Saving Italy: The Race to Rescue a Nation's Treasures from the Nazis (9 page)

On September 12, Hitler received dramatic news. SS paratroopers had executed a daring raid at a ski resort on the Gran Sasso mountain in central Italy to free Mussolini from guards holding him on orders from Badoglio. “Duce, the Führer has sent me to set you free,” exclaimed the leader of the mission, SS Captain Otto Skorzeny. Relieved, Mussolini replied, “I knew my friend Adolf Hitler would not abandon me.” Forty-eight hours later, a haggard Mussolini arrived at the Rastenburg airfield. Standing by to greet him were his rescuer, Adolf Hitler, and his “keeper,” SS General Karl Wolff, newly appointed “Supreme Leader of all SS Troops and Police in Italy.” Hitler informed the Duce that he would form a new Nazi-backed Fascist state—the Italian Social Republic—later referred to as the Salò Republic, named for its de facto capital on Lake Garda, near the northern town of Salò.
^†
Mussolini would be the titular head, but in truth Hitler and his designees—SS General Wolff and Rudolf Rahn—would be running the new government.

Wolff had returned to Hitler’s headquarters on September 14 to receive further orders from the Führer. Hitler wanted Wolff, in addition to his previously assigned responsibilities, to provide round-the-clock protection for Mussolini. “You vouch for the Duce,” Hitler told him. Never again should he be placed in such jeopardy. “A command of selected SS officers is never to leave him out of sight.” This seemed straightforward; the second part of his assignment was not.

“I now have a special order for you, Wolff, which I needed to present to you personally, because of its international importance. I am making it your duty to not talk to anyone about it, except the Reichsführer SS [Himmler], who I have already informed, until I specifically allow you to do so. Do you understand me?” “Yes, my Führer!” replied Wolff.

“As soon as possible I want you and your troops to occupy the Vatican and Vatican City, as part of the German counter measures against this unspeakable ‘Badoglio treachery,’ secure the Vatican’s archives and art treasures, which have a unique value, and escort the Pope (Pius XII) together with the Curia up North ‘for their protection,’ so that they cannot fall into the hands of the Allies and under their political influence. Depending on military and political developments I will determine whether to accommodate him in Germany or in neutral Liechtenstein.”

“There will be quite an uproar worldwide,” admitted the Führer, “but it will calm down. This will be quite a harvest. . . .” “How long might it take you to carry out this mission?” asked the Führer.

Himmler had briefed Wolff on his assignment before the meeting, but hearing Hitler describe his intentions shocked the SS general. He scrambled to think of a response, one that would appear credible while buying time. “I am quite frankly not sure, my Führer. Most of my SS and Police troops have still not arrived. At the moment I am trying to recruit voluntary forces from within the population of South Tyrol and the remaining Italian Fascists to strengthen our troops, but even with greatest attention this takes all my time.” Wolff then explained that such an operation would require locating experts fluent in Latin and Greek to assist in the analysis of the Vatican’s immense archives. Wolff estimated he would need about six weeks. “This seems too long a time for me!” exclaimed the Führer. “I would prefer to deal with the Vatican immediately and clear it out.” But after a few tense moments, Hitler seemed resigned to waiting and added, “If one wants a first class result, one cannot expect it to take place overnight.”

ON OCTOBER 1, 1943,
German radio announced: “The U.S. President of the European Monuments and Art Treasures Committee, an organisation consisting of thieves and Jews, said in a statement to the Press that a large number of maps are being distributed to U.S. soldiers to enable them to trace artistic treasures easily. A well-known gangster has been appointed as Director of the Committee.”

Nazi propaganda specialists characterized the intent of the Roberts Commission, and the work of the Monuments officers, as a premeditated looting operation. Fourteen days later, Radio Rome provided an update: “The first ships left Sicily for London today with precious works of art, some of which will go to the British Museum and some to private collections.” These two radio addresses marked the opening salvo in the battle for public opinion in Italy. The Americans had no immediate response. For months, Europeans would hear only the German and Italian side of the story, breeding fear and suspicion of Anglo-Americans claiming to be interested in protecting their art.

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Stout would also be in harm’s way as the de facto leader of the Monuments Men attached to the Western Allied forces in northern Europe.

*
Later in 1943, at the urging of Gestapo Chief SS Lieutenant Colonel Herbert Kappler, a white line was painted across St. Peter’s Square, indicating for German troops the boundary of neutral Vatican City. However, others believed it served as a reminder to occupants of the Vatican that they were prisoners.

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This is an imprecise reference. Salò was one of several northern Italian towns serving as headquarters for various government offices. Salò did, however, house the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

5

GROWING PAINS

SEPTEMBER– DECEMBER 1943

O
n September 25, Deane Keller received orders to report for active duty at Fort Myer, Virginia. From there he hoped to report to the army’s School of Military Government in North Africa as part of the unit being formed to protect monuments and works of art. While getting to Italy still seemed a far-flung dream, at least his journey had begun.

Being in the army thrilled Keller. Between the draft and enlistments, the war had claimed most of the students from his classroom, taking much of the joy out of teaching. There would be hardships, of course. He told himself he wouldn’t miss having a car, and he made peace being without his drawing studio; these were adjustments he could make. Besides, with pencil and paper, he could draw anywhere. But making arrangements for his army pay to be sent to his wife, Kathy, somehow made the situation all too real. He fought the anxiety by writing letters—lots of letters—to his sisters, to his parents, but mostly to Kathy and their three-year-old son. Letters back and forth became his lifeline, as they did for many new soldiers.

Deane’s father sent him intellectual letters that discussed his political views on the war. But those with his mother’s soft touch and tender understanding helped sustain him. She wrote to him on October 7, acknowledging that his military service “is a big sacrifice for you, but I am thankful you can see beyond that to realize the great need for good men to help. I believe you will never regret it for your own sake and the sake of Dino. He says proudly now—‘My Daddy’s a sojer.’ I don’t know who told him that—but I suppose he saw you in that first uniform.”

Nazi German propaganda aimed at Italians depicted American soldiers as barbarians intent on removing the country’s works of art. In this example, an American soldier, portrayed as a black gorilla, is stealing the
Venus de Milo
. The Allies also employed propaganda, in this instance suggesting that the Germans would inflict on Rome the destruction they had wrought on other European cities. [Left: Massimo & Sonia Cirulli Archive, New York. Below: The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum]

Keller felt disheartened that Kathy and Dino were now living in Hartford with her family, having decided to lease their home at 133 Armory Street in New Haven for the duration of the war. This was a practical move driven by the nationwide housing shortage, but it underscored how much upheaval the Kellers, like millions of other military families, experienced because of the war.

After a month of waiting, orders finally arrived. On November 2, Keller boarded a Liberty ship bound for North Africa. Like his shipmates, many of whom were young GIs headed into combat, Keller felt proud, excited, and scared. Twenty-two days aboard the ship, with its “prisoner rations & tight quarters,” inspired camaraderie among the men, but all sensed the dangers ahead. “The convoy arrived [in Oran, Algeria] with only one incident—a sub. chased one of the ships for two hours.” Being off the ship felt like a reward. On Thanksgiving Day, Keller ate his dinner out of a mess kit in an open barracks with a dirt floor, and he informed his wife that “we are in North Africa. . . . am living as a soldier (imagine me) in a tent, shaving in the open . . . and washing in my steel helmet.”

Keller spent the first week at a replacement depot near Oran; then he took a train to Algiers for a one-night hotel stay in the capital city—also the site of Allied Force Headquarters. There he presented a card marked
SECRET
to a lieutenant who ordered him to report to the remotely located Military Government School in the desolate hillside town of Tizi Ouzou. On December 2, after finally reaching his destination, some sixty miles from Algiers, Keller began a two-month course focused on the cultural history of Italy and its modern-day governmental structure.

AT TIZI OUZOU,
Keller joined an international gathering of art experts. Since May 1943, small groups of officers had been arriving for Civil Affairs Training School. “From the beginning of the conquest of Sicily we had been engaged in a new type of task, that of providing government for a conquered population,” General Eisenhower later explained. “Specially trained ‘civil affairs officers,’ some American, some British, accompanied the assault forces and continuously pushed forward to take over from combat troops the essential task of controlling the civil population.” These officers specialized in areas of public health, transportation, agriculture, finance, law, public relations, and, in the case of the Monuments Men, the arts.

Even before he exchanged his bow tie and flowing cape for a military uniform, Tubby Sizer’s walrus mustache made it easy to pick him out of a crowd. Prior to his commission in the army, Tubby had lectured at Yale as a professor of Art History. Famous for his enthusiastic presentations, and prone to wandering the stage lost in his delivery, Sizer had survived at least one fall from the podium while addressing his students. More recently, he had served as Director of the Yale University Art Gallery. His background was filled with incongruities, none greater than a five-foot, ten-inch man weighing a slight 150 pounds being called “Tubby.” Childhood nicknames die hard. Although a professor at Yale, he had graduated cum laude from Harvard, class of 1915. Tubby ultimately chose a life of public service and academia, but not before spending several years trying to make a buck in the import export business.

The Roberts Commission was putting ever-greater pressure on Paul Sachs to submit names of candidates for Monuments service. Sizer had had military experience as a first lieutenant in the army during World War I and had held a commission since 1942 as a major in Army Air Force Intelligence—despite, as he put it, “misconceptions of my military prowess and oblivious to my age.” A new kind of war had begun, one that required precise rather than wholesale destruction. It was Sachs’s job to identify the soldiers to fight it. Tubby Sizer had been an obvious choice.

Sachs had another great prospect in Norman Newton, one of the nation’s most accomplished landscape architects. Newton’s teaching career at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, which began in 1939, brought him into contact with Sachs. Newton had been an aviation cadet in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve in 1918. While that experience seemed far removed from combat, his familiarity with the ways of the military made him a more valuable candidate than many others being considered. Sachs knew that Newton had spent three years at the American Academy in Rome (from 1923 to 1926) as a Rome Prize recipient. In addition to owning a private landscaping company, Newton had also been the resident landscape architect for the northeastern region of the National Park Service during the 1930s, working on various projects that included a redesign of the Statue of Liberty grounds.

In early September 1943, Sizer and Newton began eight weeks of Civil Affairs training at the Military Government School in Tizi Ouzou, an experience Sizer characterized as “extremely restive.” The fifty-one-year-old Sizer enjoyed the humor of the situation. In a letter to Emerson Tuttle, a colleague at the Yale University Art Gallery, he wrote, “You would laugh if you could see a lot of elderly men being put through the paces by young 2nd Lieutenants of foreign extraction.”

British Monuments officer Edward “Teddy” Croft-Murray, Assistant Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum in London, and his good friend Lionel Fielden, the father of radio broadcasting in India and an executive at the BBC, arrived in Algiers in early November. Upon receiving orders to report to Tizi Ouzou, Fielden asked his friend, “What on Earth is Tizi-Ouzou?” Teddy replied, “Awful I think. Some sort of school. Nobody knows how long we stay there. I’m going to get out of it if I can.”

Neither man had any way of actually getting to the appointed destination. After stopping by Allied Force Headquarters to plead for the intervention of a duty officer and friend, the two men bumped into Lieutenant Colonel Sir Leonard Woolley, who was himself desperate to get to recently liberated Naples to make an inspection tour. Despite his rank and title, “Archaeological Adviser to the War Office,” Woolley couldn’t get to Italy. “Deplorable lack of organization! Here I am with all the necessary papers, and the Home authorities wanting me back, and day after day I come to this office and there’s no transport!”

As the reality of the situation sunk in—there was no “getting out of” Tizi Ouzou—a few minutes of conversation with the duty officer revealed a new problem: the army’s “Priority” system. Fielden explained: “Priority I was reserved for VIP—Very Important People—and got you anywhere. Priority II was for generals and such, and ensured you a moderately quick passage, provided that transport was available. Priority III was for lesser but still urgently needed fry; we might have got it if somebody had urgently needed us, but they seldom did. All other Priorities were scarcely worth having.”

After explaining that Woolley was a world-famous archaeologist and head of Great Britain’s efforts to protect cultural treasures, the duty officer replied, “Well, well, we know nothing about him here, you know. Perhaps he should have Priority II? I have only given him [Priority] III, which means he’ll never get there.”

Days later, Fielden and Croft-Murray reached Tizi Ouzou after sitting on the floor of a troop carrier for the long, cold, and very bumpy ride. The school, such as it was, consisted of clusters of half-finished buildings without doors or windows, each of which had been named after an Allied city, including “London,” “Manchester,” and “Washington.” According to Fielden, buildings “were filled to more than overflowing with four hundred elderly officers, of whom three hundred and fifty, at the time of our arrival, were American. . . . a less military-looking lot can hardly ever have been seen.”

BY THE TIME
Keller arrived at Tizi Ouzou, Fielden and Croft-Murray had completed their training and departed. So, too, had Sizer and Newton. On December 12, he wrote his parents to report he was in good health, giving the same type of lectures to both American and British officers that he had delivered at Yale. He also kept up his drawing, sending sketches of the locals to his friends. “I have fired a carbine, .45 revolver, and a Tommy gun, doing best with the latter. Got 9 out of 10 shots on in bursts and all three single shots inside the inside ring. Talk about a new experience.” He told them that the presence of a small group of men he had taught at Yale had made him “feel a little less like a lost sheep” in his new surroundings.

The first Christmas without his family hit Keller hard. “Dearest Kathy. . . . As I write, you will be through breakfast and will have opened the stockings. I can imagine Deane worrying the string and paper on his parcels and the look of anticipation on his face. What did you get for him?” As hard as he tried to create a sense of normalcy, Keller couldn’t ignore reality. “Still, I talked to a British GI this morning, who was spending his fifth Christmas away from home. And when you think of the boys up on the front you withdraw all kicks and private feelings. . . . Theirs can’t be a happy Christmas.”

As it had for Croft-Murray, Woolley, and many others at Tizi Ouzou, disillusionment set in for Keller after just five weeks. Keller wanted to put his knowledge and experience to work, not sit around at a place he took to calling “Toozy Woozy.” “I hear there is a lot to do in Italy and I hope the day comes soon for that,” he wrote Kathy. “I have great faith in this work, others to the contrary, and I want my chance.”