Salt mines and castles: The discovery and restitution of looted European artHowe, Thomas Carr
History
Salt mines and castles: The discovery and restitution of looted European art
Howe, Thomas Carr
Art -- Europe; World War, 1939-1945 -- Art and the war; World War, 1939-1945 -- Confiscations and contributions
When I had finished, I decided to explore a bit. There were two other
bedrooms on the second floor. Neat labels on the doors indicated that
they were occupied by lieutenant colonels. There were two other doors at
the end of the hall. Neither one was labeled, so I peered in. They were
the bathrooms. And what bathrooms! Marble floors, tiled walls, double
washbasins and built-in tubs. Although it was only the middle of the
morning, I had to sample one of those magnificent tubs. And as a kind of
tribute to all this elegance, I felt constrained to discard my khakis and
put on blues.
Captain La Farge had stressed the urgency of setting up an art depot, so
the next ten days were given over to that project. Buchman generously
shelved his own work to help me with it. Together we inspected the
University of Frankfurt. The newest of the German universities, it
had opened its doors at the outbreak of the first World War. The main
administration building, an imposing structure of red sandstone, had
been badly damaged by incendiaries but could be repaired. It would be a
big job, but we could worry about that later. The first step was to have
it allocated for our use. That had to be done through the proper Army
“channels.” Buchman steered me through. Then we had to obtain an estimate
of the repairs. It took three days to get one from the university
architect. It was thorough but impractical and had to be completely
revised. We took the revised estimate to the Army Engineers and asked
them to make an inspection of the building and check the architect’s
figures. They were swamped with work. It would be a week before they
could do anything. I said it was a high priority job, hoping to speed
things along. But the Engineers had heard that one before. We’d have to
be patient.
Charlie Kuhn and Colonel Webb had moved up to Frankfurt and were
established at SHAEF headquarters in the I. G. Farben building. Their
office was only a few blocks from mine, and during my negotiations for
the use of the university building I was in daily communication with them.
While waiting for the Engineers to make the promised inspection, I made
a couple of field trips with Buchman. The first was a visit to Schloss
Kronberg, a few kilometers from Frankfurt. It was a picturesque medieval
castle, unoccupied since the first part of the seventeenth century.
Valuable archives were stored there. We wanted to see if they were in
good condition, and also to make sure that the place had been posted with
the official “Off Limits” signs.
A flock of geese scattered before us as we drove up to the entrance
at the end of a narrow, winding road. We knocked on the door of the
caretaker’s cottage and explained the purpose of our visit to the old
fellow who timidly appeared with a large bunch of keys. He limped ahead
of us across the cobbled courtyard, and we waited while he fitted one of
the keys into the lock.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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