The Rape of Europa (73 page)

The Roberts Commission, angry at not having been consulted, was riven by the controversy. Their latest emissary to Germany, John Walker, had not heard of the Clay proposal until he had arrived in London on August 14 on his way home and was shown an undated copy by a Clayton assistant.
⁴⁵
Dinsmoor and Francis Henry Taylor were delighted that the German works were coming to the United States, feeling that it was “proper that the American people should have an opportunity to see these collections,” and Taylor passionately declared that he “would interpose no objections to whatever decision the Government might make regarding the use of cultural objects for reparations purposes … the American people had earned the right in this war to such compensation if they chose to take it.” Informed by the OSS Art Looting office in London that Woolley “deplored the implications” of the proposed removals, Taylor brushed aside the British objections; the British, he felt, should follow the American example. He was not worried about propaganda: “I believe that we must have the courage to take our own good counsel and act in the best interests of a nation which has lavished its blood and treasure upon an ingrate Europe twice in a single generation.”
⁴⁶
After “reading the documents and letters between high authorities,” he was confident that Truman and Byrnes would keep their word, noting that the Army’s inability to guarantee continued high-class personnel in Germany made transfer of the objects to the United States “obvious.”

Others did not quite agree. Sumner Crosby was so furious that he wrote a passionate letter of resignation, later withdrawn to be sure, and Roberts Commission secretary Charles Sawyer, suspicious of Pauley’s motives, noted prophetically that “the physical presence of these objects in the
country would lead to strong pressure to retain at least some of them under some pretext or another.”
⁴⁷

David Finley, director of the National Gallery, had another worry: the Army had requested that the evacuated works be stored in his museum, an enormous and expensive responsibility. For this he needed approval from the highest-ranking member of the Gallery’s board of trustees, Chief Justice Harlan Stone, who was on vacation in New Hampshire. Finley travelled through the night to see Stone. The Chief Justice felt that “if the government asks us to take care of these paintings, we must do it. It is a duty which we could not escape if we wanted to, and certainly we do not want to.” Finley, mission accomplished, did not even stay for lunch, and returned immediately to Washington.
⁴⁸
The Gallery’s responsibility was officially confirmed by a letter from Acting Secretary of State Dean Acheson on September 14 which also informed Finley that Clay had “been asked to supply information regarding the storage space needed … so shipments can commence in the very near future.” The State Department was quite aware of the marginal propriety of this arrangement. The whole project was to be kept secret, Acheson cabled to Murphy in Germany, until an announcement could be synchronized with that which “will have to be made in Washington in the near future to counter rumors and anticipated criticism concerning action.”
⁴⁹

The MFAA contingent in Germany was not officially privy to these high-level arrangements. Indeed, they felt sure that nothing would ever come of the project given the shortage of transportation in Germany and the vast quantity of German-owned art. They were, therefore, horrified to receive a request from the War Department asking for estimates of how much storage space would be needed to house the entire German patrimony. Mason Hammond immediately cabled John Nicholas Brown, who had returned to the United States in late August, to say that the “matter of which you disapprove is being pressed—suggest you make inquiries at once and at top.”
⁵⁰
In Germany, Hammond raised such a fuss that he was given an interview with General Clay, to whom he gave three “good reasons” for not carrying out the plan: “one, that of moral grounds; one that it was a severe criticism of U.S. control; and one that it was practically very difficult to do.”
⁵¹
Clay did not budge, however, and the announcement of the plan was set for September 17.

But the Army had begun to be nervous. In Washington, Hilldring of the Civil Affairs Division wrote to the Roberts Commission that “certain technical experts” had said it would be more dangerous to move the pictures than to leave them in Germany, and asked for advice. This doubt had been
planted in the good general’s mind by RC secretary Charles Sawyer, who opposed the operation and who had told the CAD that “the Department of State was also beginning to have doubts as to the wisdom of the Potsdam decision.”

It was also far from clear just how much would need to be moved. The first estimates concerning storage were not encouraging: about thirty thousand square feet would be needed to house the German-owned objects already in the Collecting Points, and there were 677 known repositories in the U.S. Zone which had not yet been investigated. In the meantime, John Nicholas Brown’s memo disagreeing with Clay had arrived in Washington and was sent to Assistant Secretary of War McCloy, who was also rumored to be doubtful. This was followed by a visit from Brown himself. McCloy cabled Clay “for your up to date estimate … after consulting the experts at your disposal there,” adding that “if there is a real need for this action we should take the risk of any unfavorable comment.” He assumed that “there would be some process of selection whereby only the really perishable articles would be shipped.”

There is no evidence that Clay consulted anyone before replying irritably,

It is true that conditions here for storage of German art are improving, however, the same people who do not approve of removal of German art objects to the US urged early and immediate action on return of objects to liberated areas on grounds our facilities were entirely inadequate to protect these pieces. … It was their concern … that developed my concern for the preservation of German art objects.

He had, he said, never contemplated the return of less valuable objects. He also believed that “the American public is entitled to see these art objects until they can be returned to their proper places in Germany.” In clear reference to the Russians and the French, he rejected the advisability of returning objects to other zones “if we desire to preserve them for the German people.” He concluded by saying that he did not “feel strongly about the final decision” but that “it will not be helpful to us here if such recommendations are changed because of the views of subordinates who have returned home.”
⁵²
Still, Hilldring postponed the announcement of the operation until the whole problem could be discussed by the experts on the Roberts Commission at their next meeting.

This took place on September 25, 1945. The Commission had asked Crosby, Brown, Walker, Stout, and Plaut to appear as “technical advisers” and make statements. But, Brown recalled, when these gentlemen arrived they were treated in a most bizarre manner, being at first “herded into a
separate room, and kept waiting one and a half hours before we were allowed to appear and then en masse, each to give a brief talk to the Commission. It was an embarrassing moment and one rather infra-dig. None of us felt we could express fully the more subtle of our feelings in so open a meeting.”
⁵³
Their written memos were accepted.

Stout thought transportation equally dangerous as the unheated winter conditions of Germany, but noted that action would “probably be based on considerations of policy as well as physical protection.” Plaut of the OSS, who later withdrew his statement, wrote with some emotion that the action was no better than that of the Nazis, using quotes from ERR reports which had used almost identical language to explain their “safeguarding” activities to back up his points. Brown reiterated that the pictures should come only as a loan exhibition. John Walker, chief curator of the National Gallery, said that although the Collecting Points he had seen were adequate, there were hundreds more he had not visited, and that he did “not have the necessary information to approve or disapprove of General Clay’s recommendation.” He noted that every Monuments officer he had met was anxious to come home, and advised against antagonizing the Army, as “nothing can be done to preserve these works of art without the full and sympathetic cooperation of our Army leaders.” The moral question, he felt, had been answered by the assurances of the President and the Secretary of State, but Walker did say that due to the chaotic conditions in Germany, “the policy of a wise custodian would be to bring at least part of this irreplaceable treasure to the safest haven available, and that would seem to me, at the present time, to be the United States.”
⁵⁴
The Commission’s ultimate recommendation was a most strangely convoluted piece of buck-passing:

After full consideration it was resolved that the Commission is not in possession of facts which would authorize it to conclude that General Clay’s recommendations, upon which the President’s decision was based, were unsupported by facts within his knowledge.

To this they added the recommendation that objects held by the United States belonging to museums in other zones be treated in the same manner as those indigenous to the U.S. Zone.
⁵⁵
This, of course, opened the way to the removal of anything from the Berlin museums which might be at the Collecting Points.

The next day press releases from the White House and the National Gallery announced the plan to bring the German works to the United States “with the sole intention of keeping such treasures safe and in trust for the people of Germany or”—tantalizingly—“other rightful owners”
because “expert personnel is not available within the American Zone to assure this safety.” References to Germany’s need to “re-earn” its right to the works were eliminated. John Brown was philosophical; he wrote to LaFarge in Germany that “our protests have kept the Government clean.”
⁵⁶
George Stout was more cynical: “Did these fellows in Washington actually wangle the Army? And then use the Roberts Commission to cover themselves up? … I never thought that some of those big brass museum directors were anything more than a first class job of taxidermy, but gawdamighty, I thought they would manage to keep on looking like men.”
⁵⁷

At the National Gallery, in response to the Army’s decision, Chief Curator Walker now ordered a list of Germany’s top masterpieces to be prepared by Hanns Swarzenski, a German exile who had been given temporary employment at the Gallery’s repository at Biltmore. From memory, prewar catalogues, and a microfilmed copy of the Berlin evacuation documents, he compiled a list of 254 paintings, 73 sculptures, and 39
objets.
Swarzenski wrote to Walker that if he “had listed more than these, there would be no limit where to stop … but probably I have forgotten a lot from the smaller museums like Stuttgart and Karlsruhe.”
⁵⁸

On the list, made without any reference to the present locations of the works, were 102 works from the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin, Watteau’s
Gersaint’s Shopsign
from Charlottenburg, Daumier’s
Don Quixote
from the Nationalgalerie, 2 Chardins from Potsdam, 43 pictures from the Städel in Frankfurt, Manet’s
Execution of Maximilian I
from Mannheim, 26 works from the Alte Pinakothek in Munich—including Dürer’s
Saints
with the note “probably too fragile”—9 from Nuremberg, and more from Dresden, Vienna, Karlsruhe, Stuttgart, and Kassel. Assembling this selection would not be easy. No one knew exactly where all the works were. John Walker had seen the unopened Kaiser Friedrich crates in Frankfurt prior to their transfer to Wiesbaden, but there were as yet no complete inventories of the holdings of the Collecting Points, where new items arrived daily and where priority was being given to those items slated for return to other Allied nations. The Munich pictures were still where the Germans had left them, in the rural repositories of Dietramzell, Ettal, and Raitenhaslach, and, despite Walker’s advice during his July visit, had not yet been brought to the Collecting Point.

Requests to the MFAA officers, now aware of the possible removal of the works, for detailed information had purposely been delayed with encouragement from LaFarge and Kuhn at headquarters. Edith Standen, asked for lists of masterpieces at Marburg and Wiesbaden, “listed only things I saw with my own eyes, gave them fifteen paintings, … all belonging to museums outside our zone. I rather hated doing it; Bancel and
Charles Kuhn take the line that supplying information is not actually supporting an infamous policy, so I go along.”
⁵⁹

Indeed, most of those involved in Monuments work still doubted that anything would actually happen; Perry Cott, for instance, wrote from Vienna that everyone there was “completely agreed on the inanity of the project… it will probably die a natural death when the people who proposed it realize the material difficulties involved in putting the plan in operation.”
⁶⁰
Even Count Metternich had denied the circulating rumors of an American art grab when queried by friends. They were all overly optimistic. In early October, McCloy had commented on the pervasive fear of the Russians and the “almost medieval isolation of existing life” in Germany, over which hung the terrible dread of cold and disease in the coming winter, which could result from the lack of coal.
⁶¹
This situation was not calculated to make Clay change his mind about ridding himself of the responsibility for Germany’s art treasures.