinguished emissaries from the Group Control Council?”
He assured me that I was not, but I left the office wondering about it
all the same.
That evening George Stout paid one of his rare and fleeting visits to
Munich. On these occasions he stayed either with Craig or Ham Coulter.
This time the four of us—all “strays” from the Navy—gathered in Ham’s
quarters.
“The work at the mine,” George said, “is going along as rapidly as can be
expected in the circumstances. But it’s got to be stepped up. I came down
to find out how soon you could join me.”
“I’m going back to Hohenfurth again,” I said. “Lamont Moore is to meet me
there.”
George was glad to hear this and said that he and Lamont had worked
together at the Siegen mine in Westphalia. He confirmed all of the good
things Lincoln had told me about Lamont and said that he’d like to have
both of us at Alt Aussee. He promised to have a talk with Posey about
it, because he was of the opinion that these big evacuation jobs should
be handled by a team rather than by a single officer. According to
George, a team of at least three—and preferably four—officers would be
the perfect setup. Then the work could be divided up. Each officer would
have specific duties, assigned to him on the basis of his particular
talents. But all members of the team would have responsibilities of equal
importance. It would be teamwork in the real sense of the term.
Like all of George’s proposals, this one sounded very sensible. At the
same time, when I recalled the haphazard way I had been obliged to
conduct operations thus far myself, I wondered if it weren’t Utopian.
That didn’t discourage George. When he had a good idea he never let go
of it. And, if we had only been a larger group, I am convinced that his
brain child about teams would have had wonderful results. As it was, the
events of the next few weeks were to demonstrate how effective the scheme
was on a small scale.
When I got out to Third Army Headquarters the next morning, George had
already come and gone. I would have liked to ask Posey about their
conversation but he didn’t seem to be in a chatty mood—at least not on
that subject. However, he did have a few caustic things to say about
“people from high headquarters who have nothing better to do than travel
around and interrupt the work of others.”
Knowing that he was referring to Messrs. Brown and Hammond—Lincoln’s
assurance of the night before to the contrary notwithstanding—I piously
observed that high-level visitors to the field might do quite a lot of
good. For one thing, the fact that they had taken the trouble to visit it
emphasized the importance of the work they had come to inspect; and, for
another, it pleased the officer in the field to have his job noticed by
the boys at the top. I thought I sounded pretty convincing, but sensing
that I was not, I turned to other topics.
About that time John and Mason arrived. Our last meeting had taken place
in the vaults of the Reichsbank at Frankfurt several weeks before. Mason
referred to that and jokingly accused me of having run out on him. When
I told him that I was about to return to Hohenfurth he announced loudly
that that was perfect—he and John would drop in to see me there. I said
that would be fine but, when I noted the expression on Captain Posey’s
face, I added to myself, “fine, if they get the clearance.” Before coming
up to see me, they expected to visit one or two places south of Munich,
so they wouldn’t reach Hohenfurth before the end of the week.
Captain Posey was a great believer in the old theory that the Devil
finds work for idle hands, at least as far as I was concerned. That same
afternoon he casually suggested that I take a “little run down into the
Tyrol” for him and inspect a castle about which he had been asked to
make a report. He proposed the trip with such prewar insouciance that it
sounded like a pleasant holiday excursion. As a matter of fact it was
an appealing suggestion, despite my plans for an early morning start to
Hohenfurth.
It was a beautiful summer day and my jeep driver asked if a friend of
his, a sergeant who was keen about photography, might come along. I
agreed and the three of us headed out east of Munich on the Autobahn. It
was fun to be riding in an open jeep instead of an enclosed truck.
We reached Rosenheim in record time and there struck south into the
mountains. Our objective was the little village of Brixlegg, between
Kufstein and Innsbruck. We were on the main road to the Brenner Pass.
Italy was temptingly close. We stopped from time to time so that the
sergeant could get a snapshot of some particularly dramatic vista.
But there was an embarrassment of riches—every part of the road was
spectacularly beautiful.
Brixlegg was a tiny cluster of picturesque chalets, but it had not been
tiny enough to elude the attentions of the air force. On the outskirts
we saw the shattered remains of what had been an important factory for
the manufacture of airplane parts. Happily, the bombers had concentrated
their efforts on the factory. The little village had suffered practically
no damage at all.
We located our castle without difficulty. It was Schloss Matzen, one
of the finest castles of the Tyrol—the property of a British officer,
Vice-Admiral Baillie-Grohman. This gentleman had requested a report on
the castle from the American authorities. We found everything in perfect
order. The admiral’s cousin—a Hungarian baron named Von Schmedes who
spoke excellent English—was in residence. He showed us over the place.
The castle was an example of intelligent restoration. According to the
inscription on a plaque over the entrance, the aunt of the present owner
had devoted her life to this task.
Although an “Off Limits” sign was prominently displayed on the premises,
the baron was fearful of intruders. As the castle stood some distance
from the main highway, I thought he was being unduly apprehensive. He
said that an official letter of warning to unwelcome visitors would be
an added protection. To please him I wrote out a statement to the effect
that the castle was an historic monument, the property of a British
subject, etc., and signed it in the name of the Commanding General of the
Third U. S. Army.
On our way out we were shown two rooms on the ground floor which were
filled with polychromed wood sculpture from the museum at Innsbruck. The
baron said that additional objects from the Innsbruck museum were stored
in a near-by castle, Schloss Lichtwert.
It was but a few minutes’ drive from Schloss Matzen, so I decided to have
a look at it. Schloss Lichtwert, though not nearly so picturesque either
in character or as to site, was the more interesting of the two. It stood
baldly in the middle of a field and was actually a big country house
rather than a castle.
We were hospitably received by a courtly old gentleman, Baron von Iname,
to whom I explained the reason for our visit. One of his daughters
offered to do the honors, saying that her father was extremely deaf.
We followed her to a handsome drawing room on the second floor, where
several other members of the family were gathered in conversation around
a large table set with coffee things. In one of the wall panels was a
concealed door, which the daughter of the house opened by pressing a
hidden spring. Leading the way, she took us into a room about twenty feet
square filled with violins, violas and ’cellos. They hung in rows from
the ceiling, like hams in a smokehouse. Fräulein von Iname said that the
collection of musical instruments at Innsbruck was a very fine one. We
were standing in a Stradivarius forest.
When we passed back into the drawing room, the father whispered a few
words to his daughter. She turned to us smiling and said, “Father asked
if I had pointed out to you the thickness of the walls in this part
of the castle. He is very proud of the fact that they date from the
fourteenth century and that our family has always lived here. He also
asks me to invite you to take coffee with us.”
Knowing that coffee was valued as molten gold, I declined the invitation
on the grounds that we had a long trip ahead of us. Thanking her for her
courtesy, we left. It was after eleven when we got back to Munich. We had
driven a little more than three hundred miles.
Bad weather and bad luck attended us all the way to Hohenfurth the next
day. Less than an hour out on the Autobahn, we came upon a gruesome
accident—an overturned jeep and the limp figures of two GIs at one side
of the road, the mangled body of a German soldier in the center of the
pavement. An ambulance had already arrived and a doctor was ministering
to the injured American soldiers. The German was obviously beyond medical
help. As soon as the road was cleared, we continued—but at a very sober
pace.
On the other side of Salzburg we had carburetor trouble which held us up
for nearly two hours. It was after five thirty when we reached Linz. We
stopped there for supper and I had a few words with the colonel who had
looked after us so well a few days before. He seemed surprised to see me
again, and rather agitated.
“You can get through this time,” he said, “but don’t try to come back
this way.”
“What do you mean, sir?” I asked, puzzled by his curt admonition.
Apparently annoyed by my query, he said brusquely, “Don’t ask any
questions. Just do as I say—don’t come back this way.”
At supper I saw Lieutenant Anderson again and I broached the subject to
him. “Does the colonel mean that the Russians are expected to move up to
the other side of the Danube?” I asked.
“Take a good look at the bridge when you cross over tonight,” he said.
It was my turn to be nettled now. “Look here, I don’t mean to be
intruding on any precious military secret, but I am expecting a second
convoy to join me at Hohenfurth in two days; if the other trucks aren’t
going to be able to get through I ought to let the people at Third Army
Headquarters know.”
“Well, frankly I don’t know just what the score is, but the colonel
probably has definite information,” he said. “What I meant about the
bridge is that it’s jammed with people and carts, all coming over to the
west side of the Danube. It’s been like that for the past two days and it
can mean only one thing—that the Russians aren’t far behind.”
This wasn’t too reassuring, but I decided to take a fatalistic attitude
toward it. If I had to find some other route back from Hohenfurth, I’d
worry about it when the time came. I did, however, try to get through to
Third Army Headquarters on the phone. Posey’s office didn’t answer, so I
asked Anderson to put in a call for me in the morning.
It was slow going over the bridge, but we finally forced our way through
the welter of carts and wagons. Once we were in open country, the traffic
thinned out and we moved along at a faster pace. The Czech and American
officers at the frontier recognized us and waved us through without
formality. We arrived in Hohenfurth a little before nine. I knew the
ropes this time, so it was a simple matter to get the men billeted in the
monastery. After that I went on to my own former billet. When I reached
the house, I found a group of officers in the recreation room. They were
holding an informal meeting. Colonel Sheehan was presiding and motioned
to me to join the group. He had just returned from the headquarters at
Budweis with important news. His own orders had come through, so he would
be pulling out for home in a few days. But of greater concern to me was
the news that the Czechs would definitely take over at the end of the
week. We would still have some troops in the area, but their duties would
be greatly curtailed. I would have to finish the job at the monastery as
fast as possible and head back to Munich.
We resumed our work at the monastery with surprisingly few delays. It was
almost as if there had been no interruption of our earlier operations.
This time I had double the number of PWs, so I did not have to call on
the drivers to help with the loading. During my absence, Dr. Mutter had
put a stonemason to work on the pieces which had been set into the wall,
and these now lay like parts of a puzzle in a neat pattern on the floor
of the reception hall, ready to be packed. He had also procured lumber
and nails, so my two extra packers were able to get to work on the cases
which had to be built. By evening, seven of the trucks were loaded,
leaving only one more to do the next day.
That night I consulted one of the officers, who had a wide knowledge
of the roads in that area, about an alternate route to Munich. He
showed me, on the map, a winding back road which would take me through
Passau—instead of Linz and Salzburg—to Munich. It was, he said, a very
“scenic route” but longer than the way I had come. He felt sure, though,
that I could get my trucks through, that there were no bad detours, etc.
It was comforting to know that this route existed as a possibility—just
in case. But I still had hopes of being able to go back by way of Linz,
in spite of the colonel’s warning.
The next day was the Fourth of July—not that I expected either my French
or German associates to take special notice of the fact. Still I was glad
that I had only one truck to load on the holiday. I took advantage of
the later breakfast hour, knowing that my faithful German packers would
be on the job at seven o’clock as usual. When I arrived at the monastery
at nine-thirty, I found that the last truck was already half loaded.
There was enough room to add the two cases containing the Della Robbia
plaque and the Renaissance fireplace taken out of the wall; and, if we
were careful, we might find a place for the fifteenth century Florentine
relief which the stonemason had also painstakingly removed. Once that
was done, there was nothing to do but wait for the arrival of Lieutenant
Moore and the additional trucks.
I called the workmen together. In halting German, I explained the
significance of the Fourth of July and announced that there would be no
more work that day. It was providentially near the lunch hour. I could
send the PWs back to their camp as soon as they had eaten. The German
packers, intent on returning to Munich as soon as possible, chose to get
on with the cases they were building. Dr. Mutter and I retired to his
study to take stock of the receipts we had thus far made out. As for the
French drivers, they had disappeared to their quarters.
After lunching at the officers’ mess, I decided to celebrate the Glorious
Fourth in my own quiet way. Major Whittemore had lent me a car, so I set
out on an expedition of my own devising. Ever since the night of our trip
to Krummau, I had wanted to explore the castle of Rosenberg, and this
seemed the logical time to do it. Rosenberg was only eight kilometers
away.
It was a sleepy summer afternoon. Not a leaf was stirring as I followed
the winding Moldau into the pretty village with its storybook castle. The
road to the castle was rough and tortuous, reminding me of a back road
in the Tennessee mountain country. Just as I was beginning to wonder if
the little sedan were equal to the climb, the road turned sharply into a
level areaway before the castle courtyard.
I parked the car and went in search of the caretaker. When I found no
one, I ascended a flight of stone steps which led from the courtyard to
the second floor. The room at the head of the stairs was empty, but I
heard voices in the one adjoining. Two cleaning women were scrubbing the
floor, chattering to each other as they worked. They were startled to see
me, but one of them had the presence of mind to scurry off and return a
few minutes later with the archetype of all castle caretakers. He had
been custodian for the past fifty-six years. Lately there hadn’t been
many visitors.
He took me first to the picture gallery—a long high-ceilinged room with
tall windows looking out over the river. There were a dozen full-length
canvases around the rough plaster walls, past Dukes of Rosenberg and
their sour-faced Duchesses. The _clou_ of the collection was a tubercular
lady in seventeenth century costume. The caretaker solemnly informed
me that she was the ill-fated duchess who paced the ramparts of the
castle every night just before twelve. She had lived, he told me, in
the fourteenth century. When I mentioned as tactfully as possible that
her gown indicated she had been a mere three hundred years ahead of the
styles, he gave me a dirty look as much as to say, “a disbeliever.” I
did my best to erase this unfortunate impression and proceeded to the
next series of apartments. They included a weapon room, a sumptuous
state bedchamber reserved for royal visitors, several richly furnished
reception rooms, and a long gallery called the Crusaders’ Hall—a
copy, the caretaker said, of a room in the Palace at Versailles. Here
hung full-length portraits of such historic personages as Godefroy
de Bouillon, Robert Guiscard and Frederick Barbarossa—all done by an
indifferent German painter of the last century. Notwithstanding its
ostentatious atmosphere, the gallery had a dignity quite in keeping with
the musty elegance of the castle.
I thanked the old man, gave him a couple of cigarettes and returned to
the car. It was time for me to be getting back to the monastery.
I gauged my arrival nicely. As I pulled up to the entrance, the guard at
the archway came over to the car to tell me that eight trucks had just
driven through. When I reached the courtyard the last of them was backing
up against the chapel wall.
A tall, rangy lieutenant, wearing the familiar helmet liner prescribed
by Third Army regulations, walked up to the car as I was getting out and
said, “Good afternoon, sir. Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”
So this was Lamont Moore. Just as Lincoln had predicted, I liked him
at once. There was a quiet self-possession about him, coupled with a
quizzical, humorous expression, which was pleasantly reassuring. I have
never forgotten the impression of Olympian calm I received at that first
meeting. In succeeding months, there were many times when Lamont got
thoroughly riled, but his composure never deserted him. His even temper
and his sense of humor could always be depended upon to leaven the more
impetuous actions of his companions.
Without wasting breath on inconsequential conversation, he suggested that
we “case the joint.” After introducing him to Dr. Mutter, who was still
hovering around like a distracted schoolmaster, we made a tour of the
premises. By the time we had finished I had the comforting, if somewhat
unflattering, feeling that he had a clearer understanding of the work
there than I, notwithstanding the time I had spent at the monastery.
On our way down to the village afterward, I asked Lamont if he had had
any difficulty coming up through Linz. He said no, but that he also had
been warned not to return that way.
As soon as he had found a billet, we settled down to talk over the
loading of his trucks. “The colonel says that we’ll have to finish the
job in a hurry. The Czechs are taking over at the end of the week,” I
said. “And if the Russians move up to the Danube, we won’t be able to go
back by way of Linz. We’ll have to return by way of Passau.”
“I understand that there isn’t any bridge over the Danube at Passau,”
Lamont said quietly. At that I got excited, but in the same quiet voice
Lamont said, “Don’t worry. We’ve got more important things to think
about—something to drink, for example.”
We went over to the officers’ club, arriving just in time to be offered
a sample of the Fourth of July punch which two of the officers had
been mixing that afternoon. From the look of things, they had perfect
confidence in their recipe, which called for red wine, armagnac and
champagne. After the first sip I didn’t have to be told there would be
fireworks in Hohenfurth that evening.
Lamont and I began to discuss mutual friends and acquaintances in the
museum world, a habit deeply ingrained in members of our profession. We
agreed that a mutual “hate” often brought people together more quickly
than a mutual admiration. Then inconsistently—it was probably the
punch—we started talking about Lincoln, whom we both liked very much.
“It was Lincoln who told me what a fine fellow you are, Lamont,” I said.
“That’s interesting,” he said with a noiseless laugh. “He said the same
thing about you.”
Comparing notes, we found that Lincoln had given us identical vignettes
of each other.