jeep and escort the six trucks down the precipitous road to Alt Aussee.
Two half-tracks from the 11th Armored Division, as front and rear guards,
would be waiting to accompany the convoy to Munich.
At breakfast one morning George said, “This looks like a good day to load
the gold-seal products.” He meant the Michelangelo Madonna and the Ghent
altarpiece. This was an important event, for they were unquestionably the
two most precious things still at the mine. Every possible precaution
would have to be taken to make this operation a success. It must go off
without a hitch. If anything happened to either of these masterpieces,
the repercussions would be catastrophic. They would overshadow all the
accomplishments of our MFA&A officers.
For the past several days, George and Steve had been working on the
Madonna. She was now heavily padded and trussed up like a ham, ready to
be brought out of the mine. We all went down to the Kaiser Josef chamber
where we had first seen her. George made a final inspection of the ropes
and pulleys which had been set up to hoist her onto the waiting train.
Then, with a satisfied smile, he said, “I think we could bounce her from
Alp to Alp, all the way to Munich, without doing her any harm.”
Once the statue was gently loaded on the little flat car, the train
pulled slowly out of the mine chamber and switched back onto the track of
the main tunnel. From there it chugged slowly—George walking alongside—to
the mine entrance where the truck stood waiting. This truck and the one
which was to carry the altarpiece had been put in perfect condition.
And George had put the fear of God into the two drivers, both of whom he
had personally chosen from our crew. A dozen of the gnomes were waiting
to lift the marble onto the truck. We slid it cautiously to the fore
part where boards had been laid parallel and nailed to the floor. These
would prevent shifting. On either side of the statue, small packing cases
about two feet square were arranged in even rows and lashed firmly to the
sides of the truck. These cases had been stored in a chamber of the mine
called the Kapelle. They contained the coin collection intended for the
Linz Museum and were accordingly marked “Münz Kabinett” or Coin Room.
Blankets were wedged in between the cases and the statue. The large case
containing the Greek sarcophagus from Salonika was set in place behind
the statue and similarly secured to the floor and at the sides. That
done, the truck was ready to go.
As George was putting the finishing touches on the packing, he said,
“Tom, will you go down and get the ‘Lamb’?” To be entrusted with the
removal of the great altarpiece was an exciting assignment. I wanted
to share it with someone who would also get a kick out of telling his
grandchildren that he had actually brought the famous panels out of their
underground hiding place. I called Lamont, and the two of us, followed by
eight of the gnomes, hitched four of the “dogs” to the little engine and
proceeded to the Mineral Kabinett. One of the “dogs,” especially designed
to carry pictures of unusual height, had a lower bed than the others. We
would use this one for the big central panel of the altarpiece. Otherwise
it would not clear a portion of the mine tunnel where the jagged rocks
hung low over the track.
The panels were now in their cases, and it was a relatively simple
matter to carry them from the storage room to the train. We had to make
two trips down and back in order to get all ten cases up to the mine
entrance. They were much lighter than the statue, but the loading was a
more exacting undertaking. Lashing them upright in parallel rows, in the
truck, and stowing cases on either side for ballast, took time. We didn’t
finish until well after six. It had taken most of the day to load the
“gold-seal products.”
[Illustration: _Mary Magdalene_ by Cranach. Göring was especially fond of
Cranach’s work and owned many paintings by him.]
[Illustration: _The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine_ by David was one
of the finest in the Göring Collection.]
[Illustration: _Diana_, an exquisite Boucher acquired by Göring from the
Rothschild Collection, has been returned to France.]
[Illustration: _Atalanta and Meleager_ by Rubens, found in the Göring
Collection, was from the Goudstikker Collection of Amsterdam.]
That night we held a conference in George’s room. He was to go to Munich
the next morning with the convoy to supervise the unloading of the
Madonna and the “Lamb” at the depot. He expected to come back directly,
but might have to go on up to Frankfurt. He mapped out the work he
wanted us to do while he was away. In addition to the job at the mine,
there was a special one down at Bad Ischl. A series of famous panels by
Albrecht Altdorfer, one of the greatest German painters of the fifteenth
century, was stored on the second floor of a highly combustible old inn.
These panels were among his finest works and belonged to the monastery
of St. Florian outside Linz. Fifty or sixty pieces of sculpture—mostly
polychromed wood figures, fifteenth century Gothic—also the property of
the monastery, were stored there too. George thought we’d better figure
on two trucks. We were to pick up the stuff, bring it back to the mine
and then send it to Munich with the next convoy.
We made notations of what he had told us, and then Steve produced
drinks—something of an occasion, for liquor was hard to come by at the
mine. Somehow he had got hold of a bottle of cognac and insisted on
making “Alpine Specials.” This was a drink consisting of a jigger of
cognac and an equal amount of a pink syrupy liquid resembling grenadine.
Steve prized the syrup. Eder, the chemical engineer at the mine, had
concocted it especially for him. The mixture made a drink of dubious
merit. We drank to the success of George’s trip to Munich.
The convoy got off early the next morning. Lamont and I went down with
George as far as the village. Two half-tracks were waiting to escort the
trucks to Munich. They were equipped with radios for intercommunication,
in case of delays along the way. Between Alt Aussee and Salzburg, the
road led through isolated country. Conditions were as yet far from
settled. Small bands of SS troops still lurked in the mountains. The
half-tracks weren’t just going along for the ride.
When we returned to the mine, we found Steve and Shrady in conversation.
They were planning an excursion and asked us to join them. We expressed
pious disapproval of letting up on the job the minute George’s back was
turned. Steve’s answer was, “That’s a crock. I haven’t taken a day off in
two weeks. You can do as you like, me lads; I’m off to see the wizard.”
The two of them climbed into the sporty Mercedes-Benz convertible which
Shrady had recently acquired, and drove off down the mountain.
“I have an idea,” said Lamont. “They can have their fun today. We’ll have
ours tomorrow, while they pick up the Altdorfer panels at Bad Ischl.”
Lamont turned to the loading of trucks, while I went down to the
Kammergrafen with Sieber. In the course of the morning I selected
approximately two hundred pictures. We concentrated on those of small
size, which were stored on the top racks, and the work went rapidly.
Among the paintings we chose was one which had a typewritten label on
the back. I read the words “Von dem Führer noch nicht entschieden”—not
yet decided upon by the Führer. I asked Sieber what this signified.
He explained that every picture intended for the Linz Museum—and this
was one of them—had to be personally approved by Hitler before it
could be officially included in the prospective collection. I could
easily understand that the Führer would have wanted to examine the more
important acquisitions, but that each canvas had to receive his personal
approval struck me as preposterous. Hitler had entrusted the formation
of his collections first to Dr. Hans Posse, a noted scholar, and, after
his death, to Dr. Hermann Voss, director of the Dresden Gallery. This
meticulous procedure, involving the submission of all pictures to the
Führer in Munich, must have been trying to those two luminaries of the
German art world.
When I came up from the mine for lunch I found that Lamont had completed
the loading of two trucks. As the stock of pictures in the packing
room at the mine entrance was almost exhausted, he said that he would
join Sieber and me in making further selections. We returned to the
Kammergrafen and continued with the smaller pictures.
On one of the top shelves we found a cardboard carton bearing the name of
Dr. Helmut von Hümmel, who had been connected with the formation of the
Linz collections. The label indicated that the contents had been destined
for the museum. On the carton appeared the word “_Sittenbilder_.”
Lamont and I knew the word “_Bilder_” meant pictures, but the other two
syllables conveyed nothing. Sieber knew very little English but tried to
explain. He thought perhaps the word meant “customs,” or something like
that. I thought that I understood him. He probably meant that they were
little scenes from everyday life.
We opened the carton. On top were three small watercolors, with beautiful
gray-blue mounts and carved, gilt frames. If they were not by François
Boucher, they were by a close pupil. The workmanship was exquisite and
they were highly pornographic. So these were “_Sittenbilder_.” In our
limited German we tried to tell Sieber that they might be called “scenes
from life,” but hardly everyday life.
The rest of the things in the carton were of the same order, some of them
contemporary, all of them licentious. None approached the first three
watercolors in sheer virtuosity of technique. We wondered just which
department of the Linz Museum would have harbored them.
Later we showed them to Steve. When he looked at the three watercolors he
asked, “Who did those?”
“They look very much like Boucher,” I said without thinking.
“Boucher?” asked Steve incredulously. “Not the fellow who painted that
‘Holy Family’ I saw this afternoon?”
Lamont said quickly, “Tom means a pupil of Boucher, not Boucher himself.”
“Well, that’s more like it,” said Steve. “I didn’t see how an artist who
painted anything so beautiful as that big picture could paint smutty
things like these.”
The Holy Family to which he referred was a sensitive and tender
representation. Steve’s point was well taken. The fact that he had not
seen much eighteenth century French painting didn’t alter the validity of
his argument.
On our way up from the Kammergrafen that afternoon we stopped at the
Kapelle. This was one of the mine chambers which I had visited only long
enough to take out some of the cases used in packing the Bruges Madonna.
In addition to the Münz Kabinett collections, the Kapelle contained the
magnificent collection of Spanish armor—casques, breastplates, full
suits of armor, and a great number of firearms—which had been gathered
together at Schloss Konopischt by the late Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
Most of it was of sixteenth century workmanship, exquisitely inlaid with
gold and silver. Formerly Austrian, it had been the property of the
Czech government since the last World War. Nonetheless, the Germans had
carried it off, using some flimsy nationalistic argument to justify their
action. While the atmosphere of the mine was excellent for paintings, it
was not satisfactory for metal objects. Consequently, every piece in the
Konopischt collection had been heavily coated with grease to keep it from
oxidizing.
Their storage room, the Kapelle, was—as the name indicates—a chapel,
dedicated to the memory of Dollfuss, the Austrian Chancellor. It had an
electrically illuminated altar, hewn from a block of translucent salt
crystal, which was one of the sights of the mine.
That night when Steve and Shrady returned from their outing we all had
hot chocolate and cheese and crackers in the comfortable kitchen on the
ground floor of the main building. They had had a wonderful day. Maria,
Shrady’s interpreter-secretary, had been with them. They had gone first
to St. Wolfgang. There a sentry had tried to prevent them from driving
up the road leading to the little church. Leopold, the Belgian king, was
living near there with his wife, and motorists were not allowed on that
road. But they had got around the sentry and gone into the church to see
the wonderful carved altarpiece by Michael Pacher. Steve had brought us
some colored photographs of it. Afterward they had had a swim in the lake
and a picnic lunch. And in the afternoon—this had been the high spot of
the day—they had gone over to Bad Ischl and called on Franz Léhar. The
old fellow had been delighted to see them, had played the _Merry Widow_
waltz for them and given them autographed photographs. It sounded like
fun. Our day at the mine had been very prosaic in comparison. Mention of
Bad Ischl reminded Lamont of his scheme for the next day. He proposed to
Steve and Shrady that they should call for the Altdorfer panels. They
fell in with the suggestion at once, and before we could explain that we
thought we’d take the day off, Steve was telling us about some of the
things we should see in the neighborhood.
We slept late and when we got up the sky was gray and threatening. It
was no day for an outing. In fact it was so cold that we decided we’d be
warmer down in the mine. There was still one series of chambers which
we had not explored. This was the Mondsberg, and it took us almost
three-quarters of an hour to reach it. The pictures were arranged on
racks as in the Kammergrafen and the Springerwerke, only in the Mondsberg
there were a great many contemporary paintings. It didn’t take us long to
run through them. They were all obviously German-owned and, judging from
the labels, the great majority of the canvases had been included in the
annual exhibitions at the Haus der Deutschen Kunst in Munich.
Ranged along one side of the main chamber was a row of old pictures.
These were of high quality, and we went through them carefully. I came to
a canvas which looked vaguely familiar. It was the portrait of a young
woman dressed in a gown of cherry brocade. I guessed it to be sixteenth
century Venetian, perhaps by Paris Bordone. I said to Lamont, “I’m sure
I’ve seen that picture somewhere, but I can’t place it.”
“Let’s see if there’s any mark on the back that might give you a lead,”
said Lamont.
He found a label and started reading aloud, “California Palace of the
Legion of Honor, San Francisco....”
I thought he was joking. But not at all. There was the printed label
of my museum. And there too _in my own handwriting_ appeared the words
“Portrait of a Young Woman, by Paris Bordone”! No wonder the portrait
had looked familiar. I had borrowed it from a New York art dealer for a
special loan exhibition of Venetian painting in the summer of 1938. I
learned from the mine records that the dealer had subsequently sold the
picture to a Jewish private collector in Paris. The Nazis had confiscated
it with the rest of his collection. It was a weird business finding it
seven years later in an Austrian salt mine.
After supper that evening Shrady asked us to go down to Alt Aussee with
him. Some Viennese friends of his were having an evening of music.
The weather had cleared and the snow on the mountains was pink in the
afterglow as we drove down the winding road from the mine. The house, a
small chalet, stood on the outskirts of the village. Our host, his wife
and their two daughters, had taken refuge there just before the Russians
reached Vienna.
He introduced us to Dr. Victor Luithlen, one of the curators of the
Vienna Museum, who had driven over from Laufen. Many of the finest things
from the museum were stored in the salt mine there. Dr. Luithlen was the
custodian.
Both he and Shrady played the piano well. Luithlen played some Brahms
and Shrady followed with the music he had composed for a ballet based
on Poe’s “Raven.” Shrady said that it had been produced by the Russian
Ballet in New York. It was a very flamboyant piece and Shrady performed
it with terrific virtuosity.
Afterward coffee and strudel were served. The atmosphere of the household
was casual and friendly. I was reminded of what an Austrian friend of
mine had once told me: “In other countries, conditions are often serious,
but not desperate; in Austria they are often desperate but never serious.”
Thinking that George Stout might have returned from Munich, Lamont and
I went back up to the mine that night before the others. George had
just come in. He brought exciting but disturbing news. We were to
continue the work at Alt Aussee for another ten days. Then we were to
transfer our base of operations to Berchtesgaden. Our job there would
be the evacuation of the Göring collection! On our way through Salzburg
we were to pick up the pictures and tapestries from the Vienna Museum.
These were the paintings by Velásquez, Titian and Breughel which had
been highjacked by the Nazis two months ago and later retrieved by our
officers. The disturbing part of what George had to tell was that he was
going to leave us to carry on alone at the mine. He would try to join us
at Berchtesgaden. But there was a possibility that he might not be able
to make it.
Months ago George had put in a request for transfer to the Pacific.
He felt that things were shaping up on the European scene and that
others could carry on the work. There would be a big job protecting and
salvaging works of art in Japan. He didn’t think that a program had
been planned. He had offered his services. He had already told us that
he had asked for this assignment, but we had never considered it as a
possibility of the present or even of the immediate future. Now it looked
as though it might materialize at once. In any case he was going up to
Frankfurt the day after tomorrow to find out.
“As senior officer, Tom,” George said, “you will take over as headman
of the team. I’ll take you down to see Colonel Davitt before I go. He
is responsible for the security guard here at the mine and has been
extremely co-operative. You should go to him if you have any complaints
about the arrangements after I am gone.”
Back in our rooms that night Lamont said, “I have a hunch that this is
the last we’ll see of George. It’s not like him to talk the way he did
tonight if he hasn’t a pretty good idea that he won’t be coming back.”
Together we mapped out a tentative division of the work ahead. Steve,
who had come into the room in time to hear George’s news, joined our
discussion. It was after midnight when the first meeting of the “three
powers” broke up.
While George was in Munich he had been informed of the imminent
withdrawal of Third Army from the part of Austria in which we were
working. No one could, or would, tell him the exact date, but it appeared
likely that it would take place within two weeks. It was difficult for
me to understand why the arrival of another American army—General Mark
Clark’s Fifth from Italy—should cause the cessation of our operations.
But of course the Army had its own way of doing things. We were attached
to Third Army and if they were getting out, we would have to get out with
them. All along we had known that this might happen before we could empty
the mine. It was quite probable that Fifth Army would want to resume the
work, but it would take time. Such a delay would impede the processes
of restitution, and we had therefore been giving first attention to the
finest things.
Having taken stock of the paintings, sculpture and furniture on which we
were going to concentrate in the time we had left, we spent George’s last
day working as usual. The loading went well and we finished four more
trucks. Another convoy would be ready to take off in the morning.
George had his own jeep and driver and could make better time than
the convoy, so after early breakfast we went down to Colonel Davitt’s
office. George explained the change in his own plans and said that I
would be taking over at the mine. Then he thanked the colonel for his
co-operation. It was a long speech for George.
When he had finished, Colonel Davitt said, “In all the time you’ve been
here, you haven’t made a single unreasonable demand. If Lieutenant Howe
can come anywhere near that record, we’ll get along all right.”
Compliments embarrassed George, so he said good-by as quickly as possible
and climbed into his jeep. He wished me luck and drove off. I waited
for Lamont to come down with the convoy and give me a lift back up the
mountain.
(7)
_THE ROTHSCHILD JEWELS; THE GÖRING COLLECTION_
We had our share of troubles during those last ten days at Alt Aussee.
They began that first day of my investiture as head of the team. Lamont
and I were sorting pictures in the room at the mine entrance. It was
early in the afternoon and we were about to start loading our third
truck. I had just said to Lamont that I thought the morning’s convoy had
probably passed Salzburg, when a jeep pulled up to the door. The driver
called out to us that one of our trucks had broken down at Goisern. That
was an hour’s drive from the mine. Why hadn’t we been notified earlier? I
asked. He didn’t know. Perhaps there hadn’t been anybody around to bring
back word. Maybe the driver had thought he could repair the truck.
We got hold of Steve and the three of us started for Goisern in the
messenger’s jeep. We’d have to transfer the load, so an empty truck
followed us. We were thankful that the breakdown hadn’t happened while
the convoy was going over the Pötschen Pass. It would have been a tough
job to shift the pictures from one truck to another on that steep and
dangerous part of the road. It was bad enough as it was, because it
looked as though we’d have rain. One of the trucks had a lot of very
large pictures. We hoped that it wasn’t the one that had broken down.
It was a little after three when we reached Goisern. The truck had been
parked by the headquarters of a small detachment of troops on the edge
of town. There were several houses near by but plenty of room for us to
maneuver the empty truck alongside. The Negro driver of the stranded
truck said that it had “thrown a rod” and would have to be taken to
Ordnance for repairs. That meant that the vehicle would be laid up for
two or three weeks. We’d have to see about a replacement. The main thing
was to get on with the unloading before it began to rain. And it _was_
the truck with the big pictures.
With the two trucks lined up alongside, and only a few inches apart, we
could hoist the pictures over the sideboards. In this way each row of
paintings was kept in the same order. Lamont and Steve boarded the empty
truck, while one of the gnomes from the mine and I started unlashing the
first stack of loaded pictures. Before long a crowd of women and children
had collected to watch this unusual operation. There were excited “oh’s”
and “ah’s” as we began to transfer one masterpiece after another—two
large Van Dycks, a Veronese, a pair of colossal decorative canvases
by Hubert Robert, a Rubens, and so on. The spectators were quiet and
well behaved, whispering among themselves. They didn’t pester us with
questions. We rather enjoyed having an audience. We finished the job in
an hour and a half.
It wasn’t too soon, for as we were securing the tarpaulin at the rear of
the newly loaded truck, it began to pour. We parked the truck, arranged
for an overnight guard, then climbed into our jeep and started back to
the mine. In a few minutes the rain turned to hail. The stones were so
large that we were afraid they’d break the windshield of the jeep. We
pulled over to the side of the road and waited for the storm to let up.
While we waited, the gnome told us that sometimes the hailstones were
large enough to kill sheep grazing in the high meadows. Only the summer
before he had lost two of his own lambs during one of the heavy summer
storms. He swore that the stones were the size of tennis balls.
We were thoroughly soaked and half frozen when we got back to the mine.
But we had won our race with the weather, and the truck would proceed to
Munich with the next convoy.