Original subtitles

[Music]

the nazis carried out the greatest

plundering of treasures in human history

precious works were seized from within

germany soon after they came to power

then during world war ii they would

ransack countless pieces of art from the

european countries they had conquered

hitler and goebbels had almost a hit

list of everywhere they wanted to go all

the works they wanted to pillage it was

biggest looting in the history of art

colossal it just drains the imagination

to

think and to read about the scale of it

but the tide of the war turned and the

allies now had the upper hand

and as the nazis made their retreat it

became the task of the monuments men to

recover all that they had stolen

this was a group of people who'd worked

in museums or who were art historians

experts in their field who were charged

with going across europe and finding

missing works cataloging them and

returning them back to the original

owners

their mission took them down the deepest

of mines and up the highest of castles

the far-flung locations where the nazis

had stored their looted treasures

[Music]

many masterpieces were rescued at the

last moment and herculean efforts were

made to save as much as possible from

the relentless bombing campaigns

[Music]

they were very successful even though

there are tens of thousands of items

that can't be traced

they all put great efforts into trying

to save as much art as possible and did

an enormous job in a relatively short

period of time

not everything was returned and the hunt

continues for the last remaining lost

treasures of world war ii

[Music]

[Music]

the monuments men would be formed in

1943

10 years after the nazi looting of art

began

[Music]

in 1933 hitler had been elected

chancellor of germany

from 1933 onwards there were

many forced sales by jewish families

where the argument is they had very

little choice they either needed the

money to flee the country or if they

hadn't sold the item at the price

specified they would have been sent to

concentration camps or in some other way

taken advantage of a brutal form of

compulsory purchase

if negotiation didn't work the mailed

fists the threat was there and it was

used particularly with jewish collectors

and dealers they just moved across

europe taking from jewish families from

cultural cultural institutions from

churches

during the nuremberg trials which

followed the end of world war ii these

art crimes were part of the charges

brought up against the high-ranking nazi

officials who were still alive

the confiscation of jewish homes was

carried out as follows

so-called confiscation officials went

from house to house in order to collect

information as the abandoned jewish

homes

they drop inventories of those homes and

subsequently sealed them

it came up in the questioning and the

interrogation it wasn't a principle

indictment against them it wasn't what

was going to hang them let's put it as

crudely as that because they were being

tried for crimes against humanity

planning aggressive war and all that

the planned aggressive war would begin

in 1939 when hitler ordered the invasion

of poland which marked the beginning of

world war ii

the invading forces would decimate

polish cities and plunder many of the

country's national treasures

in krakov the chartarisky family had one

of the finest collections of artworks in

the world

the charter riskies were one of the

great aristocratic families of

poland and three of their important

paintings were seized there was a

leonardo a raphael and a rembrandt

isabella charteriska is my six times

great-grandmother

she travels around europe

and meets many greats over time russo

voltaire and benjamin franklin and

she starts a museum in her palace

isabella's eldest son he travels to

florence in rome

and with the advice of his younger

brother

who is my my ancestor

they

acquire the leonardo da vinci painting

and the raphael and they give it as a

gift to isabella

because every mother deserves the

leonardo da vinci

the chatariskis had attempted to thwart

the invading german army by moving the

paintings outside krakov to a country

house where they were hidden behind a

false brick wall

however they were unable to stop the

nazis from discovering their location

augustine chartres

decides to move the collection from

krakow to one of his estates then

decides it's too close to the russian

front and moves it to my great

grandfather's house in perkina

[Music]

very soon the gestapo turns up and they

take the artworks

it was a very calculated

operation by the nazis

these priceless works of art would soon

be found in the possession of the nazi

official hans

frank

totally irredeemably brutal german

governor of most of occupied poland he

was our avid collector

of art treasures which he looted

comprehensively from poland dr hans

frank who was the close personal friend

of hitler's

took those three works which were you

know number one to hitler and hung them

in his castle and vargo they knew

exactly what they were doing and the

nazis have appointed an art historian

caitanya

to go around poland and in search for

artworks among them the the collection

of

the chartreuse museum mulman a

degenerate brutal man

but an art historian

in his own right who was an active

adviser to the nazis in poland

and in the soviet union as well there

were two factors that influenced what he

did and what they did

one was utter racial contempt for poland

and for the polls they thought they had

no right to a cultural inheritance of

their own

and hans frank was he was simply greedy

he wanted it for himself with the nazi

invasion and ransacking of poland other

european nations took great precautions

to protect their works of art

the national gallery in london sent

almost all of its collection to far

safer locations in wales

the louvre in paris also emptied its

contents out of fear of nazi seizure

a fear that would be realized when

german forces invaded in may 1940

not only were the germans hiding the

looted art but also the allies were

quickly moving things away as the

germans approached and occupation

happened so the mona lisa actually moved

six times between different chateau in

the french countryside almost being

chased

with paris and most of france under nazi

control hitler and his high-ranking

officials had access to an enormous

number of precious artworks

in paris alone about 20 confiscation

officials

confiscated more than 38 000

homes looted artworks were stored at the

jourda poem gallery in paris and at the

heart of this systematic confiscation

was alfred rosenberg

he was appointed with hitler's approval

after the fall of france to

coordinate the appropriation

of art from occupied western europe

rosenberg was a

hitler

protege a dogma idealist theorist for

the nazi cause

and he was put in charge

of the seizure of art in paris

much of which hitler wanted for his own

museum at lintz

rosenberg was one of the nazi officials

prosecuted at the nuremberg trials where

his own reports of the looting that he

relayed to adolf hitler were used

against him

i began my fuhrer to give me a chance

during my next audience to report to you

orally

on the whole extent and scope of this

art seizure action

which will be used as a basis for this

later oral report

and also accept three copies of the

temporary picture catalogs which two

only show

a part of the collection

you own

he was ruthless in the way that he

he went about it and helped himself to

quite a bit

as part of the operation

rosenberg then closes with this touching

tribute to the aesthetic taste of the

pure

taste which were satisfied at the

expense of a continent and i quote

i shall take the liberty during the

requested audience to give you my fuhrer

another 20 folders of pictures

with the hope that this short occupation

with the beautiful things of art

which are nearest to your heart

will send a ray of beauty and joy

into your revered life

uncle

rosenberg

was in charge of the err and the jourda

palm now there were other generals like

guri and so on who are trying to get

their share of the booty

the leading nazi officials had begun

following hitler's example of relentless

art collection the fuhrer had audacious

plans for his own purpose-built museum

but the seized paintings in paris that

he hadn't claimed for himself were

highly sought after by hitler's deputies

but little did they know that there was

a quiet spy amongst them who was noting

down all they were up to

at the start of world war ii the nazis

had looted extensively across the

european countries they'd invaded

but many of the greatest works were kept

in the jourda poem gallery in paris

hermann goering would be a regular

visitor there and he would help himself

to many seized artworks for his own

personal collection

some of the nazi leaders became

important art collectors and that was

partly because they had the opportunity

they had the power so they could seize

artworks it's interesting that goring

who is such an important nazi figure

became a very major collector and

acquired many many hundreds of works his

image of himself was of some kind of

renaissance man a man of culture and of

taste

and in fact i think his

interest in art was genuine in its own

way in some cases he actually acquired

works which were officially regarded as

degenerate which is interesting which

shows the contradictions in the nazi

system so goring for example acquired a

number of van goghs he

had the maximum of temptation and the

maximum opportunity to appropriate what

he wanted some of them he acquired just

in order to sell and make money from and

then he bought more conventional works

but he did also keep some for himself

what is extraordinary is the frequency

of these visits supposedly he was

hitler's deputy rice marshall

in command of the luftwaffe

but these commitments appeared to be no

impediment to the time that he found

to make these trips

to france

but secretly it was at the jodopom

gallery that the work of the monuments

men or really the monuments men and

women began

there was a very brave woman rosalind

who was the

curator in the jourda poem which is next

door to the louvre and which was the

collecting point which the germans used

in paris to bring together what they

were taking from jewish families and

other museums before shipping it to

germany she basically pretended to be a

collaborator with the germans she spoke

fluent german but didn't let them know

and noted where all the big shipments

out of the museum where all the

masterpieces were going to

and flagged it to the allies she was in

a position to be able to

register and record everything that was

being sent to germany and to work out

where it was going

the records that rose velong kept would

prove key in the recovery efforts and

she would soon get vital assistance when

the united states officially joined the

war effort and the monuments fine arts

and archive program was launched

with confidence

in our armed forces

with the unbounding determination

of our people

we will gain

the inevitable triumph

so help us god

roosevelt signed a decree in 1943 to

actually put together

a team of individuals who have the

requisite expertise

now there's always a big problem when

you're doing something like this as to

how much military credibility the

individuals have to have and how much

art history credibility they weren't

normal troops obviously they were sent

out to work with the allied forces but

the average age was 40. they had no

fighting experience so they really were

not in their comfort zone an art

historian on the battlefield who can't

talk with credibility to a field

commander will not get what he needs and

somebody who's not an art historian

won't know what to do altogether there

were several hundred

people who'd worked in museums or who

were art historians who worked for the

allies during the war

and they accompanied soldiers at the end

of the war

it was a originally a united states

initiative where the learned societies

in america who'd heard about looting in

europe

said to the u.s government we must do

something about this

and they also were aware of the fact

that there would be a danger of looting

by allied soldiers who were getting into

what had been german occupied

territories it was always going to

happen it was always going to be part of

the if you like the moral agenda of the

western allies

to

make such a restitution as they could to

countries that had been looted despoiled

of their own

artistic inheritance in the way that

occupied countries were there was every

incentive to set up an organization

which became multinational i.e there

were french polish and eventually of

course german people involved in it in

order to try and safeguard what had been

moved or stolen

and they were very successful the task

was a gargantuan one

the american army

claimed

at the end of world war ii that they had

located

around a thousand sites repositories

of what had been hidden away

and did they have the manpower to sort

that out adequately or to prevent more

of it being stolen and

stashed away we don't i don't think we

know for sure

two of the most important figures in

this new force were george stout and

james rorimer

rorimer worked at the metropolitan

museum of art in new york and was a very

important artist story and he later

wrote his memoirs as his time as a

monuments man

people like stout and rorimer were very

important art historians and

conservators they were among the leading

monuments men to put together the

expertise

you must put somebody in charge of those

people who has real military clout clout

with a command and indeed the knowledge

tactically to be able to know what is

safe and what's not safe and how they

should progress

george stout was an ideal figure to help

lead this new group as he was one of the

few members to have experience of

wartime having served in world war one

himself

and he returned to the battlefield of

europe once again soon after the d-day

landings

the monuments men would have to make

their way across the continent hunting

down secret locations where the nazis

stored their stolen treasures

and the first locations they found were

deep mines that the nazis had to abandon

in their hasty retreat

one of the earliest discovered was the

copper mine in segan germany

[Music]

cooper says the crowds booby-trapped the

entire place

could walk right into one

bring the whole mine down on top of you

not true sir you found any booby traps

not looking for booby traps

no sir

the germans were worried for the safety

of artworks they were worried about

allied bombing

so the paintings and artworks were moved

from the cities

to safe places initially in the

countryside and it was then realized

that the safest place to keep them was

in an underground mine

how many tons of rock do you reckon

above us right now

about a million i'd say

it'd be quick wouldn't it

all these mines were used to store

art when the bombing

was clearly a major threat in these

mines were put in germany the items

which were going to go to the fuji's

museum and so on and also items

particularly from france which came from

the collecting point in the show the

poem in paris

you don't worry much do you sir

i'm worried now about booby traps

no

[Music]

about

moisture

actually happened quite late before 1945

they started moving pieces across and

storing them deep in the mines

and there were thousands of tunnels

within it so it really was a case that

was very difficult to find there were

large

cavernous spaces underground where the

artworks were stored it was reputed that

at the end of the war

the nazis had ordered that the mines

should be blown up but fortunately this

didn't happen and it was liberated by

american forces and the monuments men i

think the sheer scale

volume and beauty of the items that have

been taken

really amazed

not only the commanders but also the

troops

and

that is what led to a very understanding

what a huge operation the germans had

got into

in order to strip western europe and

that is without talking about most of

the stuff which they took from russia

and eastern europe much more of which

was destroyed the monuments men needed

to move fast to rescue any more stolen

treasures from the endless mine shafts

and castle corridors where they were

hidden

hitler had issued the nero decree which

threatened to destroy all of these

looted works rather than let them fall

into the allies hands

[Music]

on may the 26th 1944 general eisenhower

gave an order to the allied forces to

protect and respect important historical

monuments whenever possible in the

battles that lay ahead

the job of the monuments men was to

ensure that this order was carried out

on june 6 1944 the d-day landings at

normandy were put into action under

operation overlord

the monuments men made their way across

the channel soon after and started to

search for the artworks stolen by the

nazis

they knew they had to act fast when on

march the 19th 1945 hitler issued the

nero decree from his bunker in berlin

which ordered for all works to be

destroyed rather than let them fall into

allied hands

but the monuments men would have a

stroke of luck when on april the second

they uncovered the german mine at segan

which held works by the likes of

rembrandt and van gogh

just a few days later they would make an

even larger discovery at a salt mine in

murkers

here they found crates of artworks which

included the winter garden by manet

[Music]

general eisenhower would visit the mine

to see the stolen art for himself along

with his fellow generals omar bradley

and george s patton

they were able to witness for themselves

the vast amount of gold that had been

found at murkers

[Music]

assault by the hiding place for a nazi

hoard of gold bullion currency jewels

and other forms of wealth

officers of the american third army make

an inventory of the treasures which had

been removed from berlin to america's

depository the almost 200 tons of gold

is reported to be virtually the entire

remaining brilliant reserve of the

reichsbank

a ton of fine gold represents about one

million dollars america's hiding place

was uncovered by our troops early in

april i mean it's interesting that

general eisenhower who had a war to

fight chose to be photographed with the

artworks which had been recovered and it

was quite a public relations coup for

the americans to show that they had

rescued and saved these artworks at the

end of the war suitcases contain a

variety of valuables it's discovered

that the reichsburg had been buying gold

wedding rings gold teeth and other loot

taken by the nazis from their

innumerable civilian victims

i remember talking to other soldiers

from my own regiment who were in germany

at the time

and of course

uh everybody looted what i would call

trophy

military kit you know

swastikas and so on were taken there

were very strict rules about not taking

anything which was needed by the german

civilian population

we helped repatriate a bible back to

italy and there were many cases like

that

valuable works of art are included in

the treasure hoard approximately 400

rare paintings are found removing the

america's salt mine hoard takes 24 hours

more than 60 trucks are required to

transport it to a central point for

storage pending an allied decision as to

its disposition

these books were found

by our staff

in connection with the group of u.s army

people who have assembled these objects

of art and are now in the process of

retaining them to the rightful owners

and the great advantage of salt mines is

that they're completely dry because

they're hygroscopic you can store things

there and they won't degenerate

naturally had perfect conditions perfect

temperature perfect humidity

and they just started stockpiling all of

the masterpieces that they had plundered

from across europe

the merca salt mine was a truly

remarkable discovery but the monuments

meant would soon unearth an even bigger

one thanks to the work of rosa vallant

back in paris

her meticulous records had allowed james

rorimer to track down an astonishing

collection of artworks held at

neuschwanstein castle harry

harry come on

joining him in his discovery was private

harry etlinger a german jew who'd

escaped to america before the war and

was now returning to his homeland as

part of the us army

at the end of the war there was this big

effort by the monuments men to

repatriate stuff to the country from

which it was taken

to make certain these items went back to

their original private owners

neuschwanstein is this fairytale castle

at the photo of the alps in germany and

it was used as a repository or safe

place for paintings from the munich

collection

of fantastic gallery and it's also more

importantly actually the destination for

art looted from jews in france

neuschwanstein castle though it looks

medieval was actually built in the 1860s

and it wasn't finished which meant that

it had lots of space unfinished rooms

that adjoin joining corridors

where they could store

multiple pieces of artwork

towels over 300 feet tall

at the wartime there were racks along

all the walls which were absolutely

filled with paintings so there were

thousands and thousands of paintings in

a series of rooms

there there are rooms in the main castle

itself

over 300 of them spread over six floors

i think they're over 21 000

pieces of art stored there

21

903 pieces of art

these included

5281

paintings

684

minute errors books and manuscripts

[Music]

it's like something out of a fairy tale

other rooms with decorative art with

sculpture

jewelry miniatures medieval works of art

so they also found that some

leather-bound books cards references of

all the works that were on the list

to be looted

paintings jewelry

rare books and prints stacks of

furniture all shipped him from paris

golf

only two rooms full of it

but the real treasure is right through

here

well it's fortunate that the germans who

were meticulous record keepers but even

so in the chaos of 1945 anything could

have happened

the records of what they had taken

were found with the items themselves

the nazi catalogue of death theft

thousand records

where the items came from who they

belong to

and you're gonna translate it

[Music]

there were filing cabinets full of the

cards showing from whom these pictures

had originally been taken which

collecting points they'd gone through

and where they were

destined for so that for the monuments

men would have enabled them to

make restitution these items back to

their owners relatively easily

at the same time as the enormous

collection at neuschwanstein castle was

being discovered yet another stolen art

hall was reclaimed when hermann goering

was eventually captured christ's thief

among the high nazis was hermann goering

who looted museums and private

collections in all parts of europe much

was hidden in caves and advancing troops

captured fully laden freight cars

ready to move much of the collection to

safer places for hermann

when the american army caught up

with hermann goering's collection down

at a small place called winter's near

berchtesgaden it had been

transported down there with the aid of

german military transport and military

manpower what they found occupied

40 rooms of a luftwaffe building it was

a luftwaffe rest home

which goering had appropriated for his

own use

apparently he was shifting it attempting

to both by road and by

rail and apart from

what the americans the 101st airborne

division who were operating in in south

germany tracked down to the luftwaffe

building there was a lot more

that was shifted by rail and i think the

americans

intercepted quite a lot of that as well

gerring's ill-gotten loot is no longer

his to admire the collection goes on

display for gis before an allied

commission attempts to return everything

to the proper owners

i called your attention

again that each of the pictures you've

just seen is merely representative of a

large number of similar

items illustrated in the 39 volume

catalog

which is in itself only partially

complete

the stolen art collections of the top

nazi officials were gradually being

reclaimed but the biggest treasure trove

of all that which hitler had set aside

for his own personal museum was still to

be recovered by the monuments men in

austria

but the search continues to this day for

all the lost treasures that slipped

through the net

[Music]

in may 1945 the net had closed in on the

leading nazi officials and their stolen

art collections

hermann goering had been brought into

custody by the allies along with his

enormous hall of artworks

and hans frank the governor of occupied

poland had been captured by u.s forces

near the german austrian border

he had an extensive collection of looted

paintings including the famous charter

risky collection which featured the lady

with an ermine by leonardo da vinci

the landscape with good samaritan by

rembrandt

and the portrait of a young man by

rafael

both goering and frank would eventually

be tried at nuremberg

at the end of the war in 1944 when they

were evacuating poland with the russian

invasion from the east dr frank took the

leonardo and probably the others back to

his own private residence in the south

of germany frank took the pictures um to

his country house and two of them were

later recovered

the rembrandt and the leonardo

the raphael is still missing and it's

possibly the most important artwork that

was looted and lost during the war

it's right down here sir frank insists

he didn't steal them says he was just

safeguarding them

we found it just lying here on the floor

have a look

the leonardo is a very important

portrait and um it had a boot print on

it and

it's lucky it didn't suffer more damage

a boot sir

yes

whoever was in here earlier sure got out

in a hurry

[Music]

there's a famous photograph of it on a

railway platform and fortunately the

painting um survived in relatively good

condition considering its checkered

history during the war and is now

one of the most important leonardo's

it's been estimated that

over 800

objects are missing from the museum

and among them the raphael the raphael

is still missing and it's

possibly the most important artwork that

was looted and lost during the war

portrait of a man and many people think

it's actually a self-portrait of raphael

sadly only one was never found raphael's

portrayed young man and that was last

seen at varvel

and there have been some supposed

sightings of it there was speculation

that

maybe after 50 or 70 years it might turn

up somewhere when supposedly the case

expires there were thoughts of it being

locked in a bank which then got proved

to be a hoax

so it's largely thought now that it is

missing we have no evidence of what

happened to it and it's just possible it

might turn up in someone's attic at some

point

[Music]

the raphael painting may be the most

famous missing work from the charter

risky collection but many other great

pieces of art have still not turned up

this 15th century work by italian artist

naruccio de landi is still missing as is

a work called saint with a book that was

stolen to order for hitler's private

collection

[Music]

hands frank and hermann goring's stolen

caches of art had been recovered but the

greatest collection of all had been

assembled for the fuhrer himself

he had plans for his own purpose-built

art museum in his hometown of lintz and

its vast contents were being stored in a

salt mine elsewhere in austria

there was a great sycophantic effort by

senior nazis to

to suck up to hitler and one of the

things they did when they put together

these items which they confiscated in

france or other countries was then to

record them in leather-bound volumes for

him and eventually those leather-bound

volumes would have presumably been part

of the inventory for the lintz museum

and then some of those volumes were

discovered by the monuments men

[Music]

by early 1945 hitler was dead and

germany had surrendered which meant that

the monuments men were now racing

against the invading soviet union to get

to hitler's vast collection

getting to the sites where the monuments

men guessed

there would be valuable stuff that could

be found i don't think that could ever

be a military priority of course they

had given up in berlin by march 1945 it

was really an unadmitted deal that the

soviets

were going to get to berlin first but as

the byproduct of

ultimate military victory there came

access to the sites

the monuments men were on their way to

their final target which held the

biggest treasure trove of all

their mission thus far had seen many

successful recoveries but much had been

lost forever in the fighting

in florence italy bridges that had been

designed by michelangelo had been blown

up by the retreating german forces and

in the battle of monte casino of 1944

allied bombing had brought the

centuries-old abbey to ruins

[Music]

it was a fanatically

defended and almost impregnable german

position

on the way to rome if the allies were to

advance

up italy monte casino was the pivotal

position they had to take there was no

question about that

but the price apart from the lives lost

was the destruction of the abbey prior

to the onslaught of the allies on the

monastery the hermann goring ss division

offered its services to the benedictine

abbot of the monastery to shift from the

monastery sellers so they shifted

something like 100 truckloads

of stuff priceless stuff

from the abbey's cellars

shifted it north to splitter near a room

needless to say some of the shipment

found its way to hermann goering's

personal collection

bombing campaigns had also caused huge

damage to the campo santo building in

pisa dean keller of the monuments men

did everything within his power to

rescue what he could amongst the ruins

but there was danger of a truly

catastrophic loss of works occurring if

the monuments men didn't get to outer

sea in time where hitler's collection

was being stored

the nazi in charge of the mine was

planning on blowing the whole thing up

the guy lighter in charge when he

received the so-called nero decree from

hitler which said that everything was to

be destroyed

that order was of course countermanded

by many local commanders and

counterminded by spear in relation to

things like the bridges in in berlin

so

90 percent of the germans knew that that

was a stupid order but this guy who is a

dedicated nazi he tried to destroy

everything in the mind by planting bombs

in it what happened eventually he

planted six bombs in the mine

those bombs were removed by the miners

and his own troops and then one bomb was

blown up at the entrance to make it look

as though all of them had been exploded

and that was really to fool their

commander

when the monuments men were able to make

their way into the altar c mine they

were astonished by what they found

hitler thought of himself in a bizarre

way as a trustee

for the german people of an art

collection that he could build up

thanks to the opportunities that war and

victory

provided in the altar aussie mine were

some of the best works which hitler

himself wanted for his own collection

later in the swan

the vermeer astronomer there were some

of the really best possible pictures

which were stored there among the

paintings which were for the destined

for the museum there were a couple of

vermeers

there was one from the churning

collection in vienna another from the

rothschilds family in paris

hitler didn't luxuriate in

his own collection in the way that

goering did

a lot of what hitler collected was kept

stored carefully documented and

photographed

hitler of course entertained the fantasy

of a an art museum at lintz

close to where he was born in upper

austria we have these images and in fact

this photographic proof of hitler even

in the final days of the war pouring

over the grand news architectural plans

for this museum in lintz this is typical

of the important works of art the

masterpieces which were seized by hitler

for his

grandiose museum

it was the biggest concentration of art

probably ever assembled in the world

actually astonishing

episode because there was so much there

and it was perfect because of

temperatures and it was well thought out

from the german's

point of view and it was an

extraordinary

treasure true of what the ghent altar

peace

was there the gender old piece from the

cathedral in barvo

has had a very checkered history in that

it was being seized during wartime on a

number of occasions there's some

descriptions of them finding the

altarpiece and coming across these works

they had no crates they didn't have

proper equipment so really they were

finding these

works which we now know is sort of the

forefront of the history of art but

we're covering them in jackets gas masks

to transport them the michelangelo of

madonna of bruges

was also there

extraordinary michelangelo's madonna at

the church in bruges is very important

one of the greatest renaissance

sculptures

and uh during the war that was seized by

the germans that was taken by german

soldiers when they were retreating in

1944

uh they were taken uh actually in a red

cross truck so in breach of every geneva

convention as well as a breach of the

hay conventions they were

hitler's vision

of a post-war

future was

of everything that he'd acquired going

down to luntz

goring in a curious way vied with hitler

there was rivalry between them

but in a strange way both of them

were thinking ahead to the future of a

reich that was going to last for a

thousand years they had obligations to

the

to aryan people to let them see this

stuff they knew what they were looking

for

i think it's

easy to think of just a few key places

like i'll say but

actually i think there was over 1500

locations found by the american army in

germany alone let alone all across

europe so there were these sort of safe

houses of artworks there could still be

more out there

in fact just a couple of years ago a

painting by the polish artist alexander

gorimsky which had been looted in world

war ii turned up at an auction in

hamburg

it was returned to its original home of

warsaw and its discovery indicates that

other missing artworks could also be

found someday

the estimates the figures conflict

fairly wildly don't they

about the the total

that was was stolen virtually all of the

items which are missing

are on our database and we are looking

for them all the time

now they may have been sitting in an

attic for 80 years now and when they're

discovered nobody knows what they are so

it's necessary to have our searching

procedure searching three or four

hundred thousand items a year in order

to find those items that have not yet

been returned

but one thing's for certain

if it hadn't been for the monuments men

so much of europe's history and greatest

achievements would have been lost

forever

[Applause]

[Music]

[Applause]

you